Waiting for the Out<\/p>\n
As the writer of conspiracy thriller Utopia and Covid-era relationship drama Together, Dennis Kelly has form for creating darkly perceptive TV drama. This excellent series stars Josh Finan (whose performance in The Responder earned him a Bafta nomination) as Dan, a philosophy teacher with a troubled family past, working in a prison. As he explores issues around freedom, luck and destiny with the inmates, he starts to wonder if he actually belongs behind bars like his abusive father. Soon, his anxieties threaten to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
BBC One, 3 January<\/p>\n
Can You Keep a Secret?Staying alive \u2026 Dawn French and Mark Heap in Can You Keep a Secret? Photograph: BBC\/Big Talk Studios\/Alistair Heap<\/p>\n
Dawn French has made a new sitcom, which in itself should be cause for celebration. However, Can You Keep a Secret? is written by Simon Mayhew-Archer (producer of This Country and Funboys) and revolves around a couple trying to cope with the windfall they receive when one of them is mistakenly pronounced dead, which is even better. And Mark Heap is in it too. This one could be brilliant.
BBC One, 7 January<\/p>\n
Black OpsUndercover \u2026 Gbemisola Ikumelo and Hammed Animashaun in Black Ops. Photograph: BBC\/Ricky Darko<\/p>\n
The first season<\/a> of this comedy mined belly laughs from institutional racism, starring Gbemisola Ikumelo and Hammed Animashaun as a pair of Black community support officers talked into infiltrating a drug gang. Season two takes things up a notch: Dom and Kay are now working for MI5. It\u2019s not as glamorous as it sounds though \u2013 although their admin jobs soon liven up when they\u2019re approached by charismatic spy Steve. What follows finds a perfect balance between espionage and hilarity. Heated RivalryBringing sexy back \u2026 Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie in Heated Rivalry. Photograph: Sabrina Lantos\/HBO<\/p>\n Is ice hockey the sexiest sport on Earth? This show<\/a> makes a strong case. Within minutes of meeting, ice-rink nemeses Ilya Rozanov and Shane Hollander are getting it on. And with its near-constant and incredibly raunchy sex scenes, Heated Rivalry is so horny it\u2019s already got certain circles up in arms in the US. Perhaps this is what we all deserve, though: some TV that puts the puck in pucker up. Industry<\/p>\n It\u2019s all change in this brilliantly brutal thriller<\/a> set in the world of high finance. The departure of Harry Lawtey\u2019s Robert seems to have triggered a reset, so there will be a flurry of new characters led by Whitney Halberstram (Max Minghella<\/a>), the founder of a flashy payment processing company. Advance reports describe him as \u201ca tornado of cut-throat ambition\u201d so he should fit in just fine. Fans of continuity will be relieved to hear that Harper and Yasmin are still around and creating chaos wherever they go. A Knight of the Seven KingdomsPeter Claffey as Ser Duncan the Tall in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Photograph: HBO<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a hedge knight. It\u2019s like a knight but \u2026 sadder.\u201d This Game of Thrones<\/a> prequel leans into the undercurrent of sly humour that always existed within the original. The hedge knight in question is Ser Duncan the Tall (former Irish rugby union player and first-time actor Peter Claffey), an intrepid but hapless adventurer whose eagerness to earn his spurs isn\u2019t always matched by his ability. Look out for plenty of embryonic origin stories, as ancient members of the Houses Targaryen and Baratheon start to establish bloody rivalries. How to Get to Heaven from BelfastVoyage of discovery \u2026 Sinead Keenan, Caoilfhionn Dunne and Roisin Gallagher in How to Get to Heaven from Belfast. Photograph: Christopher Barr\/Netflix<\/p>\n How do you follow a generational classic? Lisa McGee is sticking to home territory for this eight-part comedy drama. Like Derry