The 2019 Fall TV Preview: The 45 shows — new and returning — you need to know about this season

The Morning Show gives viewers an in-depth look at what goes on behind the scenes in the world of daybreak television. The series kicks off when Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) is left to pick up the pieces after her cohost of 15 years, Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell), is fired following allegations of sexual misconduct. Reese Witherspoon also stars as Bradley Jackson, a local West Virginia reporter who finds herself in Alex’s orbit after a viral video brings her to the Morning Show’s soundstage.

Nov. 1, Apple TV+

Read more about The Morning Show in EW's October cover story.

This new Disney+ Star Wars series brings a galaxy far, far away to the small screen as a live-action series for the first time. The show is set after the downfall of the Galactic Empire in Return of the Jedi but before the events of The Force Awakens. For now, chaos reigns across the universe, especially in the outer reaches of the galaxy where a Mandalorian bounty hunter stalks his prey for diminishing returns.

Nov. 12, Disney+

Jack Ryan, a changed man after the events of season 1, goes on a mission spanning the U.S., U.K., Russia, and Venezuela to unravel a new nefarious plot. Joining the cast are Michael Kelly and Noomi Rapace, the latter playing Jack’s potential love interest...or nemesis?

Nov. 1, Amazon Prime Video

The popular New York Times series

Modern Love" has been adapted into a half-hour romantic comedy anthology series. Written, directed, and executive-produced by John Carney (Once, Sing Street), the series explores love in different forms, including sexual, romantic, platonic, familial, and self love. Taking place over eight stand-alone episodes, it will star Anne Hathaway, Dev Patel, Tina Fey, Andy Garcia, John Slattery, and Cristin Milioti.

Oct. 18, Amazon Prime Video

This eight-episode binger follows Miles “Pudge” Halter (Charlie Plummer) as he enrolls in boarding school to gain a deeper perspective on life. He immediately falls for confident, mysterious, and cool Alaska Young (Kristine Froseth). But when tragedy strikes, Miles is forced to learn important lessons about life, love, and the art of letting go. Hulu’s adaptation of John Green’s 2005 YA novel is working hard to right a much-maligned depiction of the book’s version of Alaska.

Oct. 18, Hulu

This intriguing, eccentric comedy features Ant-Man star Paul Rudd as Miles, a beleaguered husband/ad exec who undergoes a mysterious cutting-edge procedure to become a better person, only to end up face-to-face with a superior clone of himself, all the while shifting perspectives from Miles to new Miles to wife Kate (Aisling Bea).

Oct. 18, Netflix

And you thought your high school experience felt like the end of the world. Netflix’s dystopian dramedy centers on an apocalypse-ravaged Glendale, Calif., where a nuclear blast has transformed adults (possibly including a principal played in flashbacks by Matthew Broderick) into brain-dead, bloodthirsty savages. To survive, the teenagers have banded together into Warriors-esque gangs, carving out their own rules and domains. (The athletes and the cheerleaders have their own circles, of course, but so do the 4-H Club and the self-proclaimed Disciples of Kardashia.) Navigating it all is Josh Wheeler (Colin Ford), the new kid from Canada who has to traverse each crew’s territory to try to find his missing girlfriend.

Oct. 24, Netflix

Kaitlyn Dever stars in this limited series as Marie Adler, an 18-year-old rape victim. When she’s forced to repeatedly recount her trauma to police, the process wears on Marie — especially since the male detectives don’t believe her. Under pressure, she recants her report. Created by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich), the drama is based on an acclaimed Marshall Project/ProPublica article that traced Marie’s journey, as well as a separate investigation into a serial rapist by two detectives (Toni Collette and Merritt Wever) three years later.

Sept. 13, Netflix

In the latest onscreen adaptation of Philip Pullman's book trilogy, Lyra (14-year-old Logan star Dafne Keen) lives in a world parallel to our own where clans of witches own the sky, armored polar bears dwell in the arctic north, and human souls exist outside their bodies in the form of talking animals known as daemons. This streetwise and rebellious orphan (along with her daemon, Pan, voiced by Rocketman’s Kit Connor) leaves the walls of her Jordan College home and begins a global quest to find her missing friend, the latest victim in a string of kidnappings plaguing her city.

November, HBO

Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, 58, immerses himself in the early 1960s to portray infamous crime boss Bumpy Johnson, who returns home to a new Harlem after a decade in prison.

Sept. 29, 10 p.m., EPIX

Jefferson Pierce’s (Cress Williams) family is feeling the pressure of the Markovian conflict as season 3 lights up. Hoping to protect his superpowered daughters from the metahuman war, Jefferson will make a sacrifice that shows a darker side of the character.

Oct. 7, 9 p.m., The CW

Barry (Grant Gustin) and Iris (Candice Patton) aren’t the only members of Team Flash in mourning when season 6 begins, as Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) and her icy personality Killer Frost are grieving the loss of their father, bringing a fresh take on both characters.

Oct. 8, 8 p.m., The CW

Season 5 is “much more relationship-oriented than season 4,” says executive producer Robert Rovner. As Kara (Melissa Benoist) and Lena (Katie McGrath) face a rift in their friendship caused by discovering Kara’s super-secret, Nia (Nicole Maines) and Brainiac-5 (Jesse Rath) will be adjusting to their new romance.

