It can be really hard to befriend your roommates or learn to room with your friends.
After spending all day dreaming about how you wish your roommates would wash the dishes or decorate the walls differently, sometimes you need a reminder that you do like this person and there is a reason you chose to live together. Coming together over a shared passion — like a show you watch together — gives you an excuse each week to sit down and bond over the blue glow emanating from your television.
With Sunday night staples like House of the Dragon and Succession dominating the last few years of headlines, watch parties have returned to American living rooms after years of binge-watching domination. From spy thrillers to long-running reality TV, there’s no shortage of new week-to-week shows you and your roommate can make your own this fall.
Slow Horses
Premieres Sept. 4, releases on Apple TV+ on Wednesdays
One of the most nominated shows from this year’s Emmys returns in just a few days for its fourth season. “Slow Horses,” based on the novels of the same name by Mick Herron, follows British spies who after making huge mistakes are reassigned to intern-level work, yet always seem to get tied up in misadventures.
Each season of the Gary Oldman-led series has improved on the last, with the third installment from last fall notably more action-filled than past runs. If the continued delays of the new “Mission: Impossible” film have you hankering for some sort of globetrotting spy action, it’s hard to do better than “Slow Horses.”
Survivor 47
Premieres Sept. 18, airs on CBS on Wednesdays at 8 p.m.
To answer the often-asked question — yes, “Survivor” is still airing. The island-set competitive reality show is trucking along into year 25 on the air, with dimpled host Jeff Probst still at the helm. With strategy abounding, there’s plenty of chances to discuss over breakfast what move a given player really should’ve made.
“Survivor” is also a convenient option because the show is extremely easy to pick up and watch even if you’ve never seen a single second — such is the benefit of having casts of new players every six months — so if one roommate is a die-hard fan, the others can easily glom on. Plus, the new season has some extra celebrity juice added to it, with “Pod Save America” host Jon Lovett appearing as a contestant, fresh off potentially influencing the replacement of the Democratic presidential nominee.
The Golden Bachelorette
Premieres Sept. 18, airs on ABC on Wednesdays at 8 p.m.
A great roommate show exists to spark lively debates and conversation fodder throughout the week. No program understands that quite like “The Bachelor” franchise, where contestants compete for the love of one lucky man or woman. I can hardly recount all the lighthearted but impassioned arguments I’ve had with people over how the titular bachelor or bachelorette really should’ve given their final rose to someone else, or how I’ve fawned over scandals like the season 15 controversy, where it turned out the season’s winner had a girlfriend at home.
Last year, the series iterated with spin-off “The Golden Bachelor,” where rather than uber-buff, twentysomethings, the cast was full of senior citizens. Though the couple that emerged from the show lasted a mere three months together before filing for divorce, the entire series was genuinely heartwarming and charming, as its contestants pined for another shot at romance. The gender-inverted equivalent, “The Golden Bachelorette,” hits the airwaves in a few weeks and promises more of the same, as silver foxes compete to be the last one to receive a red rose.
The Penguin
Premieres Sept. 19, then airs on HBO on Sundays at 9 p.m.
Colin Farrell can do no wrong. The Irish Academy Award nominee has impeccable taste in projects, be it working with excellent directors like Martin McDonnough and Yorgos Lanthimos or headlining silly, if enjoyable, action flicks like “Total Recall” and “Miami Vice.” That alone is enough to get one pumped for Farrell’s last turn as the infamous Batman villain The Penguin.
The show, which sees Farrell reprise his role from 2022’s “The Batman,” might seem like an extremely harebrained — or perhaps birdbrained — idea. Having a skinny Irishman don a bodysuit to play a New York gangster isn’t exactly a straightforward train of logic.
But Farrell’s goofily charming performance in “The Batman” makes the show worth checking out, even if only to see the role at the center. Plus, in a 1960s version of Batman, the Penguin ran for mayor as a Donald Trump-esque showman in contrast to the more boring Batman who cared about being a good citizen. In an election year, who knows what campaign antics might occur in the new series.
“Rescue: HI-Surf”
Premieres Sept. 22, airs on FOX on Mondays at 9 p.m.
Not every TV show has to win awards. Not every TV show has to teach you something new about the world. Sometimes, TV shows just need to give you an excuse to have running riffs with your roommates for a semester — and a show as simple as “Rescue: HI-Surf” can do just that.
In the tried-and-true case of the weekly format, the show follows heavy water lifeguards going off on all sorts of life-threatening capers. Maybe this is going out on a limb, but as a show with no notable actors and no real discernible concept beyond hot people hanging out on beaches, it’s possible some of the plot points will be a bit unrealistic and can inspire entertaining bits for you and your roommates.
