There's a spectacular season of Autumn TV in 2023. As always, this is the time of year for all channels to give us their major output so it's an important season for telly fans after the summer holidays are over and they focus on what great television is in store during the fall and the run-up to Christmas.
Autumn 2023 sees many wonderful new TV shows starting, all with top stars, but also returning favourites, brand new crime thrillers, period dramas and everything in between.
So here at What to Watch we're previewing the best dramas of the Autumn TV season 2023 right here...
Fool Me Once (Netflix)
Michelle Keegan and Richard Armitage star in an eight-part, twist-laden thriller Fool Me Once, adapted from a Harlan Coben novel by Danny Brocklehurst. Former soldier Maya Stern (Keegan) is struggling to deal with the recent brutal murder of her husband, Joe Burkett (Armitage), when on the nanny-cam she uses to watch over her daughter, she suddenly spots Joe and is faced with the shocking reality that he might not be dead after all.
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
Joan (ITVX and ITV1)
Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner takes the title role of an audacious jewel thief in 1980s-set drama Joan inspired by the true story of Joan Hannington. When her violent husband goes on the run, Joan turns to crime to create a better life for her young daughter. Frank Dillane stars as London antiques dealer Boisie.
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
Three Little Birds (ITV1 and ITVX)
Six-part period drama Three Little Birds penned by Sir Lenny Henry will arrive on ITV during Black History Month in October. In 1957, two sisters Leah and Chantrelle 9Rochelle Neil, Saffron Coomberand another woman Hosanna (Yazmin Belo) who leave their home in Jamaica to come to Britain, but the trio quickly realise that the ‘mother country’ is not what they had expected.
* We'll update on the exact October release date when we hear.
Time season 2 (BBC1)
Jimmy McGovern’s BAFTA-winning drama Time returns for a second series starring Bella Ramsey, Jodie Whittaker, Tamara Lawrence and Siobhan Finneran, who’s back as prison chaplain Marie-Louise. This time the drama takes place in a women’s jail, where new inmates Kelsey, Orla and Abi arrive on the same day and are immediately plunged into a world fraught with danger and violence. But as the trio navigate their new lives, they discover a surprising shared bond.
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
The Woman In The Wall (BBC1)
The dark legacy of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries is depicted in six-part drama The Woman In The Wall, starring Ruth Wilson as Lorna Brady, who wakes one morning to find a corpse in her home. At first Lorna panics she’s responsible for the murder herself, having suffered from extreme sleepwalking since being incarcerated aged 15 in one of Ireland’s an infamous institutions. Things take a turn when Lorna’s investigated for another, seemingly unrelated, crime. But are the two linked?
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
Mary & George (Sky Atlantic)
Lavish costume drama Mary & George details the extraordinary lives of ambitious Mary Villiers (Oscar-winner Julianne Moore) and her charismatic son George (Nicholas Galitzine) as they climb through the ranks of 17th-century English society to the court of King James I (Tony Curran).
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
Wilderness (Prime Video)
Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen play glamorous British couple Liv and Will in Wilderness, a twisted psychological thriller about love, betrayal and vengeance. When Liv learns Will’s been having an affair, it rocks their seemingly solid marriage and turns their dream holiday to America’s stunning National Parks into a living nightmare. As they embark on their trip of a lifetime, Will desperately tries to make amends, unaware that Liv’s plotting her revenge…
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
Breathtaking (ITV1 and ITVX)
Former Corrie and Downtown Abbey star Joanne Froggat plays consultant Dr Abbey Henderson, who finds herself in the eye of the COVID-19 storm when the pandemic hit the world in 2020. "When I first read the scripts for Breathtaking they moved me to tears," says Joanne. "I felt passionately that I had to be a part of telling this story."
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
The Burning Girls (Paramount Plus)
After the loss of her husband and a tragedy that occurred in her old parish, the Reverend Jack Brooks (Samantha Morton) and her daughter Flo (Ruby Stokes) move to a new village. But their new life soon turns into a nightmare in the haunting six-part thriller The Burning Girls.
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
The Inheritance (Channel 5)
Robert James-Collier, Gaynor Faye and Jemima Rooper play three siblings who discover after the death of their father Dennis, played by Larry Lamb, that they have been written out of his will. Devastated yet determined, in The Inheritance they embark on a dangerous quest to discover whether Dennis was murdered. Samantha Bond plays their mother Susan, while Kevin Whately, Kevin Harvey and Pauline McLynn also star.
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
The Crown season 6 (Netflix)
The sixth and final 10-episode series of The Crown begins in 1997 and portrays the aftermath of the tragic death of Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki). Meanwhile, the deaths of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother are also depicted, as well as the early relationship between student sweethearts Prince William (Ed McVey) and Kate Middleton (Meg Bellamy). Imelda Staunton and Jonathan Pryce return as Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh.
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear but we believe it will be ?November.
Boiling Point (BBC1)
Stephen Graham is back as troubled chef Andy in Boiling Point four-part drama that follows on from the acclaimed Netflix film about life behind the scenes at a mega-busy top restaurant. It picks up with Andy recovering from a heart attack and his former sous chef Carly (Vinette Robinson) battling to keep her new London restaurant running.
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
Doctor Who (BBC1)
We last saw the Doctor in a state of confusion after regenerating back into the form of the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) – and now David’s Time Lord and Catherine Tate’s Donna Bible are returning for three specials of Doctor Who to celebrate the sci-fi show’s 60th anniversary in November. Details of the plot remain a closely-guarded secret, including what enemies the Doctor may face, but confirmed guest stars for the episodes include Ruth Madeley, Neil Patrick Harris, and Heartstopper’s Yasmin Finney.
* These Doctor Who episodes will be shown in November. We'll update on the exact dates when we hear.
The Lovers (Sky Atlantic)
Offbeat comedy drama The Lovers follows the fortunes of a star-crossed couple: potty-mouthed Belfast supermarket worker Janet (Roisin Gallagher) and London-based political broadcaster Seamus (Johnny Flynn). When Seamus suddenly finds himself in Janet’s garden, sparks fly between the pair and they embark on an affair. Even though they’re from wildly different backgrounds, have they each found their soulmate?
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
Fellow Travelers (Paramount Plus)
Two very different men meet in the dark days of 1950s Washington DC, at the height of the Communist witch-hunt, in this epic love story which is also a political thriller. In Fellow Travelers, Hawkins Fuller (The Normal Heart’s Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey) start a volatile romance that spans the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, the drug-fuelled disco hedonism of the 1970s and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.
* We'll update on the exact release date when we hear.
