5 HBO Shows to Watch If Lanterns Left You Wanting More

By most measures, “Lanterns” appears to be exactly what DC needed: a genuinely strong television entry. Looper’s Dominic Griffin praised it as “the mystery thriller the DCU needs,” and the timing could hardly be better. As DC Studios, under James Gunn, continues expanding its connected universe into television much the way Marvel did before it, the franchise is beginning to build real momentum on the small screen. Like HBO’s “Peacemaker,” “Lanterns” narrows its focus to a specific corner of DC Comics — though this time, it is one with a famously complicated reputation. Yes, Ryan Reynolds, the Green Lantern discourse still remembers you.

As the title makes clear, “Lanterns” revolves around the Green Lantern Corps, the intergalactic peacekeeping force whose members wield powerful rings. More specifically, the series follows two of its heroes. Kyle Chandler stars as Hal Jordan, a veteran Lantern preparing to leave the Corps behind, while Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart, the new recruit Hal is training to take his place. Their assignment begins as a murder investigation, but the case soon points to something far larger — and far more cosmic — than either man expects.

Still, even if “Lanterns” delivers, it enters a very crowded arena. HBO has spent decades producing some of the most acclaimed dramas in television history, and several of its prestige titles continue to shape the conversation years after their premieres. So after sampling “Lanterns” on HBO Max, it is worth measuring it against these five HBO originals — shows that may ultimately stand even taller.

Based on Tom Perrotta’s 2011 novel, “The Leftovers” arrived on HBO in 2014 with “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof guiding the adaptation. Its first season introduced a devastating premise: 2% of the world’s population vanishes without explanation in an event later known as the Sudden Departure. Those left behind are forced to live inside grief, confusion, and spiritual chaos. Justin Theroux plays Kevin Garvey Jr., a police chief in New Jersey; Ann Dowd appears as Patti Levin, the unsettling leader of the Guilty Remnant; and Carrie Coon gives a wrenching performance as Nora Durst, a woman whose husband and children disappear while she alone remains. Perrotta’s book is powerful, but the show’s opening season struggled at times to fully unlock its potential on television.

So why place “The Leftovers” above “Lanterns”? Because beginning with Season 2, Lindelof and his writers transformed the series. Rather than simply repeat the novel’s framework, they widened the world while staying rooted in Perrotta’s themes, moving part of the story to Jarden, Texas — a town where not a single person disappeared during the Sudden Departure. By its third and final season, “The Leftovers” had become something extraordinary, giving Coon and Theroux, along with the characters introduced in Jarden, deeply moving arcs that reached a remarkable emotional finish. That bold creative reset turned the series into a modern HBO classic. “Lanterns” may be strong, but “The Leftovers” operates on another level.

Calling “Succession” better than “Lanterns” almost feels like an unfair fight. Jesse Armstrong’s blistering corporate drama, executive produced by names including Will Ferrell, Frank Rich, and Adam McKay, set a nearly impossible standard for contemporary television. A sharp, savage variation on Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” the series establishes its central question immediately: if Waystar Royco titan Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, is finally ready to step aside, which of his children will inherit the empire?

The answer, naturally, becomes a four-season war among Logan’s damaged, entitled, and relentlessly ambitious family. Jeremy Strong’s Kendall Roy insists he is the obvious successor, even calling himself the “eldest boy” despite the existence of Connor Roy, played by Alan Ruck, who is technically Logan’s oldest son. Kieran Culkin’s Roman Roy circles power with a mix of insecurity, cruelty, and chaos, never making it entirely clear whether he wants the responsibility or merely the status. Sarah Snook’s Siobhan “Shiv” Roy, meanwhile, fights to be seen as more than the daughter her father dismissively nicknames “Pinky.” Around them orbit two of the show’s great comic weapons: Shiv’s awkwardly ambitious husband Tom Wambsgans, played by Matthew Macfadyen, and Tom’s favorite target, the bumbling cousin Greg Hirsch, played by Nicholas Braun.

“Succession” is not merely a good HBO drama; it is widely regarded as one of the finest television series of its era. Its cast collected a haul of Emmys and Golden Globes, with Cox, Strong, Culkin, Snook, and Macfadyen all earning major recognition for performances that were as precise as they were ferocious. Against a show that accomplished this much, “Lanterns” starts at a disadvantage. Few series can stand toe-to-toe with “Succession” and come out ahead.

