They say that “Mother knows best,” but I can think of a few movies and TV shows that challenge that belief. The following are some of the rudest, most cruel, and just plain evil fictional moms whom I am eternally thankful I never had to grow up with.

Margaret White (Carrie)

Sissy Spacek's title character from Brian DePalma's 1976 adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie possesses telekinetic abilities that make her a danger to others, but she is not the villain of the story. That would be her mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie in an Oscar-nominated performance), who is an abusive, extreme religious fanatic with deluded reasoning for cruelly punishing her daughter, whom she even considers to be a punishment for her own past sins.

Lucille Bluth (Arrested Development)

There are very few members of the Bluth Family from Arrested Development who do not boast hilariously despicable personalities. The worst of them all might just be the matriarch, Lucille (Jessica Walter), whose self-serving, elitist ego drives her to manipulate and arrogantly berate all of her "loved" ones, with her own children facing much of the brunt.

Momma Lift (Throw Momma From The Train)

In the 1987 dark comedy movie, Throw Momma from the Train, Owen Lift (Danny DeVito, who also directs) agrees to kill the ex-wife of his writing professor, Larry Donner (Billy Crystal), in exchange for murdering his mother. Honestly, it is hard not to empathize with Owen when Anne Ramsey first appears in her Oscar-nominated role as the loud, nasty, belligerent, and physically abusive Momma Lift.

Livia Soprano (The Sopranos)

Every Sopranos character has their standout qualities, but Livia Soprano (Nancy Marchand) has absolutely none. Her gangster son Tony (James Gandolfini) enters therapy to get over issues stemming from his terrible childhood living under her roof. However, she committed her worst sin against him when he was grown up, attempting to orchestrate his murder.

Lady Tremaine (Cinderella)

You could look at any iteration of the classic fairy tale, Cinderella, and the title character's wicked stepmother could be considered an all-timer in this category, based on her unjustifiably horrid treatment of the innocent young woman. However, Eleanor Audley's portrayal in the Disney animated classic from 1950 is perhaps the most bloodcurdlingly cruel and chillingly intimidating.

Selina Meyer (Veep)

In Armando Iannucci's hilarious political satire, Veep, Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) uses and abuses as many people as possible to rise in the ranks of the United States Government. Receiving the worst treatment, however, is her own daughter, Catherine (Sarah Sutherland), whom she constantly belittles and shamelessly uses as a tool in her campaigns.

Mary Jones (Precious)

One of the most stunning examples of a comedian giving a stellar dramatic performance is Mo'Nique's Oscar-winning role in Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire as the title character's mom, Mary Jones. Not only does she physically and verbally abuse her teenage daughter (played by Gabourey Sidibe), but she also stands by when her husband takes advantage of her, only to blame her for the situation and accuse her of "stealing her man."

Cersei Lannister (Game Of Thrones)

In the world of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, there are many noble royals who breed despicable children, and just as many noble royals bred from despicable parents. However, Cersei Lannister (played by Lena Headey in HBO's Game of Thrones cast) is an example of a sadistic woman who also bred sadistic children, all of whom would end up meeting a bitter end as a result of her manipulative ways.

Joan Crawford (Mommie Dearest)

Arguably, the mother of all mean movie mothers is not a product of complete fiction, but allegedly based on fact. Faye Dunaway gives a frighteningly over-the-top performance as Academy Award winner Joan Crawford in a 1981 adaptation of Mommie Dearest, a memoir by the screen legend's own adoptive daughter, Christina.

Cookie Lyon (Empire)

The dog-eat-dog nature of the music industry has rarely been captured better than in Lee Daniels and Danny Strong's hit series, Empire, especially as seen through the eyes of Loretha "Cookie" Lyon. Portrayed by Taraji P. Henson in a Golden Globe-winning performance, the record executive and former convict is not opposed to pitting her own children against each other to benefit her own influence over the family's company, Empire Entertainment.

Pamela Voorhees (Friday The 13th)

If you really think about it, Pamela Voorhees (portrayed by Betsy Palmer in the 1980 horror movie classic, Friday the 13th) is not, in essence, a bad mother. It was her loving commitment to her son that drove her to murder the camp counselors she believes were responsible for his fatal drowning. In fact, proof that the sympathetic horror villain was a good mom lies in the mysteriously resurrected Jason and his bid to continue killing debaucherous teens in her honor.

Marie Barone (Everybody Loves Raymond)

On the beloved TV sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frank Barone (Peter Boyle) is the more outwardly spiteful parent to Ray (Ray Romano) and Robert (Brad Garrett). At least he does not treat his sons like children, even as grown-ups, like his wife, Marie, does. Doris Roberts' multi-Emmy-winning role might be an even worse mother-in-law, with the way she puts down Ray's wife, Debra (Patricia Heaton), at seemingly every chance.

Lavona Golden (I, Tonya)

I believe the key to Allison Janney's Oscar win for portraying Tonya Harding's mother, Lavona Golden, in I, Tonya is how persuasively she argues that she is responsible for pushing the Olympic figure skater (played by Margot Robbie) to greatness. However, she takes absolutely no responsibility for instilling qualities of poor sportsmanship, incessant verbal and physical abuse, and her shamelessly manipulative ways.

Evelyn Harper (Two And A Half Men)

Holland Taylor is dynamite in her ferocious, four-time Emmy-nominated performance as the cold and vindictive Evelyn Harper on Two and a Half Men. It is no wonder that her sons, the commitment-phobic Charlie (Charlie Sheen) and hopelessly dissatisfied Alan (Jon Cryer), turned out to be, when you imagine what living with her must have been like.

Petunia Dursley (The Harry Potter Movies)

What makes Petunia Dursley (Fiona Shaw) easily one of the most despicable Harry Potter characters is her terrible role as a parent, but in more than one way. She treats her son, Dudley (Harry Melling), far too well, spoiling him beyond repair. Yet, her treatment of her eponymous orphaned nephew (played by Daniel Radcliffe) is abhorrent, from locking him in a cupboard under the stairs as punishment to making him into her home's indentured servant.

Colleen Donaghy (30 Rock)

Elaine Stritch earned five Emmy nominations for appearing on 30 Rock as the domineering and mercilessly critical mother of Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), Colleen. Jack once accidentally hit her with his car and, as a result of her unfavorable behavior, proceeded to wait eight minutes before deciding to call 9-1-1.

Ruth DeWitt Bukater (Titanic)

Frances Fisher's role in the Titanic cast, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, is an essential example of an overbearing, elitist, and manipulative movie mother. Perhaps her worst offense is forcing Rose (Kate Winslet) to marry her loathsome fiancé, Cal (Billy Zane), purely for the social status it will earn their family.

Brianna Barksdale (The Wire)

On The Wire, the only thing standing in the way of D'Angelo Barksdale's (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) switch to the right side of the law is his mother. Brianna (Michael Hyatt) is constantly manipulating her son into giving up so much for the benefit of their family's unlawful business, including serving a long prison sentence on behalf of his uncle, Avon (Wood Harris).

Eleanor Shaw Iselin (The Manchurian Candidate)

Discovering that you have been brainwashed into becoming a political assassin is terrifying. Discovering that your own mother is involved in the conspiracy, like what Eleanor Shaw Iselin (Angela Lansbury) does to her son, Raymond (Laurence Harvey), in the 1962's The Manchurian Candidate, is simply devastating.

Endora (Bewitched)

Some of the funniest moments on Bewitched would come courtesy of Agnes Moorehead as Endora, a literal witch who never once held back from expressing her resentment toward her mortal son-in-law, Darrin Stephens (original Dick York and later Dick Sargent). Of course, Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) is as much a victim of her mother's domineerance, and one can only imagine what sorts of wicked things she must have put up with while growing up with her.

Mrs. Robinson (The Graduate)

Watching The Graduate from the perspective of Elaine Robinson (Katharine Ross) makes the 1967 dramedy an even more maddening trip. It is bad enough that her mother (played by Anne Bancroft) attempts to ruin her relationship with Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), but to discover that he is her lover, too, sounds like a nightmare.

Irina Derevko (Alias)

To get a more authentic look at what the life of a spy must be like, I would not recommend checking out the James Bond movies, but the hit ABC series, Alias, which follows the adventures of double agent Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner). She was prepped for the traumatic hardships of espionage at an early age when her mother, Irina Derevko (Lena Olin), faked her death, but even that could not prepare her for when Irina betrayed her daughter in favor of the KGB.

Beverly Sutphin (Serial Mom)

The central character of writer and director John Waters' uproarious dark comedy, 1994's Serial Mom, is Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner), a suburban housewife who would never harm her own children. However, she has absolutely no qualms about brutally harming other people for the sake of her children, which does not make things any better, of course.

Maya Lewis (Scandal)

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) had dedicated her life and career to making crises disappear on Scandal. On the other hand, her mother, Maya Lewis (Khandi Alexander), has, ironically, dedicated her life to making them happen. However, Olivia did not know that for almost two decades, and, in fact, she was under the impression that her mother was dead that whole time.

Mrs. Windle Vale (Now, Voyager)

Bette Davis stars in director Irving Rapper's 1942 drama, Now, Voyager, as Charlotte Vale, who longs for independence from her overbearing mother (played by Gladys Cooper), who constantly belittles her with comments about her being an embarrassment to their family. Apparently, Mrs. Vale could not stand the idea of her daughter protesting her dominance because the day she does just happens to be the day she succumbs to a sudden heart attack.

Ida Welker (Malcolm In The Middle)

While Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) could be seen as a mean mom, in retrospect, she put up with a lot while raising her five boys (six if you count Bryan Cranston's Hal) on Malcolm in the Middle. While I have nothing but respect for her, I have nothing but disdain for her mother, Ida (Academy Award winner Cloris Leachman), who is a cold, conniving, and downright horrid woman right to her core.

Zinnia Wormwood (Matilda)

Based on the novel by Roald Dahl, 1996's Matilda stars Mara Wilson in the title role of a young girl gifted with telekinetic powers but cursed with despicable adult peers, including her uncaring parents. Not only is her mother, Zinnia Wormwood (Rhea Perlman), a vain, airheaded narcissist, but her father (played by Danny DeVito, who also directs) is just as bad.

Dr. Beverly Hofstadter (The Big Bang Theory)

Almost every member of CBS' The Big Bang Theory cast has a mother with a strong personality, to say the least, but Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) has that claimed unmatched. Psychologist Beverly Hofstadter (Christine Baranski) never bothered to show Leonard any affection, considering she only had children for experimental and research purposes anyway.

Alice Ward (The Fighter)

Melissa Leo gives an Academy Award-winning performance in 2010's fact-based, acclaimed boxing movie, The Fighter, as Alice Ward. The portrayal paints her as a woman who is more concerned with what is best for the athletic careers of her sons, Micky (Mark Wahlberg) and Dicky (Christian Bale), than what is best for their well-beings.

Constance Langdon (American Horror Story)

As one of the most frequent recurring American Horror Story actors, Jessica Lange has played an amusing variety of characters on the seasonal horror anthology TV show. However, her scariest role may be the first, Constance Langdon, whose horrid parenting skills and refusal to take responsibility for them have resulted in chaos in her household and for others affected by her children's actions.

Lilly Dillon (The Grifters)

One might assume that Lilly Dillon (Anjelica Huston) would be happy that her son, Roy (John Cusack), has found love with Myra (Annette Bening), who is in the same line of work as she is: con artistry. However, Lilly is the type of mother who does not believe any woman is good enough for her son, which is why she plots to murder Myra in 1990's The Grifters.

Norma Bates (Bates Motel)

We never actually meet Norma Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's seminal 1960 thriller, Psycho, but we can imagine, from the way her son, Norman (Anthony Perkins), takes on her likeness when murdering people, that she was not an easy person to get along with. The A&E original series, Bates Motel, offers an inside look at the complicated relationship between Norma (Vera Farmiga) and young Norman (Freddie Highmore), which is littered with lies, manipulation, and murder.

Moms are strong by nature but TV's toughest moms rule their roost with high standards, great expectations and strong discipline. From sitcom staples like Roseanne Conner and Clair Huxtable to dramatic dames like Cersei Lannister and Cookie Lyon, these iron-fisted mamas don't get the credit they deserve when it comes to their strict and stern parenting styles. Here are 32 of our favorites. 

Roseanne Conner (Roseanne)

The fierce working-class "domestic goddess" at the center of the ABC sitcom Roseanne was always crazy-quick with a wisecrack and was never one to hold back an opinion. But though known for her loud, sarcastic and domineering nature, Roseanne Conner (Roseanne Barr) was always loving and protective towards her four kids, daughters Becky (Lecy Goranson and Sarah Chalke) and Darlene (Sara Gilbert), and sons D.J. (Michael Fishman) and Jerry (Cole and Morgan Roberts).

Clair Huxtable (The Cosby Show)

Despite having to juggle raising five children, maintaining a household and continuing a successful law career, The Cosby Show's Clair Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad) was always a vision of class and composure. While her husband Cliff was the more fun-loving and boisterous parent, Clair was the disciplinarian of the Huxtable residence and was assertive in teaching her kids about responsibility and respect. 

Peggy Bundy (Married... With Children)

With her refusal to cook, clean or cater to her boorish husband Al (Ed O'Neil), Peggy Bundy (Katey Sagal) from the beloved blue-collar comedy Married... with Children was TV's ultimate anti-housewife. Where other small-screen moms used their iron fist to ensure order and discipline, Peg unapologetically prioritized her own couch-sitting, Oprah-watching "Me Time" over traditional parenting and domestic work. But that doesn't mean she didn't regularly make time to voice her opinions about her lackluster hubby and kids Kelly (Christina Applegate) and Bud (David Faustino).

Wilma Flintstone (The Flintstones) 

When you're married to a literal caveman, it's no surprise that Wilma Flintstone had to be level-headed and strong-willed for the sake of her family. Throughout the classic cartoon series The Flintstones, the Stone Age mama was tender and caring to her hubby Fred and daughter Pebbles but was known to utilize a firm hand — and a frying pan — when things got a little too rambunctious in her household. 

Claire Dunphy (Modern Family)

Often regulated to being the strict mom opposite goofy dad Phil (Ty Burrell), Claire (Julie Bowen) is the hardworking and often anxiety-ridden head of the Dunphy household. In trying to wrangle her husband and three children — Haley (Sarah Hyland), Alex (Ariel Winter) and Luke (Nolan Gould) — The Modern Family matriarch can regularly be neurotic and controlling but every ounce of that effort clearly comes from a place of love. 

Jessica Huang (Fresh Off The Boat)

Just as her husband Louis (Randall Park) described her, Jessica Huang (Constance Wu) from the ABC sitcom Fresh Off the Boat is "aggressive yet elegant." No-nonsense, traditional and very competitive, she pushes both her spouse and their sons Eddie (Hudson Yang), Emery (Forrest Wheeler) and Evan (Ian Chen) to succeed in their careers and academics, respectively. For example, she's plenty pleased with Evan's future plans of becoming "doctor/president," but less so when Eddie reveals that he wants to go to culinary school instead of college.

Cersei Lannister (Game Of Thrones)

Like many things in her life, Cersei Lannister's (Lena Headey) relationship with her children throughout Game of Thrones was often fueled by her own pride and need for power. However, that doesn't mean that Cersei wouldn't kill for her kids — and she did. When it came to the safety of Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), Myrcella (Nell Tiger Free) and Tommen (Dean-Charles Chapman), she parented with a leonine fierceness, to the danger of her enemies. 

Florida Evans (Good Times)

First introduced as a feisty maid in Maude, strong-willed Chicago mother Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) is the heart and soul of the original Good Times. Despite considerable financial issues and a never-ending list of chores and responsibilities, Florida always kept her household in line, offering up stern but loving discipline and instilling valuable morals in her three children J.J. (Jimmy Walker) Thelma (Bern Nadette Stanis), and Michael Evans (Ralph Carter). 

Lois Wilkerson (Malcolm In The Middle)

As the mother of five highly mischievous and unruly young boys, we really can't blame Malcolm in the Middle's Lois Wilkerson (Jane Kaczmarek) for being a touch stubborn, overbearing and hotheaded. Lois genuinely cares about her children, but her idea of discipline is jokingly dubbed "sadistic" by the boys: "Your punishment isn't over until that bathroom floor is so clean you'll be eating off it. Which is what you'll be doing for the next three weeks," she memorably punished son Reese in Season 6. 

Norma Bates (Bates Motel)

Now, we're certainly not suggesting that Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) had a healthy parenting style throughout the A&E horror drama Bates Motel, but she certainly was a devoted, if domineering, mother to Norman (Freddie Highmore). Norma can be clingy and critical of her son — and has especially harsh opinions about the girls Norman hangs out with — but she always does everything in her power to protect him. 

Emily Gilmore (Gilmore Girls)

It seems like the only people Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop) is more judgmental of than her own daughter Lorelai (Lauren Graham) — no picnic in the mom department, herself — are her maids, who she seemingly hired and fired every other episode of Gilmore Girls. The wealthy matriarch of the eponymous family is known for her high standards, snooty attitude and controlling nature: a textbook example is forcing Lorelai and granddaughter Rory (Alexis Bledel) to attend Friday night dinner at her home every week, no exceptions. 

Debra Barone (Everybody Loves Raymond)

A classic example of a TV mom having to play the "bad cop" to a "fun dad" type is Debra Barone (Patricia Heaton) from Everybody Loves Raymond. While husband Ray (Ray Romano) often gets up to nearly as many hijinks as their kids Ally (Madylin Sweeten), Geoffrey and Michael (Sullivan and Sawyer Sweeten), Debra is all business. She's responsible, hardworking and not afraid to speak her mind — except, it seems, when it comes to her meddling mother-in-law Marie (Doris Roberts). 

Harriette Winslow (Family Matters)

The matriarch of the Winslow family (largely played by Jo Marie Payton but replaced with Judyann Elder in Family Matters' final season) knows order and discipline: she left the police force when she became pregnant with her eldest, Eddie (Darius McCrary). Raising three kids, Harriette is regularly the voice of reason in the Winslow household but is a sharp-tongued disciplinarian when she needs to be. 

Colleen Donaghy (30 Rock)

Portrayed by the legendarily brash Elaine Stritch, the mother of Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) always dishes out tough love when it comes to her son. With just one of her many characteristically biting quips (“Don’t talk to me like that Jack. I breastfed you for nine years!”) Colleen is able to instantly turn her slick, successful businessman of a son into a fearful little boy. 

Beverly Goldberg (The Goldbergs)

The Goldbergs' Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) puts the "mother" in "smother" — hugs are mandatory and she can often be found meddling in various areas of her kids' worlds, from school to sports to social life. But the snuggies-loving matriarch can be strict, tough and opinionated, not only when it comes to her children Erica (Hayley Orrantia), Barry (Troy Gentile) and Adam (Sean Giambrone) but also herself: "I have failed as a mother!" is the character's main catchphrase. 

Galina ‘Red’ Reznikov (Orange Is The New Black)

Yes, even prisoners need a mother figure and Litchfield Penitentiary has Red (Kate Mulgrew). Compassionate but very cunning — this is a woman who was in cahoots with the Russian Mafia, after all — she rules her block of the prison with a watchful eye, explicitly prohibiting her girls from partaking in drugs whilst running a well-oiled smuggling ring to get them the contraband goods they need. 

Vivian Banks (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)

Firstly, we're specifically talking about Aunt Viv as portrayed by Janet Hubert for the first half of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. (Daphne Maxwell Reid took over the role in season four after Hubert was dismissed from the show.) As no-nonsense as she was nurturing, Hubert's take on the character was more fiery than her successor, a strong, confident university professor who wasn't afraid to lay down a hard lesson to her three children, her students or her troublemaking nephew (Will Smith). 

Marge Simpson (The Simpsons)

Marge is the blue-haired, bee-hived moralistic center of the Simpsons family. With a fam that includes an oafish husband like Homer, a notorious prankster like Bart and an eternal infant like Maggie, The Simpsons matriarch has to run a tight ship to maintain order in her antics-filled household. She doesn't approve of the kids' violent video games or cartoons, has followed Bart's whereabouts through his cell phone and is always pushing her family to go to mass. As Homer says of his wife: "If it were up to [Marge], all we would ever do is work and go to church."

Violet Crawley (Downton Abbey)

Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham (played by Dame Maggie Smith), is not exactly known for being a cuddly grandmother sort. Instead, the stately Downton Abbey matriarch is defined by her dry wit, direct nature and deep investment in maintaining the family's traditions, honor and legacy. 

Barbara Howard (Abbott Elementary)

Barbara Howard (Emmy winner Sheryl Lee Ralph) didn't just raise kids of her own at home — she's raised whole classrooms full of impressionable youngins as a kindergarten teacher at Willard R. Abbott Elementary School for the past two decades. Super old-school (no, she will not be learning that new teaching technology, thank you very much) and strictly religion, she's the kind of teacher who quiets rowdy classrooms the second she steps foot into them. 

Tami Taylor (Friday Night Lights)

As both a mother to teen daughter Julie (Aimee Teegarden) and little Gracie Belle (Madilyn Landry) and a counselor at Dillon High School to countless students, Connie Britton's tough yet compassionate Tami Taylor regularly guided the youth with equal parts firmness and fairness. Through five seasons of Friday Night Lights, she was a sounding board and a calm authority, but always with a little bit of Southern sweetness sprinkled on top. 

Jill Taylor (Home Improvement)

The lion-hearted leading lady of the Taylor family, Jill (Patricia Richardson) raises her three sons Brad (Zachery Ty Bryan), Randy (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) and Mark (Taran Noah Smith) with a stern hand and Type-A attitude while also remaining lovingly perceptive and good-naturedly allowing for silly moments. However, you know that when she addresses her husband Tim (Tim Allen) or her sons by their full name, somebody is definitely in trouble. 

Cookie Lyon (Empire)

Talk about one tough cookie: Empire's queen bee Cookie Lyon (Taraji P. Henson) tells it like it is, demands respect and doesn't tolerate nonsense in any aspect of her life, including when it comes to her children Andre (Trai Byers), Jamal (Jussie Smollett) and Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray). She can be extremely headstrong and brash, but she definitely has a caring and compassionate side and she always puts her family first. 

Sophia Petrillo (The Golden Girls)

Sarcasm and sass certainly seem to be genetic in the Petrillo household: both mom Sophia (Estelle Getty) and daughter Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) possess each personality trait in spades. As Dorothy's actual parent and the surrogate mother of her roommates Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan) and Rose Nyland (Betty White), Sophia doles out wisecracks and criticisms often — about Dorothy’s lack of love life, Blanche’s promiscuity and Rose’s stupidity — but beneath all of her hilarious put-downs beats a lot of love. 

Nalini Vishwakumar (Never Have I Ever)

Never Have I Ever's Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan) can be hard on her teen daughter Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) but her overly strict and at times overbearing nature stems from not only her traditional Indian upbringing but also her sheer love and concern for her child. (As fans no doubt remember, Nalini lost her husband to a heart attack before the start of the series, a trauma which sparked temporary paralysis in her daughter.) Sometimes it's hard for her to show tenderness, but her heart is always in the right place. 

Olivia Walton (The Waltons)

Yes, Olivia Walton (Michael Learned) is an exceedingly sweet and compassionate lady, but there's one area of her life in which she does not play around: her parenting. She prompts all seven of her children (John-Boy, Jason, Mary-Ellen, Ben, Erin Walton, Jim-Bob and Elizabeth) to have good manners and posture, requires them to read the Bible and never miss Sunday service, and will resort to scolding her children if they misbehave. 

Carmela Soprano (The Sopranos) 

Steely and steadfast, Carmela Soprano (Edie Falco) is like any good Italian-American mom: she's armed with a deep sense of obligation to her family, works hard to create a (somewhat) stable environment for daughter Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) and son A.J. (Robert Iler), and can make a mean lasagna. With her husband Tony (James Gandolfini) busy with Mafia business, Carmela does the lion's share of the parenting and when it comes to chastising her children, she's proven to be just as formidable as her spouse.

Thelma Harper (Mama’s Family)

Known simply as Mama, Thelma Harper (Vicki Lawrence) from the NBC sitcom Mama's Family headed her household with a sharp wit, an acid tongue and a quick temper. Bluntly outspoken and hilariously grumpy, the series version of the character was actually reportedly softer-edged than the original iteration conceived for The Carol Burnett Show. And despite Mama's frequent bickering and bad attitude, all of her cooking, cleaning and curmudgeonly care is clearly out of love.  

Gemma Teller Morrow (Sons Of Anarchy) 

A more hard-edged mama than her other famous TV mom character Peg Bundy, Katey Sagal's Gemma Teller Morrow is unapologetic about how protective she is of not only her son Jax (Charlie Hunnam) and grandchildren but also her surrogate family, the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club. Equipped with equal parts savagery and vulnerability, she's adapted to her gritty environment and can be tough, competitive and manipulative in the lengths she'll go to to defend those she loves.

Penelope Alvarez (One Day At A Time)

Don't let her quirky, fun-loving demeanor fool you — as One Day at a Time's main madre Penelope Alvarez (Justina Machado) is quick to remind you, she's a "total badass." As a single Cuban-American mother, a nurse practitioner and a former Staff Sergeant in the United States Army, "Lupe" has a strong work ethic and sense of discipline, which she makes sure to instill in her children Elena (Isabella Gomez) and Alex (Marcel Ruiz).

Evelyn Harper (Two And A Half Men)

Son Alan Harper (Jon Cryer) doesn't jokingly call her "the queen of darkness" for nothing. Yes, the wealthy and five-time-widowed Evelyn (played by Holland Taylor) can be quite cold, callous and critical when it comes to her sons Alan and Charlie (Charlie Sheen) and grandson Jake (Angus T. Jones). She majorly disapproves of Alan's failed marriages as well as Charlie's personal hobbies — granted, the latter is drinking, gambling and womanizing, so she might be onto something. 

Lynette Scavo (Desperate Housewives)

Having to deal with four demanding children (Porter, Preston, Parker and Penny) as a stay-at-home mom while her husband Tom (Doug Savant) is at the office every day, Lynette (Felicity Huffman) is understandably stressed much of the time, which tends to manifest itself as a neurotic and controlling nature. She also often tends to go over the top when it comes to disciplining her children — for example, she once ditched her kiddos on the side of the road to teach them about following orders. 

If you enjoy reading or watching the source material before its adaptation comes out, chances are you’ve been disappointed a few times over when a movie or series based on a book comes out. However, in the case of these TV shows, their creators actually found ways to go beyond what was originally told and build out stories that have become larger than their original intentions. Have you seen all these and what did you think about how they compare? 

