Even though I’m a big fan of FAST TV and spend most of my time bouncing around those platforms, digging up old favorites and shows I somehow missed the first time around, I’m always willing to give the shiny new stuff a shot.
So we sat down with five new pilots to see which ones belonged on the watchlist and which ones needed to be chased out of the neighborhood.
Furious (Hulu) – I’m Furious I Watched This
Original Air Date: July 27, 2026
Episode Watched: S1E1: “The Gorgon”
Who doesn’t love a good serial killer series with a cat-and-mouse game between predator and prey — or cops and the bad guy, or in this case, gal?
Furious pulled me in right away. We open on a bloody, injured guy crawling on his stomach trying to find help while an intruder — Catherine (Lola Petticrew) — casually hands out Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters. She taunts him about his efforts to escape before killing him to make it look like an overdose.
Then, the show gets stuck in the River of Molasses. We watch Catherine on the stairs eating candy corn , eating more candy corn, and eating even more candy corn. By this point, she probably needs a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, like the bed in Death Bed: The Bed that Eats (yes, my mind sometimes travels to mysterious places. Get used to it.) When a pilot starts serving up dead air this early, I start wondering if the show has enough story to fill the rest of the hour.
Things start moving again after the opening credits when we meet FBI Agent Alice Walker (Emmy Rossum), who’s fielding prank calls in an FBI call center. She takes one nobody else wants from a lonely older woman and patiently listens to her problems, which tells us Alice is a decent human being. But have you ever called the FBI? They don’t give you two minutes to explain your story, let alone time for a heart-to-heart.
Alice is patient and kind, unlike her co-workers and boss, who’s a pig — and vaguely reminiscent of a less-fun Harry O.
When Alice’s former partner at the Brooklyn PD calls her in to look at an overdose death — which, of course, turns out to be our candy-corn killer’s victim — we also learn she’s a sharp investigator. But then we go back to Catherine, and that’s where Furious lost me. Between the candy corn, prank calls and smug prancing through the streets, she started giving me Villanelle-from-Killing Eve vibes — only without Villanelle’s panache.
Note on the “Frontier”: Hulu’s commercial breaks are officially 🗑️. If I’m paying a premium, I shouldn’t be forced to watch three minutes of ads per break. I get better service for free on Tubi.
🗑️ Our Verdict: TRASH. Life is too short to watch a serial killer eat candy corn in real-time. I tapped out at 19 minutes.
Task (HBO Max) – Cinematic Nyquil
Original Air Date: September 7, 2025
Episode Watched: S1E1: “Crossings”
I tried watching Task when it first premiered and lasted five minutes before I couldn’t take the boredom anymore. For the sake of the Trial, I went back for round two and made it to 20 minutes. That’s progress.
Mark Ruffalo plays FBI Agent Tom Brandis, while Tom Pelphrey plays Robbie Prendergast, a criminal trying to provide for his family by stealing. The pilot bounces between the two men, establishing their very different lives and giving us plenty of reasons why we’re supposed to care about them. At 16 minutes, I still didn’t.
I don’t know why so many new shows are obsessed with walking us through a character’s morning routine, but Task wastes precious pilot time doing exactly that. Yes, I understand what it’s telling us about Brandis. He’s a broken man sleepwalking through his days. I get it. But there has to be a more interesting way to show me.
Prendergast, on the other hand, wakes the show up whenever he’s onscreen — particularly when he starts doing criminal things. He’s an interesting mess: devoted dad, criminal, horrible uncle, and occasionally a pretty fun guy when he’s not robbing people or fighting with his niece.
And that’s the problem. Task goes from Prendergast actually doing something to Brandis sleepwalking through his miserable existence and then back again. It’s like flipping between a crime drama and cinematic Nyquil.
When Brandis gets called into his boss Kathleen McGinty’s (Martha Plimpton) office, we get another new-show habit that drives me nuts: introducing the task force by showing us their pictures in a folder and telling us their names.
Why? Just introduce them when they enter the story. I’ll figure it out. And if they’re so forgettable that I can’t remember their names after meeting them, a photograph in a folder isn’t going to save them anyway.
The frustrating part is that there is a show here I’d watch. Give me Prendergast’s complicated family life, his robberies and whatever horrible decision he’s going to make next, and let Brandis chase him without making me sit through every miserable moment of Brandis’s personal life.
That show might have made it past 20 minutes.
🗑️ Our Verdict: TRASH. Sorry HBO. Sorry Mark Ruffalo. We’re not Prestige Pretenders Monthly here. I don’t care if episodes two, three or 87 are fantastic. The pilot was a sedative.
Scarpetta (Prime Video) – The Worst Medical Examiner Ever
Original Air Date: March 11, 2026
Episode Watched: S1E1: “Bridge of Time, Part One”
Starring Nicole Kidman as Dr. Kay Scarpetta and Jamie Lee Curtis as her sister Dorothy Farinelli, Scarpetta is based on the novels by Patricia Cornwell.
And that’s great, but books and television are two very different mediums. Cornwell might spend time detailing Scarpetta’s morning routine in the books — I haven’t read them — but on the page, you’re building an image of the character in your head. On TV, I’m literally watching Nicole Kidman put on deodorant.
It’s like watching water boil.
