Missing You
Thanks to shows including last year’s Fool Me Once, Harlan Coben has become one of Netflix’s biggest ever hitters. Missing You, in which a police detective’s fiance goes missing, only to turn up on a dating app, is almost certain to continue this streak. Now on Netflix
Playing Nice
What would you do if you found out your child wasn’t related to you after all? James Norton and Niamh Algar star as parents who go through the trauma of learning their baby was switched at birth – but it is James McArdle as the other dad who really ramps up the horror. A juicy, creepy new year drama to sink into. 5 January, ITV1
Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action
It’s becoming something of a tradition for Netflix to start the year with a documentary about terrible people behaving horribly to each other, so it was only a matter of time before The Jerry Springer Show received the similar treatment. This is a two-part series about its origins, meteoric rise and the less than wonderful effect it had on the world at large. 7 January, Netflix
Severance
In 2022, Severance put Apple TV+ on the map. Now, at last, it is returning to remind us why we fell for its twisty-turny thrills in the first place. Once again, the staff of Lumon Industries attempt to repair their split consciousnesses. Once again, Ben Stiller directs. You are right to be excited. 17 January, Apple TV+
Prime Target
Leo Woodall – of One Day fame, and soon to be known as Bridget Jones’s new love interest – stars fairly against type here as Edward Brooks, a genius mathematician about to crack a prime number theory that could scupper security systems all over the world. Naturally, everyone who’s come close to cracking it in the past has ended up dead – and now, people are hot on his tail. 22 January, Apple TV+
Mo
Warm, lovable and hilarious, we adored the first season of Mo Amer’s semi-autobiographical sitcom about a Palestinian refugee trying to get US citizenship. When we left Mo, he had got himself stranded across the border in Mexico. Will he be able to get back to Houston before his family’s asylum hearing without a passport? 30 January, Netflix
Brian and Margaret
Playing Jimmy Savile might have shaken something loose in Steve Coogan, who now seems much happier to use his impersonation skills in the service of real drama. In Brian and Margaret he plays journalist Brian Walden, as he embarks on a bruising head-to-head interview with Harriet Walter’s Margaret Thatcher. January, Channel 4
The White Lotus
Mike White’s juggernaut satire heads to a swanky new resort – this time in Thailand – to unleash more chaos. The enticing cast includes a returning Natasha Rothwell, plus Aimee Lou Wood, Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Carrie Coon and Patrick Schwarzenegger (yes, son of Arnie.) The first-look trailer had snakes, Buddhist monks and promised “total depravity – a race to the bottom!” We expect nothing less. 16 February, Sky Atlantic/Now
Zero Day
Zero Day is a political conspiracy thriller about cyber-attacks. However, what makes it really exciting is its stacked cast: Dan Stevens, Angela Bassett, Jesse Plemons, Gaby Hoffmann, Lizzy Caplan. And then, smashing on to streaming like a man with something to prove, Robert De Niro. No show this year will have a cast this dazzling. 20 February, Netflix
A Thousand Blows
By current estimations, Steven Knight writes 65% of everything on TV at any given time. A Thousand Blows, however, has the potential to stand out from the crowd. There is Victorian boxing. There are shoplifting gangs. There are Stephen Graham and Erin Doherty. If you are looking for the new Peaky Blinders, this may well be it. 21 February, Disney+
Miss Austen
2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, something the BBC is marking with a four-part drama about her sister Cassandra burning the novelist’s letters. Starring Keeley Hawes and Rose Leslie, it’s billed as a witty and tender look at sisterly love. In writer Andrea Gibb’s hands, it will surely be nothing less. February, BBC
Dope Thief
Dennis Tafoya’s 2009 novel, about two crooks who pose as agents working for the Drug Enforcement Administration and end up in way over their heads, has long been ripe for adaptation. Starring the brilliant Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura – and written by Peter Craig of The Batman, Top Gun: Maverick and Gladiator II fame – this new series looks set to do it justice. 14 March, Apple TV+
The Residence
The latest show from the Shonda Rhimes stable is a screwball comedy starring Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp, an eccentric detective (and birdwatcher) who has to solve a whodunnit in the White House itself. It may sound wacky, but these are two women we will always trust. 20 March, Netflix
