Best new TV shows to stream this week on Netflix, HBO Max, and more

We have three all-new streaming TV shows to watch this week, the third and final season of an acclaimed UK series, and the second season of an Emmy-winning reality series. On top of that, we have picked a classic show that’s finally available to stream for the first time. 

Best new streaming TV shows this week

HBO Max is finally debuting the first episodes of this DC Comics-based superhero series, a spinoff of last summer’s movie The Suicide Squad. John Cena reprises his role as Peacemaker, a skilled assassin who thinks he loves peace and thinks he has to kill anyone he believes is a threat to peace. After the events of The Suicide Squad, he gets recruited by yet another black ops group to go on some new missions.

Read more: Best HBO Max shows

James Gunn, who wrote and directed The Suicide Squad, wrote all eight episodes of Peacemaker and directed five of them. The first three episodes debut this week, with the others appearing on HBO Max every week.

Josh Gad and Ilsa Fisher star in this six-episode romantic comedy series, all of which will be available to stream immediately on Peacock. Gad plays a divorced dad taking care of his daughter. However, one day while driving, they get hit by Fisher’s character. Instead of being mad, Gad starts to fall for Fisher, but she also seems to run away if he attempts to get closer.

This series reportedly has lots of surprises and secrets, and based on both the title and the trailer, we suspect Fisher’s character is not what she first appears.

Ricky Gervais returns as the creator and star of this UK-based Netflix series. He once again plays Tony, who is still grieving over the unexpected death of his wife. While the two previous seasons showed him trying to move on, the third season begins with him now having to deal with his father’s passing. This is reportedly the final season for this acclaimed series.

This horror-themed Netflix exclusive show has two parallel storylines based loosely on the acclaimed podcast series. One takes place 25 years ago, as a video documentarian is making a project about her apartment building, which may also be the home for a demonic cult. In the present day, a video archivist has found her raw tapes, and now he has to go through them to find out what happened to her and the subjects of her project.

The first season of Cheer won three Emmy awards, including Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program. Now, over two years later, Cheer comes back for a second season of nine episodes. Like season one, the show tells the stories about the team members and staff of the Navarro College Bulldogs Cheer Team of Corsicana, Texas. The second season will deal, in part, with the fame that came to the cheerleading team after the first season, and all the good and bad things that fame caused.

Among the issues the team has to deal with in the second season is the Covid-19 pandemic as they train for the national championship. An even bigger problem is that one of the show’s most well-known cast members from that first season, cheerleader Jerry Harris, is arrested and charged on several counts of sexual misconduct with minors.

Our final pick for this week isn’t a new show, but a one-season series that’s finally available to stream for the first time via Hulu. It’s The Golden Palace, and it’s a continuation of the classic 1980’s sitcom The Golden Girls. This series stars three of the regulars from that earlier show: Betty White (Rose), Rue McClanahan (Blanche), and Estelle Getty (Sophia). The three ladies decide to move out of their Miami home and, for some reason, purchase an old hotel on Miami Beach.

Unfortunately for them, most of the hotel’s staff is long gone, except for two people. One is the hotel’s chef, played by Cheech Marin, and the other is the manager, played by Don Cheadle in one of his earliest major roles. The new owners are now forced to also work at their hotel. Bea Arthur, the other “Golden Girl,” does show up for a two-episode storyline as Dorothy. 

Check out our last week’s picks

In case you missed last week’s column, here’s another look at the new streaming TV shows that we picked for you to binge-watch.

Euphoria Season 2 (HBO Max)

Zendaya had an excellent 2021, with major roles in two big movies — Dune and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Her acclaimed HBO series is now back with the second season on the cable network and HBO Max. She returns to the role of Rue Bennett, a teenager and recovering drug addict. As before, the show takes a mature look at teenage life in modern times.

It’s been over two years since the first season of this series debuted on HBO. We now finally get the second season of this comedy-satire, centering on a rather greedy and materialistic family of televangelists. Danny McBride created and stars in the series as Jesse Gemstone, as does John Goodman as his dad Eli, the head of this family. Look for lots of stinging commentary on these television preachers who always seem to need more money.

The first episodes of the fifth and final season of this cult comedy series are now available to stream on HBO Max. Alia Shawkat returns once again as Dory Sief, who was kidnapped and held against her will in the fourth season. This final season sees Dory trying to recover in a mental hospital, now believing she can lead humanity to a better life. However, Dory’s friends think she is crazy. Jeff Goldblum also has a recurring role this season as a tech guru who teams up with Dory to help her with her efforts.

TikTok isn’t going away. The social media network and its apps are helping to create new influencers and celebrities that have millions of followers. This new Netflix series focuses on several teenage social influencers from all walks of life who live together in the “Hype House,” a mansion in Los Angeles. The series will look behind the TikTok app world as these people try to boost their following, as well as look at their personal lives.

After a five-week run in the fall of 2021, this animated series set in the prime Star Trek universe returns to Paramount Plus for another five-week sequence. This may be the best of the many new Trek series that have debuted on the service in the past few years. To recap, a group of young aliens escapes from a mining planet in the Delta quadrant, thanks to finding an abandoned Federation starship. They get some help from a holographic AI representation of Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager.

Here’s another popular show that’s been on hiatus for over two years. You can finally watch new episodes of this reality competition series on Paramount Plus every Thursday after it debuts on CBS. The first episodes of the new season will once again show a group of two-person teams racing around the world, trying to finish challenges along the way, to finish first at the end to win $1 million.

However, you may see some differences after the third episode, as it was filmed just before Covid-19 started to shut down the world in early 2020. The show took a 19-month break (or “pit stop” if you will), but the season was finally completed under some new rules.