Bridgerton 

If you’ve read the Bridgerton books in order before or between seasons of the massive Netflix series, chances are you’ve had some thoughts about the differences between them. While each of Julia Quinn’s novels pretty much stands alone and doesn’t have to be read in order to enjoy each romance, the series was adapted to have all the stakes, side plots and cliffhangers a hit TV show should have. The series even inspired the spinoff, Queen Charlotte, which involved Bridgerton characters but was not based on one of Quinn’s works.

Game of Thrones

George R.R. Martin’s fantasy novels were adapted in a big way. While the first few seasons follow the source material rather closely, the last few seasons were in development as Martin was completing the rest of the series, and a ton of plotlines were completely invented by the showrunners and staff writers. Perhaps that’s why the finale is so divisive among fans. 

The Office 

After Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s The Office became a hit in the U.K. across its two seasons, Greg Daniels and NBC adapted an American version of the workplace mockumentary sitcom. While it was certainly inspired by the source material, the series starring Steve Carell earned a whole life of its own across over 200 episodes, and remains one of the most-streamed shows even a decade after its finale. 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

It’s often forgotten that genre favorite Buffy The Vampire Slayer is actually based on a 1992 movie of the same name. The series’ creator originally wrote it as a movie that wasn’t nearly as popular as the TV adaptation of the idea he cooked up a few years later. With seven seasons to the WB show’s name, it’s safe to say that it went way beyond its source material. And wow, are we happy Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy Summers was on our televisions for so long! 

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power 

J.R.R. Tolkien gifted the fantasy genre with four classic novels set in Middle-earth, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Following Peter Jackson's adapting of all of them beautifully (and set to make another one), Amazon Studios decided to go beyond the source material with its super expensive series, The Rings Of Power. The series primarily builds upon Tolkien’s appendices on Middle-earth as it depicts the world’s Second Age. 

Big Little Lies

Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel Big Little Lies brought together stars like Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley and Zoë Kravitz to tell the story of five women living in Monterey, California who become part of a murder investigation. It was initially supposed to be a miniseries, but following its success, a second season built on the story from Season 1. 

Riverdale

CW’s Riverdale was inspired by the pages of Archie Comics, an ongoing comic book series that started back in 1941. The series developed by the comic publisher’s CCO Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is a much darker take on the universe as it begins as a murder mystery in the town of Riverdale. The series not only went beyond its source material across its seven seasons, but the comic book had a gritty reboot in recent years as well. 

Watchmen  

The Watchmen comic book series has long been thought of as one of the best the medium has ever put to paper. The HBO miniseries of the same name lived up to the series by being an all-time great adaptation, but it certainly took quite a few creative liberties and built upon the ‘80s comic book to reflect the time it was made, by changing and fleshing out its characters more and boldly discussing racism and extremism with its storyline. 

Fargo

In 1996, the Coen Brothers made a classic with the black comedy, Fargo. Across five seasons Noah Hawley has built on the filmmakers’ vision with an anthology series that takes place in a new location, era and with a new cast of characters each time. While the Fargo series has deep roots in its movie, it has become so much bigger and fuel for so much more storytelling. 

Killing Eve

BBC’s Killing Eve is based on Luke Jennings’ Villanelle, which was a series of novellas about a Russian orphan who is trained as a hitwoman and the MI5 agent who starts to catch her trail. While the series is a lot more character-driven than the much more procedural novels, the series goes beyond the source material in this context by only teasing the romance Eve and Villanelle have in the books. Fans are still mad at the finale years later! 

Good Omens 

The first season of Good Omens adapted Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 novel, however when it came to the second season, which came out four years after the initial series, moved away from simply telling the main events of the novel. The entire season was co-written by Neil Gaiman and allowed the world-renowned author to delve further into Michael Sheen’s Aziraphale and David Tennant’s Crowley stories. 

The Leftovers

HBO’s The Leftovers adapted the novel it's based on in its first season. Following its success, two more seasons were made for the supernatural fiction series about a global event that leaves 2 percent of the world’s population missing. Interestingly enough, the last two seasons were even more acclaimed than its debut season featuring the prime source material.  

The Witcher

Rather than Netflix adapting Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher fantasy novels, the differences are so major between the TV series and the source material that it feels a lot more like an inspiration for the series starring Henry Cavill than anything else. The popular series, also known for being a video game franchise, also inspired the 2022 spinoff The Witcher: Blood Origin.  

House of Cards

Netflix’s hit drama, House of Cards, was adapted from a BBC series and novel before it. However, in the case of the source material, the show was about politics in the United Kingdom. The series starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, however, took the material and adapted it to be set about U.S. politics, particularly regarding Frank Underwood’s ruthless race to become president. 

The Man In The High Castle

Philip K. Dick's 1962 novel The Man In The High Castle was adapted into an Amazon series across four seasons. Dick’s daughter, who was heavily involved in the series, told SYFY WIRE that she encouraged the writers to use the source material as an “inspiration and a spiritual guide” rather than a literal interpretation. That’s very much true for the science fiction storyline that imagines an alternate ending for World War II. 

The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is the source material for the Hulu hit starring Elisabeth Moss. While the first season leaves things where things wrap up in the book, the Emmy-winning series has continued to follow Offred’s life in the dystopian world past those events through four more seasons and is set to end with the sixth and final season. By building upon the story further, Offred and its other characters have had longer storylines that tell more than 300 pages could. 

Ted Lasso

Before AppleTV+ had a hit on their hands with Ted Lasso, its source material came from a very peculiar source. Jason Sudeikis’ beloved fictional coach came from the SNL alum being part of a slew of promotional coverage for NBC Sports’s coverage of England's Premier League. The streaming series very much went past where it started from given the storylines told across three seasons of the heartwarming comedy. 

The Haunting Of Hill House

Mike Flanagan beautifully adapted Shirley Jackson’s 1959 gothic horror novel, but at face value the two The Haunting Of Hill House titles are very different from one another. The source material mainly focuses on Eleanor (who Victoria Pedretti plays in the series) and her descent into madness whilst the show takes a deeper look into her entire family’s deep-seated trauma. 

Justified

FX’s Justified is based on the Elmore Leonard short story Fire In the Hole, allowing creators of the Western series to build out the world of the work across six seasons. Through Timothy Olyphant’s Raylan Givens, Justified allowed for Leonard’s ideas the author thought often “got the characters better” than he put to paper, per THR. 

The Magicians

Syfy’s series, The Magicians, is based on Lev Grossman’s trilogy of fantasy novels. While the source material certainly guides the storyline, it's told completely out of order and involves post-grad students rather than high schoolers. The series went on for five seasons. 

Bates Motel

One of the best horror movies of all time is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (also a novel), which became the inspiration for A&E’s Bates Motel. The five-season series told a contemporary story regarding the origin story of Norman Bates and his complicated relationship with his mother through the performances of Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga. 

13 Reasons Why 

Years prior to Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why being the subject of numerous controversies throughout its run, it began as a 2007 novel by Jay Asher about a high school freshman who shares the reasons why she died by suicide. The series went beyond the source material by making the story a lot longer and building out many more characters. For example, a major plotline of the show is Hannah’s parents decide to sue the school, which is not part of the novel at all.

What We Do In The Shadows

In 2014, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi offered a unique and rather hilarious take on vampires with What We Do In The Shadows. Years later, the duo decided to adapt their mockumentary further by making it into a TV show that went on for five seasons, ending in 2023. 

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off 

Over a decade after Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World adapted Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series, O’Malley decided to team up with Wright and Netflix to build upon the story in the format of an anime and reunite the original actors from the movie in the voice roles. The series follows Ramona Flowers trying to find a missing Scott Pilgrim. 

Ratched

Among Ryan Murphy’s many TV shows, he made a series out of Nurse Mildred Ratched, a character originally from Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and portrayed by Louise Fletcher in the 1975 movie adaptation. The series starring Sarah Paulson as the titular character depicts Ratched prior to the events of the original story. It was canceled after one season. 

The 100

The CW series, The 100, is based on the YA science fiction novel series by Kass Morgan. However, across the show’s seven seasons, it went beyond the source material by telling a much different story that took a more mature approach and focused a lot more on the survival element of the series. 

The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Mike Flanagan took inspiration from a myriad of Edgar Allan Poe short stories to bring together one storyline for his excellent Netflix horror show, The Fall of the House of Usher. The show pays tribute to the iconic author by telling a new story revolving around the Usher family, the CEO of a corrupt pharmaceutical company, as each member of the family starts to die one by one. 

The Night Manager

John le Carré’s 1993 espionage novel, The Night Manager was turned into a BBC miniseries starring Tom Hiddleston in 2016. As the author wrote in The Guardian at the time of its release, he spoke about the many changes from the source material, which at first took him aback but then had him saying he wishes he would have “written Mrs. Burr into my novel instead of her ponderous husband.” 

Under The Dome

Stephen King’s Under The Dome novel was turned into a CBS sci-fi series of the same name by Brian K. Vaughan, but was often talked about for being quite different from the source material. Back in 2013, King wrote on his website that he found the adaptation to be “very good” and was a “necessity” that he “approved of” “wholeheartedly.” 

Lessons In Chemistry 

Bonnie Garmus’ best-selling novel, Lessons In Chemistry was turned into a series starring Brie Larson to much success. While it’s a stunning adaptation fans of the book can appreciate, that’s particularly because the showrunner, Lee Eisenberg decided to not make it a straight adaptation and add some things the book didn’t have. One particularly great addition was the character development of Harriet Sloane, who is a black civil rights activist in the series rather than a 55-year-old white woman. 

The Haunting Of Bly Manor

Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting Of Bly Manor is an amalgamation of numerous great horror stories by Henry James, centrally through his novella Turn Of The Screw, but also through some other of his short stories like The Romance of Certain Old Clothes, The Beast in the Jungle and The Jolly Corner. Flanagan used the works as inspiration to tell a larger, new storyline about a young au pair who begins to witness hauntings as she takes care of two young children. 

The Midnight Club 

Christopher Pike famously wrote a ton of mystery-thrillers for young adults from the 80s and so on. For Mike Flanagan’s The Midnight Club, the filmmaker drew from over 20 of them to make the 10-episode Netflix series about a group of eight terminally ill young adults who form a storytelling club. 

So many series go beyond their source material, the question is whether they go too far. Most of these picks are well-loved TV shows that were made better by their additions!

They say mama knows best, but television has shown us time and time again that isn't always the case. Whether it's a show as sinister as Sons of Anarchy or one as innocent as Modern Family, there's no shortage of moms who don't give the best advice. I'm sure there are plenty of dads as well, to be sure, but that's not what we're here to talk about today. 

Moms make the world go round, but they're not infallible. The following are some shining examples of mothers who aren't always giving the best advice, though I'll concede that some give worse advice far more often than others. Let's dive in!

Roseanne

The point of Roseanne was that the Conners weren't picturesque parents, but they somehow made it work anyway. Pull up any old episode with a Peacock subscription, and you'll hear Roseanne giving some ill-informed advice. Her heart is always in the right place, though, and that's what matters. 

Cersei Lannister

If Cersei Lannister hadn't told her son Joffrey that anyone outside their family was an enemy, he wouldn't have turned into the despicable monster we witnessed on Game of Thrones. Cersei's twisted mindset ultimately led to Joffrey's death, and I don't think I need to bring up her other two children that didn't survive the series, either. 

Connie Tucker

Better known as Meemaw on Young Sheldon, some might not know that Connie Tucker's daughter is Mary Cooper even if they saw them side by side. Between her underground gambling operation in the backroom of the laundromat, and the time she got her grandson Georgie arrested while bootlegging cigarettes across the border, she's not the best role model. 

Linda Belcher

Linda Belcher has her own issues she picked up during her upbringing, and she's instilled some of those values in her children. Encouraging Tina and Louise to cheat in school rather than do the work is a great example, and a hilarious lesson that makes this one of the best animated shows of all time. 

Norma Bates

I think it's possible that if your son turns out to be a mass murderer, you might've had a couple of missteps in instilling some advice. Norma Bates certainly had an unhealthy relationship with her son, and her general advice not to trust other women not only led to their deaths, it eventually led to her own. 

Lucy Ricardo

I can't even imagine the shenanigans Little Ricky got up to having Lucy Ricardo as his mother. The I Love Lucy character was always getting into hijinks, and landed herself in quite a bit of trouble with her various schemes from time to time. It's hard to imagine she didn't cook up some shenanigans with her son, and landed him in some trouble as well. 

Bonnie Plunkett

Bonnie Plunkett being an imperfect mother was more or less the point of Mom, as the recovering addict helped her daughter, Christy, work through her own recovery. She wasn't the best mother during Christy's upbringing, and she made her mistakes during the series, too. That said, she does love her daughter, and the family she helped raise. 

Lois Griffin

You don't need to see more than ten minutes of a Family Guy episode to see that Lois Griffin isn't the best parent. That said, she's definitely changed throughout the series, and become almost as unhinged as Peter in recent episodes. 

Skyler White

Skyler White gets a lot of flak, considering Walter White was the true villain of Breaking Bad, but it's hard to not fault her from taking Walt Jr. and getting out of the drug ring operation the moment she became aware of it. Other than that she was a good mother, but that one mistake is pretty hard to overlook. 

Kitty Forman

Whether it was That '70s Show or That '90s Show, Kitty Forman had a knack for instilling some bad to occasionally twisted advice to teenagers with a heavy dose of sugar. It's hard not to love her anyway, despite that, and the characters were so iconic that it's always worth keeping tabs on what Debra Jo Rupp and the rest of the That '70s Show cast is up to now. 

Cookie Lyon

I can honestly say that Cookie's decision-making and advice is no worse than any other member of the Lyon family in Empire, but they all make some terrible decisions. Between her spitefulness and scheming, she landed her sons in some sticky situations, some of which were more than a little dangerous. 

Betty Draper

Mad Men's Betty Draper might have the worst maternal instincts of any other TV mom on this list. Unfortunately, a lot of the ways she brought up their children was likely inspired by her own childhood, and gave many viewers the impression she disliked them or didn't care about them. 

Marge Simpson

I would say that, for the most part, Marge Simpson is a great mom. The Simpsons' matriarch does have her moments, however, and in those chaotic times can impart some bad advice. Perhaps the worst was telling her children to aim low in life as to not disappoint others, which seems like terrible advice for Bart, in particular. 

Joyce Byers

Joyce Byers has had a rough number of years, so it feels unfair to judge her based on the last time we saw her in Stranger Things. With that said, she was barely holding the homefront down and seemingly only had bad haircuts to hand out to the teens as they all dealt with life. 

Catelyn Stark

The Seven Kingdoms takedown of the Stark family was pretty wild, but Catelyn's campaign to avenge her husband might've led to some tactical missteps on her own end. Let's not forget the trauma we all endured watching the Red Wedding, which she had a part in.

Jessica Huang

Jessica Huang is a fantastic tv mom, but she also has a way of getting things done that may not always be the best way of doing things. She can be crafty and devious, but almost everything she ever does is out of love for her sons and family. 

Selina Meyer

Veep's Selina Meyer progressively gets more unsympathetic throughout the series, but her parenting skills may make some people dislike her from the start. Pushing her daughter into ending relationships due to political optics for her own career is just one of many ways she was a bad parent to come to with a problem. 

Wendy Byrde

When you loop your children into your operation of laundering drug money for the cartel, you're bound to give a lot of bad parenting advice along the way. Wendy doles out plenty of bad advice throughout the course of Ozark, making her one of the worst offenders on the list. 

Malory Archer

Malory Archer wasn't the best mother to her child, Sterling, and her self-centered nature and skewed view of the world due to her extreme wealth made her even worse to come to for advice. With that said, it's a bit ironic that her line "Do you want ants? That's how you get ants," is some great advice fans frequently reference. 

Claire Dunphy 

Claire Dunphy's advice to her children, at times, could come off as controlling. There are definitely points in Modern Family where her advice is molded by what she would like her children to do, rather than what is best for them. Her advice to Haley about not living in the past when Dylan came back into her life feels like a great example.  

Benny Lopez

George Lopez's mother, Benny, often created more problems for him than not on The George Lopez Show, and from what we know about his upbringing, she wasn't a great mother. Part of this was due to the fact Benny was also raised by bad parents, but fortunately, George was able to break the cycle and be able to overcome the mistakes of his upbringing despite his mother's poor advice. 

Sophia Petrillo

Sophia Petrillo doled out countless pieces of advice to her daughter and roommates on The Golden Girls, and I would say a good chunk of it was solid. Sophia is a wildcard, however, and occasionally, some of her advice was informed by her occasionally reckless lifestyle, which made it less useful to the women, but hilarious for viewers. 

Francine Smith

Francine Smith gives out tons of bad advice, but given the kookiness that can go down on American Dad, it's hard to fault her for it. Sometimes, you just gotta train your son to fight a school bully when you've had about two-hundred, or "two-fiddy," battles of your own back in the day. 

Dr. Beverly Hofstadter

The Big Bang Theory plays Leonard's relationship with his mother for laughs a lot, but the fact that she treated her child more as a test subject and imparted advice that crushed his self-confidence and shaped his anxiety definitely makes her one of the worst mothers on the list. Despite that, they do reconcile, if only because she felt like him marrying Penny was something he did right for once. 

Gemma Teller-Morrow

Gemma Teller-Morrow never had to drag her son into the life of motorcycles, guns, and crime, but every time Jax tried to leave she pulled him back. I think it's more than fair to say Gemma was driven by her own interests and would actively work against any others, which led to quite a few times where she offered bad advice. 

Evelyn Harper

Two And A Half Men's Evelyn Harper was a terrible mother, and in the small number of times she'd actually parent her sons, she had a litany of bad advice. Some would argue her upbringing is what led both Alan and Charlie to have such dysfunctional relationships with women, which I totally get. 

Livia Soprano

Livia Soprano gave out her fair share of bad advice, and even worse, tried to push it off like she was innocent in it all. Her subtly pushing Uncle Junior to put out a hit on Tony is just one of the moments that makes The Sopranos one of the best shows streaming on Max. 

Lucille Bluth

Neither Lucille or George Bluth were great parents when their kids were growing up, and that continued when they turned into adults. Whether it's her business advice to her children or the coddling of Buster, it's surprising the Arrested Development matriarch wasn't treated like a child more than the actual teens.  

Peg Bundy

Peg Bundy's parenting style was just about as outrageous as her clothing choices, but there's no denying she loved her kids. The mom from Married...with Children bucked just about every cultural norm of the traditional housewife, and wasn't the best at giving out advice. In her defense, she owned it, and never claimed to be someone she was not. 

Briana Barksdale

Not many mothers would convince their sons to not tell on drug dealers if it meant they'd spend a considerable time behind bars. Brianna Barksdale from The Wire isn't most people, however, and was able to convince her son, D'Angelo, to do just that rather than to sell the operation out to the authorities. She also managed to pull him back into the business when he'd try to pull away, so she's not winning mother of the year awards any time soon. 

Marie Barone

Raymond's mother, Marie, was number one at meddling, and would even use her advice as opportunities to conspire against her daughter-in-law, Debra. It seemed like Marie was always working an angle to get what she wanted, and she was not above doling out bad advice if it got her that much closer to the goal she ultimately had. 

Monica Gallagher

Monica Gallagher wasn't around her children often in Shameless, but did try to give advice with the best intentions. Unfortunately, someone in her position wasn't really able to always give the best advice even if she meant well, and the children often ended up trusting themselves more than their mother.  

As I mentioned before, some moms are better than others, and no mom is perfect. I'd reckon that, provided someone is at least making sure they aren't in line with the worst offenders on this list, they're doing a solid job. 

Peacock is one of many streaming services that has popped up over the last few years, providing plenty of content for those who are fans of both NBC shows as well as brand new original programming, too. While there are plenty of awesome things to watch with a Peacock subscription, these are personally what I would consider some of the best shows that the site has to offer, all of which are streaming on Peacock right now, as of June 2022. 

The Office (2005-2013)

The Office is a popular sitcom that features a group of employees at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where they have to live their day to day work lives with their less-than-amazing, but okay-ish boss, Michael Scott. 

The Office has truly withstood the test of time as one of the most popular sitcoms ever, with a devoted fan base even now that it’s been off the air for nearly a decade. There are adorable relationships, including the famous Jim and Pam romance, some hysterical moments that will truly make you laugh, and an incredible The Office cast who are some of the best the TV world has to offer. This show is one of NBC’s best. 

Stream The Office on Peacock.

Bel-Air (2022 - Present)

A Peacock original, Bel-Air, which is based on the iconic Will Smith-starring sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, is a dramatic retelling of the story of Will (Jabari Banks) from Philadelphia, who, after getting into a fight, is sent off to live with his rich relatives in a mansion in Bel-Air, California in the hope that having more opportunities will keep him out of trouble. 

While some would say that the show may take itself too seriously considering the original series was a much more lighthearted comedy, I personally love Bel-Air as a fan of the original, and can’t wait for Season 2. 

Stream Bel-Air on Peacock.

Psych (2006-2014)

In this hilarious sitcom, Psych follows sleuth Shawn Spencer (James Roday), who is able to con his way into work with his local police department when he fools them into believing he is a psychic. Now, it’s up to him and his best friend to solve these mysteries, despite him not actually having any strange powers. With several movies as well, and a plethora of running jokes, Psych is a hilarious show to watch. 

Stream Psych on Peacock.

Baking It (2021)

If you want a feel-good baking show, check out Baking It. Starring SNL alums Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg, this competition show puts several bakers against one another during the holiday season so they can win the ultimate prize: $50,000. 

Stream Baking It on Peacock.

Parks And Recreation (2009 - 2015)

Another classic NBC show, Parks and Recreation, starring Amy Poehler, is all about Leslie Knope who works at the Parks Department of Pawnee, and tries with all her might to bring about changes to her town, alongside her sometimes wacky co-workers. 

The Parks and Recreation cast is hilarious, filled with plenty of stars, and will surely make you laugh until your side hurts. There are so many amazing episodes that will either have you smiling so wide that your face will grow sore, or have you crying so hard that your chest will hurt (happy cries, I swear). Either way, Parks and Recreation is amazing, and if you haven’t watched it yet, be sure to do so. There’s even a reunion out now, as well, with a ton of cameos. 

Stream Parks and Recreation on Peacock.

We Are Lady Parts (2021- Present)

Next is We Are Lady Parts. In this sitcom, we follow a group of Muslim women in England who have come together to form a punk band, watching as they attempt to not only succeed in the music industry but in their own personal lives, as well, one funny and sometimes heart-warming scenario at a time. 

Stream We Are Lady Parts on Peacock.

One Of Us Is Lying (2021)

The next Peacock original on this list is One Of Us Is Lying. Based on the novel of the same name, we see five students who never crossed paths beforehand end up in detention one Saturday afternoon - but only four emerge. Now, we're presented with a mystery as we try to find out which one is lying about the death of one of their classmates. 

Stream One Of Us Is Lying on Peacock.

Yellowstone (2018 - Present)

The incredibly popular TV series, Yellowstone, is a neo-Western that follows the story of the Dutton family, the people who won the largest ranch in Montana, called “the Yellowstone.” Through four seasons (with a fifth releasing as part of the 2022 TV schedule later this year), we watch this family as they have conflicts with other ranch owners, the outside world, and more. 

Stream Yellowstone on Peacock.

The Blacklist (2013 - Present)

Next up, we have The Blacklist. This crime thriller starring James Spader follows Raymond “Red” Reddington, a criminal who ends up becoming an FBI informant when he reveals he has a list of the most dangerous criminals. With nine seasons, and already renewed for a tenth, this show will keep you interested all the way through. 

Stream The Blacklist on Peacock.

Bates Motel (2013 - 2017)

A spinoff of Psycho, the iconic Alfred Hitchcock film, Bates Motel tells the story of Norman and Norma Bates (Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga), and the twisted story behind their legendary Bates Motel, and how Norman became the killer that we all know today - and how his mother played a key role in his behavior. 

Stream Bates Motel on Peacock.

Girls5eva (2021 - Present)

Another Peacock original, Girls5eva is a musical comedy that follows the story of five women who were once a part of a one-hit wonder girl group. But now, years later after they have been on a hiatus for some time and all feeling like they could do more with their lives, they decide to come back together for their next big hit. With a stellar Girls5eva cast, this show features the musical and acting talent to back up the premise. 

Stream Girls5eva on Peacock.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013 - 2021)

Next up, we have Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In this popular series, Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) is a detective at the fictitious 99th Precinct in Brooklyn, NY, and often clashes with not only his co-workers, but his captain (Andre Braugher). 

This series has become a fan-favorite amongst many viewers, and honestly, I can see why, as there’s nothing quite like watching a group of detectives and cops try and pull off these incredible feats of police work and still somehow finding a way to make you laugh. With a hilarious Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast and some stellar comedic timing, this workplace comedy will become one of your favorite shows next. 

Stream Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Peacock.

Charmed (1998 - 2006)

If you’re looking for a magical fantasy series, check out the original Charmed. In this show, we follow a group of sisters known as The Charmed Ones, good witches whose main goal in life is to defeat those who perform evil magic, such as warlocks or demons. The original Charmed cast can’t be beat, and the drama and romances that evolve over its eight seasons are truly iconic. 

Stream Charmed on Peacock.

Killing It (2022 - Present)

Another Peacock original on here, Killing It stars comedian and actor Craig Robinson in one of his funniest roles yet. Playing Craig, he is looking to achieve what we all want in life - the American dream. So, in order to do so, he decides to enter the Florida Python Challenge so he can win $20,000, something that would change the man’s life. The only catch? He has to kill as many snakes as possible.

Stream Killing It on Peacock.

Dr. Death (2021)

The last Peacock original on this list, we take a look at Dr. Death. In this crime drama that is based on the podcast of the same name, we take a look at the very real career of doctor Christopher Duntsch, a neurosurgeon who was anything but a good man, becoming infamous over time for mutilating his patients - sometimes to the point where his surgeries killed them. Starring Joshua Jackson, this series is a dark but intriguing watch, and will have you on the edge of your seat.  

Stream Dr. Death on Peacock.

America’s Got Talent (2006 - Present)

Last but not least, we have the famous competition show that is now in Season 17, America’s Got Talent. Featuring a panel of judges currently consisting of Howie Mandel, Heidi Klum, Sophia Vergara, and Simon Cowell, we see the best of what America has to offer in terms of talent, whether that be singing and dancing to magic acts and dangerous feats of athleticism. 

