The best new TV shows to stream this week on Netflix, Disney Plus, and more

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You would think that Thanksgiving week would see a slowdown in new streaming TV series and specials. However, you would be wrong. Indeed, there are a ton of new shows and specials making their debut this week. We have a long-awaited MCU holiday special on Disney Plus. Netflix launches a new adaptation of a classic “creepy and kooky” franchise. Hulu has a new true crime docudrama on the history of a male strip team. Apple TV Plus has a new action series. Peacock has a continuation of a hit movie franchise, and Paramount Plus launches a revival of a popular crime show. Finally, Netflix has an unusual mix of historical drama and documentary. Here’s what to check out in the best new streaming TV shows this week, and happy Thanksgiving.

Best new streaming TV shows this week

Disney Plus brings us this special featuring most of the main cast of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Out in space, Peter Quill is sad because his love Gamora is no longer with the Guardians. It’s also getting close to Christmas. The rest of the team wants to cheer him up for the holiday season, so Mantis and Drax travel to Earth to bring back something that they think will make Quill happy. Unfortunately, their plan involves the kidnapping of a certain popular actor. The special was written and directed by the film’s writer-director James Gunn, and it should be a very special event.

Netflix brings us this latest adaptation of the very gothic Addams Family. This time the focus is on the family’s daughter, Wednesday (Jenna Ortega), as she is sent by her mom Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and her father Gomez (Luis Guzmán) to their old boarding school Nevermore Academy. Naturally, strange things are afoot at the school. Tim Burton (Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands) directed the first four episodes of this eight-episode series.

Hulu launches its latest true crime docudrama series this week. Kumail Nanjiani plays Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee, an Indian-American who founded the Chippendales male dance and stripper revue in 1979. It became a huge hit, and the Chippendales brand soon expanded to other cities, and touring troupes also performed throughout the US. However, Banerjee was not a very nice person, and the show depicts his clashes with his business partner, which lead him to hire a hitman to have his partner killed.

It was canceled just two years ago, but the crime drama Criminal Minds continues to be a big hit on cable TV reruns and on streaming services. Now Paramount Plus has brought back most of the original cast for a 10-episode revival. This time, the team members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit are going after a serial killer who has formed a team of other killers online during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Peacock launches this continuation of the hit Pitch Perfect comedy movies this week. Adam Devine reprises his role as acapella singer Bumper Allen in the new series. When the show begins, he’s a bit down on his luck, as his career is going nowhere. However, he decides to move to Berlin, Germany to reboot his career and his life. Look out for appearances from other Pitch Perfect cast members as well.

This new Apple TV Plus exclusive series is set in South America, where a US scientist has gone missing near the Colombia-Venezuela border. Her husband and her brother, who both have a lot of military experience, head into the jungle to find her and discover they have put themselves in the middle of a war.

Netflix launches this unusual mix of documentary and drama this week. It tells the story of Anne Boleyn, and her rise in the British monarchy in the 16th century to eventually become Queen of England. The scripted part of this series tells this often-told tale with a modern, and sometimes very adult, scripting style. The scripted bits are frequently broken into with interviews with real historical scholars as they expand on Anne Boleyn and the other characters in this real drama.

There are some other new shows and the season finale of a major show that you can check out this week.

• Our Universe — Netflix has a six-part documentary series about the Earth and the rest of the universe, narrated by Morgan Freeman.
• Star Wars: Andor Season 1 Finale — It’s the final episode of the first season of this great Star Wars live-action series on Disney Plus.
• Crime Scene: The Texas Killing Fields — Netflix launches a new crime documentary about a field in League City, Texas, that’s become the location for murdered corpses for decades.

Tim Allen reprises his role as Scott Calvin/Santa Claus from The Santa Clause series of movies for this new six-part weekly show on Disney Plus. Calvin has been the caretaker of the Santa Claus role for a while, but now he must find a successor so that he and his family can retire somewhere south of the North Pole. Things go bad when the person he picked to be Santa may not have been the right choice. Elizabeth Mitchell also returns as Scott’s wife, as does David Krumholtz as Santa’s former lead elf.

Actor Chris Hemsworth is known as an athletic person, thanks largely to his role as the Norse god Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thor is 1,500 years old, but real humans don’t live nearly that long. Hemsworth wanted to find out if he could push his body to the limits. In this six-part National Geographic series on Disney Plus, he goes on a series of physical challenges to see if he can break the limits of normal humans and learn from scientists about how they are working to keep people alive for much longer than normal.

The German sci-fi series Dark became a global hit for Netflix a few years ago. Now the creators of that series have a new Netflix show with an international cast that’s much more ambitious. In the year 1899, a cruise ship is in the middle of a voyage between London and New York with a full crew and passenger complement. However, they soon discover a large ship in the middle of the Atlantic with just one person on board. What is this mysterious ship, and why is there no one else aboard? That’s just the start of the mystery for this eight-part series.

The acclaimed dark comedy series returns for its third and final season on Netflix. Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini return as two women who become somewhat reluctant best friends, despite trying to cover up their murders of each other’s husbands. The final 10-episode season promises to bring the many plots in this show to a conclusion, as the law seems to be getting closer to finding out the truth about these deaths.

This new Hulu exclusive series from the FX network stars Jesse Eisenberg as Toby Fleishman. He’s just experienced a divorce from his wife of 15 years, played by Claire Danes. Now the 41-year-old Fleishman is trying to move on and even starts to date again. Then his wife disappears, and he has to take care of his two kids on his own. The eight-episode series also stars Lizzy Caplan and Adam Brody.

Carla Gugino stars in this new eight-part crime drama series on Peacock. It takes place largely in a beachside estate in Mexico. A bunch of criminals have chosen this remote house to keep away from the police after they pull off a new job. However, things get more complicated when the owners of the house arrive unexpectedly.

After 11 seasons, the hit series about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse finaly ended on AMC and AMC Plus. You can watch the final 90-minute episode on the streaming service right now.

Even though this is the final episode of The Walking Dead, the franchise will live on. The spin-off series Fear The Walking Dead will launch its eighth season in 2023. We will also see The Walking Dead: Dead City that same year, with characters Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) visiting New York City. Norman Reedus’s character Daryl Dixon will also get his own series, set in Europe, in 2023. Finally, a limited series starring former Walking Dead characters Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurira) will debut in late 2023.

Are you looking for more? Check out our list of the best movies to watch this week.