The very best restricted collection you possibly can watch proper now

It may be good to have a TV present in your rotation that you recognize isn’t ending any time quickly. However generally, you need one thing with an finish level in thoughts from its creators. Free of the pressures of renewal and cancellation, restricted collection can provide us among the greatest storytelling the medium of tv has to supply.

That’s been on full show just lately, with a powerful run of restricted collection in 2024 alone. The greatest TV of the 12 months contains a number of “one and executed” reveals: The Regime, Child Reindeer, Masters of the Air, and the superb Shōgun, among the best American TV reveals in latest reminiscence. And extra are on their approach: Park Chan-wook’s The Sympathizer is operating by way of its season on HBO, The Veil and Beneath the Bridge simply began on FX on Hulu, and even Knuckles is getting in on restricted collection motion.

All of the robust one-season reveals on provide this 12 months had the Polygon employees questioning: What are the very best restricted collection ever that you could watch at residence proper now? Anthology collection and reveals that bought cancelled after a season don’t depend — we’re wanting solely at reveals that have been deliberate as one-and-done entities.

Band of Brothers

Picture: Warner Bros. Leisure

The place to observe: Max and Netflix

Lots has modified about status TV within the 23 years since Band of Brothers first premiered on HBO. However it doesn’t matter what tendencies have come and gone since then, one factor that hasn’t modified is absolutely the excellence of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ World Warfare II collection.

Band of Brothers follows a regiment of troopers, nicknamed Simple Firm, from paratrooper coaching by way of their experiences within the Second World Warfare’s European theater. The present’s depiction of struggle is downright hellish: a muddy, bloody, and terrifying portrait of battle that manages to seize each the moment-to-moment crucial of survival, and the often-futile feeling of particular person gun fights and victories.

All that is given unimaginable life by the collection’ spectacular filmmaking in addition to its parade of recognizable faces and future film stars. Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Michael Fassbender, David Schwimmer, Tom Hardy, Simon Pegg, Colin Hanks, Dominic Cooper, James McAvoy, and extra all present up at one level or one other.

Every episode begins with a real-life interview from a member of Simple Firm, on which the characters and occasions of the collection are based mostly. It’s a jarring option to this present day, however one which helps underscore the true-to-life horrors of the present and serves each creatively and virtually as a profound memorial to the troopers themselves. The interviews additionally give the collection a stately really feel that each makes it really feel proper at residence with status TV, and oddly out-of-step and distinctive from all the things that’s come earlier than or after. —Austen Goslin

Devs

Picture: FX

The place to observe: Hulu

Can a restricted collection survive on vibes alone? Devs supposes that maybe, with sufficient luxurious techno-religious set design and otherworldly electro-drones, you possibly can. Fortunately, the remainder of Alex Garland’s 8-episode silicon valley espionage thriller additionally delivers. Nick Offerman effortlessly places his dry, understated supply to sinister impact as mysterious tech CEO Forest, a person who talks like a guru but additionally orders a homicide the second his quantum machine is threatened. And what a machine it’s: the cubic, shimmering gold set is sort of as iconic as the previous Parks and Rec star.

What precisely this machine does is on the coronary heart of the present’s thriller, as is the aforementioned homicide Sonoya Mizuno’s Lily is attempting to unravel. Her uncooked, heart-wrenching efficiency takes many twists and turns, maintaining the entire thing emotionally grounded. Although the present luxuriates in poetry readings and languid establishing pictures, it’s nonetheless extra than simply cerebrally intense viewing thanks specifically to Zach Grenier’s menacing flip as Forest’s head of safety Kenton. Few reveals can so effortlessly shift from gripping hand at hand fight to ruminations on the character of free will and again once more. —Clayton Ashley

I, Claudius

Picture: BBC Two

The place to observe: Acorn TV, free on Hoopla with a library card, digital buy on Amazon/Apple

There are a number of causes it is best to watch I, Claudius, the traditional 1976 BBC miniseries, not least of which is: Have you ever ever wished to see Patrick Stewart in probably the most weird Roman legionnaire wig you’ve ever seen?