There have been many famous winners of AGT who have gone on to do great things - could you be next? 

Stream America’s Got Talent on Peacock.

This is just the beginning of some of the best shows that Peacock has to offer, but if you’re looking for something to start off on when you get that Peacock subscription, these are my personal picks. Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going to go and re-watch The Office for the millionth time.  

How cool is it that Vera Farmiga is now a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since appearing in Disney+’s Hawkeye cast? The Academy Award nominated actress has already worked with legends like Martin Scorsese, has reigned supremely as a scream queen for years since starring in The Conjuring movies (among other films and TV shows), and now we might get her in more upcoming Marvel movies, potentially. 

There are plenty more titles we consider to be among the best Vera Farmiga movies and TV shows that are also available now on streaming or for digital rental. However, let’s get things started with her debut comic book adaptation role in one of the coolest Marvel TV shows on Disney+. 

Hawkeye (2021)

Looking to finally settle down and retire from being an Avenger (for the last time), Clint Barton (Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner) must partner-up with a young, aspiring archer (Academy Award nominee Hailee Steinfeld) to help him take on a nefarious foe and get back home to his family in time for Christmas.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga show: As Eleanor Bishop - the wealthy CEO of Bishop Security and mother of Hailee Steinfeld’s character, Kate Bishop - Vera Farmiga is one of several Oscar nominees in the cast of Hawkeye - the latest of Disney+’s action-packed MCU-canon TV series, and its most festive yet.  

Stream Hawkeye on Disney+.

The Conjuring (2013)

A distraught family enlists the help of married paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) to rid the old farm house they recently moved into of its malevolvent, demonic inhabitants in early 1970s Rhode Island.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: While Vera Farmiga was already known for a few notable horror titles (which we will get to soon), she started to became a modern icon of the genre after starring in director James Wan’s The Conjuring - one of the best haunted house movies in recent years - as real-life demonologist Lorraine Warren, whom she would reprise in four more films, so far.

Stream The Conjuring on Netflix.
Stream The Conjuring on HBO Max.
Rent/buy The Conjuring digitally on Amazon.

Orphan (2009)

After suffering a recent tragedy, a woman (Vera Farmiga) and her husband (Peter Sarsgaard) take in a precocious 9-year-old girl (Isabelle Fuhrmann) whom they are, at first, completely charmed by, until a darker side to her personality begins to emerge, leading the couple to question if there is more to their new daughter than meets than eye.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: One of Vera Farmiga’s first and best horror movies was Orphan - a strange and more frighteningly believable thriller than some of the actresses’ other contributions to the genre, from director Jaume Collet-Sera, which is often noted for its killer twist reveal.

Rent/buy Orphan digitally on Amazon.

Bates Motel (2013-2017)

As teenager Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) begins to grow closer to his mother (Vera Farmiga), his own psyche begins to unravel and reveal dark, deep-seated tendencies.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga show: In the same year The Conjuring made her a horror movie icon, Vera Farmiga resurrected one of horror’s most iconic characters with an Emmy-nominated performance as Norma Bates on Bates Motel - A&E’s arresting and disturbing hit series, which serves as a modernized prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Stream Bates Motel on Peacock.
Stream Bates Motel on IMDbTV.
Buy Bates Motel digitally on Amazon.

The Many Saints Of Newark (2021)

As young Tony Soprano (Michael Gandolfini) begins to grow closer to his uncle (Alessandro Nivola), a violent clash between rival Italian-American gangs emerges in New Jersey.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: Vera Farmiga resurrected one of cable TV’s most iconic characters with an inspired performance as Livia Soprano in The Many of Saints of Newark - a gritty, old school mafia picture that serves as a prequel to creator David Chase’s acclaimed HBO original series, The Sopranos.

The Many Saints Of Newark is currently available for Premium Digital Ownership at Amazon.

Up In The Air (2009)

An expert in corporate downsizing (Academy Award winner George Clooney) begins to question if his solitary life of constant air travel is what he really wants, when he meets a fellow frequent traveler (Vera Farmiga).

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: Vera Farmiga brought back George Clooney’s faith in humanity with an Oscar-nominated performance as Alex Goran in this adaptation of Walter Kirn’s novel, Up in the Air - one of the funniest and most inspiring dramedies from director Jason Reitman.

Stream Up In The Air on HBO Max.
Rent/buy Up In The Air digitally on Amazon.

The Departed (2006)

A young cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) endures an exhausting infiltration of South Boston’s Irish mafia, led by a ruthless criminal (Jack Nicholson), while a high-ranking detective (Matt Damon) struggles to keep his involvement in the same crew a secret.  

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: Vera Farmiga plays a psychiatrist who cannot help but fall for two men secretly hiding on opposite sides of the law in the 2007 Best Picture Oscar winner, The Departed - a thrilling English-language adaptation of the Chinese crime thriller Infernal Affairs, that also finally earned Martin Scorsese his first win for Best Director.

Stream The Departed on HBO Max.
Rent/buy The Departed digitally on Amazon.

The Commuter (2018)

On the same train that he has taken back and forth to work everyday for the past decade, a former cop turned insurance salesman (Liam Neeson) must wield the skills he used on the force when a stranger (Vera Farmiga) asks him to identify a certain passenger of interest, or this train ride could be his last.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: Reuniting with Orphan director Jaume Collet-Sera, and her fellow Conjuring cast member Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga had a brief but pivotal and memorably ominous role in The Commuter, which is a fun guilty pleasure for audiences who love to watch Liam Neeson do what he does best.

Rent/buy The Commuter digitally on Amazon.

The Front Runner (2018)

Colorado-based U.S. Senator Gary Hart (Academy Award nominee Hugh Jackman) sees his promising presidential campaign go up in flames after evidence of his extramarital affair with a young woman (Sara Paxton) evolves into a media frenzy.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: Reuniting with Up in the Air director Jason Reitman, and co-star J.K. Simmons, Vera Farmiga plays Oletha “Lee” Hart, the burdened wife of an adulterous politician, in The Front Runner, which tells the true story of one of the first highly publicized and most damaging political scandals in history.

Rent/buy The Front Runner digitally on Amazon.

Iron Jawed Angels (2004)

A group of young, ambitious activists (including Academy Award winner Hilary Swank) work tirelessly and not without costly sacrifices to secure the right for women to vote and run for office in early 1900s America.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: Speaking of true stories in groundbreaking political history, Vera Farmiga plays Polish-American suffragist and dedicated National Women’s Party member Rusa Wenclawska in the HBO original movie, Iron Jawed Angels - an inspiring, stylistically unique, Emmy-nominated retelling one of the most important movements in the name of social justice.

Stream Iron Jawed Angels on HBO Max.

When They See Us (2019)

A group of five, racially diverse men from Harlem spend a quarter of a century fighting to prove their innocence after, as teenagers, they become wrongfully accused of brutally and sexually assaulting a white woman in New York City’s Central Park in 1989.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga show: Speaking of social justice, Vera Farmiga plays Elizabeth Lederer (a former New York assistant DA who led the prosecution in the Central Park Five case) in one of 2019's best Netflix original shows, When They See Us - creator and director Ava DuVernay’s heart-wrenching, Emmy-winning retelling of one of the most infamous cases in American history.

Stream When They See Us on Netflix.

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas (2008)

After moving from Berlin, Germany, to a European countryside, an 8-year-old boy (Asa Butterfield) starts a friendship with a boy his age who lives on the side of a fence surrounding a Nazi concentration camp, which his father (David Thewlis) happens to be the commandant for.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: Speaking of infamous history, Vera Farmiga plays the mother of a young boy who learns about the horrifying events of the Holocaust from an inside source in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - writer and director Mark Herman’s captivating and heartbreaking adaptation of John Boyne’s historical fiction novel.

Rent/buy The Boy In The Striped Pajamas digitally on Amazon.

Source Code (2011)

An Army captain (Academy Award nominee Jake Gyllenhaal) is selected to participate in a special program that inserts him into the body of a terrorist-bombing victim just minutes before his death, in order to gather information about the culprit.

Why it’s a great Vera Farmiga movie: Vera Farmiga plays an Air Force captain who communicates with Jake Gyllenhaal’s character about his special task in Source Code - the sophomore effort from Moon director Duncan Jones, and one of the most clever and entertaining sci-fi movies of its time.

Stream Source Code on Showtime.
Rent/buy Source Code digitally on Amazon.

As far as I am concerned, Vera Farmiga is one of the most talented and versatile actors of our time. We just provided you 13 examples of evidence to back up that claim. 

You Season 3 may be the best one yet. It gave us a killer You Season 3 ending and plenty of questions going into You Season 4. If you’re like me then you’re probably having major Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) withdrawal. Luckily for us, there are several movies and shows like You. 

You Season 3 and the seasons prior have captured our attention and admiration because it’s a complex series that makes it easy to digest. It’s super funny at times, really dark at others, and has the audience rooting for essentially the villain. You strikes that rare balance of creating a villain that is both sympathetic and despicable. Sometimes you want Joe to find happiness, sometimes you want him caught and punished (Joe definitely isn’t the only one that needs therapy). 

It’s not an easy task to accomplish but You makes it look effortless, and You isn’t the only TV show or movie to accomplish this task. So, we have a few suggestions for movies and shows like You to help you wait for the Netflix hit series’ return.

Dexter (Showtime)

Dexter follows Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a man who lives a secret life of hunting and killing murderers. It aired on Showtime from 2006 to 2013. People often compare Dexter and You because of the similar premise of a serial killer that you grow to like. That’s why Dexter is a great show to watch to fill that You gap in your TV-binging schedule. It’s also fun to watch to imagine a world where Dexter and Joe meet. 

The Dexter revival premieres on November 7, so now is the perfect time to binge-watch the original series before the limited series begins. 

Stream Dexter on Showtime.

Gone Girl (Hulu)

Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike) has gone missing and her husband Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) is the main suspect. Did Nick kill his wife or is there more to their story? Gone Girl is based on Gillian Flynn’s book of the same name. The book and the movie are so much better if you go into it only knowing the basic premise. 

Gone Girl is a masterful tale of marriage, and what happens when it starts to become toxic and reaches the point of no return. Nick and Amy could definitely give Love (Victoria Pedretti) and Joe a run for their money in the marriage with issues awards. 

Stream Gone Girl on Hulu.
Rent/Buy Gone Girl on Amazon. 

Killing Eve (Hulu)

Killing Eve stars Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer. Oh plays Eve, a woman who becomes obsessed with a female assassin named Villanelle (Jodie Comer). Killing Eve has aired three seasons with a fourth and final one expected in 2022. 

Villanelle, like Joe, has some major issues. Unlike Joe, she’s fully aware and proud that she’s a ruthless killer. Despite her murderous ways, viewers can’t help but be drawn to Comer’s Villanelle. She’s one of Jodie Comer’s best characters so far and one of Oh’s must-watch performances.

Stream Killing Eve on Hulu. 
Buy Killing Eve on Amazon.

Primal Fear (Amazon)

Primal Fear follows defense attorney  Martin Vail (Richard Gere) as he tries to help prove an alter boy, Aaron Stampler's (Edward Norton), innocence. The film is one that keeps you guessing the entire time, sometimes you think you know whether Aaron is guilty or innocent, but you don’t get the real answer until the Primal Fear ending.

Primal Fear was Norton’s film acting debut, and he showed the world that he would be one to watch. Joe and Aaron are both figures that people can’t quite figure out, and when they do, it may be too late. 

Rent/Buy Primal Fear on Amazon.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile (Netflix)

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is Netflix’s movie about Ted Bundy, starring Zac Efron. The film dives into how Bundy was able to charm his way to murdering numerous women and even through the court system. Zac Efron gives one of his best performances in this true crime-based film. 

Penn Badgley often discusses how he’s not a fan of Joe and doesn’t like his character being romanticized. As seemingly harmless as it is to lust after Joe, a fictional serial killer, Bundy in his day had a lot of female admirers. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile also shows that to some degree, including with his old friend turned wife Carole Ann Boone (Kaya Scodelario). Joe and Bundy have a lot more in common than some fans care to admit. 

Stream Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile on Netflix. 

Hannibal (Hulu)

Not to be confused with the movie Hannibal and all the Hannibal Lecter films that came before and after it, Hannibal the TV show follows the same character of Hannibal Lecter played by Mads Mikkelsen as he begins a cat and mouse game with Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). The series is based on Thomas Harris’ novels Red Dragon, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising. 

NBC aired Hannibal for three seasons, from 2013 to 2015. You fans may enjoy Hannibal because it’s another show that allows the serial killer to shine by making him complex, compelling, and a constant source of calculated maneuvers. 

Stream Hannibal on Hulu.
Buy Hannibal on Amazon. 

The End Of The F***ing World (Netflix) 

The End of the F***ing World follows James (Alex Lawther) and Alyssa (Jessica Barden) as they run off together. Alyssa sees James as a possible escape from her life, and James sees Alyssa as a possible victim because he believes he’s a psychopath. Despite the premise, The End of the F***ing World may be one of the more wholesome shows on the list.

It’s definitely not a wholesome series, but you kind of forget all the bad stuff and just enjoy it as an adventure story /coming of age/romantic comedy. The End of the F***ing World may capture You fans attention because if you’re one of those You fans who just wants Joe to give up killing people, find a nice girl, and settle down, then you’ll sadly be disappointed. However, James may be a nice alternative if Joe’s romantic happiness is a big priority to you. The End of the F***ing World aired for two seasons.

Stream The End of the F***ing World on Netflix. 
Buy The End of the F***ing World on Amazon. 

Bates Motel (Amazon Prime Video)

Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore star as the infamous mother and son duo in Bates Motel. The A&E original series told the origin story of one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous villains: Norman Bates. Highmore and Farmiga played Norman and Norma Bates. 

Farmiga and Highmore gave us five seasons of superb acting. Both of them were consistently robbed of deserved Emmy wins. The entire Bates Motel team deserved more praise and accolades than they received. Bates Motel and You both showcased boys whose relationship with their mother began their spiral into serial killing. Netflix’s You and Bates Motel also share in their effortlessness when it comes to blending intense drama with comedy.

Stream Bates Motel on Amazon Prime.
Buy Bates Motel on Amazon. 

The Fall (Amazon Prime)

The Fall follows Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan), a family man by day, a serial killer by night. Gillian Anderson plays DSU Stella Gibson, the woman trying to find and stop Paul from his crimes. The Fall aired for three seasons from 2013 to 2016. Paul doesn’t nearly have the same charm as Joe, but both men have issues that usually result in them killing women.

Paul and Stella are both interesting characters in their own right, but some of the appeal of The Fall is wanting to see  Stella and Paul finally meet, and then her take him down.  The final season allows viewers to see if Stella will finally take down Paul or if he’ll continue to kill.

Stream The Fall on Amazon Prime.
Buy The Fall on Amazon.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tubi)

If there is one thing you can count on, Sweeney Todd will give you the closest shave you've ever had. The 2007 adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s beloved musical reunites director Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, and Johnny Depp. Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street tells the tale of a man wrongfully convicted and exiled, who then returns to London and Fleet Street to get revenge on the town and Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), the man who falsely convicted him. 

Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) is a ruthless serial killer, but you kind of get why he’s slicing people up and putting them in Ms. Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) meat pies. You and Sweeney Todd both portray serial killers that cause you to question your own sense of morality, especially since Sweeney Todd has so many catchy songs.

Stream Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on Tubi
Rent/Buy Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on  Amazon. 

The Following (Amazon)

Kevin Williamson created The Following, a series about serial killer Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) and the FBI agent, Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) trying to stop him. Throughout the series, The Following introduces more and more of Carroll’s cult members. The show makes it easy for viewers to grow to like some of these cult members.

However, the series also does a good job of reminding viewers that they’re ruthless killers who don’t deserve your devotion and sympathy. You and The Following share in their ability to make you grow attached to those you should root against.

Buy The Following on Amazon. 

Rectify (Amazon Prime)

Rectify is the story of a man who spends nearly 20 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of killing his girlfriend as a teen. He’s released when DNA evidence proves his innocence. The series stars Aden Young, Abigail Spencer, J. Smith-Cameron, Adelaide Clemens, Clayne Crawford, and Luke Kirby.

Rectify may be an odd choice for this list, but Rectify often makes you unsure of Daniel (Aden Young)’s innocence. You aren’t sure if he is really a man wrongfully convicted, or a monster hiding beneath. Through Rectify’s four seasons, you grow attached to Daniel, but constantly on edge of what could happen. 

Stream Rectify on Amazon Prime. 
Buy Rectify on Amazon. 

You may be done with You Season 3, but you have plenty of movies and TV shows like You to watch from this list. 

Spoilers ahead for Season 4, Episode 15 of S.W.A.T. “Local Heroes.”

This week’s episode of S.W.A.T. featured a Sons of Anarchy reunion and the return of Luca’s brother, Terry. Kenny Johnson, who portrays the S.W.A.T. officer Dominic Luca, was more than excited to reunite with his Sons of Anarchy bestie Ryan Hurst, who initially played Terry Luca in a couple of Season 3 episodes last year. Hurst returned for Episode 415, and the actors couldn’t help but share adorably cheesy social media posts about it.

Kenny Johnson and Ryan Hurst first worked together on FX’s Sons of Anarchy, where Hurst was part of the main cast as the fan-favorite Opie Winston, with Johnson recurring as Herman Kozik in just over a dozen of the 92 total episodes. The pair next worked together on Bates Motel beginning in Season 3, where both Hurst's Chick and Johnson's Caleb were quite distinct characters. Fast forward to the present and they are working together yet again on CBS’ S.W.A.T., inspiring Hurst to reminisce on Instagram about the first two times they worked together.

Although this isn’t the first time Ryan Hurst has guest starred on S.W.A.T. as Terry, the reunion was definitely a surprise, and only went half-widely public a few days before it aired. The last time we saw freelance stringer reporter Terry, he nearly risked his life to get footage of dangerous gang leaders, which was not great on Luca’s part, as he was just trying to coordinate his team’s mission. In this week’s episode, it was revealed that Terry quit his job and Luca is tired of his brother’s behavior. Family is tough when you're on the job, and while Luca and Terry’s relationship on screen is a complicated one, Kenny Johnson and Ryan Hurst’s relationship off screen is a special one:

The two actors have worked together quite a lot over the years, and their friendship proves how close they are. While friends in the business come and go, especially if you work with a lot of people, there are just those few that stick with you through thick and thin, and working on three shows and counting together, Kenny Johnson can’t help but praise his friend:

With Season 5 of S.W.A.T. already being prepared, there’s hope that Terry will return and we’ll get to see more of that dynamic between him and Luca. Plus, it would be wonderful seeing Kenny Johnson and Ryan Hurst together on screen again. Or perhaps, in a completely different project. Whatever the case, it’s obvious that the two of them always have a blast together:

S.W.A.T.’s nearing the end of Season 4, and the stories this season have gone beyond what’s been told before. (Can't get all that screentime, Shemar Moore's Hondo!) Any story that digs deeper into these characters is meaningful, especially if the actors have a relationship and energy that perfectly reflect on the screen. Even the S.W.A.T. writers’ room is praising Kenny Johnson and Ryan Hurst for their performance:

Even though there’s no telling when and if Ryan Hurst will return to S.W.A.T., there is another Sons of Anarchy reunion he was recently part of. He starred in Amazon’s Paradise City, which also starred S.O.A’s Mark Boone Jr. and Drea de Matteo. The series premiered last March and is a continuation of the 2017 film American Satan.

Imagine the horrifying irony of seeking treatment for your own mental health only to discover that the person providing care for you is the one who really needs help. That is a vague but fitting description for the story of Ratched, a which pulls back the curtain on the early years of one of the most notoriously wicked medical professionals in the history of fiction and stars Emmy-winning actress Sarah Paulson, perfectly cast as the sadistic titular psychiatric nurse.

The Netflix original series from co-creators Ryan Murphy and Evan Romanky, which takes place at a major mental hospital in California during the late 1940s, has already been confirmed for a second season upon its initial order. This has good news for fans have already been going cuckoo over Season 1 for its breathtakingly noirish aesthetic, deliciously creepy vibes, shocking twists, and, of course, Sarah Paulson’s hypnotic performance as Mildred Ratched.

As fans await the premiere of Season 2 of Ratched, which is bound to take a while with how Covid-19 has affected the shooting schedules of many notable film and television productions, they may be scrambling to find anything else involving the same kind of sinister tone and psychologically disturbing themes which they can bide their time with. Fortunately, we may have just the right assortment of movies and TV shows currently available on most of your favorite streaming services to prescribe for the occasion. The following 11 programs should help put your mind at ease, starting with the film that first introduced audiences to Nurse Ratched.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Netflix)

After criminal R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) pleads insanity to avoid a prison sentence, he winds up confined to a mental institution where he leads a rebellion against the torment of an abusive staff nurse.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: The abusive nurse in question is Mildred Ratched, brought to life in an Academy Award-winning performance by Louise Fletcher, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - director Milos Forman’s masterful adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel which Ratched serves as a prequel to.

Stream One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on Netflix here.

American Horror Story (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime)

A family haunted by their new home’s infamous past, a group of women hoping to be named the supreme practicer of witchcraft, and a hotel whose guests rarely make it to checkout are just a few of the grisly, surreal, and, sometimes, even sexy tales each told over the course of a season (of which there are nine total, so far) in this mega-hit anthology series.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: Audiences who may have been unfamiliar with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest were probably just excited to see Sarah Paulson in a new sinister role on a show from Ryan Murphy, co-creator of American Horror Story, whose sophomore season, subtitled Asylum, should be especially helpful in giving fans some chilling Ratched vibes.

Stream American Horror Story on Netflix here, on Hulu here, or on Amazon Prime here.

Glass (HBO Max)

A man with superhuman powers (Bruce Willis), a brilliant, but disabled comic book aficionado (Samuel L. Jackson), and a mental patient (James McAvoy) whose most dangerous split personality is about to re-emerge are faced with the possibility that their extraordinary abilities may be merely a delusion.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: One of the most crucial elements of 2019’s Glass, M. Night Shyamalan’s third and final installment of his own superhero saga that began in 2000 with Unbreakable and surprisingly continued in 2017 with Split, is Sarah Paulson’s role as a psychiatrist tasked with convincing the three main characters of their psychological hang-ups, putting her in a similar category with Miss Ratched.

Stream Glass on HBO Max here.

Bates Motel (Netflix)

A single mother ’s (Vera Farmiga) bond with her teenage son (Freddie Highmore) evolves to extremely uncomfortable levels, not counting their own homicidal tendencies, which tend to mean trouble for guests of their Oregon Motel.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: Before Mildred Ratched got her own prequel series, Bates Motel set out to explore psychological unraveling of fellow iconic movie villain Norman Bates (the murderous mama’s boy from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece, Psycho) over the course of five deeply unnerving seasons.

Stream Bates Motel on Netflix here.

American Mary (Tubi)

Desperate for money, a young medical student (Katherine Isabelle) is lured into the world of underground surgeries, in which she performs unlicensed and inhuman procedures of body modification on some unsuspecting clients.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: While the feature-length directorial debut of identical twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska may have more shockingly brutal depictions of torture than even the sadistic Nurse Ratched is prone to, the title character of American Mary has the same kind of sinister attitude that easily earns her a spot among cinema’s most fearsome women in a hospital uniform.

Stream American Mary on Tubi here.

Castle Rock (Hulu)

The citizens of a small town in Maine are often plagued by tragedy, which typically are connected to some unexplainable phenomena, such as inter-dimensional travel and reincarnation to name a few.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: Yet another fearsome woman in film known for her unorthodox medical practices is Annie Wilkes (portrayed to Oscar-winning glory by Kathy Bates in 1990’s Misery), who got a prequel of her own in the second season of Castle Rock (this time starring Lizzy Caplan as the disgraced nurse and literary obsessive), a Hulu exclusive anthology series set in the titular fictional town created by Stephen King.

Stream Castle Rock on Hulu here.

Unsane (Amazon Prime)

Still struggling to recover from her encounter with an obsessed stalker, a woman (Claire Foy) finds herself involuntarily committed to a mental institution whose staff claims that she is the crazy one.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: The real stand-out performance of Unsane, an intense psychological thriller filmed entirely on an iPhone 7 by director Steven Soderbergh himself, is Claire Foy as a reluctant mental patient fighting to prove her sanity, but without giving too much away, there is one staff member of the psychiatric hospital setting whose ethics are certainly questionable to say the least.

Stream Unsane on Amazon Prime here.

Hannibal (Netflix, Amazon Prime)

An FBI profiler (Hugh Dancy) who sees his ability to think like a serial killer more as curse than a blessing strikes up a hopeful friendship and professional relationship with an equally talented, but more charismatic, forensic psychiatrist (Mads Mikkelson) hiding a dark secret of his own.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: Here we have yet another TV series exploring the origins of a cinematic antagonist - in this case Hannibal Lecter, also the product of an Academy Award-winning performance (Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs), whose sneaky manipulation of Will Graham coupled with oddly beautiful depictions of otherwise grisly crime scenarios make this short-lived, but much-loved NBC drama as much a work of art as horror comes.

Stream Hannibal on Netflix here or on Amazon Prime here.

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (Netflix)

A surgeon (Colin Farrell) offers to be a figure of guidance to a teenage boy (Barry Keoghan) who was recently orphaned by an operation gone wrong, but soon begins to regret the act of kindness after introducing him to his own family.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: The abuse, both emotional and psychological, that Nurse Ratched torments her patients with is genuinely unsettling, but the way that writer and director Yorgos Lanthimos turns that dynamic on its head in The Killing of a Secret Deer is even more shocking to imagine and even worse to witness.

Stream The Killing of a Sacred Deer on Netflix here.

Damien (Hulu)

After learning the startling truth of his origin after he turns 30, a young man (Bradley James) struggles to come to terms with his destiny as the Anti-Christ.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: For our final example of a spin-off focusing on a legendary icon of horror cinema, we have this short-lived series from former The Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara that reimagines the character of Damien Thorn, whom you may recognize as the creepy little devil-spawn from The Omen, a Richard Donner-directed classic of hellish proportions.

Stream Damien on Hulu here.

Girl, Interrupted (Amazon Prime)

By her parents’ choice, an 18-year-old woman (Winona Ryder) is sent to a psychiatric hospital where her struggle to understand and cope with her disorder is strained after becoming acquainted with a reckless patient (Angelina Jolie in an Academy Award-winner role) in the 1960s.

