What to Watch this Weekend: Phoebe Waller-Bridge takes SNL with Taylor Swift

EW Staff

We know TV has a lot to offer, be it network, cable, premium channels, or streaming platforms including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Apple, Facebook Watch, and elsewhere. So EW is here to help, guiding you every single day to the things that should be on your radar. Check out our recommendations below, and click here to learn how you can stream our picks via your own voice-controlled smart-speaker (Alexa, Google Home) or podcast app (Spotify, iTunes, Google Play).

FRIDAY

Goliath

HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Season Premiere
After taking on a huge and lucrative wrongful death case against the goliath firm he helped create in season 1, and then nearly dying at the hands of the cartel in season 2, Billy McBride (Billy Bob Thornton) finds himself taking on what should be a giant case, against corporate central California farmers who are stealing residents’ water. His prime targets are brother and sister Wade and Diana Blackwood (killer turns by Dennis Quaid and Amy Brenneman), whose own interests may ultimately be what sinks them. But with eyes and ears everywhere, they are also able to manipulate Billy and keep the upper hand. —Gerrad Hall

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Peaky Blinders

HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: Streaming on Netflix

Season Premiere
Glass star Anya Taylor-Joy joins the cast for the fifth season of this widely beloved U.K.-set period crime drama, playing a character named Gina. “She’s part of a new situation which creates a lot of tension within the family,” says Peaky Blinders creator and writer Steven Knight, cagily. Meanwhile, Cillian Murphy’s gang leader Tommy Shelby is in the House of Commons, rubbing shoulders with a real-life historical character, fascist leader Oswald Mosley, who is portrayed by Sam Claflin. “He was the perfect choice,” says Knight of the Hunger Games actor. “Sam brings a sort of irresistible charm to someone who is putting forward ideas that are repugnant, even to someone like Tommy Shelby.” —Clark Collis

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The Blacklist

HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 8 p.m. on NBC

Season Premiere
Last time viewers saw Raymond Reddington (James Spader), he was snatched right off a Parisian street by Katarina Rostova (Laila Robins) herself. Now, she has Red and all of his friends will have to work very hard to save him. “We start season 7 in a place where the audience is sort of in Reddington’s shoes, with a whole bag of questions,” says executive producer Jon Bokenkamp. The long-awaited return of Katarina will complicate her daughter Elizabeth Keene’s (Megan Boone) life and threaten to expose more of Reddington’s secrets, but first things first: where in the world is Raymond Reddington? —Alamin Yohannes

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What Else to Watch

Streaming
Raising Dion (series debut) — Netflix
Big Mouth (season premiere) — Netflix
In the Tall Grass (horror movie adapted from Stephen King, Joe Hill novella) — Netflix
The Great British Baking Show — Netflix
Creeped Out (season premiere) — Netflix
Rotten (season premiere) — Netflix
Light as a Feather (season 2, part 2) — Hulu
Into the Dark (“Uncanny Annie”) — Hulu

7 p.m.
The Substitute (season premiere featuring John Cena) — Nickelodeon

8 p.m.
American Housewife — ABC
Hawaii Five-0 — CBS
Haunted Salem: Live — Travel
WWE Smackdown (The Rock returns!) — Fox

8:30 p.m.
Fresh Off the Boat — ABC

9 p.m.
Just Roll With It: You Decide LIVE! — Disney Channel/DisneyNOW
Magnum P.I. — CBS

10 p.m.
Blue Bloods — CBS

11 p.m.
Freakshow Cakes (season premiere) — Cooking Channel

SATURDAY

Saturday Night Live

HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 11:30 p.m. on NBC

Fresh off her triple-crown victory at the Emmys, Fleabag mastermind Phoebe Waller-Bridge is sweeping into Studio 8H for her first SNL hosting gig. She’ll be joined by fellow Emmy winner (yes, really) Taylor Swift, and will hopefully bring along the signature Brit wit that made Fleabag and Killing Eve so delightful. Tune in to see if anything Swift does can top Billie Eilish‘s topsy-turvy “Bad Guy” performance for sheer wow factor, and keep your fingers crossed (or hands clasped in prayer) for a Hot Priest cameo. —Tyler Aquilina