Oct. 6, 9 p.m., The CW

While much of the attention in The Walking Dead season 10 will be paid to the departing Michonne (Danai Gurira), a lot of the story will concern the two characters still standing from the very beginning: Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride).

Oct. 6, 9 p.m., AMC

With the Jussie Smollett drama seemingly behind them, the team behind this show is focused on crafting its final season — one that will pick back up with the unknown future of troubled couple Lucious and Cookie.

Sept. 24, 9 p.m., FOX

Episode 401 will serve as a tribute to costar Luke Perry, who died in March after suffering a stroke, the majority of which takes place on the Fourth of July. Perry’s Beverly Hills, 90210 costar Shannen Doherty also makes a special appearance in the episode.

Oct. 9, 8 p.m., The CW

The Bourne film franchise introduced the world to the top secret black-ops program Treadstone — and this fall, fans can dive into the organization’s origins on this new series. The show will feature present-day sleeper agents (like Doug McKenna, played by Brian J. Smith) all over the globe as they awaken ready to complete their deadly missions, no matter the cost.

Oct. 15, 10 p.m., USA

Cobie Smulders takes center stage for Stumptown, an adaptation of a graphic-novel series, on which she stars as Dex Parios, a Portland, Ore., private investigator with a military background and a whole lot of baggage.

Sept. 25, 10 p.m., ABC

This season will bring the series finale of NBC's ambitious afterlife comedy, an ending that began — in the plotting minds of the showrunners — during season 2.

Sept. 26, 9 p.m., NBC

While the season 1 finale gave some closure to the story of Jon’s (Ron Livingston) suicide, it also left the rest of the gang in some pretty tough situations. Season 2 will find a mysterious figure (Jason Ritter) joining the cast while the group realizes that time doesn’t necessarily help them move past their friend’s death.

Sept. 26, 9 p.m., ABC

At the end of season 5, Laurel (Karla Souza) and baby Christopher went missing, while Annalise (Viola Davis) and the Keating Four became the targets of a massive conspiracy orchestrated by the governor and the Castillo family — much of the final season will be about how each character chooses to answer for their misdeeds.

Sept. 26, 10 p.m., ABC

After playing so many bad and complicated characters over his nearly three-decade-long career (The Bourne Identity and Django Unchained among them), Walton Goggins, 47, is about to break type as a widower dad who’s looking to date again on the new comedy.

Sept. 26, 8:30 p.m., CBS

The married couple behind The Good Place/Fight launches a metaphysical drama that chronicles the adventures of a priest-in-training (Mike Colter), a skeptical forensics psychologist (Katja Herbers), and a contractor (Aasif Mandvi) as they explore whether there’s a logical (read: psychological) or supernatural (read: demonic) explanation for evil. Each week, the trio will investigate supposed possessions, miracles, and other unexplained mysteries.

Sept. 26, 10 p.m., CBS

In the season 14 finale, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) learned that Chuck (the preferred name for the big man upstairs, played by Rob Benedict) has quite literally been the author of their lives, orchestrating every dramatic twist and turn that has made them who they are. And the moment the brothers stopped following Chuck’s plan, he opened the gates of hell, freed the many souls Sam and Dean had defeated over the years, and left the Winchesters and their angelic brother-of-sorts Castiel surrounded by a horde of zombies. Season 15 starts all of that right back up again.

Oct. 10, 8 p.m., The CW

There’s a new headmaster at the Salvatore Boarding School for the Young & Gifted. When the latest show in the Vampire Diaries universe picks up, the supernatural learning institution will be missing two major players: Hope Mikaelson (Danielle Rose Russell), the vampire-werewolf-witch tribrid who sacrificed herself to destroy the hell dimension better known as Malivore, and Alaric (Matthew Davis), the former headmaster (and one of the unluckiest men in all of Mystic Falls).

Oct. 10, 9 p.m., The CW

The season 10 premiere also happens to be the show's 200th episode, which showrunner Kevin Wade teases will feature "the first time that a non-Reagan will be welcomed to the family dinner scene."

Sept. 27, 10 p.m., CBS

Based on the novel by suburban-angst expert Tom Perrotta, Mrs. Fletcher follows Eve (Transparent’s Kathryn Hahn), a single mom in her 40s whose jerky jock son Brendan (Jackson White) just left for college. With her empty nest looming like a void in front of her, Eve channels her loneliness into two new hobbies: taking a creative-writing class — where she meets a flirtatious young student (Owen Teague) — and watching online porn. Meanwhile, Brendan is learning that his fellow freshmen aren’t here for his straight-white-cis-male perspective.

Oct. 27, 10:30 p.m., HBO

Patricia Heaton headlines this multicam sitcom about a 50-year-old divorcée who embarks on a new career in medicine.

Sept. 26, 9:30 p.m., CBS

Will Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) finally get her happily-ever-after? Though her beloved DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) remains in the pokey after taking the fall for her insurance fraud, executive producer Krista Vernoff is committed to keeping their romance alive in the new season.