Why It Is A Great Option For Fans Of Ratched: While there is good amount of emotional strife and nurse-patient conflict to boot, director James Mangold’s 1999 adaptation of Susana Kaysen’s memoir Girl, Interrupted is actually one of the more endearing and inspiring dramas set at a mental institution you will ever see and a good palette cleanser from the deranged and upsetting things you will witness in the previously mentioned titles.

Stream Girl, Interrupted on Amazon Prime here.

What do you think? Are these the kind of movies and TV shows that your least favorite fictional nurse would recommend, or these a little too tame for Mildred Ratched’s taste? Let us know in the comments and be sure to check back for more information and updates on this thrilling Netflix series, as well as even more recommendations of what else you should look for on your favorite streaming platforms, here on CinemaBlend.

Remember when a family drama was defined as a series about a family of good-natured people struggling to overcome the obstacles of their environment? Well, considering the popularity of Ozark, starring Jason Bateman as the father of a family laundering money for a Mexican drug cartel, that definition is a rarity now.

The Golden Globe-nominated Netflix original hit is one of a longstanding trend of dramas that are now about seemingly good-natured people struggling to overcome the consequences of their self-destructive tendencies. There is something so addicting about watching despicable low-lives fixing to prolong a squeaky-clean reputation, and Ozark is just one example.

As you wait to see more of Jason Bateman and Laura Linney’s “money problems” when Ozark returns to Netflix on March 27, if you are dying to indulge in more family drama -- in some cases, at its criminally darkest -- allow us to help you narrow down your search. These are 11 recommendations that make This Is Us look like Leave It to Beaver.

Bates Motel (Netflix)

Alfred Hitchcock shocked the world with one of the most unsettling killers in cinematic history, Norman Bates, portrayed by Anthony Perkins in the filmmaker’s adaptation of Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho. Inspired by Ed Gein (like many onscreen slashers were), you have to wonder how a guy got so messed up to commit murder while impersonating his dead mother.

Bates Motel, a modern day-set prequel to Psycho, makes the typically ill-fated attempts to answer that question, but instead makes for some deliciously dark and exquisitely performed storytelling. The series, which ran for five seasons on A&E, chronicles the uncomfortably close mother-son relationship between Norma (Vera Farmiga) and teenage Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore), who own and operate an old Oregon motel where check-out time ends up coming too early for some guests. Stream it on Netflix here.

Bloodline (Netflix)

What earns someone the right to call themselves a good person? How far will someone go to protect their right to call themselves “good” and protect their family from a fate behind bars? Sometimes, people take it too far.

Behind the beautiful walls of their famous Florida Keys inn, the wealthy Rayburns are hiding dark secrets that even Sheriff John Rayburn (Friday Night Lights alum Kyle Chandler) will do anything to keep from getting out. The highly acclaimed Netflix series Bloodline, which ran for three seasons, earned a Golden Globe nomination for Ben Mendehlson’s performance as Danny Rayburn, the black sheep of the family whose return home gives their lavish existence an expiration date. Stream it on Netflix here.

Boardwalk Empire (HBO NOW)

For as good as the fictionalized criminal endeavors of Ozark do get, we understand that some of its biggest fans may also have a special soft spot for true crime. What might do the trick is this scripted HBO drama inspired by those who went to dangerous lengths all for a drink in the early 20th Century.

Boardwalk Empire stars Golden Globe-winner Steve Buscemi as Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, based on real-life Atlantic City politician Enoch “Nucky” Johnson who was convicted in 1941 for conspiring with the Mob to smuggle alcohol during the Prohibition Era, an alliance that also involved gambling and prostitution. Martin Scorsese serves as executive producer of this series that unveils the dark secrets of one of the most controversial periods in America’s history. Stream it on HBO NOW here.

Breaking Bad (Netflix)

If you are a fan of Ozark, you are probably already a fan of this revolutionary AMC hit. In fact, I would be willing to bet that the reason you started watching Ozark was because of all the comparisons to Breaking Bad it received when it first premiered on Netflix. Well, I certainly cannot blame you for that.

When high school chemistry teacher Walter White (a four-time Emmy-winning performance by Bryan Cranston) is diagnosed with lung cancer, he teams up with former student Jesse Pinkman (a three-time Emmy-winning performance by Aaron Paul) to start a methamphetamine manufacturing operation in an effort to make money to leave to his family. Breaking Bad cemented creator, and former The X-Files writer, Vince Gilligan as one of television’s most brilliant, and demented, storytellers by chronicling White’s fascinating metamorphosis from simple family man to ruthless criminal mastermind over five seasons. Once your addictive binge is cured, be sure to check out Netflix’s feature-length follow-up that puts Jesse in driver’s seat, El Camino. Stream it on Netflix here.

Colony (Netflix)

The intriguing irony of Ozark is how the Byrdes’ criminal activity is actually instrumental in bringing them, somewhat, closer together. For most modern day family dramas, the result is usually the opposite, even in, say, the wake of an alien invasion, like in this exciting drama.

After an alien race has occupied Los Angeles into its own inescapable colony, Will Bowman (Lost alum Josh Hollway) reluctantly agrees to help take down a growing resistance movement, inciting divisive consequences it will have between him and his wife (The Walking Dead’s Sarah Wayne Callies) and children. Colony, co-created by prolific producer Carlton Cuse, was cancelled by USA after three seasons, but has earned a small cult following for its fascinating, and culturally relevant, political themes that cleverly combine with a futuristic sci-fi tone. Stream it on Netflix here.

Desperate Housewives (Hulu)

For years, there was no topic more popular at the office water cooler on a Monday morning than whatever happened the night before on Wisteria Lane. Creator Marc Cherry made ABC’s primetime soap opera Desperate Housewives one of the most addictively suspenseful, and often hilarious, shows of the early 2000s.

After Mary Alice Young (Brenda Strong) mysteriously takes her own life, she becomes the narrator of the intricate lives of her friends and neighbors, including meek divorcee Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher), ambitious career woman turned-stay-at-home mom Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), luxury-obsessed former fashion model Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria), OCD-plagued housewife Bree Van De Kamp (Marcia Cross), and sex-crazed narcissist Edie Britt (Nicolette Sheridan), who all get tangentially wrapped up in twisted situations involving infidelity, power-hungry manipulation, and murder. Who knew one picturesque neighborhood could be home to such insanity? Stream it on Hulu here.

Fargo (Hulu)

Joel and Ethan Coen became two of the hottest names in filmmaking for their Oscar-winning 1996 dark comedy Fargo, in which a financially desperate, Minnesota car salesman’s (William H. Macy) disastrous ransom scheme gets the attention of an intrepid (and pregnant) police chief (Frances McDormand). There are more twisted stories of good Midwesterners gone bad where that came from in Noah Hawley’s spin-off.

Each season of this multi-award-winning FX anthology series tells a new, star-studded story of cold-blooded, comical suspense in low temperature climates, including a hitman’s influence on a meek insurance salesman, a young 1970s couple’s fatal hit-and-run, and a struggling probation officer’s failed attempt to rob his successful twin brother. Fargo is now entering its fourth season, starring Chris Rock as the head of a black crime syndicate in 1950s Kansas City, Missouri. Stream it on Hulu here.

Narcos (Netflix)

To once again reference Breaking Bad in an article meant to have Ozark as the prime focus, in 2016, Walter White actor Bryan Cranston switched to the lawful side of the war on drugs as a U.S. Customs agent taking on Pablo Escobar in the true crime drama The Infiltrator. At that time, the Columbian drug lord was also a big name in television, thanks to this scripted Netflix original drama that chronicled his criminal exploits.

Narcos is a complex and chilling look into the violent conflicts between Pablo Escobar, and other various drug kingpins, and the law enforcement assigned to take him down, including The Mandalorian star Pedro Pascal as DEA agent Javier Pena. When you are done binging all three seasons, you might want to check out its spin-off, Narcos: Mexico, which is entering its second season on February 13. Stream it on Netflix here.

Schitt’s Creek (Netflix)

In addition to its disturbing suspense, Ozark is at its juiciest when Jason Bateman’s Marty Byrde and his family experience a culture clash with the “redneck” locals, who actually turn out to be rarely what their stereotypes suggest. The redneck locals of the titular small town of comedy series Schitt’s Creek are very heavily associated with their stereotypes, and hilariously so.

In the absence of their business manager, wealthy socialites Johnny (Eugene Levy) and Moira Rose (Catherine O’Hara) and their spoiled adult children David (Levy’s real son Dan) and Alexis (Annie Murphy) suddenly lose everything, they must make themselves at home in their one remaining asset: the hick community of Schitt’s Creek, which they once bought as a joke. In case you need some comic relief from your binge of dark family drama, this beloved rags-to-riches comedy, which is currently in its sixth and final season on Pop TV, is the perfect choice. Stream it on Netflix here.

The Sinner (Netflix)

Shows like Ozark, Fargo, and Breaking Bad have taught us that sometimes a moment of desperation and a little push are all it takes to send even the meekest law-abiding citizens on a tenuous tightrope act above the law. However, this USA drama takes a more complex dive into answering the question as to why ordinary people suddenly turn to crime.

Bill Pullman’s Screen Actor’s Guild Award-nominated role as Detective Harry Ambrose is the connective tissue of this anthology series about bizarre crimes committed by unlikely suspects, such as Jessica Biel’s Season 1 character, unable to explain her brutal murder of a stranger. The Sinner, which will premiere its third season in February, is a shocking mystery thriller that will keep you obsessively guessing until the end of each story. Stream it on Netflix here.

Jason Bateman sure is great at playing a family man whose life is turned horrifically upside-down by money problems (and I’m just talking about Arrested Development), but whenever your addiction to Ozark needs a remedy, these 11 other series should be a great alternative. Be sure to check back for more updates on the Midwestern-set crime drama and other streaming recommendations here at CinemaBlend.

Warning: major spoilers ahead for the series finale of A&E's Bates Motel.

Bates Motel came to an end after five seasons of ups, downs, twists, and turns on A&E. Fans had plenty of questions going into the final episode, not the least of which was whether or not Norman would live past the end of the series. Well, we've finally gotten to see the long-awaited finale, and we know just what happened: Norman was shot and killed. As this is Bates Motel we're talking about, of course Norman's death wasn't a straightforward shooting from somebody seeking vengeance. It was much more complex and much, much more amazing.

The end began for Norman in the finale when he took a pretty severe beating from the soon-to-be-dead Romero at Norma's penultimate grave, which knocked him off his rocker enough that he reverted to his memories from the beginning of the series, making it all the more painful when he had to learn yet again that his beloved mother was dead. (A nice enough change from the standard amnesia twist.)

Unwilling to live with the reality of his mother's death and absence, Norman committed suicide-by-brother, picking up a knife and making his intentions abundantly clear to the gun-drawn Dylan before finally plunging the knife forward. (And in a way in which the more sane sibling barely had to dodge.) Naturally, Dylan shot Norman in self-defense, and Norman had just enough time to say "Thank you" before fading off to reunite with his mom in the great beyond as he bled out in Dylan's arms.

All things considered, it was a strangely sweet (?) ending to a very odd, very tragic story. Dylan was the only person alive who really cared about Norman and his state of mind by the end; as everybody else just wanted to problems resolved. In a way, Dylan's act of killing his brother was the kindest thing that anybody could have possibly done for Norman as he was. He wasn't able to get Norman away to get him the help he needed, but he was able to give him what he desperately wanted: to get back to his mom. The ending shot of the tombstone, with "Dream a Little Dream" playing, was pretty much a perfect ending to the series, regardless of how it reflects the film or novel from which Bates Motel's story was drawn. This show ended as it began, both literally and figuratively, with the idea of "Family First."

The Bates Motel series finale was a solid hour of television. We've known for a while that the show was ending after Season 5, so there's been plenty of time to prepare for the end, and this season has been laying down all the pieces -- i.e. dead bodies -- for the endgame to play out. "The Cord" was crazy and unpredictable and emotional, and gave audiences one of the series' creepiest moments in the past/present juxtaposition as Norman drove back to the motel after killing Romero. I'm not sure I have it in me to re-watch just yet, but I'd say that this is one of the better finales I've seen in a while. The team at Bates Motel delivered a finale that honored longtime fans and brought a cathartic end to the story that has been building for years and years now. What else could we want?

Bates Motel may be done on A&E, but you can check out our midseason TV premiere guide and our summer TV premiere schedule to discover all your viewing options for the coming weeks. Be sure to drop by our rundowns for cable/streaming and broadcast TV renewals and cancellations. What do you think? Should Norman have lived or are you happy he died? Let us know in the comments!

Spoilers below for anyone who hasn't watched Bates Motel's most recent episode, "Marion."

Last night, Bates Motel came to a crossroads with its infamous source material, Psycho, by way of that most famous of cinematic sequences that needs no other descriptor beyond "The Shower Scene." While the majority of fans were waiting nervously to watch famed singer Rihanna fall victim to Norman's sinister machinations, creators/showrunners Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse flipped the script entirely by substituting victims, allowing Austin Nichols' Sam Loomis to paint the bathroom red as Norman (not Norma) looked on in wide-eyed fascination. Why did they choose to go with such a massive switcheroo? Here's what Ehrin says.

Flipping something so recognizable and beloved as Psycho's iconic shower scene was going to get a lot of hate no matter how well or terrible it was conceived and performed, but ignoring that dependable bunch, I can't imagine most fans having a legitimate issue with Bates Motel choosing to let Marion live on in this universe, while her philandering boyfriend is forced to suffer such an unthinkable attack while trying to cleanse himself from the day. In the first place, Sam Loomis was awful, to the point where it wasn't even very fun to watch him, so killing him off was the right decision no matter how the A&E thriller decided to pull it off.

To put these scenes side by side, the comparisons and contrasts are extremely easy to point out, as the creative team wisely played it as a homage (with the specific shots of the falling shower water and the feet slipping in the blood) with some additional visual input that the film didn't/couldn't show, particularly Norman himself. (Also, this scene was brutal as fuck, as opposed to the chocolate syrup innocence of Alfred Hitchcock's film.) Rather than letting Norma's persona take over his conscience, Norman instead lets her control him as Norman proper, adding another interesting alteration to the scene. He's not killing Marion out of an obsession with Mother, as it was played out originally, but he's killing Sam as a stand-in for his own lying and cheating shitbag of a dad, and having him commit the atrocity as Norman further seems to show off how shattered he is inside.

This was, of course, a very purposeful move by Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse. Here's the latter during an interview with TVLine, explaining how important this moment was for both this final season and for Norman in general.

Not only was this a brilliant way to end things, but the episode also featured a fabulous fake-out earlier on, as viewers did indeed get to watch Rihanna's Marion Crane disrobe for her shower as Norman watched through the wall...diddling and whatnot. But that moment ended with an angered exit, rather than a helpless one, which is when viewers really realized that shit was gonna get weird. And weird it got, though Norman staying himself for the murder should make it more normal. But there is no normal out there on that stretch of highway.

For anyone whose Tuesday is already feeling like a Monday, go ahead and get some easy kicks in by watching the hornball Sam falling for someone for the very last time.

Bates Motel has just four episodes left in its Psycho-tic five-season run -- with the next one serving as star Freddie Highmore's latest directorial effort -- and you can find the airing Monday nights on A&E at 10:00 p.m. ET. In the meantime, rather than taking a shower to wash off all that blood, head to our midseason premiere schedule and our summer TV guide to see what else is coming to the small screen in the future.

Pop superstar Rihanna made headlines when she signed on to play legendary Psycho character Marion Crane in the final season of A&E's Bates Motel. The singer was called upon to film a sex scene for the role, and she tuned in to watch it when the episode finally aired. Rihanna wasn't exactly at ease watching her sex scene, and she shared video of her reactions online. Take a look:

Rihanna is a showbiz sensation who has gotten up to all kinds of shenanigans in music videos, but she clearly wasn't prepared for the awkwardness that came with watching her own sex scene in her major TV acting debut. While she has appeared on television in the past, it has always been as herself rather than as a different character. Marion Crane was her first significant TV acting role, and she clearly put herself out there in filming. Viewers can attest to the fact that Rihanna pulled off the sex scene like an acting pro without giving a hint of personal embarrassment; evidently she saved her cringing for when she was watching the episode.

Sex scenes are notoriously awkward to film, and even seasoned actors aren't always big fans of them. Kudos to Rihanna for powering through any awkwardness and delivering a fearless performance as Marion Crane. In fact, according to executive producers Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse, Rihanna was incredibly committed to the role from start to finish. Cuse said this about bringing her in to Bates Motel:

Kerry Ehrin also mentioned in the chat with TVLine that Rihanna shot thirty-three script pages in a span of only five days. The producers did need to use a body double for some of Marion Crane's more minor scenes that didn't require shots of Rihanna's face, but it was clearly all Rihanna in the sex scene. All things considered, it's a shame that she was only brought in for two episodes. Assuming that the fate of her Marion Crane is the same as Psycho's Marion Crane, she won't exactly have an opening to reprise the role.

We'll have to wait and see if Bates Motel leads to any more TV acting gigs for Rihanna. She's obviously busy with her music career, and she's set to have a major role in the upcoming Ocean's Eight film, but we can at least hope that she'll return to the small screen. Tune in to A&E on Modays at 10 p.m. ET to catch the rest of the fifth and final season of Bates Motel, and don't forget to take a look at our midseason TV premiere schedule and our summer TV premiere guide.

It's becoming more and more common for networks to cancel shows but to do it in a way that is less shocking than in previous years on TV. The best way to accomplish this is to cancel a series and then give it one more season to finish out the story. This has several positives. It means that the creative team gets the chance to finish out a series in the way they wanted and it means that fans are not blindsided when their favorite show gets cancelled. Still, it can be hard to keep track of what is ending and what is not. To help you out, we've compiled a handy list of the shows that we know--so far--are ending in 2017. Take a look. And do expect more cancellations to come down the pipeline as the TV season wears on.

Grimm, NBC

Grimm had a nice run on NBC on Friday nights. The series has really been the show that has ushered in an era of supernatural content on network TV at the end of the week, as Friday nights are now home to The Vampire Diaries and Sleepy Hollow. However, its ratings have dwindled over the years and last season NBC renewed the series for the 2016-2017 season, cancelling the drama at the same time. Give the show a watch while you still can, as its looking more and more likely NBC is going to have to blow up its Friday night lineup next year.

Bones, Fox

Unlike a lot of the shows on this list, Fox's Bones has been on the air for years and years. In fact, many fans have been on the page that the show hit its peak years ago, but Fox has still been rolling out new episodes, even after the ratings started going down. Last TV season, the show was moved to Fridays in what we thought was the final death knell. However, Fox surprised us with a renewal--albeit for a shortened season--and the last set of episodes is airing this winter. Catch the final episodes on Tuesday nights.

Bloodline, Netflix

Up until recently, Netflix was not really known for cancelling shows. Sure, Lilyhammer was axed at one point, but really most Netflix shows have been going strong and continually getting renewed, some of them for many seasons. Then Bloodline, a critically acclaimed but seemingly under-watched program, got cancelled. The good news? The series was also given one final season to wrap up its story. Expect new episodes later in 2017.

Black Sails, Starz

Another show that airs in the winter, Black Sails was the first in a string of more prominent originals to hit the schedule on Starz. While Black Sails had a big splash at Comic-Con and was noted for its larger budget, it hasn't been the ratings bringer like Power and Outlander have. Season 3 of the drama began the long journey of wrapping up the Treasure Island prequel, and it wasn't a huge shock when Starz stated the show would be ending after Season 4. Catch the final set of episodes starting in January.

Turn: Washington's Spies, AMC

AMC has a lot of well-received shows that haven't really earned high ratings. The period drama Turn is one of them. Despite sporting Jamie Bell and Angus MacFadyen and having a really cool premise about a Revolutionary War spy ring, the show has never been a big winner in total viewers. Turn is getting 10 more episodes to tell its story in 2017, but that will be the end for the series. We'll let you know as soon as the network gets the final series on the calendar.

Girls, HBO

HBO's Girls is one of the comedies that has put the network on the map in terms of original comedies, along with Veep and Silicon Valley. While new seasons of Veep and Silicon Valley are on the way, Girls will be wrapping up with a final season that is starting this weekend. The show will make us laugh and make us cringe for a few more times before it finally says sayonara on the cable network. Not too shabby for the show that figured out the line in terms of sex scenes that HBO will accept.

Pretty Little Liars

Pretty Little Liars has been a bit of a phenomenon during its run on ABC Family and the brand new Freeform. The show has an extremely avid fanbase and that has propelled it into a long run. However, Freeform has been reworking its lineup since the network changed names, and Pretty Little Liars will be ending in 2017. Catch the delicious drama while you still can.

Longmire, Netflix

Longmire possibly has my favorite trajectory of any series on this list. Originally, the show aired on A&E, where it was pretty popular. So popular, in fact, that we were all really surprised when the network opted to cancel the show. However, fans loved the show enough to petition to keep it, and Longmire is one of the rare times that has worked out. While the show is ending this season, on Netflix it was able to be a little more experimental and darker in tone with its content and the pick-up has been really great. We hope to see the show end on a high note.

Bates Motel, A&E

Bates Motel is one of A&E's first scripted originals, and it certainly survived for longer than Longmire managed to on the network. The show will be ending after Season 5 and production recently wrapped on the drama. However, Bates Motel will most definitely be going out with a bag, ending with Marian Crane and a lot of memorable moments from the original Psycho film. Tune in when the show returns on February 20.

Halt and Catch Fire, AMC

Another under-watched AMC drama, Halt and Catch Fire has followed a ragtag group of rebels as they've tried to navigate the world of business and technology in the early age of computers and the World Wide Web. AMC has a knack for deep writing and great performances and it all can be found in Halt and Catch Fire, which will sadly be ending after its fourth season. Expect new episodes to land in the schedule sometime later in 2017.

Workaholics, Comedy Central

Workaholics has always had a small niche fanbase, and the show managed to earn an impressive seven seasons with that small audience. Unfortunately, when Season 7 was announced, so was the show's cancellation. You can catch _Workaholic_s' swan song on Comedy Central right now, as the final set of episodes is airing on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET.

Orphan Black, BBC America

Tatiana Maslany has played multiple characters on BBC America's Orphan Black for four seasons, and a fifth is on its way. It's got to be exhausting to play multiple clones, and now that the girl has some awards nominations under her belt, she's really done all she can do to put the sci fi series onto the map. While not a huge ratings bringer, the show has developed an avid following over time and will really be missed. There's even a sweepstakes to appear in the final season, should that interest you.

Episodes, Showtime

Episodes is just the show that keeps on giving. I've thought the Matt LeBlanc starrer had ended a couple of times, especially as it has been off of the air since 2015. However, it has been renewed for a fifth season and we will be getting one final set of episodes sometime in 2017. (There's probably an Episodes episodes joke in there somewhere but I just can't quite reach those comedy heights, or maybe lows.) We'll let you know as soon as the show is back.

The Vampire Diaries, The CW

The CW has a track record of airing some shows well beyond their peak. In fact, if they do well at the network, they tend to keep airing for a long, long time. The Vampire Diaries has chugged along ever since Nina Dobrev left the series in 2015. At the end of the network TV season, however, TVD will be wrapping up. There is some light at the end of the tunnel. Elena will be making her comeback before then.

Switched At Birth, Freeform

Switched At Birth's trajectory has been a little confusing. By all rights, this show should have ended already, but then the cabler kept it off the schedule for some time; in fact, the last set of episodes aired in 2015. The show finally hit the schedule in January and will be wrapping up its storyline soon. It's cancellation is part of an overall push by Freeform to take its programming in a new directions. That's why ABC Family became Freeform in the first place.

The Strain, FX

There was a time when supernatural dramas were all the rage on TV and at the movies. While vampires are less of the rage these days, there are a few shows on the air that are still distinctly supernatural dramas, including FX's The Strain. The show has introduced us to the Strigoi and a rich world with lots of political nuance. The show has had plans from the start regarding where it wanted to end; however, ratings have only give The Strain one more season to catch up. Stayed tuned for reactions from CinemaBlend!

The Leftovers, HBO

Lost's Damon Lindelof gave us an HBO series that is deep and dark and emotional with The Leftovers, but that is still filled with the twists and confusion we've come to expect from a Lindelof production. For many reasons, this one didn't take off as a ratings winner, but it's a drama that's totally worth catching up on, even though you might be an emotional mess afterwards. Catch the final season this April.

In the world of TV and film it seems that nostalgia is ruling the day. With reboots and long awaited sequels being produced constantly, it seems like you can't turn a corner without bumping into an old franchise. And then there's A&E's psychological drama Bates Motel, which was definitely ahead of the game when it came to turning classic movies into a new TV series. With Season 5 set to begin airing this month, the modern prequel series will soon directly interact with the events of 1960's Psycho, including the arrival of an unknowing Marion Crane to the motel. And playing Crane in the series is none other than pop singer and actress Rihanna.

A new trailer for Bates Motel's fifth season just hit the web, including the first footage of Rihanna's Marion Crane. Check out the pop singer as the horror icon below.

Princess Ri Ri is up in the Bates Motel, and she's ready to step into the legendary shoes of Janet Leigh.

Just like Alfred Hitchcock's original film, Marion Crane will arrive at the Bates Motel while attempting to run away from her problems. A bad patch of rain gets in her way, leading Marion to pull over for shelter at the motel. It is this unfortunate event that sets the main plot of the film in motion, although the perspective should be rather different in the TV series.

While Rihanna's Marion Crane is sure to make a splash in Season 5 of Bates Motel, it should be interesting to see how much of Marion's viewpoint is actually present throughout the episodes. While Psycho functioned as a mystery, with audiences originally believing Marion Crane to be the protagonist, Bates Motel does the opposite. We are privy to the twisted world of Norman and Norma's lives, as well as Norma's ultimate fate. Will Rihanna's Marion Crane be a tertiary character, or will the audience actually follow her perspective through her inevitable death? We'll just have to wait and see.

You can check out the full trailer for Bates Motel Season 5 below.

Bates Motel is just the latest in a line of acting projects that Rihanna has lined up recently. After making waves for her role in the critically panned Battleship, the singer received positive attention for the supporting role in Seth Rogen's comedy This Is The End. Looking to the future, Rihanna has a part in the highly anticipated Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Additionally, she's in the fantastic ensemble cast of the all-female Ocean's Eight, which just released its first image from the film.

Bates Motel returns to A&E on February 20th.