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What Else to Watch

Check local listings
Field Trip with Curtis Stone (series debut) — PBS

6 p.m.
Murder for Hire (season premiere) — Oxygen

9 p.m.
Ghost Adventures: Serial Killer Spirits (miniseries debut) — Travel
Over the Moon in Love (movie) — Hallmark

10 p.m.
Ready to Love (season premiere) — OWN
Gary Gulman: The Great Depresh (stand-up special) — HBO

SUNDAY

Batwoman

HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 8 p.m. on The CW

Series Debut
Light-up the bat signal, because Gotham City has a new caped crusader. Executive produced by Greg Berlanti and Caroline Dries, Batwoman follows Kate Kane (Ruby Rose), Bruce Wayne’s cousin who returns home to the beleaguered Gotham City and becomes Batwoman after the insane Alice (Rachel Skarsten) kidnaps her ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately, her new vigilante persona puts her into conflict with her over-protective father Jacob (Dougray Scott), who is anti-Batman and runs the Crows, a private security force he tried to keep Kate out of. “That dynamic continues to stay so wrought with tension because you think, ‘Oh, he’s holding her back because he doesn’t believe in her,’” says showrunner Caroline Dries. “No, he believes in her. He’s just terrified to lose her. And it comes from a place of hurt and loss and trauma. To me, it feels very grounded in what he’s doing. They’re just at two different ends of the spectrum and butting heads.” —Chancellor Agard

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The Walking Dead

HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 9 p.m. on AMC

Season Premiere
“It’s full paranoia this season,” says Norman Reedus about what’s coming up on The Walking Dead. “It’s the group sort of eating itself and having to deal with the consequences of just being trapped in all different directions.” The dissension in the ranks is due to the introduction of the Whisperers and their leader Alpha (Samantha Morton), who cut off 10 heads last season and stuck then on pikes to mark a border that she warned Daryl not to cross.

“Alpha has laid down the law,” notes executive producer Greg Nicotero, who directed Sunday’s season premiere. “The big question is, are people willing to follow Alpha’s rules and at what cost? And that’s really what sets up the whole season, is the idea that there could be a pack of walkers walking down the street and you don’t know if there’s a Whisperer in there that’s watching you. You don’t know if there are patrols going up and down the border. It sets up this whole paranoid, ‘Are they watching?’ scenario, and some of our people aren’t down with that. And that’s a very, very prevalent theme in the season.”

The result of that, notes Reedus, is that “We have some people that are on this mission for revenge, some people that are haunted by the past. Then you have some characters that are in totally different circumstances that they’ve never been in. It’s a real feeling of claustrophobia this season.” —Dalton Ross

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Mr. Robot

HOW/WHEN & WHERE TO WATCH: 10 p.m. on USA

Season Premiere
Rami Malek had plenty of success during last year’s awards season, and here’s hoping the same goes for his Mr. Robot character Elliot Anderson in the holiday season-set final installment of the Emmy-winning series. The “sentimental, reflective” goodbye picks up following Elliot’s reversal of the 5/9 hack, and will find him aiming to take down White Rose (B.D. Wong), while also facing his own past deeds. “We definitely question the morality of Elliot and what he’s done,” shares creator Sam Esmail. “That gets put to the test in interesting and dark ways.” Sounds like someone might be getting coal in their stocking this year! —Derek Lawrence

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What Else to Watch

6 p.m. – 12 a.m.
Swipe Night (series debut) — Tinder

8 p.m.
Kids Say the Darndest Things (series debut) — ABC

9 p.m
The Affair — Showtime
NCIS: Los Angeles — CBS
Supergirl (season premiere) — The CW
Succession — HBO

10 p.m.
Madam Secretary (season premiere) — CBS
Haunted Gingerbread Showdown (season premiere) — Food Network
Witches of Salem (miniseries debut) — Travel
The Rookie — ABC

*times are ET and subject to change