New TV Releases This Week: Netflix’s Black Mirror, The Last of Us, The Pitt, and More

Hoo boy, is there a lot of new TV this week. Basically everywhere you turn you will find exciting new TV premieres and finales (this is technically true all the time, but we’re talking about more curated stuff for the week).

It’s hard to go wrong with any of the options this week. Perhaps the best way to put it is what kind of tension and stress you want to invite into your life — if it’s sensitive and medical, there’s The Pitt. If it’s sci-fi, there’s two episodic flavors: dystopic with Black Mirror, lighthearted romp with Doctor Who. Or you can get your sci-fi fix with a mech suit with Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, pronounced “G-kwaks.” And several shows are making high-profile returns: The Handmaid’s Tale (for its final season), The Last of Us (for its first season based on The Last of Us Part 2), and Hacks season 4 (which will be its first season about making TV, as opposed to just comedy).

Here are the best new TV premieres and finales of the week.

Genre: Episodic sci-fi dystopia
Release date: April 10
Showrunner/creator: Charlie Brooker
Cast: Issa Rae, Peter Capaldi, Cristin Milioti, and more

You know the drill: Six episodes, six separate science fiction parables that dig into different nightmarish aftereffects of technology. This season, Black Mirror is digging in on things like eulogy bots, sentient digital life forms, weird co-workers, and more. Also important to note: Two high-profile sequels to past Black Mirror episodes.

Genre: Sci-fi future war
Release date: April 10
Studio: Wit Studio

The logline for this one is pretty simple: What happens when Earth’s peaceful existence clashes with the moon’s fight for independence?

As far as we know it (for both the plot and the moon’s fight for independence), Earth Army Investigator Jack is sent to the moon to uncover a lunar rebellion — and to seek out the rebels who killed his family. But when he gets there and he sees the chaos Earth’s policies have left the moon with, his mind changes.

Genre: Timey-wimey science fiction adventure
Release date: April 12
Showrunner/creator: Russell T. Davies
Cast: Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu, Millie Gibson, and more

New season, new aliens, new big bad, and new companion. Season 2 of Doctor Who is kicking off with The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) encountering Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), and both of them trying (even struggling) to get her back to Earth. Also at some point Alan Cumming will show up as a malicious cartoon. Big season!

The Handmaid’s Tale season 6

Genre: Political dystopia
Release date: April 8
Showrunner/creator: Bruce Miller
Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd, and more

It’s the final showdown: June (Elisabeth Moss) has been fighting against the power of Gilead for as long as we’ve known her. Now, The Handmaid’s Tale is coming for the final season — and, with any luck, the fall of the fascistic regime that held up the country.

Genre: Post-zombie apocalypse drama
Release date: April 13 at 9 p.m. EDT/6 p.m. PDT
Showrunners/creators: Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Catherine O’Hara, and more

Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are back, with a time jump taking us way past where we left them (when Joel killed a bunch of doctors who wanted to use Ellie to make a cure to zombieism, and then lied to her about it). Now they’re back in Jackson, and things are a bit tense between them. And would that it stayed that simple — and if you aren’t familiar with the game it’s based on, you’re in for a wild ride.

Genre: Comedy friendship
Release date: April 10
Showrunners/creators: Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello, and Jen Statsky
Cast: Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, and more

Well, she did it: Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) finally has her late-night show. And Ava (Hannah Einbinder) has, officially, blackmailed herself into the head writer role. Once again, these two frenemies, trapped (complimentary) in their love-hate-work relationship, are going to have to work with each other to make the best comedy they can.

Genre: Emergency department doctor procedural
Release date: April 10
Showrunner/creator: R. Scott Gemmill
Cast: Noah Wyle, Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, and more

What else is there to say? It’s the end of a 15-hour ER shift, and everyone is stressed. Who knows where these medical cases will go, let alone where they will leave the doctors themselves.

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX

Genre: Gundam mecha
Release date: April 8
Studios: Sunrise and Studio Khara

It’s alternate Gundam! As in: What if Char Aznable, the archetypal antagonist for the whole franchise as we know it, led the Principality of Zeon to victory in the One Year War instead of the Earth Federation?

GQuuuuuuX picks up from there, and turns its new timeline around on its head, following the dizzying amount of changes that could unfurl from there. Now that we’re off Gundam’s Universal Century timeline, who knows where it could go…

New shows on Paramount Plus

Yellowjackets season 3 finale

Genre: Post-living-in-the-woods madness
Release date: April 11
Showrunners/creators: Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson
Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Tawny Cypress, and more

The Yellowjackets have been through a lot this season, and lost a bit more of their cool than even the past seasons have let them. Will the season 3 finale be the moment they pull it all together? Almost certainly no. But let’s see what new lows they can find here, in the wilderness of life and also the literal wilderness they crashed into in the ’90s.

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

Genre: My Hero Academia (superheroics)
Release date: April 7
Studio: Bones Film

Vigilantes is spinning off from the main My Hero Academia story with a slightly darker tone (at least, if it’s following the manga). Here we’re following Koichi Haimawari, who’s using his Quirk to help people despite not being a licensed hero. Eventually, this leads to him getting recruited to be a vigilante, working with fellow vigilante Knuckleduster to do good on a broader level.

New shows on Apple TV Plus

Genre: Drama
Release date: April 11
Showrunner/creator: Jonathan Tropper
Cast: Jon Hamm, Olivia Munn, Amanda Peet, and more

Hedge fund manager Andrew Cooper (Jon Hamm) has gotten fired and, to preserve face, takes to stealing from his affluent neighbors’ homes in the well-off community of Westmont Village; who can’t relate? When he’s breaking in, though, he starts to find out about the depths of the secrets behind everyone else’s facades.