📺 Rivals, Hysteria!, Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

plus 4 new streaming movies & 6 new and returning TV shows this week

Afternoon, all! Our Halloween Media Super Draft went live yesterday on the podcast, in which Jess and I put together our TV & movie lineups for this year’s spooky season. If you love drafts, Halloween content, or both, head over to listen to us yap and make our ideal, early-Fall watch lists. Did we fight over custody of Over the Garden Wall? Absolutely. Was it a fair fight? You be the judge. Listen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts.

In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
Rivals (Hulu)
Hysteria! (Peacock)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Hulu)

— Jenni Cullen and Jess Spoll

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Below is a selection of new shows and movies premiering this week. Our unabridged list of October releases, including theatrical releases and streaming debuts, is available here and published monthly for our premium subscribers.

• Canary Black (Movie)— A top CIA operative (Kate Beckinsale) is blackmailed by terrorists into betraying her own country to save her kidnapped husband.
  Watch on Prime Video: October 24

• Territory (Season 1) — Anna Torv stars in Australia’s version of Yellowstone.
  Watch on Netflix: October 24 (all 6 episodes)

• Beauty in Black (Season 1) — Tyler Perry’s newest drama sees a stripper’s fate take a turn when she crosses paths with a wealthy, dysfunctional family.
  Watch on Netflix: October 24 (all 16 episodes)

• Trap (Movie) — M. Night Shyamalan’s newest psychological thriller tells the story of a serial killer evading a large presence of police officers while attending a pop music star's concert with his daughter.
  Watch on Max: October 25 (Streaming Premiere)

• Don’t Move (Movie) — After being injected with a paralytic agent by a stranger in an isolated forest, a woman (Kelsey Asbille, Yellowstone) must seek help before her nervous system shuts down completely.
  Watch on Netflix: October 25

• Before (Limited Series) — This supernatural psychological mystery thriller stars Billy Crystal as a child psychiatrist who encounters a troubled young boy who seems to have a haunting connection to his past.
  Watch on Apple TV+: October 25 (2 of 10 episodes, then weekly)

• Lioness (Season 2) — Having dropped the “Special Ops” prefix, this Zoe Saldaña-led spy drama from Taylor Sheridan follows a CIA agent who leads an undercover operation to take down a terrorist group from within.
  Watch on Paramount+: October 27 (2 of 8 episodes, then weekly)

• Somebody Somewhere (Season 3) — The final season airs of this comedy-drama about a middle-aged woman grappling with a sense of belonging in her small Kansas hometown.
  Watch on Max: October 27 (1 of 7 episodes, weekly)

• Wizards Beyond Waverly Place (Season 1) — David Henrie reprises his role as Justin Russo in this spin-off and sequel to Wizards of Waverly Place. Selena Gomez guest stars.
  Watch on Disney Channel/Disney+: October 29 (2 episodes, then weekly)

• Time Cut (Movie) — Madison Bailey stars in this horror film as a girl who travels back in time to 2003 to stop the serial killer who murdered her sister.
  Watch on Netflix: October 30

Note: Premium subscribers get access to the 4 other movies premiering this week that aren’t listed above.

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Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.

Rivals

Photo: Hulu

Keywords: British, period drama, campy
Watch if you like: Mad Men, Gossip Girl, Dynasty
Jenni’s Rating: A-

I was so pleasantly surprised by this unhinged, fun, raunchy new drama based on Dame Jilly Cooper’s novel of the same name. An intoxicating blend of 1980s glamour, scandal, and ambition, the series follows the rivalry between upper-echelon neighbors Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) and Lord Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) into the cutthroat world of British media.

Set against a backdrop of luxury estates and velvet-adorned boardrooms, Rivals seems to revel in its own drama and excess. The show settles into the flamboyance of the 80s, with its fashion, soundtrack, and unapologetically larger-than-life characters. From ruthless TV execs to charming playboys, the series spins an enticing web of jealousy, romance, affairs, and fierce power struggles.