Girls<\/a>, it focuses on a tight-knit group of friends: Saoirse, Robyn and Dara embark on a funny, scary adventure prompted by news of the death of a schoolmate. The brilliance of Derry Girls lay in its ability to find constant comedy and humanity in darkness and danger. This voyage of discovery looks set to repeat the trick. EuphoriaUnforgettable \u2026 Zendaya as Rue in Euphoria. Photograph: HBO<\/p>\n Set five years down the line, Rue (Zendaya) is now in Mexico and seriously indebted to drug honcho Laurie, Jules (Hunter Schafer) is in art school and Nate and Cassie (Jacob Elordi and Sydney Sweeney) are miserable but about to get married. Sam Levinson\u2019s scandalous high-school epic<\/a> has been remarkable as both a hit-maker \u2013 basically everyone is an A-lister! \u2013 and a headline generator. This time, music\u2019s golden girl Rosal\u00eda joins the cast. Let\u2019s hope it\u2019s just as unforgettable away from the melee of hormones and horror that is the high-school environment, eh. Malcolm in the Middle: Life\u2019s Still Unfair!<\/p>\n After his world-conquering stint on Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston<\/a> could pick any project he liked. And that project was a revival of Malcolm in the Middle, the 00s teen sitcom in which he played an ostentatiously panicky dad. Given that Cranston\u2019s performance in the original was truly exceptional, these four new episodes should be worth the wait. Margo\u2019s Got Money TroublesA total scream \u2026 Elle Fanning in Margo\u2019s Got Money Troubles. Photograph: Allyson Riggs\/Courtesy of Apple<\/p>\n David E Kelley, the long-reigning king of TV\u2019s most covetable trash from Ally McBeal<\/a> to The Undoing<\/a>, adapts this novel about a hard-up woman who finds her fortune on OnlyFans. Elle Fanning stars as Margo, Nick Offerman plays her ex-wrestler dad Jinx Millet and Michelle Pfeiffer (Kelley\u2019s real-life wife) plays her mum, Shyanne. It\u2019s sure to be a total scream. Amandaland<\/p>\n It is now fair to call Amanda Hughes the Frasier Crane of Motherland. In that show, she was a one-dimensional villain \u2013 selfish, aloof, oblivious \u2013 but last year\u2019s Amandaland<\/a> deepened her into something far more complicated. If the new series is able to continue this pattern, Lucy Punch\u2019s character will become the tragicomic heroine of an entire generation. Army of Shadows<\/p>\n Ronan Bennett follows his hits such as Top Boy and The Day of the Jackal by updating this second world war classic \u2013 and placing it in a near-future Britain that has been invaded by America. We follow the burgeoning British resistance fighters who are trying to keep their country intact \u2026 and get their freedom back. Explosive stuff. A Woman of Substance<\/p>\n The ultimate rags-to-riches romp! Brenda Blethyn and Jessica Reynolds star as older and younger versions of Emma Harte, who goes from housemaid to business mogul \u2026 then one of the richest woman in the world in the 1980s. The last time Channel 4 showed this drama, based on Barbara Taylor Bradford\u2019s book, 13.8 million people tuned in, instantly making it the broadcaster\u2019s biggest drama ever. They\u2019ve still never hit those giddy heights again. Can they double down? Bait<\/p>\n Bait was created and written by its star, Riz Ahmed<\/a>. The story of a struggling actor on the verge of a big career breakthrough, it is \u201ceasily the most personal thing I\u2019ve ever done\u201d, he has said. However, it is also about what happens when a trippy conspiracy theory throws you into an existential crisis, which might be why he also said: \u201cMaybe I should have just done therapy.