Fortunately, I, Claudius’ legacy is bigger than something that curly hair may invoke in us. The collection, tracing the early Roman Empire’s historical past by way of the eyes of eventual emperor Claudius (Derek Jacobi), boasts a forged longer than any British miniseries you’ve ever seen, and there’s not a dud within the bunch. The tangled, intricate internet of deception, backstabbing, and politicking is the blueprint and inspiration for reveals like Sport of Thrones and The Sopranos. Its manufacturing — each visually and in its generally clunky updating — is completely of its time. It’s a relic and a legend, a historic report that gave us the TV of at present. —Zosha Millman

The Little Drummer Lady

Picture: AMC

The place to observe: Digital buy on Amazon/Apple

Legendary director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Determination to Go away) has a brand new buzzy mini-series out in The Sympathizer. But it surely isn’t his first foray into the format.

In 2018, Park’s adaptation of certainly one of John le Carré’s greatest spy novels paired two burgeoning film stars (Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård) with the director’s impeccable consideration to element, creating one of the vital underrated reveals of the century.

A younger actress (Pugh) meets a good-looking stranger (Skarsgård) whereas on trip. What seems at first to be a summer time fling quickly comes into focus as a recruitment operation — the stranger works for Israeli intelligence, and he brings the younger lady into the harmful world of espionage.

The Little Drummer Lady is a pitch-perfect match of expertise and supply materials. Le Carré’s espionage tales are intricate and nuanced, by no means inclined to take the straightforward approach out, which makes Park the proper director to deal with his tales. —Pete Volk

Midnight Mass

Picture: Netflix

The place to observe: Netflix

Whereas different Mike Flanagan Netflix miniseries is perhaps extra excessive profile, nothing stands out like Midnight Mass. On the time he launched it he referred to as the present his “most private” work, gestating for years as he constructed up the clout and ability to make it.

Midnight Mass tells the story of a small, dying city all of a sudden inundated with miracles and bizarre occasions after a charismatic priest strikes in. Flanagan imbues the story with plenty of coronary heart, and an equal quantity of pointed horror. The result’s daring and clear: An formidable piece that’s without delay punching extensively and touchdown particularly, a splendidly imperfect and deeply private masterpiece. —ZM

Mildred Pierce

Picture: HBO

The place to observe: Max

In some methods, this 2011 HBO adaptation of the traditional Forties James M. Cain novel is the traditional archetype of a status miniseries. It’s organized round one show-stopping efficiency from an enormous star — Kate Winslet, at all times riveting as Mildred. It’s a interval piece, with luxurious, shiny manufacturing values – plenty of heat gentle and good garments — which can be cinematic with out abandoning the comforting, close-up body of TV. However as a result of it’s directed by Todd Haynes, it’s additionally gently subversive, reframing Cain’s key noir textual content about an peculiar L.A. housewife pushed to desperation as one thing much less heated and extra affected person — a post-modern, queer-coded, feminist melodrama. —Oli Welsh

Over the Backyard Wall

Picture: Cartoon Community

The place to observe: Hulu

Most of the entries on this listing make nice watches, and permit for rewarding rewatches. However for my cash, that is the one one which calls for an annual rewatch. Over the Backyard Wall and all its many, lyrical charms are greatest consumed on the onset to fall, the proper New England Gothic to parallel the freshly crunchy leaves.

The story follows two brothers, Wirt (Elijah Wooden) and Greg (Collin Dean) as they try and make their approach out of a supernatural forest and discover their approach residence. Alongside the best way they meet a bunch of colourful characters — a speaking bluebird and a haunted woodsman, to call solely only a couple — and encounter conditions each goofy and spooky. It’s excellent for autumn, or simply at any time when you’ve a free afternoon. —ZM

The Prisoner

Picture: MGM-British Studios/Courtesy Everett Assortment

The place to observe: Free of charge with advertisements on Crackle, Plex, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, Tubi

Some of the influential TV reveals ever made, The Prisoner is a incredible 17-episode collection from 1967 a few British spy held captive in an odd coastal village after trying to stop his job. Created by star Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner comes by its popularity actually — it’s thrilling spy-fi with a fantastic central thriller, a powerful main performances, and an iconic line of dialogue that has lived on in popular culture historical past: “I’m not a quantity! I’m a free man.”