The Studio
If The Franchise’s fixation on Hollywood superheroes felt slightly behind the curve, The Studio feels slightly ahead of it. It’s Seth Rogen’s new comedy about a studio executive staring the imminent death of his industry in the face. A very promising trailer debuted a few months ago; if the show is half as good it’ll be unmissable. 26 March, Apple TV+
Your Friends and Neighbors
Jon Hamm is back in his best suit channeling Don Draper’s amoral energy in this con-man thriller. He plays Coop, a banker who loses his job but still has copious bills and alimony to pay – so ends up robbing all his old pals and fellow country club members and pawning off the fancy stuff they may never miss. How long till he gets caught? 11 April, Apple TV+
Government Cheese
Expectations are sky-high for David Oyelowo’s comedy about a man who returns from prison and finds his family – wife Astoria and kids Harrison and Einstein (yes you heard right) – almost unrecognisable. The first-look shows one of their sons pole vaulting in the front yard – and that’s just the kind of weirdness we can get behind. 16 April, Apple TV+
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
The world isn’t quite crying out for another Game of Thrones spinoff. But George RR Martin’s world-building marches on – and thrillingly for fans, this is one prequel Martin is actually creating. Set a century before A Song of Ice and Fire, it follows hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall, AKA Dunk, and his escapades with his squire, Egg. Date tbc, Sky Atlantic/Now
Adolescence
Nothing raises the pulse – and the blood pressure – like a continuous take. After the spectacularly stressful Boiling Point, Stephen Graham brings us another one-take project, this time through a horrifying police case, playing the dad of a 13-year-old boy accused of murder. Jack Thorne writes, Ashley Walters stars and directs. Sure to be a standout. Date tbc, Netflix
Amandaland
One of the most iconic – certainly the bitchiest – characters on the BBC’s Motherland gets her own spinoff. After her divorce, Amanda (Lucy Punch) has been forced to downsize and move to a more downmarket area nearby, South Harlesden. (She’s trying to rename it SoHa but is fooling no one.) No doubt there’ll be more hilarious snobbishness and the return of her even more evil mother Felicity, played with relish by none other than Joanna Lumley. Date tbc, BBC
Black Mirror
Following 2023’s return to form with Joan is Awful and Demon 79, Charlie Brooker’s satirical tech horror returns for a seventh series. As yet, all we have in the way of details are that there willl be a USS Callister sequel – and that the cast includes Peter Capaldi, Cristin Milioti, Issa Rae, Harriet Walter and Paul Giamatti, so things are looking very positive. Date tbc, Netflix
Babies
Nobody in the UK writes like Stefan Golaszewski, a man singularly able to balance laugh-out-loud comedy and touching emotional profundity. Babies follows Him & Her and Mum, and concerns Paapa Essiedu and Siobhán Cullen, playing a couple in the aftermath of pregnancy loss. The BBC has already called it “tender, authentic, emotional and human”.
David Attenborough: Ocean
Although the messaging is getting louder, David Attenborough’s BBC output has a tendency to be frustratingly measured when it comes to the climate emergency. Ocean, meanwhile, is a feature-length Discovery production that is explicitly about the health of our seas and deliberately timed to coincide with the midpoint of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Get ’em, David. Date tbc, Disney+
Department Q
It’s been a while since the heyday of the Scandi crime trend, but Department Q just might kickstart a revival. Based on Jussi Adler-Olsen’s book series of the same name, it’s an Edinburgh-set adaptation starring Matthew Goode and Kelly Macdonald as a troubled cold case detective and his therapist. But the juiciest detail? It’s made by the creators of The Queen’s Gambit. Date tbc, Netflix
Dope Girls
It feels a little reductive to call something “the female Peaky Blinders”, but Dope Girls certainly has that potential. Adapted from Marek Kohn’s book Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground, this rollicking, raucous drama set in Soho in the early 20th century looks set to be an absolute thriller. Date tbc, BBC
Euphoria
There deserves to be a big fat question mark over the return of Euphoria. Filming is due to commence this month, but the whole affair seems so precarious you half expect it to fall apart before then. Hopefully it comes off, though, because when Euphoria is on its game – audacious, seamy, expansive – there’s nothing quite like it. Date tbc, Sky Atlantic/Now
First Day on Earth