When Bates Motel came to its conclusion in Season 4, fans were left with their jaws hanging open, as the drama finally took a huge plunge into the waters that will connect this origin story to Psycho. Season 5 appears as if it will be a reimagining of how things played out in Robert Bloch's novel and Alfred Hitchcock's famed adaptation, and the show will soon introduce its take on the film's "hero" Sam Loomis, and recent Walking Dead star Austin Nichols has been tapped to take on the iconic role.

Austin Nichols, who was last seen along with everyone else in The Walking Dead's Season 7 mid-year finale, will be a part of Bates Motel in a recurring capacity. It's not immediately clear if this will be a role that will compare heavily to the Sam Loomis of the film/novel, but it should be interesting to see how things are handled. The casting was initially revealed through a Season 5 press release, and Deadline reports that Nichols' Loomis will be an enigmatic and genial new arrival in White Pine Bay who doesn't take long in building up a most unfriendly relationship with Norman.

Previous casting of Isabelle McNally as Madeline Loomis, with no mention of Sam's name, led many to believe that Bates Motel would be completely changing up the story of how Psycho half-lead Marion Crane's love life went, but this seems to clear that up. Marion, who will be played by attention-grabbing pop star Rhianna for TV, had an illicit romance going with Sam in the source material, which is how she ended up at the Bates Motel to begin with. And to end with. Cue that killer score.

For a multi-episode narrative, it's clear that Bates Motel will be expanding upon the role originally played by John Gavin, especially since this trio of newcomers will be used to further draw out Norman's deepening psychosis, now that he's in Full Mother Mode. It's extremely hard to tell how everyone's stories will end on the small screen, but my money is on Carlton Cuse and the rest of the Bates Motel creative team to bring some big twists to the proceedings.

Though he has recently been most recognizable for his gutsy role of Spencer Morgan on The Walking Dead, the actor has been all over TV and film in the past 15 years or so. One Tree Hill fans know him quite well, and he's also known for shows like John From Cincinnati and Ray Donovan, not to mention a small role on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. a few years back. This could be an even bigger breakthrough for Nichols as far as horror TV goes, since he wasn't given all that much to do within Walking Dead's massive ensemble.

For everyone eagerly awaiting the fifth season of Bates Motel, the horror series' final chapter will begin on A&E on Monday, February 20, at 10:00 p.m. ET. To see when everything else is heading to the small screen in the near future, check out our midseason premiere schedule.

For four seasons, audiences have been creeped out by Bates Motel, the prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's seminal thriller Psycho. The critically acclaimed drama will be premiering its fifth and final season later next year and series lead Freddie Highmore has already lined up his next project. Having played the ultimate Mother Boy in Norman Bates, Highmore will change gears and go a bit in the opposite direction. He'll be tackling real life gangster George Nelson -- otherwise known as Baby Face.

Variety has the scoop and they report that Freddie Highmore is teaming up with Bates Motel executive producer Kerry Ehrin for a show of their own creation: Baby Face. Taking place during the Great Depression in the 1930's, the project will depict the life of the notorious gangster George Nelson, who was nicknamed "Baby Face" for his youthful appearance and short stature. The drama is being described as a love story that will chronicle Nelson's rise from a small-time bank robber in Chicago to the FBI's Public Enemy No. 1.

Highmore will be taking a huge creative role on the project, having come up with the initial idea and serving as co-writer and executive producer alongside Ehrin. The drama pilot has already been sold to A&E, the network that has been the home to Bates Motel. This is the latest step from Highmore, who has been taking more creative opportunities on Bates Motel. The actor has been spending a significant amount of time in the Bates Motel writers room, having written a few episodes of the drama. He's also directing an upcoming episode of Season 5.

Depression-era Chicago was riddled with mob violence and crime, and there's been no shortage of historical gangsters with large personalities to make appearances on both TV and film. As history buffs may know, it was one of the most ruthless and corrupt places in American history, which makes for really good television. Baby Face seems to be taking a more anti-hero approach given the love story angle, but the rise to power of this specific figure is sure to end up on many future must-watch lists.

Highmore is making an interesting transition from the tortured and awkward Norman Bates to the swaggering killer of Baby Face Nelson. The actor is really stretching his chops all over the place with this show. In addition to running Bates Motel, Kerry Ehrin's writing credits include shows like Parenthood and Friday Night Lights.

In the meantime, Bates Motel will be airing its final season sometime in May 2017. After four seasons of buildup, the show will finally "go there" and do it's own rendition of Psycho. The season will put its own modern spin on the 1960's thriller, with pop star Rihanna stepping into the role of the film's most famous victim, Marion Crane.

Life has an interesting habit of imitating art. People see or hear things in popular television series, and they feel compelled to honor that program in some way. One of the most fascinating developments to occur over the years is the influence of pop culture on baby name trends. With 2016 coming to a close, the numbers have started to roll in, and the influences have started to become increasingly obvious. This year was a horror themed year for newborns, as The Walking Dead and Stranger Things impacted 2016's baby name trends in a major way.

According to a brand new report from Baby Center, the "hottest baby name trends" of 2016 have officially been announced, and it seems that pop culture played a huge role in baby naming decisions this year. In particular, shows like The Walking Dead and Stranger Things really captured the imaginations of new parents. With regards to AMC's zombie series, the names Carol, Hershel (may he rest in peace), and even Walker all saw notable surges in popularity over the course of the last year. On the Stranger Things side, names like Nancy, Joyce, Dustin, and Lucas all became exceedingly popular.

Of course, it's worth noting that it doesn't seem like too many parents named their kids Negan this year, or Eleven or even Demogorgon, for that matter. That being said, considering the rabid fan bases of these two shows, I have to believe that there's at least one set of parents out there that decided to get a bit more outlandish with the name of their newborn.

Although The Walking Dead and Stranger Things both represented the big winners this year in terms of name influence, other popular shows also got in on the action as well. Bates Motel seemingly helped the name Vera (because of actress Vera Farmiga) surge in popularity, while American Horror Story: Hotel boosted the popularity of Donovan, Tristan, and Iris -- although there's obviously a case to be made that The CW's The Flash helped a bit with that last one as well. Finally, we have the most recent AHS incarnation -- American Horror Story: Roanoke -- which led to a notable increase in the popularity of the names Lee and Elias among 2016 babies.

For those new parents out there, did any major pop culture moments from 2016 influence your decision to name your baby? Let us know in the comments section below!

CinemaBlend will bring you any and all relevant details related to all of these awesome series (and their influence on our everyday lives) as new information becomes available to us. For now, make sure to check out our comprehensive midseason premiere guide and fill out your spring television viewing schedule accordingly!

Incredibly, we've nearly gotten to the holidays and the big five networks have yet to cancel an underperforming freshman series, although episode orders for shows like Conviction and Pure Genius have been cut. Regardless, there are still quite a few shows that have already been slated to end this TV season, and if you want to know which shows you are going to have to say goodbye to, we've compiled them into this easy-to-read list.

Please note that this list excludes shows that will technically be ending next TV season. So if you're wondering where some shows you know are ending are at, like Longmire, they may not be ending until the next season rolls around. But, as usual, let us know about any we may have missed!

Grimm

Grimm was a steady Friday night series on NBC for years, airing opposite a slew of shows that were quickly cancelled, including Constantine and Dracula. However, over the last couple of seasons, the ratings for the drama faltered a bit, leading NBC to both cancel the drama and push it back to midseason. The final set of episodes will hit the schedule in 2017, starting on Friday, January 6.

Black Sails

Starz kicked off its modern programming slate with the launch of Black Sails four seasons ago. Over time, Black Sails has become one of the most exciting and best written programs on television, one that has been highly ignored by critics. The pirate-based drama will be ending after its next airing at midseason, but it will be remembered as the show that helped launch Starz into a new era of quality originals. Catch its final season starting on Sunday, January 29.

Pretty Little Liars

Pretty Little Liars has already aired the first half of its final season, which has made its cancellation a little bit confusing. If you are a fan, don't fret, there's still a half season of the Freeform drama left to air. The final set of episodes are expected to hit the schedule this coming April, and some of the episodes are coming with grave titles like "Farewell, My Lovely" and "Till Death Do Us Part." I don't anticipate this one going out on a totally happy note.

Duck Dynasty

Just a few scant years ago, Duck Dynasty was one of the highest-rated reality programs ever. It also helped put A&E on the map in terms of original programming and presumably made the network a lot of money. Recently, the whole Duck Dynasty clan announced the show will be ending after the upcoming Season 11, which will hit the schedule in early 2017.

Bones

Bones has been on the air for a long time. While there are a few shows---including the original NCIS---that have been on the air for longer, it's still prepping for Season 12, which is a long time to be on the air. While Bones was widely expected to be cancelled at the end of last season, it earned a Hail Mary pass from Fox, which is allowing the show to wrap up in a way that will hopefully give fans closure. New episodes will hit the schedule on Tuesday, January 3.

Bloodline

Netflix is relatively new to the original programming game, and the subscription streaming service has not cancelled very many shows. One exception would be Bloodline, the well-received family drama filled with mystery and murder. Bloodline will get a third season before it goes off of the air. In the past, episodes have aired in the spring, and we'll let you know as soon as Netflix gives the show a final season premiere date.

Girls

Girls has long been a polarizing series on HBO. Those who love it really love it and those who hate it are often openly scathing in their critiques. The Lena Dunham-penned drama is finally ending, much to peoples' happiness/chagrin. But not before one final set of episodes hit the schedule. You can catch Girls Season 6 when it begins airing on Sunday, February 12.

Hand of God

While Netflix has been less fond of cancelling its originals, Amazon's slate has been more of a mixed bag. There was a lot of notice surrounding the launch of a new series starring Sons of Anarchy actor Ron Perlman, but Hand of God apparently didn't pan out when the numbers were considered. The show is getting a second season, which is better than other programs like Mad Dogs have done, but it will officially be done after Season 2. Since Season 1 hit the schedule back in the fall of 2015, you would think Season 2 would have already happened, but we're still waiting on a premiere date, which is expected to be scheduled in 2017.

Bates Motel

For a while, A&E had a pretty good thing going between originals Bates Motel and Longmire, plus reality shows like Duck Dynasty. By the end of this TV season, all of those shows will have disappeared from the lineup. (Longmire was cancelled and moved to Netflix a couple of seasons ago.) Bates Motel will return for a fifth and final season in 2017, thanks to getting a two-season renewal a couple of years ago, but it will be ending after that. If other seasons are any indication, it's likely we'll see the show hit the schedule sometime in March.

The Vampire Diaries

I honestly thought The Vampire Diaries would end after Nina Dobrev left the series and again when it was having ratings issues and was bumped to Fridays last season. However, the long-running vampire drama hung on and was rewarded with an eighth and final season, which started airing in October. You can catch new episodes on Friday nights over at the CW.

To find out what else is hitting the schedule in the coming months, check out our winter TV premiere schedule.

Since its conception, the A&E thriller Bates Motel has been making that oh-so-precariously awkward climb to its inspiration and reason for existing: Alfred Hitchcock's seminal classic Psycho. Its prequelized nature has allowed for many liberties to be taken, but the fifth and final season is making a big change that completely messes with the Psycho storyline and possibly the infamous shower scene, and it involves the casting of Isabelle McNally as Madeline Loomis.

The name Loomis undoubtedly sounds familiar to Psycho fans, as it's the surname of Sam, Marion Crane's lover, whose alimony payments to an ex-wife kept him too broke to wed Marion. Madeline didn't exist in the movie, which is already a big change, but the key point here is that actress Isabelle McNally bears a resemblance to Vera Farmiga, who of course plays Norma Bates. And, if you'll recall, the seemingly mild-mannered Norman killed Marion in the tub because of her resemblance to his mother. So...

Within the Bates Motel-iverse, the role of Marion Crane went to singer Rhianna, who does not share too much of a resemblance with Farmiga. (And McNally isn't identical above, either, but wait for makeup magic.) When Rhianna was cast, speculation turned on its head as it became unclear how she would justifiably become Norman's eventual victim. And now, because of Isabelle McNally's casting, it suddenly becomes even more unclear how things will go down, since TVLine didn't have further details. But if Madeline is meant to be Norman's stand-in for Norma, then that non-clarity will be amazing to watch as the climax approaches. Madeline should invest in a knife-proof shower suit.

Bates Motel Season 4 came to a close after blowing people's minds by already killing Norma off with Norman handling things far from admirably. Vera Farmiga will still be around in Season 5, but as that viciously titillating devil on Norman's shoulder, and it'll be outstanding to see Norman fantasizing the two characters as the same person.

To be the boo-worthy devil's advocate for a second, it's possible that Isabelle McNally will be asked to dye her hair blue for the role, and will have to apply a giant (fake) face tattoo that can't possibly remind Norman of Norma. And maybe the shower scene will get transformed into a bath and Marion Crane will have nothing to do with it. And maybe my toenail clippings will be accepted as legal tender.

Bates Motel sadly isn't a fall drama, so we can't start looking forward to it returning to A&E for Season 5 until next year. But there is a lot left to debut in 2016, and you can find all of it in our fall premiere schedule.

Streaming services have given TV fans plenty of options for binge-watching content, but there's still a certain thrill in watching great shows live as they air. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to tell the great shows from the terrible shows until a few seasons have aired; by that point, plots may have progressed too far for any new viewers to jump right into the action. Even shows that open each episode with a "Previously on" can't always give enough context to catch anybody up from the beginning.

Luckily, Netflix has a vast library of TV shows with past episodes to enable folks to catch up with a series. We went through the best TV that Netflix has to offer and discovered 10 great current cable shows that are available for streaming. Netflix can almost always be counted on to get all seasons of a show streaming before the next season premieres, so take a look at our list of great cable shows and prepare to tweak your queue!

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a crazy comedy the revolves around the shenanigans of a group of shameless alcoholics in their Philly bar. The show has evolved over the years to stay fresh as season after season passes. The world would really be a much less hilarious place if not for the Lethal Weapon 5 subplot or the Nightman Cometh musical extravaganza or Charlie Day dancing around in a green body suit. Always Sunny finished Season 11 in early 2016, and it's already been renewed through Season 14. Catching up now would really be an investment in a funnier future.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 10

Where It Airs Live: FXX

Bates Motel

Bates Motel is a must-see horror series that has taken the premise of the iconic Psycho film and expanded it into an ongoing show that is as compelling as it is chilling. Norman Bates and his mom Norma run a small motel in Oregon. Their lives are anything but peaceful as Norman's mental state becomes dangerously unstable, and Norma is willing to go to some unnerving lengths to keep Norman safe and close. Bates Motel has finished four seasons, with the fifth and final set to debut in 2017. There's plenty of time to catch up on Netflix before the next set of episodes hits the airwaves.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 3

Where It Airs Live: A&E

Shameless

Shameless is a dramedy that follows the stories of a family in Chicago that struggles - and generally fails - to function. The series is led by William H. Macy as the single alcoholic father of six children, all of whom have problems of their own. Episodes range from pretty dark to mostly hilarious to surprisingly steamy. Shameless has aired six seasons so far, and a Season 7 is on the way. The premiere will air on Sunday, October 2 at 9 p.m., so newbies won't necessarily need to binge-watch to catch up in time for Season 7.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 4

Where It Airs Live: Showtime

Better Call Saul

Better Call Saul is a spinoff prequel of Breaking Bad, which is really reason enough to give the series a try. Breaking Bad was pretty awesome, and its spinoff is a witty further look at some of the most interesting side characters from Walt and Jesse's many meth misadventures. Bob Odenkirk is fantastic with the drama as well as the comedy. Better Call Saul has already been renewed for a Season 3. If the show continues its trend from Seasons 1 and 2, we should expect Season 3 to hit the airwaves in February 2017.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 1

Where It Airs Live: AMC

Pretty Little Liars

Pretty Little Liars is a mystery thriller aimed at teens, but it's pretty addictive for folks of all ages. The titular pretty liars are the former members of a clique that fell apart after the death of their queen bee Alison. Clues emerge that Alison's death may have been more scandalous than anybody guessed, and the girls are plagued by messages sent by a mystery antagonist known only as "A." A uses intimate information about the four friends to force them into unsavory actions. Pretty Little Liars is set to end after Season 7, the first half of which is currently airing. The second half will debut in winter 2017.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 6

Where It Airs Live: Freeform

The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is the phenomenally popular zombie apocalypse thriller that has people everywhere talking on Monday mornings between October and April each year. A group of survivors led by former sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes struggles to survive after the zombie virus sweeps the nation. They must cross major moral lines if they want to live in a world with few allies and lots of ways to die. It's not the happiest or easiest show to watch, but it's awfully engaging. There's no end in sight for the series that draws millions of viewers each week. Season 7 of The Walking Dead debuts on October 23 at 9 p.m. ET.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 6

Where It Airs Live: AMC

Rectify

Rectify is a drama all about the wrongfully-convicted Daniel Holden in the years after his exoneration. He spent nearly two decades behind bars for rape and murder; adjusting to life outside of prison when he had been a resident on death row takes its toll. Fans of Netflix's Making a Murderer series might enjoy Rectify for the fictionalized story that bears some serious similarities to the real life Steven Avery case, and viewers who enjoy some suspense with their drama may find themselves on the edges of their seats. The fourth and final season premieres in fall 2016.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 2

Where It Airs Live: SundanceTV

Archer

Archer is an animated spy comedy that spoofs James Bond tropes to perfection. It's not a show that's necessarily for everyone, though, due to pretty frequent crudeness. Still, the running gags and continuity are enough to bring laughs in every episode. Sterling Archer is a suave spy who likes to drink and loves the ladies, but he also has mommy issues made worse by the fact that his mom runs the spy agency where he works. Archer lives in a danger zone that has been known to result in everything from ants to tinnitus. The series was renewed for a whopping three seasons after Season 7. Season 8 will debut in January 2017.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 6

Where It Airs Live: FXX

Turn

Turn is a period drama that tells the tale of the Culper Ring of spies that turned the tide of the Revolutionary War. It's not exactly a documentary of everything that happened in history, but the excitement of 18th century espionage is enough to justify suspending disbelief. The show has recently been cancelled. Luckily, Turn will get a fourth and final season in 2017 to finish the story of the Culper Ring and bring the Revolutionary War to an end. If Season 4 follows the trend of Seasons 1 - 3, we can count on Turn returning in April and running until June next year.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 2

Where It Airs Live: AMC

Z Nation

Z Nation is pretty much the other post-apocalyptic zombie drama, and there are some similarities to the much bigger Walking Dead. Fortunately, Z Nation is different enough from the juggernaut AMC series that even Walking Dead fans can watch without feeling like they've seen it already. This zombie apocalypse story chronicles the cross-country journey of a team of survivors as they try to transport a man whose apparent immunity to the zombie virus may hold the key to a vaccine. The first two seasons have run from September to December, so any folks looking to catch up at a moderate pace may need to get a move on. A Season 3 has already been ordered, so we should be getting more Z Nation sooner rather than later.

How Many Seasons Are Available Right Now: 2

Where It Airs Live: Syfy

The A&E creep-fest Bates Motel has, clearly, been leading up to some pretty significant things. The series is, after all, working its way toward the events of the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho. Well, Season 5 of the hit drama is shaping up to be a doozy, with pop superstar Rihanna showing up during the show's final season. And, we just found out what character the singer will be bringing to life. Rihanna will be playing the classic Psycho character of Marion Crane. Wait, let me say that again in your good ear: Marion Crane is finally coming to Bates Motel, and Rihanna is playing her.

Wow. Who could have predicted this casting information? I know it never would have occurred to me. The show announced the cool casting today during the Bates Motel panel at San Diego Comic Con. According to executive producers Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse, while this casting might be a surprise for fans, it's actually a match made in scary motel heaven. They noted during the panel that their hope for the show's version of Marion Crane would be very "contemporary" and redefine the role "in a meaningful and exciting new way." Also, Rihanna is a fan of Bates Motel, and when word got back to producers they thought she would be a perfect fit for Marion. A video from the singer was shown during today's panel so that the news would really be brought home for those in attendance. Take a look.

After we get a look at Rihanna's bedroom ceiling, which may have looked clumsy but was probably a clever ploy to keep the audience in suspense, we find out that the "bad bitch" herself is signing into Bates Motel for the new season. Now, we heard a couple of months ago that the show was finally going to be getting its most famous guest in Season 5. Carlton Cuse promised that Marion would indeed be around for a big moment in the season, and also revealed that her part would allow us to spend some time with the character over multiple episodes next season. In the film, Marion is a real estate secretary who's embezzled money from her company so that she and her debt-ridden boyfriend can finally get married. Cuse also noted that they are looking forward to putting their own spin on events from the film, so it'll be interesting to see how Marion's story plays out during the season.

I can already tell that some of you are going to be nervous about Rihanna taking on this iconic role, but, honestly, I think it will work out quite well. Rihanna has branched out into acting the past few years, with appearances in Battleship, This Is The End, Annie and voice work in the animated film Home. She's also filmed a role in Luc Besson's upcoming film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, where she plays an alien stripper. Look, Rihanna is a chameleon, I have no doubt that she will do whatever it takes to bring this version of Marion to life exactly how the producers want.

We should all just sit back and prepare to enjoy the shower-stabbing hell out of Bates Motel Season 5, because it's promising to be quite a ride. Take a look at our summer and fall premiere schedules to see what you can watch in the meantime.

Bates Motel has been a show that manages to both honor one of the greatest horror movies in film history and stand on its own as a seriously creepy series. It will be coming to an end after the upcoming fifth season, which is both good and bad news for fans. The bad news is that a great show will be leaving the airwaves, but the good news is that Bates Motel will finally be able to go full Psycho. Now, executive producer Carlton Cuse has revealed that a legendary Psycho character will be joining the show, with Marion Crane herself appearing in Season 5.

Marion Crane will show up on Bates Motel in a big moment for Season 5, Cuse told TVLine. She’ll play a part in multiple episodes, and we can expect that she’ll have a decent amount of time on screen before she climbs into that infamously ill-fated shower of her, should this show dare to replicate that iconic slice of cinema.

Psycho is a movie filled with fabulous twists and turns, but it’s most famous for the fate that befell Marion Crane when she hopped in the shower at Norman Bates’ motel. Most Bates Motel fans will likely be familiar with all things Psycho, so it should be interesting to see how the show goes about paying tribute to the original without beating us over the head with references. Perhaps some scenes will be mirrored in shot-for-shot fashion, but in a way that doesn't remind us of that regrettable 1998 remake.

Bates Motel is already well on its way to a Psycho Season 5. The end of Season 4 finally featured the inevitable death of Norma Bates at the hand of her son Norman. If Bates Motel was going to follow the framework of Psycho, Norma was always doomed to die by the end. Luckily, the Season 4 finale revealed that Norma is still very much alive in Norman’s mind, so we won't be losing actress Vera Farmiga from the show. Bates Motel wouldn’t be the same without the dynamic between Farmiga as Norma and Freddie Highmore as Norman. It's good to know that Bates Motel is departing from Psycho and keeping Norma as a visual presence on the show.

Season 5 was ordered at the same time as Season 4, so the team behind the scenes at Bates Motel has had plenty of time to prepare for what’s to come next. The fact that the fifth season has already been established as the last means that the show will be able to come to a natural conclusion rather than end up cancelled on a terrible cliffhanger or rushed to fit everything in a final episode. Hopefully, Marion Crane will help to put Season 5 over the by being as unforgettable a character on Bates Motel as she was in Psycho.

Season 4 of Bates Motel has only just ended, so we still have a wait ahead of us before we see Marion Crane in action with Norman Bates in Season 5. Check out our schedule of summer TV premiere dates to see what you can watch in the meantime.

Major spoilers for Bates Motel are below.

There you have it, Bates Motel fans. The moment that we all knew was coming has happened. At least it seemed to, and the creative team doesn’t appear to be setting us up for some big “Gotcha twice!” twist (but they probably are). Yes, Norma Bates is apparently dead, having been killed by her son Norman’s hand and a bunch of carbon monoxide. But although she didn’t wake up by the time the episode ended, does that mean she’s definitely dead? We’ll have to wait until next week’s season finale to get the definite answer, but here’s what co-showrunner Carlton Cuse said about the jarring twist.

As evidenced by Psycho, Norman Bates grows up to be a man that has not lost his obsession with his mother, so her being dead would hardly limit her ability to appear in Norman’s life. We’ve been watching Vera Farmiga play two different versions of Norma for a while now, so she would indeed be necessary to continue Norman’s descent into random madness. Cuse's comment to EW doesn't confirm whether he'll go through that descent mostly alone in Season 5 or as a part of a very fractured relationship with Norma, but at least we're getting more of actress Vera Farmiga no matter which way it goes.

Here's what Cuse says we can expect from the finale.

Cuse's answer to TVLine is the same level of cryptic as the other quote just with less information offered up. The emotional response could definitely be everyone’s reactions to Norma being dead, or whoever actually finds out about it. Or it could also mean Norma survives and has a presumably terrible response to her son trying his murder-suicide plan out on her.

I’d hate to lose the constantly agitated Norma that we’ve gotten used to for four seasons, but it makes perfect sense to set up a huge turning point like this far enough in advance of the series’ finale that Norman’s post-Norma development can be witnessed in full. Plus, the last season of Bates Motel shouldn’t just be Norma avoiding Norman out of fear and possible hatred, since their weirdo relationship is what makes this show.

Bates Motel will be back for what will certainly be a bonkers Season 4 finale on Monday, May 16, on A&E. Let us know what you guys think.

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You know the old saying “April showers come before May showers…blood showers.” Maybe your dictionary of proverbs says it differently, but I can’t check mine because my tablet is propped up on it as I stream spooky shit on Netflix. And because you’re reading this, there’s a chance that you’ll soon be doing some streaming in the near future. If you survive until the end.

Here are 11 great horror series that Netflix currently has creeping through the shadows, sinking their claws into your eyeballs so that you can’t look down at your phone during the episodes. That also makes it harder to see the keyboard or remote, but horror isn’t really about making it easy on the participants. Time for a bloody mary, isn’t it? (If you’re looking for the exact opposite of this list, check out our list of family-friendly shows on Netflix.)