While the show’s setup might draw some comparisons to recent prestige dramas, Rivals has a distinct offbeat flair—rich with witty dialogue and raucous energy. Fans of classic, scandal-filled soaps like Dynasty or Dallas might feel right at home, but this series also offers a more modern edge, with sharp writing and a strong ensemble cast that knows how to play up high stakes without losing sight of character development.

Rivals is a binge-worthy, guiltless guilty-pleasure watch that kept me hooked from episode one. If you're looking for an addictive, glossy drama this fall, Rivals is a perfect indulgence.

— Jenni

Length: 50-min runtime, 1 season / 8 episodes
Watch on: Hulu

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Hysteria!

Photo: Peacock

Keywords: thriller, teens, 80s, Satanism
Watch if you like: Stranger Things, Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Jess’s Rating: B-

Stranger Things brought Satanic Panic nostalgia into mainstream culture, and Peacock is here to capitalize on it with their new spooky season thriller Hysteria!. The series follows the events after a high school varsity quarterback disappears and a heavy metal band made up of outcast students tries to use the town’s fear of the occult to increase the group’s popularity. When the mysterious happenings in the community take a darker turn, the band find themselves on the receiving end of a witch hunt.

Part mystery, part 80s teen drama, and part supernatural horror, this series is a fun genre mash-up with excellent retro vibes. The tone is distinctly creepy, but buoyed by campiness and a dark sense of humor. Julie Bowen (Modern Family) and Pitch Perfect’s Anna Camp are perfectly cast as suburban mothers on opposing sides of the town’s devil-fearing mob mentality, and the two of them — at least in the eyes of this millennial — are the main reasons to watch.

The rest of the cast is composed mostly of teens, which slants the show more towards teen drama than horror. There are moments of real fright, but a large portion of the runtime is dedicated to a high school romance, evoking more Riverdale than Stranger Things. The bits that hint at a larger mystery and something genuinely spooky are few and far between, and seem to serve as set-up for a second season, rather than being developed in this first. For this spooky lover, the series isn’t what I was looking for, but is a fun time if you’re not looking for horror.

— Jess

Length: 45-min runtime, 1 Season / 8 episodes
Watch on: Peacock

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Where we highlight shows that have long-since ended or been canceled, that are well-worth digging back up.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)

Photo: 20th Century Fox

Keywords: Comedy-Drama, Supernatural, coming-of-age
Watch if you like: Veronica Mars, Charmed, Teen Wolf
Jenni’s Rating: A

I cannot believe this is the first time I’m making a bid for our newsletter readers to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I suppose the lead-up to Halloween is as good a season for Buffy as any.

This iconic supernatural comedy-drama by Joss Whedon stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as the titular character: a spunky, blonde teenager in Sunnydale, California who just happens to also be a preternaturally gifted vampire slayer. As fate would have it, her high school is situated on a Hellmouth, aka. a portal to all-things evil, so she’s got plenty to do.

The show is, yes, a fun gothic romp about teenagers fighting monsters. But many parts of this series also serve as brilliant metaphors for the horrors and challenges of adolescence—be they loneliness, first loves, betrayal, or navigating identity. Even with its near-perfect blend of humor, heartache, and epic battles, it is that ability to balance campy fun with deeply resonant themes that truly sets Buffy apart. Well, that, and the complex, three-dimensional characters that bolster those themes.

While Gellar shines as the fierce, funny Buffy, her “Scooby Gang” of friends and mentors do wonders to bring Whedon’s universe to life. Willow’s (Alyson Hannigan) evolution from shy nerd to powerful witch alone is an arc I could write whole dissertations about. With seven seasons of twists, turns, and unforgettable characters, Buffy remains a must-watch, especially during spooky season. If you give it a chance, after a few episodes you’ll be hooked on the Hellmouth.

— Jenni

Length: 60-min runtime, 7 seasons / 144 episodes
Watch on: Hulu

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