\u201d BabiesTender and melancholy \u2026 Babies. Photograph: BBC\/Snowed-In\/Amanda Searle<\/p>\n We\u2019re huge fans of Stefan Golaszewski\u2019s tender, funny yet always tinged with melancholy work such as Him & Her and Mum (which still makes us weep just to think of it). His latest show, Babies, sounds like no exception \u2013 with Paapa Essiedu and Siobh\u00e1n Cullen starring as a couple who have to deal with the unparalleled grief of multiple pregnancy losses. Beef<\/p>\n The best show of 2023<\/a> is back with a new series. The last, in which Steven Yeun and Ali Wong fell into a rapidly escalating disagreement, was an absolute masterpiece. This time round there\u2019s a whole new cast, including Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan, and a brand new disagreement. Can it be as good as the first? Can anything? Blue Planet IIIUtterly mind-boggling \u2026 a nurse shark glides through a shoal of sardines in Blue Planet III. Photograph: Anoushka Freedman\/BBC Studios<\/p>\n David Attenborough celebrates his 100th birthday in May 2026 and he\u2019ll be marking it with another landmark natural history epic. In a strong field, the first two seasons<\/a> of Blue Planet are among his most memorable works: not only do the depths of the ocean offer utterly mind-boggling sights but it\u2019s in the sea that humanity\u2019s impact on nature can be most easily seen. Increasingly, Attenborough has refused to ignore environmental issues so this is likely to be a bracing watch as well as a beautiful one. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: New Sunnydale<\/p>\n Buffy the Vampire Slayer has had a Joss Whedon problem<\/a> for a while now. People still love it, but they have a hard time reconciling it with the actions that got its creator cancelled. The solution? New Sunnydale, a brand new Buffy set 25 years after the original. Sarah Michelle Gellar is back, heading up a new cast. Chlo\u00e9 Zhao (of Hamnet fame) has directed the pilot. California Avenue<\/p>\n Ever since 2011\u2019s The Shadow Line, Hugo Blick has delighted in appearing every few years with a new, ambitious, boundary-testing standalone miniseries. California Avenue sounds like no exception. It\u2019s about a woman on the run who takes refuge in a caravan park with her 11-year-old child. Erin Doherty, Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter and Tom Burke star. Dear EnglandStirring stuff \u2026 Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate in Dear England. Photograph: BBC\/Left Bank<\/p>\n It began as a letter, then became a play. Now Gareth Southgate\u2019s 2021 state of the nation address has become a TV show. As with the stage version, Joseph Fiennes<\/a> will play Southgate, leading a cast that includes Jodie Whittaker and Jason Watkins. If it\u2019s faithful to the play \u2013 and it should be, since James Graham has written both versions \u2013 this will be stirring stuff indeed. DTF St Louis<\/p>\n \u201cI would like you to go about your business and do tasks on your phone, while you sit on my face.\u201d Landing with big NSFW energy \u2013 the acronym means \u201cDown to Fuck\u201d \u2013 on the new HBO Max channel (launching in the UK in March), it stars Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini and David Harbour in a tale of bored suburbanites who end up on a hook-up app \u2026 until one of them winds up dead. FallingThere will be fireworks \u2026 Keeley Hawes as Anna and Paapa Essiedu as David in Falling. Photograph: Robert Viglasky\/Channel 4<\/p>\n Keeley Hawes and Paapa Essiedu play a nun and a Catholic priest who encounter all sorts of emotional turmoil when they fall in love. Written by man of the moment Jack Thorne<\/a>, this is, shockingly, the first love story he has ever penned. There will be fireworks. First Day on EarthAstonishing \u2026 Michaela Coel in First Day on Earth. Photograph: BBC<\/p>\n Six years after the astonishing I May Destroy You<\/a> pretty much invented a new TV language, Michaela Coel returns with another authored show. Coel is writer, star and executive producer of this drama about a blocked novelist, Henri, who is offered a job on a film in Ghana (the home of her estranged father) and can\u2019t resist a roll of the dice. However, nothing about west Africa \u2013 or her father \u2013 is as