American Horror Story

If a show actually has horror in its name, it has to be good, right? Well, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s FX anthology has many faults, but the show’s no holds barred approach to storytelling gives more than enough eye-widening visuals and hair-raising scares to make each season well worth the watch, especially without waits weeks in between episodes. American Horror Story’s high point is Asylum, thanks to batty performances from James Cromwell and Lily Rabe, with Murder House offering what is arguably the most coherent narrative about a rubber suit man and a house full of monsters. But Jessica Lange is always great and each season has a handful of hysterically gross scenes that deserve immediate rewatching. Plus, you’ll never get tired of picking up on horror movie references and seeing unexpected cameos and guest stars.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-4

Bates Motel

Freddie Highmore was stepping into some very big shoes (perhaps they were heels) when he took on the role of Norman Bates for A&E’s Bates Motel, and he has since proved himself quite capable of conveying an endless and unexplainable obsession that he can neither control nor accept. The show obviously has to tell other stories, so we luckily have Vera Farmiga as the trouble-ridden mother Norma attempting to keep her motel going, with Max Thieriot, Olivia Cooke and Nestor Carbonell rounding out the on-edge cast. Consequences flow through this show like water around a washed-up corpse, but somehow Norma and Norman are still standing strong. And sometimes they’re lying in bed together strong.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-3

Black Mirror

Sometimes the scariest things are indeed reflections of ourselves, and rarely has a scripted series tapped into the dark underpinnings of a subject as thrillingly as Black Mirror, the British anthology series crafted by Charlie Brooker that shows viewers the dangers and downsides of technology. Though only seven episodes exist, with one being the Jon Hamm-starring standalone “White Christmas,” all seven are pretty remarkable hours of television, with a few standouts. One such highlight centers on a couple experiencing problems in a world where people have implants that record everything they experience, and another involves a woman who wakes up with no memory and finds herself the center of attention in a dangerous neighborhood. Netflix will also be the home of future episodes, so figure out a way to connect your remote to your brain and stay tuned.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-2, plus the Christmas Special

The Walking Dead

I probably don’t even have to tell you that The Walking Dead is on Netflix, since it has one of TV’s biggest audiences. Few horror shows (or horror movies) are able to pull off some of the dread-filled sequences that the AMC hit has put together in its first five seasons, and effects mastermind Greg Nicotero’s big role behind the scenes guarantees you won’t find more effectively ghoulish and disgusting makeup on the small screen. The talented ensemble cast is almost always in flux thanks to the jaw-plummeting shocks and twists creeping up at a steady rate, and even if you aren’t happy with how a certain plotline is going, everything changes up every 8 episodes.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-5

Goosebumps

Not ever horror story has to be just for adults, right? Sometimes spookiness can exist free from bubbling bloodbaths and glistening viscera, and if you don’t have any Are You Afraid of the Dark? episodes nearby, then Goosebumps is the way to go. Based on R.L. Stine’s ridiculously popular series of kids novels, this Fox series looks very much like the mid-1990s era in which it was created, and it brought to life memorable boogey-threats like the living dummy Slappy, the killer sponge Grool, giant ants, cat monsters and more. While not as good-looking as the feature film adaptation, the series is the better bet for Goosebumps fans, as well as those looking for early performances from Ryan Gosling and Scott Speedman.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-5

Darknet

The horror genre has an interesting relationship with the Internet serving as part of the subject matter, with examples such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse, The Collingswood Story and Halloween: Resurrection. Right alongside the very best of the net-horrors is the Canadian anthology Darknet, which unleashed a surprisingly suspenseful variety of partially connected stories in each of the six episodes that were made. (If any horror project needed an endless array of follow-ups, it’s this show.) With shocks that are brutally violent and wickedly weird, Darknet is an adaptation of Japan’s Tori Hada, with Ginger Snaps producer Steven Hoban and Cube and Splice director Vincenzo Natali as executive producers and writer-directors of certain episodes.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1

Twin Peaks

One part murder mystery, one part black comedy, and 11,000 parts surreal nightmare, Twin Peaks contains a good chunk of filmmaker David Lynch’s best work. This show is the quintessential “weird small town” series, and the 1990s could not have started off on a more satisfyingly weird beat, thanks in large part thanks to Kyle MacLachlan’s Dale Cooper, the Log Lady, the Red Room and the piercing terror of BOB. To me, BOB is right up there with Tim Curry’s Pennywise in terms of inspiring instant shudders even in the most sunshiney of situations. Some might say it was too strange and that it went way downhill after the central mystery was uncomfortably solved, but that just makes it even more singularly bizarre. Fingers crossed the star-studded revival creates as much inner turmoil.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-2

Kolchak: The Night Stalker

Even though ABC still deserves scorn for cancelling Kolchak: The Night Stalker after only one season, the network deserves grumbling credit for putting it on the air in the first place. With the charisma-oozing Darren McGavin as the titular newspaper reporter, Kolchak was the rare monster procedural that paved the way for X-Files and Supernatural, among others, and blended inspired comedy into cases that involved a wide range of supernatural spooks and ghouls. Kolchak took on Native American spirits, an alien, a witch, a headless horseman (sort of), an android and even Helen of Troy. Given its mid-1970s existence, this isn’t going to be the scariest thing you’ve ever seen on TV, but that doesn’t stop it from being a fantastic horror series.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1

The X-Files

Narratively speaking, The X-Files is clearly more in the realm of science fiction, what with the aliens and conspiracies. But aliens can be really scary, man. And when it wasn’t about spacefaring extraterrestrials, it’s about mushrooms that eat people alive and the dead-eyed Phyllis H. Paddock and Flukeman and Leonard Betts. Do I even have to mention the dreaded Peacock family from “Home,” widely considered the most frightening episode of the series? I will, because those fuckers and their under-the-bed-ridden mother turned the song “Wonderful! Wonderful!” into nightmare fuel and destroyed my ability to really trust inbred offspring with faces that look like they were run over with lawnmowers. But sometimes, the horror was fun!

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-9

The Munsters

Horror doesn’t have to always make you shake your shoes off your feet with fright, and sometimes it’s just as good when the genre inspires something that embraces both the macabre and the comedic. And that was done exquisitely well in the 1960s sitcom The Munsters, in which the era of classic Universal monsters was given the family sitcom treatment with excellent actors like Fred Gwynne, Vyonne De Carlo and Al Lewis. Even when the jokes are stale, The Munsters is always worth a watch for the stellar production design and Herman’s bumbling buffoonery. After all, there are only two seasons of it to enjoy anyway, although there are 70 episodes in there.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-2

The Twilight Zone

You saw those other anthology series and wondered why The Twilight Zone wasn’t showing up yet. You unlock the door to grab an alien’s hardcover cookbook to hit me over the head when you see it, a list entry not of sound but of words. A list entry that exists between the lines of digital code and your imagination. It says: The Twilight Zone. Even when irony was Rod Serling’s biggest weapon, the master storyteller still managed to cause more chills than the majority of modern horror movies. And things indeed dipped maddeningly into horror-driven territories, where you’ll find tortured dreamscapes and small creatures and spine-tingling masks and hitchhikers and that doll. Oh, that doll. Once you meet Talky Tina, you’ll never want to talk to anyone else again.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-3, Season 5

Bonus Half-Pick: Dexter

When Showtime started putting Dexter out there, they created a delectable combination of Miami-based murder and the championable acting chops of Six Feet Under vet Michael C. Hall. And for several seasons, this show did not hold back on the tension and blood spatter, twisting and turning around the central character’s balance of deadly justice and his family and work life. But then things started going downhill fast, and the last seasons are best left floating in the digital ether. But if you feel the need to keep watching out of curiosity, just promise me you’ll stay away from that resoundingly terrible series finale. That thing is scary for a reason most unintended by the creative team.

Currently Available for Streaming: Season 1-8

Honorable Mention: iZombie (Season 1)

Honorable Mention: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series (Season 1-2)

Honorable Mention: Being Human (Season 1-5)

Honorable Mention: Supernatural (Season 1-10)

Horror on television has arguably never been better, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. Fans of Norman “I love my mother more than you” Bates will be happy to hear that his adventures in psychosis won’t be coming to an end any time soon, as A&E has announced they’ve renewed Bates Motel not only for Season 4, but they’re giving it a confidence boost by putting in an order for Season 5 as well. So much weirdness is yet to come!

Like the first three seasons, both Season 4 and Season 5 of Bates Motel will be 10 episodes each, so we’ve got at least 20 more episodes of Norman’s dwindling sanity (not to mention Norma’s) to look forward to. This matches up with the original five-season gameplan set up by series developers Carlton Cuse, Kerry Ehrin and Anthony Cipriano. But just because they wanted at least that many seasons doesn’t mean that they can’t figure out a way to stretch the story to go further.

A&E hasn’t announced that Season 5 will be the last season, so it’s perfectly plausible that the show could go on, assuming it still performs to the network’s standards. Here’s how executive vice president and general manager Rob Sharenow put it, according to Deadline.

I’m not quite sure how many stages Norman will go through before his mother Norma bites the dust and he takes over the motel in full, but I certainly hope it’s quite a few, as actress Vera Farmiga’s increasingly fragile performances are one of the best parts of the show. Sure, it’s fun to watch Freddie Highmore get homicidally loony, but only when there’s someone slightly saner to balance his behavior against. And I don’t think Max Thieriot’s Dylan is capable of doing it by himself.

Though the ratings for Season3 weren’t amazing, they were apparently strong enough for A&E’s needs. The March premiere brought in over 2.1 million viewers, and at the end of the relatively steady season, 1.7 million tuned in for the finale.

Unfortunately, Bates Motel’s extended run will not be shared by Cuse’s other show, the U.S. remake of The Returned, which was canceled. That hopefully means we’ll get to see Bates paired up with Damien, the small screen Omen sequel from The Walking Dead alum Glen Mazzara that was originally set to air on Lifetime.

Bates Motel will return to A&E for Season 4 in early 2016, with Season 5 coming in the first months of 2017.

The television landscape offers numerous platforms for new dramas and comedies to thrive. There’s the old gold standard, network television shows, but also original cable programs, streaming originals, subscription cable programs and online series. Unfortunately, Netflix and streaming services are often tight-lipped about what gets watched and what doesn’t get watched, but there are plenty of great shows that get renewed due to acclaim rather than the numbers.

Regardless, across the various other platforms, there are underdogs with big budgets and underdogs with little budgets. There are little comedies that should have much larger audiences and tentpole dramas that haven’t managed to land a huge presence, yet, but are still responsible for bold speeches and raunchy comedy, not to mention investing audiences in relationships. They are the shows that keep us thinking late into the night and make us wish we had someone to chat with about them around the watercooler the next morning. Here’s to the 7 great shows not nearly enough people are watching. You can check out our picks, below.

Hannibal, NBC

NBC’s Hannibal is currently gearing up for its third season premiere. While the drama is probably one of the most-watched on this list, it has potentially been up for cancellation every season, thanks to airing on network television rather than on cable. This time around, NBC will air the series as part of its summer lineup, and we hope that will prove to be a good spot for the thrilling drama. Give Hannibal a watch; it may give you nightmares, but in this case, that’s a good thing.

Black Sails, STARZ

A lot of viewers watch subscription cable dramas On Demand so first day numbers are less important, but for whatever reasons Black Sails has been enchanting less viewers than Starz's new series Outlander and its popular former series Spartacus. While Black Sails can be a bit political and had a slow start in Season 1, now in its second season, the series is blossoming into a narrative about the history and future of the pirate colony in Nassau while still featuring plenty of hand-to-hand combat. While the drama has already earned a Season 3 renewal, I can only imagine there are more adventure-loving viewers that should really get into this TV series. Maybe they just need a Starz subscription…

Broad City, Comedy Central

Broad City follows Ilana and Abbi, two young adults living and working in New York City. These eccentric—read: weird—funnygirls bring out plenty of laughs from some basic life experiences, including dealing with job frustrations and your roommate's boyfriend constantly living in your house. Throw in Hannibal Buress as a dentist with a funny pasta blog and Broad City has found the recipe for success—at least in quality. Seriously, how are less than a million people tuning in for these weed-infused shenanigans each week?

The Americans, FX

A perennial favorite on lists of under-watched programs, The Americans earns more references of acclaim than most of the other shows on this list. It routinely makes critics Top 10 lists and has a loyal cult following. The key word there, however, is cult. Shows on FX have proven they can nab huge audiences, but unfortunately, The Americans didn’t start high and has only seen its ratings drop in its third season. It’s a shame, as the show gives us a reason to watch for the family dynamics, as well as the spy action. There’s a lot to like, and we’re a little sad it hasn’t found a larger audience.

Looking, HBO

HBO is oft-discussed as the gold standard for television. The subscription cable channel gets to produce shows that are both acclaimed and nab major eyeballs. At least, most of the time. Unfortunately for Looking, critics seems to like the show, but no one is watching it live. I mean, really, no one. The last Season 2 episode was one of the highest-rated of the season, and 303,000 people tuned in. Looking is special thanks to its subject matter and its characters, and it’s a shame there aren’t more people championing a show that’s emotionally real and often puts its characters into funny circumstances.

Halt and Catch Fire, AMC

Halt and Catch Fire is one of the rare cable dramas with lower ratings that still managed to nab a second season on the network. It’s a tough series to sell, following the rise of a computer start-up in Texas and the various problems the team encounters as they attempt to do the impossible: create a brand new computer brand. Regardless, Halt and Catch Fire had one of the most compelling pilots we’ve ever seen, not to mention an intense first season featuring incredible performances from Lee Pace (Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy) and Scoot McNairy (Argo). Maybe this time around, more people will be willing to plug in to the series. If not, it’ll stay on our under-watched programs list.

Bates Motel, A&E

It’s hard to be terrible with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho as your source material, and while Bates Motel is a prequel to the famous movie, it still has a lot of over-the-top creepiness going for it. Like Hannibal, Bates Motel does higher numbers than a lot of the shows on this list, but when you consider the source material, it’s hard to see why more people aren’t interested in the Carlton Cuse-created horror series, especially now that young Norman Bates is going a bit further off of the edge. While horror is beginning to grow more popular on television right now, we can tell you for certain that this show is one that should leave you on the edge of your motel bed.

This poll is no longer available.

Photo Credit@HBO, A&E, AMC, STARZ, NBC, FX, and Comedy Central

When Bates Motel first opened its doors to audiences in 2013, we all knew that we’d be watching young Norman Bates make the slow and twisted transition from seemingly normal teenager to a crossdressing murderer. And it looks like Season 3 is where that metamorphosis will get turned up to 11, as Norman’s fascination with his mother Norma hits uncomfortable new heights. Check out the latest Season 3 trailer below.

Ho. Ly. Shit. Right? I mean, where do we start? When we last saw Norman Bates, he was passing a polygraph test concerning the murder of Blair Watson, and he was doing it by flipping his personality over to that of Norma. And as we can tell from this trailer, his ability to think like his mother just isn’t enough, and he wants to know her…on the inside. I feel like I need to take a shower after saying that. (Or maybe just a bath with the curtain open and the door locked.)

When he isn’t trying to watch Norma strip naked, as he appears to be doing through a window, he’s busy being the one trying to take her clothes off, like so.

But is he really trying to see his mom naked, or is he more interested in just putting her clothes on his own body?

I suspect trying to deduce Norman’s motivations at this point is a fool’s errand, similar to Dylan’s quest to turn the Bates family into something resembling normal. We don’t really get a sense of any other overarching plot for Season 3 beyond Norman’s growing obsession, and how Norma and Dylan are reacting to it. Dylan is more vocal with Norma about not letting Norman sleep in bed with her, and she seems to understand, as we watch her reprimand Norman a couple of times, fearful for her own life.

Of course, it’s her fault for making Norman manager of the motel. (Hearing him say, “Alrighty, Mother, I’ll be your hotel manager,” is the most disturbing part of the trailer to me.) It’s obvious that Norma is going to be around for longer than just one more season, given the show’s success, but I honestly have no idea what the long game is for Bates Motel, or how far into Norman’s life it’ll go. But that’s definitely part of the fun.

Check out one of the earlier Bates Motel teasers, which also hints at Norman’s increasing desire to become his mother.

Bates Motel will return to A&E on Monday, March 9, at 9 p.m. ET. Now who could that dead body be?

As a genre fanatic, it’s a dream come true to be able to bring together this Top 10 of horror series without exhausting every current example on TV. Opinions are only worth so much, of course, but I’d wager that there are only one or two really, really abysmal horror shows on TV and streaming right now, which is about as good of a ratio as one could hope for. And I’d rather watch a shitty scary show than a shitty hospital drama any day of the week.

So let’s kick off the year's best with dickhead Sean Astin unwittingly unleashing an apocalypse upon the world.

10. The Strain

One’s enjoyment of FX’s moody and theatrical series The Strain will be in direct relation to one’s enjoyment of Guillermo del Toro’s work, though it woefully lacks his playfulness for the most part. (Kevin Durand’s Fet is one exception.) Adapted from the novel trilogy written by del Toro and author Chuck Hogan, this modern-day vampire (Strigoi) tale is steeped in shadows, with danger literally around every corner at times, and centers on CDC higher-up Dr. “Eph” Goodweather and Strigoi-fighting Holocaust survivor Abe Setrakian (David Bradley) leading a small group through a New York City teeming with dead-eyed bloodsuckers whose aim is more terrible than 1980s action villains with automatic weapons. The atmosphere and bonkers special effects make up for the abundant self-seriousness, and that first episode in the airplane was one of the TV highlights of 2014 for me. Here’s hoping Season 2 is even better.

9. Z Nation

Z Nation is exactly what one would expect from a zombified horror-action Syfy series produced by The Asylum. Eschewing layered drama for a barrage of heightened catastrophes, Z Nation is like a season’s worth of The Walking Dead in each episode, which comes with an equal number of faults as championable qualities. Tom Everett Scott leads a squad of post-plague survivors across the country in transporting this total dickhead to a California medical facility, for they’re the only ones who can use his cure-all antibodies to save the world! And because traveling isn’t hard enough, this squad also has to deal with a cult, cannibals, DJ Qualls and bizarre weather-related zombie phenomena like a zombie tornado. (!!!) Because it wears its gore-loving goofiness on its chewed and bloodied sleeves, Z Nation is more enjoyable than it probably should be, especially with the right people and the right atmosphere. Or while doing the laundry.

8. The First Few Episodes of American Horror Story: Freak Show

October doesn’t really seem so far back, but it feels like forever since American Horror Story: Freak Show had a forward storytelling thrust that meant anything. The first few episodes, introducing Jessica Lange’s sideshow act with fun prosthetics, zany musical sequences and an antagonistic clown with a penchant for balloon animals and grunting. All episodes since have been melodramatic mishmash, with oddball performances doing much more to carry the weight of Ryan Murphy’s plot treading than the shocks and scares. But those first few episodes were as exciting as those from Season 1, and I truly thought Sarah Paulson’s conjoined twins Bette and Dot were going to be a TV revelation of sorts. Novelty TV at its finest.

7. In the Flesh

One of the most intelligently written zombie stories out there, In the Flesh’s more horrific situations aren’t filled with blood and guts but with society’s narrow-mindedness. The double-length (six episodes) Season 2 series keeps the focus on Kieren Walker (Luke Newberry), a former zombie who has been rehabilitated and introduced back into the normal world via a government cure, and his relationships with those around him. But this season also broadens the story to show how not all of the human population can so easily allow Partially Deceased Syndrome (PDS) survivors back into their lives without some ultimate penance to be had. Not since George Romero’s early Living Dead films have zombies and political messages mixed together so frightfully well.

6. Penny Dreadful

Pop culture crossovers and mash-ups are as popular as they ever were, and Showtime’s Penny Dreadful is a surprisingly realized take on horror literature’s most iconic characters. The wraparound thread of Season 1 involved a search for Mina Harker, believed to be taken by vampire creatures. Hunting for her are adventurer father Sir Malcolm (Timothy Dalton), demon-conjuring best friend of sorts Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) and American sharpshooter Ethan (Josh Hartnett). Along the way, they cross paths with Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and his creature, the egotistical sex addict Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney) and more. With the use of flashbacks (particularly in one focused episode) and monologue-ish scenes, Penny Dreadful is thankfully far more invested in these characters and their relationships than the task at hand. Created by Skyfall screenwriter John Logan and produced by Sam Mendes, this series mixes sex and bloodlust with dark literary fiction for a bitingly fun time. Bring on Season 2!

5. Bates Motel

Bates Motel is one of the most batshit crazy series on the air right now, adding a soap opera spice mix to one of horror’s most legendary characters: Norman Bates, played with an enjoyably immature madness by Freddie Highmore. (I would love to see where this series would go if it had complete freedom from networks, budgets and realism.) Season 2 finds the Bates Motel thriving, along with Norman’s blackouts, Dylan’s (Max Thieriot) ties to horrible people and Norma’s (Vera Farmiga) attention to keeping her son safe from himself. There are secrets to hide, others to be discovered, and a new love interest for Norman that hits a little too close to home. (That’s not even a comment on the creepy incestuousness lurking behind certain scenes.) What seemed like a gimmicky idea for A&E has become a unpredictably wacky story of murder, madness and taxidermy.

4. Black Mirror: White Christmas

Even though this special just aired on Christmas Day here in the U.S., Black Mirror: White Christmas immediately became one of the most frightening things I’ve seen this year. The U.K. series Black Mirror is technically “cautionary near-future sci-fi” if we’re getting technical, but creator Charlie Brooker is a fucking mastermind at spinning technology and human behavior into some mesmerizingly haunting stories. White Christmas presents a trio of interwoven tales shared between Matt (Jon Hamm) and Joe (Rafe Spall), two men having an uncomfortable Christmas meal together. One story features Hamm as a surrogate Romeo, guiding a shy male through a night out via camera and microphone, while another is a depressing tale of being physically “blocked” from someone’s life, similar to how social media works. But it’s the middle section, where Oona Chaplin plays a woman who gets a new form of smart technology, that sent shivers from my spine to my brain and back again in an endless loop. Had there been an entire season of Black Mirror this year, I’ve no doubts it would have topped this list.

3. The Walking Dead

When The Walking Dead is at its best, it’s one of the most compelling series on TV, mixing terror and tension without necessarily guaranteeing anyone’s safety. The show is sadly inconsistent with moving things at a steady clip, though, without many ways to deliver interesting character development in a world without pop culture to bond over. Still, the Season 4 march to Terminus (and then subsequent march away from it in Season 5) delivered some series highs, introducing new characters like Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and broadening existing ones like Beth (Emily Kinney), who grows close with Daryl (Norman Reedus). Some have complained about the way Season 5 branched its characters off, giving them each their own episodes, but I think that’s how the show should have been established since the beginning. (Carl doesn’t need his own episode, though.) And it’s going to be hard for this series to do something better than Zombie Demolishment by Fire Hose, because that was awesome.

2. Hannibal

Before anything else, let’s take a moment to reflect on a Bryan Fuller series not only making it to a second season, but getting an order for Season 3, deserved more for critical acclaim than huge ratings. Miracles happen! Season 2 begins with Will (Hugh Dancy) still locked up, suspected of being the Chesapeake Ripper, in a story that takes up half of the season. Things then take an even more dangerous and disgusting turn when Lecter’s new patient Margot Verger (Katherine Isabelle) and her abusive brother Mason (Michael Pitt) are introduced. Anchored by exquisite performances from Mads MIkkelsen, Hannibal imbues what might have otherwise been a stale cops-and-killer drama with imagination, dense writing and the artiest horror on network TV.

1. Darknet

I’m probably going to get a bunch of shit from people for putting the Canadian quasi-anthology Darknet on top of this list, but I’m willing to bet that the majority of those people haven’t experienced this maddeningly freaky series. Each of the first season’s six episodes tells different expertly interwoven tales of sadism, murder and mayhem, and there isn’t a stale short in the bunch. The connective tissue here is an underground website called Darknet, where you can find the worst videos on the Internet, including ones about a psycho phone installer, a twisted Peeping Tom victim, cyberpranking teens and a suicide hotline. With a central squad of writers and directors, including Cube and Splice’s Vincenzo Natali, Darknet is like a condensed version of every film and TV horror anthology that’s come before it, stripped of excess and delivering only the most frightening of situations. Turn off all the lights and phones and find it on Netflix here. You’re welcome.

What were your favorite horror series of 2014?

A&E’s Psycho prequel Bates Motel has gotten weirder and wilder across its first couple of seasons. The show will soon be returning for Season 3, and as we can see from the first trailer for the new episodes, Norman Bates is beginning to come into his own as the killer and creeper we all know and love. Check out the show’s nod to its Psycho source material, below.

In the preview, there’s a beautiful, blonde young woman who comes to stay at the Bates Motel. She’s returning from a night on the town, and she takes off her tight dress and jewelry in the comfort of her hotel room. The angle of the shot is pretty strange, and soon we realize that she is being watched through a peephole in the wall. A teenaged Norman Bates is watching her from the other side of the wall, but he quickly replaces a picture frame over the hole before she catches on to his trickery. It’s a moment that is both reminiscent of the first portion of Psycho and fitting for a preview that is based on Alfred Hitchcock’s lasting masterpiece.

Norman Bates started out as a seemingly shy young man with a very complex relationship with his mother. They opened the Bates Motel during Season 1, and since then the show has slowly but surely opened the audience up to new facets of Norman Bates’ personality. During that time, we’ve also seen plenty of murders and abuse, as well as rape stories and other unhappy conclusions. I wouldn’t exactly call A&E’s highly touted series one that has a rosy outlook.

I do like that stare and little smirk that Norman gives at the end of the video. We’ve seen that knowing look on his face time and time again, most recently during the Season 2 finale, when he managed to pass a lie detector test related to a teacher that he had actually murdered. The kid’s a psychopath and I can’t wait to see how Bates Motel continues to share his progression as a killer.

Most of the cast is expected to return to the series (at least, if they’re not dead yet). Freddie Highmore and his smirk will definitely be back, as will Vera Farmiga and Max Thieriot. We already know that Norman will sink deeper into an inability to tell what is real and imagined, and as his inner relationship with his mother grows stronger, in real life, there are going to be problems.

Bates Motel is expected to return to the schedule in March of 2015. You can check out more midseason premiere dates, as well.

We all go a little mad sometimes, but it’s always better to be happy, right? Bates Motel fans will be very happy to know that A&E has renewed the horror drama for a 10-episode third season, even though the sixth episode of Season 2 only aired on Monday night. It’s a confident move for the network, though not exactly a surprising one, given their limited number of scripted dramas. You don’t look a stuffed gift horse in the mouth, after all.

