Brow Beat

The Americans Season 5 Trailers Really Want You to Know That This Is the Best Show on TV

For a while now, FX’s Cold War thriller The Americans has occupied a bittersweet place in the television landscape: The series is regularly dubbed the best drama on television by top critics and publications, but it can never seem to fully click with audiences. With awards bodies, at least, it finally found success for Season 4, netting its first major Emmy and Golden Globe nominations in 2016. But now, there’s some reason to be optimistic for the show breaking out with viewers, too.

The Americans has already been renewed through its sixth and final season—to air in 2018—and so executive producers Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields now have the flexibility to write their story and characters toward an endpoint, without the fear of cancellation and other network shenanigans. (Weisberg’s brother, Jacob, is the chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group.) The network is still apparently pushing for new viewers, however: Newly released promos for Season 5 home in heavily on the glowing praise The Americans continues to receive, essentially letting the unfamiliar know that they’re missing out on a really, really good show.

There’s also the fact that The Americans has taken on, well, some new relevance. The series takes place at the tail-end of the Cold War, depicting officials in Russia and the United States as they play a dangerous, indefinite game of tag—one that involves nefarious spycraft, biological weapons manufacturing, and meticulous murder plotting. (Plus, lots of beautifully modulated domestic drama—but that doesn’t bring in big crowds.) It imagines an era of escalating tensions between two world powers as cooler heads struggle to prevail. The exemplary quality of The Americans may not be enough to get anxious comrades to tune in. But the series’ alignment with the troubling era we’re potentially entering into should hopefully convince a few.

The Americans Season 5 premieres March 7 on FX.