Very few things in 2025 will be as breathlessly anticipated as First Day on Earth, Michaela Coel’s first TV show since I May Destroy You conquered the world. Coel plays novelist Henri, who decides to move to Ghana and reconnect with her estranged father after her career begins to stall. To make things even more exciting, Jesse Armstrong is executive producing. Date tbc, BBC
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Get Millie Black
It feels as if we have been waiting for Get Millie Black for years – indeed, we first mentioned it as something to look forward to back in 2022 – but now it is finally here. Marlon James’s drama is a whodunnit about a policewoman, played by Tamara Lawrance, who is forced out of Scotland Yard and returns home to Jamaica. It has been on in the US already, and has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating, so hopefully it will have been worth the wait. Date tbc, Channel 4
Haven
Sophie Turner, of Game of Thrones fame, looks set to have a massive 2025, what with this heist thriller about a woman who works at a pension firm and gets held up in the UK’s biggest robbery and the star role as Lara Croft in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s long-awaited version of Tomb Raider. Talk about a big year. Date tbc, Prime Video
How to Get to Heaven from Belfast
Derry Girls proved that Lisa McGee was almost unmatched when it came to creating a sitcom in the classic form. How to Get to Heaven From Belfast, however, looks a lot more knotty. A dark comic thriller about friends reuniting after the death of a classmate, this has all the hallmarks of another winner. Date tbc, Netflix
Lions
Baby Reindeer left a lot for Richard Gadd to process, in terms of its critical acclaim and real-world fallout. With Lions, he attempts to shake off the controversy and start something new. It is a BBC/HBO co-production that tracks two brothers’ relationship over 40 years, and it sounds exceptionally ambitious. Date tbc, BBC
Ministry of Time
A24 and the BBC bring us a new Alice Birch series about a group of people plucked by the government from various moments in time (from a plague victim to a first world war soldier) to test the viability of time travel. These “expats” are then forced to live with people from the 21st century. Intriguing. Date tbc, BBC
Playdate
A British thriller about the mother of a young girl who was kidnapped by a mysterious woman at a sleepover, Playdate stars Denise Gough, Holliday Grainger, Ambika Mod, Jim Sturgess, Bronagh Waugh and Michael Workeye. After the runaway success of Rivals, this is Disney+’s next big chance to show the world it knows what to do with British talent. Date tbc, Disney+
Poker Face
Natasha Lyonne’s gravel-voiced, aviator-clad investigator roaming the US and solving small-town crimes was one of our TV highlights of 2023, so it’ll be a joy to welcome Charlie Cale back. It seemed impossible that she could wangle a roster of guests as stellar as last time but this is Lyonne – she’s already signed up Katie Holmes, Gaby Hoffmann and Giancarlo Esposito. If we get really lucky, we may see the return of Russian Doll this year too! Date tbc, Sky Max/Now
Riot Women
The stuff dreams are made of. Sally Wainwright (known for such hits as Happy Valley, Last Tango, Gentleman Jack) is back in Hebden Bridge and she has gathered a gang of British legends together for this drama about five people who form a punk band in middle age. There is no doubt this will be raucous fun, and it has a cast to die for – Lorraine Ashbourne, Joanna Scanlan, Anne Reid, Sue Johnston, Tamsin Greig. Women to the front! Date tbc, BBC
Small Town, Big Story
Chris O’Dowd’s “meta Irish comedy” stars Christina Hendricks and Paddy Considine, and concerns a Hollywood production that unwittingly uncovers a deep dark secret that a town has been trying to hide from the world for decades. From the premise alone, it sounds funny and gripping. If it can avoid the pitfalls of The Franchise, even better. Date tbc, Sky
Squid Game: The Challenge
They came. They licked honeycomb. They largely didn’t conquer. Squid Game: The Challenge may have disintegrated the anti-capitalist sentiment of the hellish series it was based on, but who could resist the real-life version of the South Korean hit? Especially when it had such constant backstabbing – not to mention the biggest prize pot in gameshow history. Date tbc, Netflix
Stranger Things
This is the big one. The climax of the show that arguably put Netflix on the map is finally upon us. The mythology has become gargantuan. The kids are now conservatively in their mid-40s. Episodes are now about three days long. And yet, when this series comes around, it’s going to dominate culture like nothing else. Be prepared. Date tbc, Netflix
The Change