Bates Motel’s second season premiered just over a month ago on March 3, and was watched by around 4.6 million total viewers when taking DVR into account. Even though those aren’t giant numbers, they’re solid enough to use as a goal from one week to the next. Especially when you compare it to the other series based on a famed horror franchise, Hannibal, whose second season is barely holding on to 3 million viewers on average, even with the relative advantage of being on NBC. Now I’m just waiting for zombies to move to White Pine Bay in order to bring in The Walking Dead’s ratings.

The Psycho-based Bates Motel follows a teenaged Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) and their twisted and tumultuous life at the titular motel, which of course is filled with secrets, murders and some pretty strange relationships. Bates Motel Season 2 recently revealed one of the more exclusively offbeat twists on TV, and it’s hard to imagine just how far they’re going to end up taking these characters by the time they put the series to bed. (For a nightly rate.)

While it’s certainly useless to mess with something that isn’t broken, there are only so many places Norman's story can be taken at this point in his life, considering we all know where he ends up. Co-executive producer Carlton Cuse is of course best known for Lost, a series that knew nothing of pulling in the reins, so here’s hoping he learned his lesson and keeps Bates Motel as fresh as the bodies piling up. Of course, another part of me is secretly hoping American Horror Story's Ryan Murphy comes in for Season 3 and pulls out all the stops by their teeth.

A&E makes this announcement almost exactly a year after they announced the second season order, and nearly a month after the network cut ties with the dark psychodrama Those Who Kill, which is currently airing out its final episodes on Lifetime. They announced back in November that their acclaimed drama Longmire would return for a third season.

Below you can catch a preview of next week’s episode, “Presumed Innocent,” in which [spoiler]. Crazy, right? And under that is a production design featurette that A&E released a few days ago. You're going to love it, mother. I mean, random reader.

If you were looking to check into A&E’s reimagining of the world behind Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, now’s the chance, as the network has released two new teasers for the upcoming second season of Bates Motel, slated to hit the network in March. And, hoo lawd, are they unsettling as all get out. Seriously — Vera Farmiga doesn’t have to do much to creep us out, but these new clips don’t hurt that feeling either.

The highly inventive series stars Freddie Highmore alongside the aforementioned Farmiga, and will see the unsettling creepiness continue in its second turn. Following the events of season one (which is currently available on DVD), where we saw Norman grappling with what the dark feelings inside of him mean, fixation and obsession continue to bubble up around the characters.

Now, spoiler alert for anyone not caught up on the first season, but the ambient clips paint a picture that proves the goings-on in White Pine Bay will continue to cause strife for the Bates family, and places Dylan Bates (Max Thieriot) in the middle of some very dangerous doings. We’ve also been told the death of Ms. Cooke and Norman’s subsequent blackout will be discussed. (Sorry, Norma, but you’ve got a psycho in your house. Woops!)

But it’s not all gloom and doom on the series (OK, so maybe it is a lot of gloom and doom); there are some seriously meaty guest stars reserving room on season two — particularly to further Norma’s storyline along. Dissecting this mother-son relationship needs a lot of back up, you guys. Which is why the series has tapped names like Alias star Michael Vartan (Greg, a new love interest for Norma), Hung’s Rebecca Creskoff as Norma’s first female friend Christine, and Sons of Anarchy’s Kenny Johnson as Norma’s estranged and abusive brother Caleb. All of this will, assumedly, help push the psychological aspects and nuances of the story forward. After all — as it states in the official behind the scenes trailer — as Executive Producer Carlton Cuse explains below, season two “is bigger” and “more dramatic” than ever.

Other guest starring roles have gone to the likes of Boss star Kathleen Robertson (mum’s the word on what her role might be), Percy Jackson’s Paloma Kwiatkowski (who has the unlucky fortune of playing a potential love interest for Norman), and Grey’s Anatomy’s Michael O’Neill, who will play Miss Watson’s less-than-fatherly father.

For fans hoping for more exclusive treats, they can head over to BuzzFeed for another look at the upcoming season, including a new poster.

Bates Motel re-opens for business March 3, 2014 on A&E.

Horror’s on the rise in television these days, with numerous TV shows giving us a scary alternative to the funny or dramatic fare that TV usually offers. With Halloween just a day away, we thought we’d share our list of the current -- meaning they've aired new episodes at some point this year -- TV shows that scare us the most, whether it be because they tap into our deepest fears, cause our stomachs to turn or simply because they keep us on the edge our seat, holding our breaths and wondering what might happen next, here are our five favorite scary shows.

Jessica’s Pick: Bates Motel

There are plenty of different ways to scare television audiences. Typically, cable houses more of the gorier and bizarre entries. In recent years, network TV has started to amp up the creep factor a bit, but the program that scares me the most still resides on cable and thankfully, was renewed for a second season last spring. Bates Motel is a modern-day, sort-of Psycho prequel that creates an unsettling mood via a slew of icy, withdrawn characters, an isolated setting and some stories straight out of a depressing nightmare.

Bates Motel may be somewhat of a nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film, but it is very much a product of this era of television. From secret weed farms to oppressive sex slave regimes, White Pine Bay, Oregon is a nightmarish small town with a tranquil surface. When Norman Bates and his mother, Norma, move into a brand new town to start up a brand new business, audiences might initially expect they’ll be the creepy oddballs, but amidst the sleazy underbelly of the town, they actually fit right in. If you like your relationships dysfunctional and your horror sleazy, you’ll want to catch A&E’s drama when it returns to the schedule in 2014.

Jesse's Pick: Hannibal

Based on Thomas Harris' best selling novels, NBC's Hannibal is a more than worthy adaptation of the iconic character often regarded as the scariest movie villain of all-time. Granted, a network television version of the slasher seems like a terrible idea (no one wants a watered down version of the cannibal) but Bryan Fuller, the genius behind the delightfully macabre Pushing Daisies, has managed to create a terrifying yet beautiful small-screen nightmare. Inspired by great works of atmospheric and psychological horror like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Fuller's vision is the most rewarding scary show currently on TV.

From the first shot of the first season, it was pretty obvious that Hannibal was going to be markedly different than all the other hour-long network dramas, focussing more on mood and composition than simply solving a mystery of the week. Although, there is that as well. The dark drama about Dr. Lecter mixes episodic and serialized storytelling, introducing a creepy case for the increasing unstable Will Graham to solve every week while also furthering the 'bromance' between him and the titular serial killer-slash-foodie. If you're looking for something scary to watch on Halloween, I prescribe a marathon of the graphic horror series. Bon appétit!

Kelly’s Pick: American Horror Story

American Horror Story knows no bounds, and that’s a key ingredient to the most twisted kind of horror. Another great thing about the series is that it resets each season, allowing the writers to explore a new story and new horror each Fall. American Horror Story: Coven is exploring the subject of witchcraft, which in itself can be scary, depending on how the magic is used. But the premise of each season is really just a backdrop for whatever horrifying scenarios Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk are able to dredge up, and as I said, there are no limits to this series. It taps into the darkest side of humanity, often making people the scariest thing about the series at its core.

We’re only a few episodes into Coven and the show has already included (vague spoilers) murder, death by sex, minotaur sex, incest, the reanimation of a Frankensteined frat boy and throat-slashing, not to mention all of the horrific things Kathy Bates’ character did to her slaves in the first episode. Does American Horror Story aim for shock-value and literal over-kill? Yes, of course. But it still manages to creatively work some of the most horrible things imaginable into a story that keeps us on the edge of our seats, wondering if we’ll be able to stomach whatever’s coming next. It’s dark, it’s dramatic, and sometimes it’s even a little bit funny. But most of all, it’s scary and unpredictable in all the (so-wrong-it’s)right ways.

Mack’s Pick: True Blood

True Blood might boast vampires, witches and a whole host of other horror genre staples, but the longtime HBO program isn’t particularly scary in any sort of conventional way. Rather than living in the shadows or relying on jump scares, the camera is often a little more overt in showing what’s happening. Beyond that, the basic plot trajectory is sometimes so absurd as to almost be comical. So, why the hell is it on here? Because it’s constantly, aggressively and with every last fiber of its being, creepy. Really fucking creepy.

From parents attempting to drown their children to haggard family members popping through portals to forced sexual experiments to smelling pregnancy on women, at any given time at least thirty percent of True Blood’s general vibe is creepy as hell, and honestly, that’s what scares me. I can handle serial killers. I can handle things that go bump in the night. What I can’t handle are gay reverends trying to start drama, cooks getting possessed by ornery spirits and shapeshifters waking up naked on the feet of people’s beds. When in doubt, True Blood takes the road no one else would even think to travel, and more often than not, it makes me uncomfortable.

Kelly’s Other Pick: The Walking Dead

On the surface, what makes The Walking Dead so scary are the angry zombies in varying states of decay, lurking in every dark space available. After all, what’s scarier than the fear of being eaten alive by a person with bloodshot eyes and peeling skin? There is an answer to that question, and it’s part of what makes The Walking Dead so scary to me. Sure, the thought of being attacked by zombies is a terrifying one, but more terrifying that is the prospect of trying to stay alive in a reality that’s crumbling day by day. With each season of The Walking Dead, the characters are put into continuously terrible situations, which on occasion involve having to put a bullet in the brain of a loved one, and we’re constantly forced to question whether or not there’s any chance at a happy future for the living in this zombie-soaked world.

Characters continue to die in gruesome fashion, while the rest try to get through the day without being eaten. And this season they can add a deadly flu-virus to that threat. A simple cold is killing people (and making zombies out of them). No one is ever safe. Zombies are scary, and The Walking Dead delivers weekly doses of gore and horrific situations involving reanimated corpses biting into the flesh of the remaining survivors in this dark world, but hopelessness and grief bring their own kind of terror, and there’s no shortage of either in this series.

One of the reasons we tune into award ceremonies is because we want to see our favorite talented TV personalities rewarded for the good work they do for our entertainment. As fans, the only thing we really stand to gain out of their victory is the satisfaction of knowing that we're not the only one who appreciates how awesome they are. With that in mind, here are our personal picks for who want to see take home an award at the Emmy's this Sunday night.

Eric's pick: George Mastras (Breaking Bad)

Nominated for: Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series

As one of the main writers on Breaking Bad, George Mastras has been responsible for some of the series’ most incredible moments, from the Gus Fring backstory in “Hermanos” to the terrifying end of “Crawl Space.” But without question, one of Mastras’ greatest contributions to the show came in scripting the fifth season’s “Dead Freight.” Featuring one of Walt and Jesse’s craziest schemes, the episode is nearly 40 full minutes of pure tension as the duo works to try and rob a train without anyone else in the world being the wiser, and the writer truly deserves to be rewarded for his incredible work with the Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series Emmy.

Not only is the episode easily one of the most thrilling we’ve seen in the show’s five year run, it features one of the best endings in the history of Breaking Bad. After keeping the audience in raw suspense for the entire length of the train robbery, everything beautifully comes crashing down when the events of the episode are finally tied back to the seemingly non sequitur cold open that featured a little boy with a motorbike collecting spiders in the desert. The final moments are some of the most shocking we’ve seen on television in a long time, and Mastras deserves the credit for a masterful job well done.

Jessica's pick: Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live)

Nominated for: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Saturday Night Live has been an institution on NBC for numerous years, and when a TV program has been on the air since 1975, it shouldn’t be a surprise to hear that the show has been nominated for a slew of awards. I say nominated rather than won, however, because while SNL has picked up some awards for direction and lighting, the awards for its talented cast have come fewer and farther between, and have mostly been picked up in recent years by Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon for guest stints. This year, Bill Hader has been nominated for the second time in the prestigious “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series” and it’s high time an SNL cast member is able to take home the award.

For eight seasons, Hader became one of the guys who popped up in nearly every sketch and was known for making bug-eyed faces and creating world characters. Then, he created Stefon, a character which became a household name an is at least partially responsible for why Hader is on this list. He has been SNL’s biggest asset over the last several years, and he deserves the chance to take an Emmy home—especially since it’s his last shot. Hader has some stiff competition, competing against three of the Modern Family guys, as well as on-trend Girls supporting actor Adam Driver, and Tony Hale from Veep, but it would be the icing on the cake for a great man and a great career to let SNL take this one home, this once.

Kristy's pick: Tony Hale (Veep)

Nominated for: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

After four seasons on Arrested Development, it’s a crime that Tony Hale had not scored a single Emmy nomination for playing the bumbling, juice-swillin’ brother Buster Bluth. Emmy showed love to the show’s writers, editors, directors, and other cast members, including Jessica Walters, Jeffrey Tambor, Will Arnett, and Jason Bateman. And yet nothing for brother Buster? I mean, come on!

Maybe it’s that the Emmy’s undervalue the skill it takes to be so perfectly silly while stone-faced onscreen. The Season 4 teaser where Buster inhales smoke from Mother Lucille’s lips to get around the apartment’s no smoking policy is not only hilarious, but mind-boggling when you think he had to do this without ever cracking even the faintest smile.

But you know what, it’s okay. Because Hale has finally earned Emmy attention with Season 2 of Veep. The whip-smart political satire series from Armando Iannucci makes excellent use of Hale’s dual weapons of earnest affability and heartbreaking dopiness as the Vice President’s “bag man” Gary. Through the trivial travails of this thankless lackey, Hale manages to bring heartfelt laughs and wicked pangs of anxiety that make watching Veep absolutely electrifying. This guy has given us some of the most fantastic lovable losers television has ever seen, it’s about damn time he gets a win!

Jesse's pick: Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)

Nominated for: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

If all goes well on Sunday, Amy Poehler should have the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy statue in hand when Parks and Recreation returns next week for its special one-hour sixth season premiere. This marks the fourth straight nomination in the category for the former Saturday Night Live cast member and she deserves to win not only for her pitch perfect performance as Pawnee councilwoman Leslie Knope, a role that takes great comedic and dramatic chops (see ”Halloween Surprise” and “Leslie and Ben”), but because she’s a top contender for funniest person on the small screen period.

The Emmy Poehler already lost for the fantastic job she did hosting the Golden Globes (with former Weekend Update co-anchor and fellow nominee-likely winner Tina Fey) also makes her zero for eight at the awards show (ten if you count the Daytime ceremony) so it’s past time they called her name before we end up with another Steve Carell situation. Carell never winning for his incredibly funny, awkward and often touching turn as Michael Scott is a shame and Poehler is inching closer and closer to his mark of six losses in a row. And giving the actress her long overdue Emmy would go a long way in helping us forget how they nominated The Big Bang Theory over Parks and Recreation for Outstanding Comedy Series. That is literally the worst.

Katey's pick: Jonathan Banks (Breaking Bad)

Nominated for: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Breaking Bad boasts two nominees for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series this year, but given that Aaron Paul has won twice and will be eligible to win one more time, the clear pick is Jonathan Banks. A TV veteran-- he was on The Waltons!--Banks stealthily emerged as the righteous heart of Breaking Bad as smoothly as his character, Mike Ehrmantraut, might sneak up on a target. Introduced to us in Season 2 as a fixer and hit man, Mike was a heartless tough guy who initially represented the ruthlessness of Gus Fring's criminal empire. At the end of Season 3 he is poised to kill both Walt and Jesse, but when Walt outsmarts him-- not for the last time-- he grows into a much more interesting character, serving as a mentor to Jesse and a worthy foil for Walt, who is growing more and more dangerous under Gus's employ. Banks is nominated for an Emmy for Season 5, in which he reluctantly teamed up with Walt and Jesse, executed a series of tricky schemes and complex lies, and both doted on and said goodbye to his beloved granddaughter when he realized Walt was too unpredictable to stand by. His final episode, "Say My Name," is a masterclass of restraint and quiet, old-fashioned toughness, proof that even a show this inventive needs a stoic rock at its center. No more half-measures; give Banks the Emmy he deserves.

Kelly's pick: Netflix

Nominated for: Multiple series.

Netflix proved itself a contender this year with a whopping 14 Emmy nominations, putting itself in line with the likes of AMC (15) and FX (11). Most of the nominations were for House of Cards, but it was also nominated twice for Hemlock Grove and once for Arrested Development, which is a strong indication that not only has the Academy taken notice of Netflix, but that the streaming video service's original programming is being seen as quality material and worthy of big awards.

I liked House of Cards, and I think it's one of Netflix's more promising original programs, but I'm less invested in that particular series winning as I am in seeing Netflix receive the credit it deserves, not only for the quality and originality of their programming, but for the way they've approached their selection process, giving straight-to-series orders for their shows and then unveiling them a season at a time. Netflix is a game changer for the industry and as a satisfied subscriber who appreciates the way they're handling their programming, I'd love to see the service receive a pile of Emmys for their efforts. They've won two so far from the Creative Arts Emmy Awards (both for House of Cards). And there are a handful of nominations that could turn to wins this Sunday night, including Outstanding Drama Series for House of Cards, and Lead Actor in a Comedy for Arrested Development's Jason Bateman.

Mack's pick: Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel)

Nominated for: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Norma Bates is a terrible mother. She’s impulsive. She’s selfish. She’s moody. She’s possessive. In short, she’s the type of woman who raises a serial killer, but rather than being as showy about her inadequacies as possible, actress Vera Farmiga keeps her decidedly grounded. She might not be mentally stable, per say, but she is the type of woman we all know. She’s not so detached from reality she’s a raving lunatic, and that key difference allows viewers to watch Bates Motel with a bit of real empathy for her.

Norman Bates is the character from the world of Psycho we’re all most familiar with, but it’s Norma who really holds this project together. Her personality dominates everyone she comes into contact with, and her fears and eccentricities really set the entire tone. Actor Freddie Highmore is wonderful, but without Farmiga’s erratic and brilliant hand, none of it would work nearly as well as it does. Through Norma, the show’s restrained, relatable, yet batshit crazy voice is created.

?With all due respect to the other ladies nominated in her category, Farmiga deserves to win the Emmy this weekend. She deserves it not for her best moments on screen but for the ones she stayed away from. She deserves it for not going full mental and detaching her character from reality. She deserves it for not drawing attention to herself, and I truly hope voters reward her for it.

World War Z Blu-ray

Much of the buzz surrounding the release of World War Z relates to all of the predictions of financial ruin and how that assumed failure was seemingly overcome almost single-handedly by Brad Pitt's star power. Focusing on that knowledge is somewhat unfair, however, as it loses sight of the fact that World War Z actually turned out to be a fine summer movie that doesn't give audiences one moment to unclear their fists or catch their breaths during the length of its run.

If you’ve been keeping tabs on World War Z at all, you’ll know that the third act was written and then re-written and reshot in what was a costly effort on the studio's part to make the last portion of the film more character-driven. Those who look closely might be able to tell the latter portion of the film takes us in a bit of a different and subtler direction from what we get from the rest of the movie. Still, it achieves what it wanted to achieve: showing off Pitt’s character as a family man.

Pitt stars in the film as a former U.N. employee Gerry Lane, a man who used to extract people from war zones and other dangerous situations. When a plague begins spreading across the United States and much of the rest of the world, Lane does what he can to get his family to safety and then trots around the globe trying to get to the bottom of the zombie epidemic and how to beat the undead.

Hordes of zombies are always tough to describe. Like vampires, the rules are always different. Where do they come from? What are their motivations? How do you dispose of them? World War Z answers these questions craftily, and the unrated version on the Blu-ray does so in roughly ten more minutes than the theatrical release. That may not be enough of a reason to go out of your way to catch the unrated version of the film, but even without the few added moments World War Z manages to explain its mythology without ever really slowing its pace. Our questions are answered in smart ways that heighten our anticipation and equal a big, blowout summer movie that also tickles our brains a little bit.

You can order World War Z over at Amazon.

Best Special Feature: I would have really liked it if Paramount Home Media Distribution had just bit the bullet and given fans access to the disasterous first cut that was almost World War Z. I could wish about that all day and it would never happen, though, so instead I’ll just talk about the WWZ: Production featurettes available with the set.

There are technically four of these that look at the outbreak, the beginning of the journey, the wall scenes in Israel, and “Camouflage,” a segment that explains some of the details from the final scenes of the film. During the featurettes, we get to hear a lot of the cast and producing team talking about how “thankful” they are for the experience, but the more interesting segments are when they focus on how they puzzled through the plot and worked on the special effects.

Other Special Features:

“Looking to Science”

Bates Motel: Season 1 Blu-ray

The horror genre has become more popular on television in recent years, with shows like American Horror Story and Bates Motel standing out in cable’s lineup as both creepy and kooky. I’ve never watched the former, so when I tuned in for the latter I was wildly, pleasantly surprised by what horror on cable can offer.

A prequel of sorts to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Bates Motel follows Norma (Vera Farmiga) and Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) in the time just after they set foot in White Pine Bay, Oregon to open a motel. The location and the contemporary time period don’t make the series a full-fledged prequel, but after watching the first season, I can’t imagine a cast or setting that is more fitting for A&E’s freshman drama.

Farmiga shines as Norman’s mother in the series, a possessive, quick-to-anger woman who equally seems dominant over and scared of her teenaged son. Their relationship is a complicated one, and throughout the first round of episodes, it grows even more problematical, as Norman’s estranged brother Dylan (Max Thieriot) shows up on the scene and Norman begins to open up to several girls, including the lovely and kind Bradley (Nicola Peltz) and the spunky and smart Emma (Olivia Cooke).

Bates Motel begins with a dead body, and it certainly isn’t the only dead body viewers see through the show’s ten-episode run. The tranquil town of White Pine Bay opens up some of its secrets and becomes something a little more sinister, with drugs and sex slave rings running amok. The mix of regular coming-of-age tropes and a shifty criminal enterprise is an intriguing way to frame a series, as well. Bates Motel isn’t afraid to mix and mash horror tropes, drama, and complicated relationships. The tightly woven first season is a clear indication of the direction A&E can go with its drama lineup, and with a few new projects at the network, we'll see if any new programming can manage to match up.

You can order Bates Motel: Season 1 over at Amazon.

Best Special Feature: There aren’t a ton of bonus features with the Blu-ray set, and the best extras are certainly the deleted scenes. When a TV set puts together episode-related bonus features like deleted scenes, the home entertainment people have to decide whether or not to put the deleted scenes in a big chunk on the disc or to spread them out to coordinate with each of the episodes.

In this instance, Universal Studios Home Entertainment opted to lump all of the bonus features together. The deleted scenes are the big bulk of these, and some of them give us added moments of character development, as Norman and his teacher, Miss Watson (Keegon Connor Tracy) exhibit added tension and as Norma and Dylan have a couple of bonding moments. Occasionally, it’s difficult to tell which deleted scenes fit with which episode, but that’s a small criticism.

Other Special Features:

Paley Center Panel Discussion with the Cast and Creative Team

Behind the Candelabra Blu-ray

Due to its subject matter and all-star cast, Behind the Candelabra received a lot of attention before it made its debut on HBO. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Matt Damon and Michael Douglas, the film follows the life of Scott Thorson and his reported lover, the famed pianist Liberace, during the late 1970s. The TV movie is based on the book of the same name written by Thorson in the eighties.

The story of love gone wrong is not a new movie trope. However, if you throw in Liberace’s wild personality, vibrant costumes, and eccentric lifestyle, you have the makings of something a little more interesting. Behind the Candelabra, despite its faults and its monumentally unlikeable characters, is always interesting.

The movie takes us through the rise and decadence of Liberace and Thorson’s relationship. A lot of the focus during the first portion of the movie is on Thorson’s introduction into Liberace’s public lifestyle. It’s tough to play chauffer to a man Thorson clearly feels equal to, and while there is plenty of glitz to living with Liberace, it does come with its own problems. When Liberace decides he wants Thorson to undergo plastic surgery to emulate him, the threads begin to unravel.

Soderbergh’s film is darkly comedic and certainly worth the watch, but HBO Home Entertainment’s DVD set is certainly not up to the company’s usual standards. It’s a flimsy white case with few bonus features, but it also only lists for $19.99, and it’s already available for cheaper over at Amazon.

Best Special Feature: HBO’s DVD set is a barebones affair, and the only bonus feature is a behind-the-scenes “Making of” segment that talks to the cast and crew members. If you really liked the movie, it might be worth a perusal, but don’t count the bonus feature as an additional reason to purchase the movie. It’s not particularly awesome.

Grimm: Season 2 Blu-ray

During its second season, Grimm finally found its niche in the NBC lineup. With the fandom related to the series, Universal Studios Home Entertainment has put together an extremely nice Blu-ray set that is chock full of bonus features—somewhat unusual for an NBC network show.

Grimm is a series that is often shot in the dark, and one of the first things buyers of the Blu-ray will notice is that the scenes shot in darkness are lit incredibly and look great in High Definition. Thanks to vampire dramas being prominent, there are so many shows that are frequently set during nighttime hours (see True Blood and The Vampire Diaries) and Grimm is the best I’ve seen at lighting those hours up.

The series follows Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) as a cop and descendant of the Grimms, a group of hunters who fight supernatural creatures. There’s plenty of myth and lore in Grimm, and the characters are well-developed enough in Season 2 that a wide variety of creatures, including hexenbiests, all seem to be pretty commonplace. The show’s always been part ensemble supernatural drama and part procedural and that weird mix is what is most engaging about the show.

That’s not to say some of the characters aren’t entertaining. Burkhardt’s buddy, Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell), still offers comedic relief, but is also a more helpful part of the team in Season 2. Additionally, Nick’s mom, Kelly (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) also pops up in the first episode of Season 2, and threatens the balance and alliances that Nick has achieved with some of the wesen living in the area. Season 2 offers a solid 22 episodes of content, and the set is actually quite fun to peruse.

You can order Grimm over at Amazon.

Best Special Feature: A large chunk of the bonus features are available on the fifth disc in the set, but it’s kind of tricky to spot them as there are also several episodes on disc five. There are a lot of really engaging bonus features, including the webisodes and some of the featurettes. It may be worth it, however, to purchase the Blu-ray if you are able and willing, as the HD picture is worth the cost and the Blu-ray sports a few bonus features not available with the DVD.

The best of these Blu-ray only extras is a feature called the “Grimm Guide.” It’s interactive, and it offers an index of most of the supernatural creatures that have popped up in the series, along with photos, definitions, and video footage.

Other Special Features:

Collector’s Cards

Extended episode

Grimm Guide

Deleted Scenes

Gag Reel

“Grimm: Myths, Monsters, & Legends”

“Grimm: Creatures and Chaos”

Bad Hair Day Webisodes

Monroe’s Best Moments

Other September 17 Releases

We are nearly in the throes of fall television, and while there haven’t been a ton of big budget movie releases over the last few weeks, this column can’t begin to cover all of the great fodder that Home Entertainment companies now have available on Blu-ray and DVD, should you be a big enough fan to want to own a copy of the season. Among these are some freshman season network hits that managed to get renewals for this fall, including The CW’s hot DC comics property Arrow and ABC’s country music-oriented drama, Nashville. You can check out some of the rest of September 17th’s releases, below. Unless otherwise noted, titles are available on both Blu-ray and DVD.

