Favorite New Shows of the 2012-2013 TV Season?

Now that the 2012-2013 television season is coming to a close, what were your favorite new shows that premiered this year? I'm going to go ahead and give you my top 5 favorites.

1. Bates Motel: This show is a "contemporary prequel" to the 1960 film Psycho. It's absolutely terrific, I love the cast particularly the amazing Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates. She is definitely my favorite character on the show and I'm hoping an Emmy winner for her great performance. I rate the show a 10/10.

2. Hannibal: This show is also a "contemporary prequel" based on characters and elements appearing in the novel Red Dragon. Once again I simply love the cast, Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter is freaking phenomenal and Hugh Dancy as Special Agent Will Graham is also very good. It's an incredibly dark and intense psychological thriller / police procedural that is so interesting and absorbing it's hard waiting for each new episode. I also rate this one a 10/10.

3. The Following: This one is about an FBI agent trying to catch a serial killer and his crazy cult followers. Not on the same level as my top 2 this one is still a lot of fun. You'll definitely need some suspension of disbelief to really enjoy it though, no way the FBI could be this idiotic in real life. I personally love that it's over the top, it makes for some really great TV. I rate this one 9.5/10.

4. Arrow: Based on the DC Comics superhero Green Arrow this turned out so much better than I thought it was going to be. They went with a more realistic and gritty approach to the character and it was a very good choice. Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow is a bit wooden at times with his acting but as the season went on he seemed to improve and in the end seems to be right for the character. I rate this one 9/10.

5. The Americans: This show is set during the Cold War period in the 1980s and follows two Soviet KGB officers posing as an American married couple in order to spy on the United States. I love this show because it feels different from anything else on at the moment. My one small problem is the pacing is a little too slow at times and I find my mind wandering occasionally but that doesn't happen to often. I rate this one 8.5/10.

These are, by far, my favorites of this season:

Hemlock Grove
Orphan Black
Ripper Street

I am quite interested in seeing these though; they look quite promising:

Da Vinci's Demons
The Following
Spies of Warsaw (mini-series)

And these for the coming season:

Broadchurch: (BBC America) The murder of a young boy in a small coastal town brings a media frenzy, which threatens to tear the community apart. (starring David Tennant)

Crossing Lines: (NBC) A special crime unit investigates serialized crimes that cross over European borders and to hunt down criminals to bring them to justice. A global FBI is born. (starring Donald Sutherland and William Fichtner)

Under the Dome: (CBS) An invisible force field descends upon a small town in the northeastern part of the United States, in this tale based on a Stephen King novel.

Sleepy Hollow: (FOX) A modern-day retelling of the Washington Irving classic; 18th Century soldier Crane somehow winds up in the 21st Century, under the watch of a small-town police officer.

Intelligence: (CBS) Josh Holloway (of Lost fame) stars as a government agent w/ a microchip implanted in his brain which gives him access to Internet, WiFi, telephone and satellite data, and gains the ability to hack into any data center and access important information integral to protecting America.

@Starweevil: I watched everything on that list other than The Americans. It was actually breaking a habit I have of waiting until a show is past it's first season before I start watching it. Usually I wait since so many get cancelled in their first season, but I really loved those four. The Following was actually probably my favorite. I thought it was amazing, and loved the whole cast. It had a lot of different twists and stayed exciting throughout.

Bates Motel is great also. I love Vera, but can't stand her character -- not that she does a bad job at acting, it's just that the character is annoying. XD It's nice to see another Farmiga sister in the TV world. And it's definitely a very fast-paced show, which is fun.

Hannibal is incredibly intense, and definitely not for those who get queasy easily. A lot of the content is totally fucked up (but what else do you expect in a show about a cannibal). To be honest, I don't understand Hugh Dancy's character's role in everything. It's cool that he can get into the heads of killers but I feel like his contributions to cases haven't actually been very useful, at least not consistently. Still a fantastic show overall, though.

Arrow wasn't as good as the aforementioned but was a nice surprise; I didn't think it was going to turn out well either. I usually don't have much faith in ABC or CW shows. XD But it's a good show. And I think the acting improved as the season went on, also. Still, sometimes things seem a little cheesy. And I know it's just following a comic, but it's still way too much like Batman. XD Rich boy loses parent(s), disappears for a number of years and comes back as a martial arts master, has a secret lab inside a business he inherited from his father, has a genius tech person from said business who helps, and has an employee turned confidante.


@Fortunato: I want to see Under the Dome also. I hadn't heard about the rest yet; I haven't paid much attention to new shows coming up.

1. House of Cards
2. Elementary
3. Bates Motel
4. Hannibal
5. Arrow
6. The Following