Not like among the different reveals on this listing, The Prisoner had a reasonably open-ended finale — garnering some controversy — however it’s nicely definitely worth the watch. —PV

Shōgun

Photograph: Katie Yu

The place to observe: Hulu

TV is usually in comparison with films in an try and elevate it; it seems, the one factor folks allegedly need greater than a movie is one thing that’s “truly extra like a 10-hour film.” FX’s Shōgun is simple to attract the comparability with, sharing DNA with plenty of struggle films as a lot because it does sensible miniseries.

However finally the present stands tall as precisely what it’s: tv, and rattling good tv at that. Throughout its 10 episodes, Shōgun builds its story methodically and exquisitely. Watching it’s like tracing down a fuse solely to seek out it’s already been lit, all superb fireworks you couldn’t damper should you tried. Its power comes from its elegant diffuseness, its belief of the viewers, and fixed consciousness of the way to construct a narrative. That’s TV, child, and rattling good TV at that. —ZM

Small Axe

Photograph: Will Robson-Scott / Amazon Prime Video

The place to observe: Prime Video

It’s debatable whether or not Steve McQueen’s one-off anthology collection about Black life in Britain within the Seventies and ’80s is mostly a miniseries in any respect, however what else would you name it? Nicely, a masterpiece, for one — most likely the director’s greatest work, which is saying one thing. The centerpiece is the gripping feature-length courtroom drama Mangrove, however even that good movie is exceeded by Lovers Rock, a soulful slice-of-life ode to the Brixton reggae home celebration scene, and a deeply transferring tribute to the facility and resilience of group (with nice tunes). There are excellent performances throughout the collection, too — significantly from Shaun Parkes and Letitia Wright in Mangrove, and John Boyega, scuffling with the duality of being each Black and a police officer in Pink, White, and Blue. —OW

Station Eleven

Photograph: Ian Watson/HBO Max

The place to observe: Max

Max’s beautiful miniseries adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel’s novel Station Eleven got here at an opportune time — shut sufficient to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic for its story a few pandemic apocalypse to really feel related and narratively necessary, however not so shut that it felt “too quickly.” (Beating The Final of Us to air didn’t damage both, given the reveals’ very broad narrative similarities.)

Showrunner Patrick Somerville tweaked the story and its construction, however the thrust stays the identical — because the story jumps backwards and forwards from pandemic onset to what life is like for the survivors 20 years later, a story emerges about group and creativity, how folks make sense of trauma and disaster by way of artwork, and preserve a way of connection and commonality by passing that artwork down. It’s a fantastically shot and fantastically acted restricted collection that isn’t about empty feel-good uplift or wallowing in apocalyptic doom — like The Leftovers, which Somerville labored on as a author, it feels nearly surreal and unusually sensible concurrently it lays out its many separate threads about characters discovering function after an enormous and sudden upheaval. —Tasha Robinson

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Picture: BBC

The place to observe: YouTube

This BBC adaptation of John Le Carré’s well-known spy novel from 1979 effortlessly outclasses the 2011 film — though that’s a reasonably good, elegant movie. Partly that’s as a result of, over seven 50-minute episodes, it has extra room to untangle Le Carré’s devious plot a few mole hunt within the canine days of the Chilly Warfare, and to soak within the melancholy of the characters. Partly that’s as a result of it’s no interval piece, and it was capable of seize the ambiance of wounded, jaded patriotism on the time, on gorgeously pale 16mm movie, in gorgeously pale places. Principally it’s as a result of Alec Guinness’ George Smiley is among the most excellent bits of casting in TV historical past: a affected person, lugubrious, unhappy genius of spycraft whose unblinking gaze penetrates each shroud. Even Gary Oldman may by no means match it. —OW