Aside from the returning TV shows like The Good Wife, Game of Thrones, Agents of SHIELD, Narcos and so on, there's plenty of new TV shows debuting over the next few months that are definitely worth a watch.

Some of these, sadly, might take some time to reach our shores whereas others will debut almost on the dot with the US channels. In any case, these are the shows people are going to be talking about for the next few months.

 

8. RED OAKS

Directed by David Gordon Green, who did that Adventureland film with Jesse Eisenberg, Red Oaks is a mixture of Sixteen Candles and Caddyshack. It follows a young teenager who's just finishing up school and decides to get a job as a tennis instructor at the prestigious Red Oaks Country Club in New Jersey. His first day, however, kinda throws him for a whack. His father has a heart-attack, admits that he never loved his wife and believes she's a lesbian. So that'll make things weird. Weirder still is the employees and members of Red Oaks, which include Paul Reiser (remember him from Mad About You?). The pilot was posted on Amazon Prime and it's now been ordered to series, so you might be able to pick this up on Amazon Prime - if it ever launches in Ireland.

 

7. WESTWORLD

Based on the '70s cult sci-fi thriller, Westworld is about a futuristic theme park that's been constructed to mirror the Old West. Everyone and everything in Westworld is created by billionaire genius Dr. Robert Ford, played by Anthony Hopkins. The series blurb describes Westworld as "a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin," we can expect two things from it - weird-a** visuals and a ton of sex and violence. The showrunner behind it is Jonathan Nolan, screenwriter of The Dark Knight and brother to Christopher Nolan. JJ Abrams also has an oar in there as an executive producer and it's on HBO, so we know it's going to be interesting, to say the least.

 

6. TWIN PEAKS

The coming months will see two '90s TV shows returning to our screens. Twin Peaks, as we know, is one of them. And it's damn exciting because it almost didn't happen. David Lynch patched things up with Showtime and all's right with the world. In fact, Amanda Seyfried has signed on to play an as-yet unknown character in the series. Most of the original cast are due to return, including Kyle MacLachlan as Agent Dale Cooper. For long-time fans of the series, there's a million and one questions that need to be answered. Most likely none of them will be answered, but it's just so much fun to be around Twin Peaks again.

 

5. THE MUPPETS

If you'd said to us that The Muppets would be on our screens AND it'd be more in line with, say, The Office, we'd have laughed in your face. It's a brave new world, folks. The Muppets' foray in TV is said to be more adult-themed than previous incarnations and it looks like there'll be a host of celebrity cameos involved. Liam Hemsworth, for example, was on-set and is likely to feature in it in someway. Kermit The Frog, meanwhile, famously split from Miss Piggy - so that's gonna be a feature in the series.

 

4. AMERICAN CRIME STORY: THE PEOPLE Vs. OJ SIMPSON

American Horror Story's been nothing if not entertaining during it's run, so it's going to be intriguing to see what happens with American Crime Story. For one thing, the casting has been pretty much spot-on. David Schwimmer looks eerily similar to Robert Kardashian, OJ Simpson's friend whilst Cuba Gooding Jr. seems to have adopted Simpson's mannerisms perfectly. The writing staff working on it is also pretty spectacular - they wrote the script for Ed Wood, The People Vs. Larry Flynt and eh... Agent Cody Banks.

 

3. HEROES REBORN

Yes, Heroes went horribly, horribly sh*te after the first two seasons - but those first two seasons? Some of the best television we've seen in years. So, with that in mind, we're sorta optimistic about this limited series run for Heroes: Reborn. Some of the original cast is back, including Hiro Nakamura, Mohinder Suresh, Noah Bennet and a few other familiar faces. There's also a whole load of new faces, including Chuck's Zachary Levi as a possible villain / anti-hero type and Orphan Black's Dylan Bruce. Look, it'll probably be crap - but we can dream, can't we?

 

2. VINYL

Martin Scorsese. Mick Jagger. Terrence Winter, the guy who created Boardwalk Empire. HBO. A series about the hedonism of the '70s and the birth of hip-hop and rap. Do you seriously need more reasons to watch this? Fine. Bobby Canavale. Olivia Wilde. An amazing soundtrack. Fantastic directors. And it's being written and produced by people who actually took part in that whole era, so you know it's going to be some way close to reality. Not only that, we'd watch Bobby Canavale in anything because he's a seriously underrated actor.

 

1. THE X-FILES

How long have we hoped and waited for another X-Files series? Sure, the last film was... a bit muck, to be sure. But a brand-new series? With Chris Columbus, David Duchovny AND Gillian Anderson returning? And the Lone Gunmen? It's going to be incredible. Plus, as well, how ripe is the time for an X-Files reboot? When we see all the news coming out about the NSA tapping everyone's phones and computers, Edward Snowden, the Curiosity Rover, everything - we'd love to see what Mulder & Scully make of this new world.