Arrow: The Complete First Season

The Mentalist: The Complete Fifth Season DVD

The Hollow Crown: The Complete Series DVD

The Bling Ring

Nashville: The Complete First Season

Disconnect

The East

Haunted History DVD

Java Heat

Suddenly

Augustine

Drift

Horror on television has gotten better and better in recent years, with A&E’s suspenseful and well-developed series, Bates Motel becoming one of the latest additions to the genre. The series is a re-imagining of sorts of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, set in the present and following a young Norman Bates and his relationship with his mother, Louise. The first season became a critical and ratings success for the network and has already earned a Season 2 renewal on A&E. Those who may have missed the series during its initial run and especially fans of the series should be pleased to learn that Bates Motel: The Complete First Season will be hitting Blu-ray and DVD on September 17.

The series starts out moody and throughout the first season builds a narrative that is full of twists and turns. If you haven’t gotten a chance to catch the series yet or just want to be reminded of some of its big moments, you can check out the Blu-ray trailer Universal Studios Home Entertainment has put together, below.

The life of Norman and Louise Bates prior to the events in Hitchcock’s Psycho are not calm or tranquil. The town of White Pine Bay, Oregon is filled with secrets and plenty of bad personalities abound. Even Norman and his mother often have a turbulent relationship and that friction is at the heart of the narrative in Season 1.

All 10 episodes of Season 1 will be included with the Blu-ray and DVD sets, but bonus features will be pretty scarce and only seem to include one featurette and deleted scenes. If you are planning to purchase the first season of the series, you may want to order a copy sooner rather than later, as Universal Studios Home Entertainment will, for a limited time only, include a set of collector cards featuring artwork from the series. This might seem a little gimmicky, but the artwork is from Jiao’s Sketchbook. I’ve actually encountered a copy of the sketchbook and if you are into the series, the sketches are a pretty cool tie-in.

TV sets aren’t typically a casual purchase, but if you are a huge fan of the series, these sets won’t break the bank. Blu-ray copies retail for $49.98 and are already available for pre-order for $34.99 via Amazon. DVD copies have a similar deal going. You can check out the full list of extras, below.

Bates Motel Blu-ray and DVD Extras

• Deleted Scenes
• “Paley Center Panel Discussion with the Cast and Creative Team”

Hearing word that three actors have signed on for roles in Bates Motel, I automatically begin to feel sympathy for their characters, especially when it's announced that these characters will be involved with Vera Farmiga's Norma Bates. After just one season of the Psycho prequel series, we're already starting to see how badly things seem to work out for some of the people whose paths cross with Norma and Norman Bates. Is such a fate in store for the characters played by Michael Vartan, Rebecca Creskoff and Kenny Johnson, all of whom have signed on for the series' upcoming second season?

Two of the three actors' roles are related, quite literally. Deadline says Creskoff will play the role of Christine, Norma's first ever female friend. She's described as witty and intelligent and she'll be the one to pull Norma into the upper circle of White Pine Bay Society. It also sounds like she'll be playing a part in introducing a new potential love interest for Normal, as Michael Vartan has signed on to recur as George, Christine's recently divorced older brother, who develops a crush on Norma. Finally, there's Kenny Johnson who's set to play Caleb, Norma's estranged brother.

With those descriptions, I'm already picturing bad things happening to Christine and George, and Caleb somehow being the source of trouble for Norma. Granted, Deadline's information doesn't suggest as much for any of these new recurring characters, but going by Season 1, it may not be such a stretch to be concerned, right? The series centers on Norma and Norman Bates in the years before the events of Psycho. The first season wrapped up with a body count, and it seems inevitable that there will be more casualties once Season 2 gets going.

Michael Vartan's recent credits include Columbiana and the part of Dr. Tom Wakefield on Hawthorne. But some of us may always associate him best for his role as Michael Vaughn on Alias, and a little bit for being the dreamy teacher Sam Coulson in Never Been Kissed. Creskoff, meanwhile, played Lenore Bernard on HBO's Hung and the recurring part of Jennifer Miller on Gilfriends. She's also appeared in Justified, Parenthood, Love Bites and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Finally, there's Kenny Johnson, whose credits include The Shield, Sons of Anarchy, Prime Suspect and Burn Notice. He's also set to recur on Dexter later on during its final season.

Bates Motel debuted its first season on A&E back in May. The series made an appearance at Comic-Con and is expected to return for its second season later this year.

We're close enough to Comic-Con that those of us planning to attend are likely getting anxious awaiting the finalized schedule of panels and events set to take place at SDCC this year. In the meantime, networks and studios continue to make individual announcements for panels to be featured. Among the recent announcements are BBC America's Orphan Black, History's Vikings, A&E's Bates Motel and Yahoo!'s comedy Ghost Ghirls.

TVLine announced the news about Orphan Black this week, stating that the series will be featured in a panel at SDCC on Friday, July 19 at 7:00 p.m. in Room 7AB. star Tatiana Maslany, Jordan Gavaris and Dylan Bruce will be in attendance, along with series co-creators Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, who will participate in an hour-long Q&A and discussion about the thriller's first season. As to what fans might see from Season 2, as TVLine points out, the series doesn't resume production for a couple of months, so it might be too much to hope for some new footage, but fans might get some clues about what's ahead. An autograph signing is scheduled for Saturday, July 20 at 4:30 p.m. at the BBC America booth.

Next up, we have Bates Motel, which checks in for a panel at Comic-Con on Saturday, July 20 at 10:00 a.m. Set to be in attendance are the Bates themselves, Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore, as well as Max Thieriot, Olivia Cooke and Nestor Carbonell. Executive producers Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin will join them on the panel to talk about the drama and hopefully what's ahead in the series' second season. There's no confirmation on where the panel will take place yet.

And then there's Vikings. History has a few things planned for their scripted series, which is making its Comic-Con debut this year. In addition to a panel, History is featuring a "Vikings Interactive Waterway" experience, which will offer a keepsake photo and an opportunity for fans to race miniature Vikings. As for the panel, stars Travis Fimmel, Katheryn Winnick, Clive Standen, Gustaf Skarsgard, George Blagden and Jessalyn Gilsig will be there, along with writer/creator Michael Hirst and History's Dirk Hoogstra. More details below:

History also has the first-ever VIkings comic book to unveil. It's written by series creator/writer Michael Hirst and will be given out to select fans attending the Vikings events. Check out the cover below!

And finally, there's Yahoo!'s Comedy series Ghost Ghirls. Yahoo! and Shine America promise the "ultimate paranormal experience" at SDCC this year. Jack Black will be returning to Comic-Con for the first time since 2005 for the panel for Ghost Ghirls, a comedy webseries that's coming to Yahoo! this fall and guest-stars Black. The series will follow the antics of two best friends, Heidi (Amanda Lund) and Angelica (Maria Blasucci), who work as paranormal investigators. Created by Jeremy Konner (Drunk History), each episode will focus on their misadventures as they try to solve otherworldly cases. That is, if they can manage to do that without getting in their own way. In addition to Black, the series will feature cameos by celebrities like Dave Grohl, Val Kilmer, Jack Johnson, Molly Shannon and Chason Schwartzman.

Here's the information for the panel, which will take place on Thursday, July 18.

Last night’s Bates Motel finale wrapped up some plotlines and left others in the lurch. Luckily, if you haven’t caught the A&E series’ big wrap-up, this isn’t a recap. Instead it’s a rundown of the show’s good ratings. As it turns out, Bates Motel did quite well during its finale, up 8% from the penultimate episode.

The final episode averaged 2.7 million total viewers, and while that may not seem like a ton of eyeballs, it’s pretty decent for a network that has slowly gotten into the scripted programming game over the last few years, with shows including The Glades and Longmire. Additionally, a large chunk of the audience came in the coveted 18-49 demographic. According to THR, 1.5 million of those total viewers were part of that ideal age grouping.

What’s most important about these numbers is that Bates Motel has held steady throughout the season, which means viewers are consistently tuning in to the series, rather than cycling in and out. Sometimes programs will yo-yo in the ratings, making the future of a series uncertain, but in Bates Motel’s case, the show humorously averaged the same numbers that last night’s finale brought in (2.7 total/ 1.5 demo). Because the ratings were so steady, it was no big surprise when A&E announced the series would be returning for a second season last month. Like Season 1, Season 2 has earned a 10-episode order at the network and will be returning to A&E sometime next year.

One of the up sides to cable programming is that we don't always have to wait until the season is nearly wrapped up to find out of the show will be back for another season. Such is the case for Bates Motel. A&E's creepy new drama series has only aired three episodes so far, with the fourth ("Trust Me") set to play tonight, and A&E has already announced word that they've given the order for a second season of the series.

Created by Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin, Bates Motel is set in the modern day but is set up as a prequel to Psycho, focusing in the relationship of Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) when Norman was just in high school. The series has been doing pretty well for A&E, bringing in a little over 3 million for its premiere airing, and retaining most of that audience, with the last two episodes earning 2.84 million and 2.82 million viewers. With those numbers, added to the series premiering as the most-watched scripted drama in network history with the key demos, it's not a huge surprise that A&E's looking to move forward with the series.

The network has given a Bates Motel a 10-episode order for Season 2, to match the ten episodes in the first season of the show, which was first announced in January of 2012 and given a straight to series order the following summer.

The series has been doing a great job of pacing itself, and gives the modern setting a classic feel, tying the old with the new in a way that makes the setting feel almost timeless and almost dated, but still somehow modern. I've been enjoying the first season so far, and now it looks like we'll have a second season to look forward to after this one wraps up.

Bates Motel airs Mondays at 10:00 p.m. ET on A&E. You can watch the promo for tonight's "Trust Me" here, and if you're new to the show and want to catch up, Amazon has the episodes available for $1.99 a piece or you can watch them for free on A&E's website.

There is nothing quite like Bates Motel on television right now. I'm not only referring to the Pyscho-inspired source material, but also the tone of the dark and creepy new A&E series, which somehow manages to blend a modern age with a 50s-style and tone that makes the town of White Pine Bay, Oregon seem like something out of an alternative universe, and yet just accessible enough to make the series feel real. It's the perfect setting for bad things to happen, and bad things are most certainly happening.

As last night's episode revealed (Spoilers if you haven't seen it yet!), Deput Shelby's not exactly an upstanding citizen, and while he gets cozy with Norma and helps her out of the current jam he's in, he's also got Summer locked up on his basement. Based on the preview, things are only going to get darker and more suspenseful from there!

For those who are already hooked on the show and ready to take their fandom to the next level, A&E has made the full sketchbook available for download on iTunes. It's an eBook, which is compatible with Apple's eReaders and allows you to view the drawings and translate the writing (with the tap of a finger) to read the text. Pretty cool stuff and a great little bonus feature for fans of this new series.

Bates Motel airs Mondays at 10/9c on A&E. Those who want to watch the first episode for free can find it over at Amazon. They also have the recently aired episodes, including last night's "What's Wrong with Norman" (for a fee per episode).

"We all go a little mad sometimes."

Included as one of our ten reasons to watch television in March, the highly anticipated Bates Motel finally premiered last night on A&E. Despite being a 'prequel' to Alfred Hitchcock's classic slasher flick Psycho, the new take from Carlton Cuse, the co-creator of Lost, and Kerry Ehrin, of Friday Night Lights, takes place in modern times and features a young Norman Bates, not to mention his very much alive Mother named Norma. It's not weird, as she says, boys take their father's names all the time. Speaking of fathers, well, the Bates patriarch never really figured into the original story and don't expect that to change (too much) with the television adaptation, something made immediately clear in the great opening moments of "First You Dream, Then You Die." Nope, Bates Motel focuses on the boy and his mother's lovingly twisted relationship during the former's formidable years.

The extended opening sequence, previously released online (and still available as a taste for those who aren't sure whether or not the show's for them) does a fantastic job of introducing not only the main characters, Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates and Freddie Highmore as Norman but also setting the tone and atmosphere for the rest of the first episode. And those factors, the co-lead's acting and the brooding atmosphere, are really the two main reasons to tune in at this point. After the economical first few minutes, the episode does meander into many pilot problems, namely a heavy dose of exposition but is able to keep audiences invested thanks to the performances, great locations and pervading sense of doom. "First You Dream, Then You Die" is actually the first major pilot in some time that seems to suffer from 'pilot problems,' excuses made for a series debut because they obviously have to spend time introducing the characters and building the world.

However, these expository issues are not only rarer these days with top talent brought in to write and direct first installments but also typically not associated with first episodes produced with a full season order already in hand like Bates. With A&E ordering ten installments right off the bat, it certainly should have allowed the writers time to string out the force feeding of information and character introductions (especially since it's loosely based on a previously existing property, pun intended) instead of shoving in sequences to ensure that all of the bases are covered. For example, "First You Dream, Then You Die" probably could have gone without the meet-cute between Norman and Jenna after he's puking at school. Not that it was terribly out of place or even poorly handled (like some of the other intros, more on that later) but we've already met more than enough characters for one day, why not focus on really hammering home the central relationship of the series and spend most of the time with Norman and Norma?

Bates Motel hinges on the pairing of mother and son, thankfully Farmiga and Highmore are phenomenal in the roles. Like I said, the cold open before the title card, uh, turns on, does a great job introducing the main characters, immediately showing the trauma of losing Mr. Bates as well as hinting that all is not right with Norma. Farmiga is able to move from coy to clearly concerned for her son (not her dead husband) in an instant and these melodramatic mood swings become typical for the two throughout the episode. And while we're on the enjoyable cold open, I especially loved the thematically perfect hat-tip to Hitch's era with His Girl Friday playing in the background and we hear Ralph Bellamy's Bruce Baldwin utter a phrase about how great it is living with mother. It immediately highlights that Bates isn't a prequel in terms of time, just the characters relocated to the contemporary Pacific Northwest. Yet still facing a lot of the same issues, like the building of the highway which puts the motel off the main road in and out of town.

And these weird anachronistic head-scratchers make me wonder why they didn't just set the prequel in the 40s or 50s (perhaps an effort to avoid being another in the deluge of period pieces) since it would have also helped offset the more heavy-handed or melodramatic moments by making it seem of Psycho's time. There is definitely a tonal clash when it comes to the family events at the motel, played with a classical Hollywood sense of heightened reality, and Norman's adventures with the kids his own age. That's probably the point but it still doesn't change the fact that it doesn't really work in "First You Dream, Then You Die." I want to relish in the over-the-top relationship and murderous thrills that occur at the motel without then being forced into this completely different reality where teenage girls are not only beautiful but friendly. I mean, what a first day of school? Can you imagine that happening to the new kid at the bus stop? No, cause there's no way and when the crazy-beautiful Bradley Kenner sat in his lap (with a full name introduction, like everybody in town) I wanted to stab myself forty times.

Ultimately, you can see why A&E thought to mix Cuse and Ehrin, the former bringing the Lost-style chills and mysteries to the previously established world while the latter has to craft some semblance of a believable teenage life in the same space. And I don't think they succeeded. Yet. I didn't really care for any of the scenes without Norma or not set at the rich and wonderful location but hopefully, once the shit continues to hit the fan, the worlds will collide a bit more and make the one side easier to swallow. Who would have thought I found the story with the rape more palatable than the thread with the pretty teenage girls? By the way, that rape scene was pretty intense and seems to be a pretty common plot device in film and television these days. I'm not sure how I feel about that, I found it gratuitous in The Americans but it does fit into the twisted origin story of the mother and son murderers (assuming he follows his pre-ordained path). I'm also not sure what to make of the incestuous tones at this point and whether they will bubble to the surface. I think I'll check in next week to find out, even if only out of morbid curiosity.

Bates Motel returns with Episode 2, "Nice Town You Picked, Norma...," next Mondays at 10:00 p.m. ET on A&E. Created by Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse, the series stars Freddy Highmore, Vera Farmiga, Max Thieriot, Nicola Peltz, Olivia Cooke, Mike Vogel and Nestor Carbonell.

A&E's been selling the subtle creepy-factor for their upcoming original drama series Bates Motel, and the latest teaser for the show gives another chills-inducing look at Norman Bates and his mother. We also have an early look at some new key art for the show, which is scheduled to debut this March.

Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Bates Motel will serve as a "contemporary preque" to the story. It follows Norman Bates and his mother when Norman was a teenager. The drama, which is executive produced by Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin, will serve as a backstory to the popular film, so expectations are likely high that this new story will live up to Hitchcock's beloved film.. The teaser below shows us Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates and Freddie Highmore as Norman. Highmore doesn't actually say anything, but his facial expressions speak volumes.

Norma loves Norman. That's as evident in her body language as it is in her words. While she's turned toward him and holding his arm, Norman stares straight ahead, a creepy smile forming on his lips at the very end. Yikes!

The new key art is set under the words "A boy's best friend is his mother," and depicts a similar image to the teaser, with Norma and Norman seated in a motel room. Norma's leaning in and Norman's staring ahead, his posture stiff and his hands on his knees.

Creepy seems like a fitting tone to promote the series, especially knowing that Norman will go on to become a serial killer. I also like the emphasis on Norman's relationship with his mother, since that's expected to be a key aspect of this series.

Bates Motel premieres on A&E March 18 at 10:00 p.m.

"Norman has been through a lot. He's a sensitive boy," Norma Bates can be heard in the new promotional video for the re-imagining of the classic horror story Psycho, which will focus on Norman Bates in his younger years. A&E has the series slated to premiere in March, and the cable channel has already begun promoting it. First, it was a couple of creepy teasers and some photos from the series premiere. Now we have a video that gives us a peek at the series and takes a behind-the-scenes look at the drama.

Bates Motel comes from Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin and stars Freddie HIghmore as Norman Bates, with Vera Farmiga set to play his mother Norma. The video below looks at the drama and features some of the cast and Cuse talking about the series.

The cast seems especially enthusiastic about the writing, with talk about crazy turns, suspense and emotional characters. As if to emphasize that, we're given a few glimpses of the drama and suspense that awaits in the series.

Horror seems to be on the rise for TV dramas these days. I couldn't help but think there was some similarity with the jarring music used at the start of the video and the theme some to American Horror Story. As a fan of the FX drama, and of the growing trend in mixing scary with drama in TV shows, I'm eager to see what Bates Motel brings to the table for the genre.

As the video states, Bates Motel will premiere this March. Check out the photos, previously released teasers and more information here.

If you’ve always dreamed of designing the opening credits for a television show, A&E has the opportunity of a lifetime for you. The network, along with executive producer Carlton Cuse, has launched a contest for the creation of the title sequence for the upcoming Psycho prequel, Bates Motel.

Cuse and A&E announced the contest today, which will run through the show’s Facebook page. It invites aspiring designers to submit their ideas in video format, and judges will select the one that the feel best represents the show’s mood and tone. The title sequence for the series is expected to be 15 seconds in length, and Cuse wants it to have certain mood that fits the thriller, and not a slasher film one either:

Bates Motel stars Freddie Highmore as the young Norman Bates, the man who would later become the serial killer in Hitchcock’s famous film. The series looks at his complex relationship with his mother, played by Vera Farmiga, and explores the formative years that turned him into a psychotic killer. A&E sent the project straight to series back in the summer, and plans to premiere it in 2013.

The contest is open to anyone aged 18 or over. Contest entries will be accepted from today until January 3rd, which gives all you creative types a little less than a month to put your entry together and get it in. Check out the teasers and photos from the new show for some inspiration, and good luck!

A&E will have us all checking into the Bates Motel when the Psycho prequel series premieres. Freddie Highmore is set to play young Norman Bates in the series, with Vera Farmiga on board to play his mother Norma. A&E shared some new photos from the series and we have two very creepy teasers to show you!

From Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin, Bates Motel is a prequel story set in modern day that introduces us to Norman Bates in his teen years. The teasers below won't air on TV until this Sunday night with the midseason finale of The Walking Dead and on Tuesday for the Sons of Anarchy finale on FX, but you can get an early look at them here…

You wouldn't think hands and feet could be so creepy, but set in the right (or seriously wrong) context, the image of a set of shackled hands or burning feet can induce goosebumps!

A&E set up the website for the series, which offers information on the show and the characters, and some photos from the show, which give us a look at Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates.

Sort of a Forrest Gump thing happening here as Norman stares out at nothing while he listens to music and waits at a bus stop.

Farmiga's Norma looks a bit more relaxed and casual as she walks. Is that a bandage on her hand?

And here's Norman talking to his teacher Miss Watson (Keegan Connor-Tracy)

Meanwhile, Olivia Cooke plays Emma, another teen featured in the show who, according to the caption at A&E, doesn't let her cystic fibrosis stop her from keeping up with her classmates.

It looks like she and Norman become friends.

Bates Motel premieres 2013 in A&E. Check out A&E's website for more photos and information on the series here.

The vacancies keep getting filled at A&E's Bates Motel. Two more familiar faces have checked in for recurring roles on the prequel series that's in the works at the cable channel. One is likely to be familiar to Lost fans, while the other also has a J.J. Abrams connection, having appeared in the 2008 film Cloverfield.

Slowly but surely roles are being filled for A&E's Bates Motel. The series is set up as a prequel to the story told in the novel (and then film) Psycho. Freddie Highmore is set to play Norman Bates, while Vera Farmiga will play his mother. And late last month we learned that The Last Airbender's Nicola Peltz had boarded the series as a girl Norman takes a liking to.

Today comes word from Deadline that Mike Vogel and Nestor Carbonell have joined the drama. Carbonell, who's known for playing Richard Alpert in Lost (and more recently appeared in the CW's Ringer) will play Sheriff Royce Romero. Badge or not, his character apparently has "something almost sinister about him." Carbonell seems like a good fit for a role like that. He has that sort of mysterious way about him that could go either way (either he's a nice guy, or he's scary-creepy-dangerous).

Meanwhile, Mike Vogel, whose credits include Cloverfield and more recently, ABC's short-lived Pan Am, will play Deputy Zach Shelby, who's described as "a completely engaging, attractive, intelligent sociopath." Yeah, I'll buy that too. Sounds like the law might not be the place you want to turn to for the good guys on this show. And it sounds like Bates Motel appears to be filling up with dangerous characters.

Just the other day, I was wondering why we hadn't seen much of Freddie Highmore lately. He's actually played a few starring roles in features in recent years, but a lot of his recent credits (Astro Boy, Arthur and the Revenge of the Maltazard) are for voice-work. Now the 20-year-old British actor appears to be heading for the small screen by checking into the Bates Motel at A&E.

Norman Bates is the murderous lead character in Robert Bloch's novel Psycho and the Alfred Hitchcock feature adaptation that followed. He was played by Anthony Perkins in the movie, and according to Deadline, Highmore will do the honors for A&E's upcoming drama series Bates Motel, joining previously cast Vera Farmiga, who is set to play Norman Bates' mother Norma. The series comes from Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin, and will be a prequel to the classic story, focusing on Norman's strange relationship with his mother.

Back when it was first announced that A&E had sent the project straight to series with a 10-episode order, A&E president Bob DeBitetto referred to it as a "thrilling reinvention of one of the most compelling characters in cinematic history." Highmore's casting seems especially fitting in that respect. Taking on a dark role like this might seem like a reinvention of himself as an actor transitioning to adult roles, for those of us who remember him best from films like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland and August Rush.

I'm sure I'm not alone in having been very curious to see who would be cast opposite Farmiga for the other lead in Bates Motel. Highmore is certainly an intriguing choice, to say the least. He's demonstrated his substantial talent as an actor in his younger years, so it should be very interesting to see how he takes on Norman. The series is expected to premiere in 2013. Personally, I'm really excited to see the first image of him in character. I'm already picturing it in my mind. His hair neatly combed. Head turned down slightly. Eyes on the camera. And that creepy smile…

We all go a little mad, sometimes.

There’s a new Norma Bates in town, and she looks a lot better than when last we saw her. The lead female role in the new A&E series Bates Motel has gone to Vera Farmiga, who will play a young Norma Bates, mother to the future Psycho serial killer who still makes plenty of people nervous in the shower.

The series is a prequel to the Hitchcock classic and looks at the earlier days of Norma’s relationship with her son Norman Bates, and how it impacts Norman’s future actions. Most people are familiar with the end result of that relationship; Norman murders young women in the family motel while hiding his mother’s corpse in the big old house on the hill. How did he become such a crazed killer? Well, that’s the question Bates Motel aims to answer.

The series started life as a potential miniseries, but A&E decided to go in a different direction, and gave the project a straight-to-series order, forgoing the pilot stage. They have ordered 10 episodes and plan to premiere the series in 2013. Vera Farmiga is the first of the two main roles to be cast, according to Deadline. She has plenty of television experience, having co-starred on shows like Touching Evil and UC: Undercover. She’s also appeared in a number of films including Oscar-winner The Departed.

The big question remaining in the casting department is, of course, Norman himself. A young budding serial killer who is obsessed with his mother -not just any young actor will do for this part. I am guessing A&E will go with someone relatively unknown for the part.

A&E has a couple of killer series in development – about killers, that is. The cable channel is working on a series based on the early life of Norman Bates, the crazed killer from the Hitchcock classic Psycho, as well as a series about a forensic psychiatrist hunting serial killers adapted from the hit Danish series Those Who Kill.

According to Deadline the Psycho prequel series Bates Motel is in early development and will tell the story of Norman Bates and his mother, who along with her lover is responsible for turning little Norman into a, well, psycho. Back in the 80s’ NBC tried a Psycho spinoff by the same name, but it centered on a murderer who meets Bates in an asylum and becomes to the new owner of the Bates Motel. The TV movie was meant to serve as a pilot for a potential new series, but low ratings shelved the project instead.

A&E is also developing a second series with serial killers in the plot. Those Who Kill is about a team of two serial killer hunters – a female detective and a profiler – and is based on a series of books by Elsebeth Egholm. The A&E series is being adapted from the Danish series that hit the air back in March of 2011.

Neither series seems to offer much that’s new to television; audiences already have a favorite sympathetic serial killer in Dexter and there have been plenty of series following profilers. Does the Psycho franchise still have life left in it? Do we have room in our living rooms for another profiler? Of course what will make these two sink or swim will be great writing and the right casting, both of which can make any formulaic plot rise above the rest.