The second run of ace standup Bridget Christie’s inspiring, folkloric comedy about a menopausal woman who ditches her family and the overwhelming mental load to head out on the open road on her motorbike. TV needs more hot flushes; we can’t wait for this one. Date tbc, Channel 4
The Death of Bunny Munro
Nick Cave’s 2009 Brighton-set novel was as wildly ambitious as it was perfectly executed. Its television dramatisation will star Matt Smith as a lothario widower at a moment of crisis. But despite all the big names, the most promising might be that of its writer, Pete Jackson, who created the still-astonishing Somewhere Boy. Date tbc, Sky
The Last of Us
The first season was hailed as the greatest video game adaptation ever, and introduced us to a post-apocalyptic world of constant peril and terrifying mushroom men. If the second faithfully cleaves to the plot of the game, it will show Ellie (Bella Ramsey) hunting down a woman named Abby (newcomer Kaitlyn Dever) – and it could well spell heartbreak for Pedro Pascal fans. Date tbc, Sky Atlantic/Now
The Night Manager
Eight years after the explosive, irresistible spy tale of Jonathan Pine trying to take down billionaire arms dealer Richard Roper AKA “the worst man in the world”, it’s coming back for not just one but two more seasons. Le Carré superfans may worry it has to go beyond the book – but with Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Colman reprising their roles, we are sold. Let’s hope for a comeback by Dickie Roper too! Date tbc, BBC
The Rehearsal
Nathan Fielder is the current leader in the field as the most audacious TV maker out there. After the dizzying class satire The Curse, he returns with season two of The Rehearsal, his mindbending docureality show. It’s still not clear if this entire television project is an elaborate prank – but that’s what makes it such fascinating and uncomfortable viewing. Date tbc, Sky Atlantic/Now
This City Is Ours
An eight-part drama detailing a crumbling Liverpool crime empire, The City is Ours is already being touted as “epic”. It certainly has a cast that reflects this. Sean Bean plays a gang leader who falls in love and finally finds something to live for. He’s joined by James Nelson-Joyce, Hannah Onslow, Jack McMullen, Julie Graham and Saoirse-Monica Jackson. Date tbc, BBC
Too Much
In the eight years since Girls ended, Lena Dunham has largely concentrated on film, writing and directing Sharp Stick and Catherine Called Birdy. Too Much represents her big step back into television. It’s a romcom about an American woman – played by the heroically hilarious Megan Stalter – who moves to London post-break-up and meets Will Sharpe. Richard E Grant and Emily Ratajkowski also star. Date tbc, Netflix
Toxic Town
Writer Jack Thorne rarely offers up traditional fare, and excels in issue-led drama. So it is with Toxic Town, this upcoming miniseries about the 2009 case that ruled atmospheric toxic waste had led to a series of birth defects in the industrial town of Corby. Jodie Whittaker, Robert Carlyle and Rory Kinnear star. Date tbc, Netflix
Trespasses
Louise Kennedy’s 2022 novel about a dangerous affair between a Protestant and a Catholic during the Troubles won raves upon publication. Now it falls to Channel 4 to adapt the sprawling work into a four-part drama starring Gillian Anderson, Lola Petticrew and Tom Cullen. Advance word is already extremely good. Date tbc, Channel 4
Walking With Dinosaurs
It has been 25 years since the BBC’s groundbreaking wildlife series, and the science surrounding palaeontology has come on in leaps and bounds since then. So it makes sense that the show should be updated. New dinosaurs, better graphics, more accurate behaviours. Get ready to fall in love again. Date tbc, BBC One
Wednesday
There was always going to be a second series of Tim Burton’s Addams Family spin-off. Not only did it give Burton some of the best reviews of his career, but it was watched more than almost everything else on Netflix. Jenna Ortega will return as Wednesday; once again, it’ll be impossible to ignore. Date tbc, Netflix
We Go Again
Janice Okoh’s 2011 play Three Birds starred Michaela Coel and won the Bruntwood Playwriting prize. Now, under a different name, it has made the leap to television. A coming of age story about Black working-class teenage girls, it’s the story of three siblings determined to keep it together when their mother goes missing. Date tbc, BBC
What It Feels Like for a Girl
Based on the memoir of the same name by Paris Lees, this upcoming BBC series sounds like an absolute riot. A boy stuck in a small postindustrial town yearns for more, and finds it in Nottingham’s seedy early-00s club scene. If the show captures Lees’s voice as well as the book did, this might be exceptional. Date tbc, BBC