And Scarpetta is full of these meaningless little routines that do nothing but slow an already molasses-paced story even further. Then there’s the constant jumping between past and present, which eventually starts melding together until your brain cells start melting like you’re hallucinating.
Jamie Lee Curtis plays Jamie Lee Curtis, and that’s about all you need to know.
You can read the rest of our thoughts in our full Trial by Stream review.
🗑️ Our Verdict: TRASH. Watching water boil is more entertaining than watching Nicole Kidman put on deodorant.
Widow’s Bay (Apple TV+) — The Narcissistic Broom Handle
Original Air Date: April 29, 2026
Episodes Watched: S1E1: “Welcome to Widow’s Bay!” and S1E2: “Lodging”
Oh, I know. It’s Emmy-bound, already renewed for a second season and a media darling. Meanwhile, I tried watching the first episode three times on different days and every time I wanted to tear my eyes out and shut it off around minute 13.
I even went back again for this roundup. And then, because apparently I enjoy punishment, I watched Episode 2.
I still don’t get the love.
Widow’s Bay is a horror-comedy set on an isolated island where Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) seems more concerned with attracting tourists than the increasingly strange things happening around him. All I could think about was Island Zero, a superior little horror movie with a similar isolated-island setup.
Instead, Widow’s Bay seems determined to remind us of better horror movies. There’s Jaws, The Fog, The Shining and plenty more where those came from. There are moments when it starts to get interesting — the cellar door in Episode 1, Loftis heading down into the basement of the cursed hotel in Episode 2 — but five minutes of interesting does not a good show make.
And I don’t care how revered Matthew Rhys is. Loftis has the personality of a narcissistic broom handle. His office staff is boring. His relationship with his son is boring. The comedy doesn’t hit. About the only person injecting any life into the place is Wyck (Stephen Root), the gruff fisherman and lifelong island resident who knows all the local lore. It’s a familiar character, but at least the man has a personality.
People rave about the cinematography, but it looks like almost every other muted prestige show I’ve watched lately.
There’s a scene in Episode 2 where Loftis turns on the TV in the cursed hotel and a “Welcome to Widow’s Bay” tourism commercial is playing. The guy in the commercial just walks.
And walks.
And walks.
That’s Widow’s Bay.
🗑️ Our Verdict: TRASH. Overhyped, painfully slow and assembled from pieces of horror movies I’d rather be watching. If you want a horror-comedy, try the indie The Murder Podcast. At least its ramen noodle jokes actually made me laugh.
The Five Star Weekend (Peacock) — The Un-Muted Surprise
Original Air Date: July 9, 2026
Episode Watched: S1E1: “Friday: Arrivals”
And we have a winner.
The Five Star Weekend has some cheesy Martha Stewart-like moments, but the story is engaging enough that I immediately wanted to keep watching — as in the entire season. I might even read the book, which makes me laugh just writing it.
Based on Elin Hilderbrand’s novel of the same name, the series stars Jennifer Garner as Hollis, a food influencer who recently lost her husband and plans a ladies’ weekend at her summer home in Nantucket. The women she invites are lifelong friends from different periods of her life, except for Gigi (Gemma Chan), whom Hollis met online after her husband’s death.
There’s a lot of life to these women, and each brings something different to the group. You’re immediately pulled into their individual stories and how their relationships with Hollis — and eventually each other — start intertwining.
Tatum (Chloë Sevigny) and Brooke (D’Arcy Carden) are already my favorites, but I probably connected most with Hollis. Underneath the glossy Nantucket setting and all that food-influencer perfection is a woman trying to figure out what her life looks like after losing her husband.
And then the episode drops one hell of a juicy shocker at the end.
After spending this roundup checking the clock, tapping out at 19 minutes and repeatedly asking myself why I was still watching, The Five Star Weekend did something none of the others managed: it took every ounce of my resolve not to let Peacock roll straight into Episode 2.
Read our full review of The Five Star Weekend.
🔥 Our Verdict: WATCHABLE. Bright, lively and full of personality — and the only show in this roundup that left me wanting more.
The Final Verdict
Four of these five shows already have second-season renewals in the bag. Furious is the only one still waiting on its fate, though in this “Prestige” climate, we can all guess how that ends. (8/28/26 Update: Lo and Behold. Hulu just renewed Furious for S2. Do I win the jackpot?)
But here’s something else interesting: four of these shows also share that same signature “muted” look. It makes me wonder — if you lined up a still from each one in a row, would you actually be able to tell them apart? Probably not. They aren’t just paced like a River of Molasses; they’re colored like one, too.
The core PTC principle is simple: Is it enjoyable?
I don’t care about the Emmy bait, the critical darlings, or the “Prestige” label. If you want me to stay, give me a reason to keep watching. Widow’s Bay, Task, Scarpetta, and Furious couldn’t even turn the key on that door.
The Five Star Weekend did.
- ➝ 📺 Watch If You Dare: Want to judge them yourself? We’ve gathered the trailers for all five shows into our Trial by Stream: Prestige or Trash YouTube Playlist.
- ➝ 📡 Keep Exploring: Had enough of the subscription treadmill? Head into the Free TV Frontier and see what you can find without spending another dime.
- ➝ 📇 The TV Rolodex: Looking for a specific legend or forgotten loser? Search our TV Rolodex: A–Z Archive to see every show we’ve embraced or chased.