she thought. Half ManGuaranteed to get a flood of public interest \u2026 Half Man. Photograph: Anne Binckebanck\/BBC\/Mam Tor Productions<\/p>\n As the follow-up to Baby Reindeer<\/a>, Richard Gadd\u2019s Half Man will surely be hit with a flood of public interest upon release. As yet, nobody knows what the show is \u2013 it\u2019s described as being about brothers \u2013 but it will star Gadd alongside Jamie Bell, and hopefully won\u2019t result in the inspiration for any of the characters appearing on Piers Morgan. Last One Laughing UK<\/p>\n Although the first season of Last One Laughing \u2013 a sort of condensed Big Brother about comedians trying to make other comedians laugh \u2013 came with no expectations, the second is already one of the most anticipated of the year. We are very hopeful about the lineup \u2013 which this time features everyone from Ultimate Traitor Alan Carr to Diane \u201cPhilomena Cunk\u201d Morgan, Mel Giedroyc and David Mitchell. But the best news of all? Defending champion, the sublime Bob Mortimer<\/a>, will be back too! Line of DutyNow we\u2019re sucking diesel \u2026 Martin Compston, Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar in Line of Duty. Photograph: BBC\/World Productions\/Steffan Hill\/PA<\/p>\n Now we\u2019re sucking diesel! After a year of rumours, the seventh season of this much-loved police procedural was confirmed in November. But AC-12 is dead, so long live the Inspectorate of Police Standards, which is the catchy moniker under which officers Hastings, Fleming and Arnott will now be working. In a plotline that looks unlikely to stretch plausibility to breaking point, the team will be investigating a detective inspector accused of being a sexual predator. Maud<\/p>\n Her last show All\u2019s Fair may have brought about a flurry of zero-star reviews<\/a>, but Glenn Close<\/a>\u2019s Maud sounds much better. Close plays \u201can old killer with a tortured past\u201d who becomes tired of looking after everyone and sets out to begin a second act. Close is never better than when she has a role she can fully sink her teeth into. This sounds like exactly that. MayaOn the run \u2026 Daisy Haggard in Maya. Photograph: Channel 4<\/p>\n Her series Back to Life<\/a> was often just as sad as it was funny, so it\u2019s no surprise that Daisy Haggard\u2019s next show is a full-blown thriller. Maya is about a woman (Haggard) and her daughter (Bella Ramsey) who flee their lives and begin again in a witness protection programme in rural Scotland, while a pair of hitmen search for them. Everything about this one looks wonderful. Mint<\/p>\n Within minutes of this drama opening, Shannon (played by Emma Laird) talks about her longing for romance and wanting her life to be magic \u2026 before literally soaring off the ground. With its magical realism and the use of camcorder footage, we can certainly expect surreal, experimental things from the first show by Charlotte Regan (who directed the movie Scrapper.) Soon enough, a love interest comes along in the form of Arran \u2013 played by Ben Coyle-Larner (AKA musician Loyle Carner.) Number 10<\/p>\n Steven Moffat had us at \u201cPress Gang in Downing Street\u201d, but really Number 10 sounds more like a British West Wing than anything else. Moffat\u2019s series about the inner workings of 10 Downing Street, concerning the individuals who keep such a bizarre residence going, has all the markings of a blockbuster. Pride and PrejudiceUniversal truth \u2026 Pride and Prejudice. Photograph: Ludovic Robert\/Netflix<\/p>\n As if the return of Netflix mainstay Bridgerton and the BBC\u2019s The Other Bennet Sister<\/a> weren\u2019t enough to make period drama fans swoon into their smelling salts, here comes Dolly Alderton\u2019s Pride and Prejudice. Will it become as beloved as the Colin Firth version? Let\u2019s wait till Jack Lowden emerges from that lake, shirt sodden and billowing, to find out. RivalsRomp alert \u2026 Nafessa Williams in Rivals. Photograph: Ana