The Best Paramount Plus Shows in 2023

I'm a Paramount Plus apologist. I know, based solely on subscription numbers, that I have to be because people don't subscribe to the streaming service at the same rate as Netflix or Amazon Prime, but I spend more time on the Paramount Plus app than the other two. It has older programs like Star Trek, frasier, and Avatar the last airbenderand newer flashy shows like… everything Taylor Sheridan produces and frasier. It's got a whole mess of football (American) and soccer (the rest of the world), and while bigger brands like Netflix are only now experimenting with live TV, Paramount Plus has been doing it from the beginning and doing it very well . .

I think it's my streaming service on a desert island.

Many new shows aired on the service this year. These are some of the best ones to check out if you recently purchased Paramount Plus or are trying to justify your purchase so you can catch up on all the news. Star Trek you missed out.

It will come as no surprise that it is at the top of the list. While the first two seasons were uneven with occasional cerebral moments of Star Trek or joyful moments of nostalgia, season 3 is just a really exciting, really fun space adventure Star Trekand enough fan service to feed the most diehards The next generation fan. It makes up for all the sins of its previous seasons and at the same time creates one of the most exciting. Star Trek derived in years. I really can't wait to see Captain Seven of Nine's adventures on his Enterprise.

Taylor Sheridan's programming appears to be half of what's available on Paramount Plus, and that makes sense if you remember. yellow stone It is a monstrous success. But of all the shows he's doing, 1923 with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren has to be my favorite. The series is a yellow stone prequel that chronicles the lives of the Duttons during a time of extraordinary transition in the West. Sheep farmers and ranchers wage war on horseback with Tommy guns, while the family heir travels across the African continent with his new British heiress wife to help the family fight their new war. It's violent and ridiculous, but also one of the most entertaining adventure shows on television right now.

This show looks like an American webtoon come to life. It's about a teenager, Maddie Nears, who wakes up dead and trapped at her school. He has to try to solve his own murder with the help of the other ghosts who live at the school, including a football star who died in the '80s (and now the stadium is named after him), a weird kid who died from a peanut allergy (and then had to watch his living peers mock him mercilessly) and a furious teenage beatnik murdered by his guidance counselor. The show has a surprising streak of heart, with plenty of twists, turns, and high school romance. Interestingly, you can watch the first season on both Paramount Plus (its original home) and Netflix.

If you have never seen Star Trek and I've been looking for a place to start, Strange new worlds is for you. This is a prequel to the original. star trek, So there are some characters you may recognize, like Spock and Uhura (and occasionally Kirk!), and plenty of other new characters you've never met but will instantly love. Luckily, this show is episodic in a world where most shows treat each season like one very long movie, which means it can have really fun one-off episodes, like this year's crossover with Lower covers or its excellent musical. It's been months and I'm still humming Spock's gentle tenor.

Between Health and frasier, Frasier Crane is one of the longest-running characters in television history. So it's hard to blame Kelsey Grammer for returning to the role of her. In a world where any old show can get a sequel, there's a good chance Frasier will lose that honor. This new show has Frasier back in Boston and trying to maintain a relationship with his son even as he mourns his father, Martin Crane (John Mahoney, who played Martin, passed away in 2018). It doesn't have the same polish as the original show, which seemed to catch lightning in a bottle with its mix of farce and wit, but it's good fun, helped by a big dose of nostalgia.

This is another Taylor Sheridan show with a stacked cast. This time Zoe Saldana is a CIA officer who works specifically with young female spies to infiltrate terrorist organizations through the networks of wives and daughters. The show, which also stars Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman, takes itself too seriously and may be a little too jingoistic for my tastes. However, this is also a Taylor Sheridan joint and that man really knows how to make highly entertaining adventure shows. That's why he takes himself very seriously, but is almost always convincing.

What if the kindest episodes of Rick and Morty were combined with Star Trek? That is Lower covers. Now in its fourth season, this animated comedy is packed with heart, aliens, big sci-fi stories, and more. Star Trek references than a fan forum. In its fourth season, the main cast of ensigns finally got those coveted promotions and began to grow, and it often became a gentle reflection on what it's like to advance further in your career, all while still doing the kind of really fun things. science fiction that live-action shows could never achieve.

And let's close this out with one last Sheridan joint. This one is about Bass Reeves, one of the most famous American marshals of the American frontier and the first black deputy marshal west of the Mississippi. David Oyelowo produces the show and plays Reeves with constant fury. It's a fascinating performance at the center of a more routine Western that attempts to navigate the Reeves myth while placing him in a world that feels strangely post-racism in a way that reality wasn't at all. I often find myself struggling to understand who the audience for this show is, but the performances at the center are fantastic.