When screenwriter Mike White joined the 37th season of “Survivor,” quite literally nobody could have guessed that his time on the island (during which he became the season’s runner-up, actually) would lead to one of the best HBO originals ever made. Fueled by creativity during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and reflecting on the interpersonal strategies and deceits found in the game of “Survivor,” White created “The White Lotus,” which began airing on HBO in 2021 and set its first season on Maui, the second-largest island in the state of Hawai’i. With luminaries like Connie Britton, Molly Shannon, Jennifer Coolidge, Steve Zahn, Jake Lacy, Natasha Rothwell, and Murray Bartlett and (then) relative newcomers like Sydney Sweeney, Alexandria Daddario, Season 1 of “The White Lotus” sharply interrogates the class divide between the “haves” and “have nots,” focusing on the very concept of wealth.

Season 2 takes place at a different White Lotus location (in this universe, it’s luxury hotel and resort chain found all over the world) in Sicily, bringing Coolidge back as the daffy heiress Tanya McQuoid and introducing new players like Tanya’s beleaguered assistant Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), toxic couple Cameron and Daphne Sullivan (Theo James and Meghann Fahy), three generations of Di Grasso men in grandfather Bert (F. Murray Abraham), adult son Dominic (Michael Imperioli), and son Albie (Adam DiMarco), and the squabbling duo Harper and Ethan Spiller (Aubrey Plaza and Will Sharpe). While Season 2 investigates sex and the power it can confer, Season 3, set in Thailand, is about appropriating “enlightenment,” brings Rothwell back, and features bombshell performances from Carrie Coon, Leslie Bibb, Sam Rockwell, Parker Posey, Jason Isaacs, Walton Goggins, and Aimee Lou Wood, just to name a few. Escape the dreary landscape of “Lanterns” with “The White Lotus.”

Yes, Carrie Coon appears in not one, not two, but three shows on this list of programs better than “Lanterns” — because she’s just that good. In “The Gilded Age” — made by “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes which is, quite obviously, set in New York City’s so-called Gilded Age of the 1880s — stars Coon as Bertha Russell, the imposing and powerful matriarch of the wealthy Russell family who’s married to George Russell (Morgan Spector), a deeply unethical businessman. (One might call him a “robber baron.”) Because the Russells are technically “new money,” they find themselves at odds with some of their friends and neighbors in New York high society, like Agnes van Rhijn (powerhouse Christine Baranski) who believes that only “old money” families should be accepted into said high society. 

With Cynthia Nixon as Agnes’ sister Ada Forte, Taissa Farmiga and Harry Richardson as George and Bertha’s children Gladys and Larry, and a whole host of Broadway luminaries who appear in semi-regular and recurring roles like Kelli O’Hara, Audra McDonald, Donna Murphy, Robert Sean Leonard, Laura Benanti, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Celia Keenan-Bolger, just to name a few, “The Gilded Age” is a sumptuously gorgeous and compulsively watchable show that’s also stocked full of familiar faces for theater nerds. “Lanterns” is a solid HBO drama, but if you want to watch some of the best actors of the screen and stage duke it out in stunningly elaborate costumes, give “The Gilded Age” a shot.

We know what you’re thinking. After that disastrous ending (and, realistically, less-than-great final two seasons), people didn’t really want to talk or think about “Game of Thrones” anymore, and if you’re not particularly interested in the more dour shows that take place on the fictional continent of Westeros, “House of the Dragon” and its tale of the Targaryen family’s deadly civil war might not appeal to you either. That’s why we’d like to humbly suggest “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” a buddy comedy that (respectfully) blows “Lanterns” out of the water and earned a fantastic review right here at Looper from Matthew Jackson, who called it a welcome direction for the entire Game of Thrones franchise.

Based on a series of novellas by original “A Song of Ice and Fire” author George R.R. Martin called “Tales of Dunk and Egg,” “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” under the steady hand of Martin himself and showrunner Ira Parker, casts Peter Claffey as the enormously tall hedge (or freelance) knight Ser Duncan the Tall and Dexter Sol Ansell as his tiny squire Aegon “Egg” Targaryen. The comically mismatched physical pair end up teaming up when Duncan, or “Dunk,” reluctantly agrees to train Egg as his squire, having no idea that the little bald boy is a member of the royal and ancient Targaryen line; together, they deal with tourneys, palace intrigue, allies like Daniel Ings’s hilarious Ser Lyonel Baratheon, and enemies like Egg’s awful brother Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen (“Backrooms” standout Finn Bennett). Sure, “Lanterns” is a good show about an unlikely pair becoming friends, but are is one guy extremely tall and is the other guy extremely short? No. We think not.

“Lanterns” is streaming on HBO Max.