Blumenkron\/Disney+<\/p>\n Finally, after far too long, the second series of Disney\u2019s febrile Jilly Cooper adaptation<\/a> \u2013 almost certainly the horniest show ever to revolve round regional TV franchises \u2013 will arrive in 2026. Expect bums, boobs, romps, backstabbers, cads, bounders, revenge, perms, poshness, bravado, bitchiness, ego, excess and deception. And bums. Small Prophets<\/p>\n This comedy was written by Mackenzie Crook and, like his previous creation, the utterly sublime Detectorists, it looks for magic in the mundane. The series centres on Pearce Quigley\u2019s gently eccentric Michael Sleep \u2013 a man who works in a DIY store, hangs out with his dad Brian (Michael Palin) and pines after his beloved partner Clea who disappeared seven years earlier. Then Michael tries to create a homunculus and things start to get weird. Sophie Willan, Jon Pointing and Lauren Patel also star. Spider-Noir<\/p>\n Nicolas Cage all but stole 2018\u2019s Into the Spider-Verse as Spider-Man Noir, a monochrome 1930s private investigator who also has the powers of Spider-Man. Amazingly, that character is about to get its own series. Even more amazingly, Cage is reprising his role. Even more amazingly, it\u2019s going to be live action. This could be, well, amazing. The Altruists<\/p>\n In the mould of The Dropout or Dopesick, The Altruists is a ripped-from-the-headlines drama about Sam Bankman-Fried, the real-life disgraced founder of a collapsed crypto exchange. Bankman-Fried\u2019s fall from grace was certainly spectacular enough to warrant the treatment, so here\u2019s hoping showrunner Graham Moore does it justice. Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle star. The Boroughs<\/p>\n After ending the year with the biggest bang imaginable in the Stranger Things finale, the Duffer Brothers already have their next project in the bag. The Boroughs stars Geena Davis and Alfred Molina<\/a> and is described as a sci-fi set in a retirement village, where \u201ca group of unlikely heroes must band together to stop an otherworldly threat from stealing the one thing they don\u2019t have \u2026 time\u201d. The Boys from Brazil<\/p>\n After spending the last decade on The Crown, Peter Morgan dives into a story of Nazi hunters in an epic miniseries adapted from Ira Levin\u2019s 70s novel. The ever-intense Jeremy Strong stars as Yakov Liebermann (played by Laurence Olivier in the 1978 film), a Holocaust survivor who has devoted his life to tracking down Nazis on the run \u2013 then gets a phone call from Brazil with intel on a fugitive German eugenicist. The Cage<\/p>\n When The Responder \u2013 starring Martin Freeman as a scouse night cop on the brink of a breakdown \u2013 first appeared, it came out of the gates so fully formed and so spectacular that it was inconceivable that this was Tony Schumacher\u2019s first show. And yet it was true. Now comes his second, The Cage, starring the brilliant Sheridan Smith and Michael Socha \u2013 about two Liverpool casino workers who discover they\u2019re both robbing from the same safe \u2026. and the same gangster. You wouldn\u2019t want to bet against this one. The Devil in the White City<\/p>\n This Martin Scorsese-Leonardo DiCaprio collaboration \u2013 about the serial killer who offed people in his Murder Castle in Chicago in the run-up to the 1893 World\u2019s Fair \u2013 has been mooted for way over a decade, starting life as a movie. Will this be the year we finally see it \u2026 and as a full series no less? The Miniature Wife<\/p>\n Like Succession meets, er, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Miniature Wife sounds like an incredibly timely satire, tackling both romantic power plays and our extreme technological angst. Matthew Macfadyen\u2019s Les has to deal with the fallout after he shrinks his wife Lindy (Elizabeth Banks) to six inches high. Move over, Rick Moranis! The PittLet us watch it \u2013 and stat! \u2026 Noah Wyle in The Pitt. Photograph: Alamy<\/p>\n How frustrating