Fall has historically been the busiest season to premiere new shows and the slate this year includes high-profile entries from the likes of Emmy-winning director David Fincher (Netflix’s “Mindhunter”), Emmy-winning producer Ronald D. Moore (Amazon’s “Electric Dreams”) and Emmy-winning writer David Simon (HBO’s “The Deuce”). But new quality programming rolls out all year round now, from all kinds of sources; FX Networks President John Landgraf coined the term “peak TV” two years ago in reference to the proliferation in content. He now estimates that some 500 scripted primetime shows will have aired in 2017 by year’s end. Click through our photo gallery above to see the Top 10 most critically acclaimed new shows of the first two-thirds of the year.
Among them is FX’s own instant awards juggernaut “Feud: Bette and Joan,” which leads limited series in nominations at the Emmys this year, with 19, including Best Limited Series. FX provided critics the first five episodes of the anthology series’ eight-episode first season in advance of the series premiere, making the climax of the landmark Oscars-centric episode the last thing that they saw before writing their reviews. That 1963-set installment would ultimately reap nominations for Best Limited/Movie Writing (Ryan Murphy), Best Limited/Movie Directing (Murphy) and Best Period/Fantasy Costumes (Lou Eyrich, Hannah Jacobs, Katie Saunders). Online aggregator Metacritic tallied dozens of reviews from the most esteemed publications in America and assigned the debut of “Feud” a weighted average of 81/100. This makes it the fourth-best score for a new show from the first eight months of 2017.
“Feud” is one of two entries from FX in the gallery. It might come as a surprise that it is the lesser when it comes to reviews because the Emmys shut out what Metacritic considers FX’s most critically acclaimed new show of the year so far. A whopping five of the year’s 10 best new shows hail from Netflix, including “GLOW,” the lone title in the gallery that will be eligible at the Emmys for the first time in 2018. And Hulu makes a name for itself with “The Handmaid’s Tale,” nominated for 13 Emmys. All 10 best new TV shows are adaptations of preexisting material and/or characters.
Be sure to make your Emmy predictions so that Hollywood insiders can see how their TV shows and performers are faring in our Emmy odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before winners are announced on September 17. And join in the fierce debate over the 2017 Emmys taking place right now with Hollywood insiders in our TV forums. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
