Pamela Voorhees is getting her own show. Crystal Lake, a prequel to Friday the 13th arriving on Peacock Oct. 15, casts Linda Cardellini — fresh off an Emmy for DTF St. Louis — as Jason’s mother, the killer in the original film. It’s one of 13 new series the Journal’s Esther Zuckerman picks for the cold months, all landing between Oct. 1 and Dec. 3, alongside the returns of The Diplomat (Netflix, Oct. 15) and The Gilded Age (HBO, Nov. 1).
October is crowded. East of Eden (Netflix, Oct. 1), created by Zoe Kazan — whose grandfather Elia directed the 1955 film — recenters Steinbeck’s novel on Cathy Ames, played by Florence Pugh. War (HBO, Oct. 1), co-produced with Britain’s Sky, isn’t about war at all: it’s a bitter divorce — Dominic West as a wealthy tech guy, Sienna Miller as his actress wife — fought through their lawyers’ tactics. Mike Flanagan, now a leading Stephen King interpreter, moves Carrie to a modern high school (Amazon Prime Video, Oct. 7). Below (Netflix, Oct. 8) hands Josh Hartnett a fishing town and a sea monster; Cupertino (CBS, Oct. 8), from the creators of The Good Wife, puts a law firm on the side of people big tech has exploited; and VisionQuest (Disney+, Oct. 14) brings back Paul Bettany’s Vision and James Spader’s Ultron five years after WandaVision.
November’s money story
The one to circle is The Altruists (Netflix, Nov. 19): Anthony Boyle plays FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in a series about his downfall, with Julia Garner — who previously played Anna Delvey — as Caroline Ellison, who the paper notes committed fraud alongside him. Also in November: Karin Slaughter adapts her own bestseller The Good Daughter (Peacock, Nov. 12); 12 12 12 (Apple TV+, Nov. 13) runs a heist across 12 months of planning, 12 hours of execution and 12 days on the run; Dig (Peacock, Nov. 23) puts Amy Poehler back with Michael Schur, who created Parks and Recreation; and Blade Runner 2099 (Prime Video, Nov. 25) casts Michelle Yeoh as a replicant. December gets one entry: Dolly Alderton’s Pride and Prejudice (Netflix, Dec. 3), with Emma Corrin, Jack Lowden and Olivia Colman.
Our read
Count the bills, not the shows. By our tally the 13 sit on seven outlets — Netflix (NFLX) has four, Peacock (Comcast, CMCSA) three, Amazon (AMZN) Prime Video two, and HBO, CBS (Paramount Skydance, PSKY), Disney+ (DIS) and Apple TV+ (AAPL) one apiece — and the premieres bunch: seven in October, five in November, one in December. That’s an argument for rotating subscriptions by month rather than carrying them all year-round (M5, cash flow). Whatever the prices, the point is the habit. Subscribe for the month a show you want airs, cancel when it ends, and let the streamers compete for you again.
Two of the shows are homework. The Altruists is a custody lesson (M11): the paper calls Bankman-Fried a fraudster, and fraud at a platform often comes down to a custody question: who actually holds the assets in any account — brokerage, crypto platform, private fund — and what protects them if the operator fails. And War is an estate-planning episode in disguise: divorces are fought over how assets are titled, what’s separate, what’s joint and whether anyone signed a prenup. It’s more fun on HBO than at a conference table.