October is now less than a week away, which means tons of hotly anticipated shows are getting ready to premiere. We’ve got plenty of popular shows to look forward to that are returning for new seasons, and we also have a bunch of new series set to premiere that are prime candidates to become our next obsessions. Heck, there might even be an upcoming show or two that can help fill the gaping void left by Game of Thrones, now that it has ended in such spectacularly awful fashion. Two of the top candidates are HBO’s His Dark Materials and Netflix’s The Watcher, which are both epic shows that are based on popular fantasy novels. Unfortunately, those exciting new series aren’t set to debut until a bit later in the year. There are some other candidates coming sooner though, and you’ll definitely want to mark your calendars ahead of what’s shaping up to be a very busy month in October.
Netflix is the top streaming content creator in the world, and it announced its full October 2019 release schedule last week. As we always do each and every month, we dove into all the new Netflix originals set to premiere in October and it’s going to be a busy month indeed. A whopping 67 new Netflix original series, movies, and specials will debut over the course of the month in October, but the most hotly anticipated Netflix originals are actually new seasons of returning series rather than new premieres. How do we know? Because TV Time dug through all the data it has from users of its various apps in order to determine the most eagerly awaited shows that are returning or debuting next month.
As you can see in the chart above from TV Time’s October 2019 anticipation report, there aren’t any new series debuting on Netflix that made the cut. Instead, the streaming giant has three new seasons of returning shows that cracked the top 5: Insatiable in the #1 spot, Baby at #3, and Big Mouth at #4. The second most hotly anticipated series set to return in October is Mr. Robot, while CW’s Riverdale closes out the top 5.
Where brand new series are concerned, Hulu is the only streamer with a show that cracked the top 5, with Looking for Alaska in the #4 slot. CW’s Batwoman tops the list, followed by HBO and Damon Lindelof’s revisiting of Watchmen. This is easily the show that we’re most excited for in October, considering Lindelof’s last project for HBO was arguably the best show the network has ever made.