Sept. 26, 8 p.m., ABC

This dark, sexy version of the teen sleuth books shows Nancy’s college plans up in smoke after her mom’s death, and she swears off investigating. But when a murder rocks her small town, she discovers that the legend of a beauty queen haunting Horseshoe Bay is more than just a story.

Oct. 9, 9 p.m., The CW

It's been six months of hypothesizing and hand-wringing since This Is Us ended its third season with a future family reunion that left Rebecca (Mandy Moore) seemingly on her deathbed; Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Miguel (Jon Huertas) MIA; and the identity of the mother of Kevin’s (Justin Hartley) son a mystery, even bigger than why Toby (Chris Sullivan) was packing sidewalk chalk. But now that the Pearsons are gathering for season 4 of NBC’s ultrapopular, überemotional family drama, those burning questions will be…left to simmer a bit longer.

Sept. 24, 9 p.m., NBC

Fox aims to bolster its animation lineup with a comedy about a down-and-outlandish Southern family voiced by Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Jillian Bell, and Ike Barinholtz. BTH will even serve up a side of Jesus (Kumail Nanjiani) — as in, the Son of God — who’s tight with Betty’s daughter, Jenny (Wiig).

Sept. 29, 8:30 p.m., FOX

At the end of season 1, Jeff Pickles (Jim Carrey) finally showed the world there’s a real human being who lives behind the mask of an always cheery kids’-show host, but will it be bad for business? Season 2 shows Jeff coming to terms with people not always liking him and will also provide a deep dive into his love story with estranged wife Jill (Judy Greer).

Nov. 3, 10 p.m., Showtime

Being the new kid in class can be hard, especially if you just moved to town because your family’s peaceful commune (or “radicalized cult,” if you ask the government) was recently broken up by the feds. And things can get exponentially worse if it’s 1985 and you have a black mom and a white dad and no concept of what being “mixed” means. That’s what Rainbow (Arica Himmel) and her siblings (Ethan William Childress and Mykal-Michelle Harris) are working with as they start school in the premiere of this new comedy.

Sept. 24, 9 p.m., ABC

For its third-season premiere, 9-1-1 is wiping out the Santa Monica Pier with a massive tsunami — and firefighter Buck (Oliver Stark) is among those dropping the funnel cake and running for dear life. And, the seventh episode of the season will finally give viewers Athena’s origin story and reveal what drove her to join the police.

Sept. 23, 8 p.m., FOX

Robert Redford has been president for 27 years. Superheroes were popular, then outlawed. Cell phones and personal computers don’t exist. America issued reparations for racial injustice but remains ever divided. This is the world of HBO’s Watchmen, a bombastic mix of inspirations from Alan Moore’s 1980s graphic novel infused with new sociopolitical themes that feel very 2019.

Oct. 20, 9 p.m., HBO

This nine-episode adaptation draws from the Dennis Liu and Jason Piperberg comic book of the same name. It stars Alisha Wainwright, whose character, Nicole, discovers her son Dion (Ja’Siah Young) has special powers.

Oct. 4, Netflix

Star Michael Douglas will be reuniting with Kathleen Turner (who will play one of his ex-wives) for the first time since they teamed up on three hit films in the 1980s: Romancing the Stone, its sequel The Jewel of the Nile, and The War of the Roses. Fans of the duo can expect delightfully vicious banter akin to some of their past collaborations, as well as one major wink to Romancing the Stone.

Oct. 25, Netflix

Ben Platt plays the lead role on this new high school election comedy from Glee creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan, that follows an overly ambitious school presidential candidate.

Sept. 27, Netflix

Like the 1996 Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, and Diane Keaton comedy with which it shares a name, this series will follow three best friends who reunite after their marriages collapse. But this remake stars three black women and weaves in issues specific to the community.

Sept. 19, BET+

While the gang has long congregated at the produce stand, star Nathan Dales says season 7 of this Canadian cult hit revolves around the call-in show Crack an Ag run by Wayne (Jared Keeso), Katy (Michelle Mylett), Squirrely Dan (K. Trevor Wilson), and Daryl (Dales).

Oct. 14, Hulu

Jessica Biel stars on this eerie adaptation of the podcast as a radio journalist investigating the disappearance of more than 300 people in a secretive neuroscience research community.

Oct. 16, Facebook Watch

Batwoman follows Kate Kane (Ruby Rose) as she returns home to Gotham City after her ex-girlfriend is kidnapped by the Wonderland Gang. To save Sophie (Meagan Tandy), Kate becomes the red-haired Batwoman, which brings her face-to-face with Alice (Rachel Skarsten), the gang’s capricious leader.

Oct. 6, 8 p.m., The CW

Bradley Whitford plays a retired music professor who finds new purpose directing a struggling Kentucky church choir.

Sept. 26, 8:30 p.m., NBC

Oliver (Stephen Amell) may be traveling the world on a mission to save the multiverse in the eighth and final season, but he won’t be alone — he’s joined by his right-hand man Diggle (David Ramsey) and Earth-2’s Laurel (Katie Cassidy Rodgers).

Oct. 15, 9 p.m., The CW