to see the rest of the world fall in love<\/a> with The Pitt \u2013 a real-time medical drama starring Noah Wyle of ER fame that swept the awards, reinvigorated network television and has set a template for the future of the medium \u2013 when it wasn\u2019t available to watch here. Fortunately that will change soon, just in time for its second season. The Reluctant Vampire<\/p>\n Rob and Neil Gibbons of Alan Partridge fame have written a sitcom about what Lenny Rush would be like if he had to pretend to be a vampire all the time. The result is billed as \u201ca heartwarming show about finding your own identity while longing to fit in\u201d. Pencil this one in as the next Ghosts. The TestamentsUps the dystopian stakes \u2026 Chase Infiniti in The Testaments. Photograph: Disney<\/p>\n The year after The Handmaid\u2019s Tale ended, in steps Margaret Atwood\u2019s sequel The Testaments<\/a> to up the dystopian stakes on our screens. Brace yourself for scandalous kidnappings, teen rebels \u2013 and a very fed up Aunt Lydia (still played by the glorious Ann Dowd) trying to take Gilead down from within. Tip Toe\u2018The fight is on\u2019 \u2026 Alan Cumming in Tip Toe. Photograph: Channel 4\/Ben Blackall<\/p>\n A new Russell T Davies drama is always a treat \u2013 and this one comes in the vein of his classics like It\u2019s A Sin and stars David Morrissey and Alan Cumming, no less. Twenty-five years on from Queer As Folk, Davies and his team are going back to Manchester\u2019s Canal Street to shed light on the LGBTQ+ community today amid rising danger and fear. As he has said: \u201cThis is a show I had to write because the world is getting stranger, tougher and darker, and frankly, the fight is on.\u201d Bring it. Time<\/p>\n First it was<\/a> Stephen Graham with Sean Bean. Then it was<\/a> Bella Ramsey, Tamara Lawrance and Jodie Whittaker. Now for the third instalment of Jimmy McGovern\u2019s harrowing but gripping prison drama, David Tennant will be going head to head with Siobhan Finneran, who returns as the prison pastor (only now she\u2019s lost her faith). It\u2019s set in a young offenders institution when chaos hits, so it\u2019s sure to be a riot of violence and raging hormones. Tomb Raider<\/p>\n For an absurdly long time, it looked like the only thing to emerge from Amazon\u2019s $100m deal with Phoebe Waller-Bridge was a little-watched documentary about octopuses. But that changes in 2026, because her big new Tomb Raider adaptation will finally arrive, with Sophie Turner as Lara Croft. Let\u2019s hope it was worth the investment. Trinity<\/p>\n Jed Mercurio has a busy year ahead. As well as the return of Line of Duty, there is also Netflix\u2019s Trinity \u2013 a high-stakes drama about a naval officer who becomes entwined with the secretary of defence. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is the officer, Richard Madden is the secretary, and if it\u2019s anything like Bodyguard, this will be all we\u2019ll talk about for weeks. Twenty Twenty SixScathing satire \u2026 Hugh Bonneville as Ian Fletcher and Chelsey Crisp as Sarah Campbell in Twenty Twenty Six. Photograph: Jack Barnes\/BBC\/Expectation Entertainment<\/p>\n It may have its detractors, but John Morton\u2019s Twenty Twelve and W1A were living proof that the BBC is its own biggest critic. Luckily, 2026 will see an update, set round the World Cup. Hughs Bonneville and Skinner return for more scathing satire about what it\u2019s like to be trapped in the bureaucratic nightmare of an organisation unable to work out its own identity. VisionQuest<\/p>\n After a string of skippable duds, the MCU\u2019s television adventures continue with VisionQuest. Happily, there\u2019s lots to be excited about here. Billed as the final part of a trilogy that began with WandaVision and Agatha All Along, it sounds like it will be an exploration of Marvel\u2019s AI characters, from Vision to Ultron. War<\/p>\n
BBC One, 8 January<\/p>\n
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