The weather is warming up, the sun is shining so what better than to head to a darkened room and put on the best new TV shows of the season. In addition to the blockbuster production that we won’t name (hint: it starts with S) that’s taking over the airwaves right now, there’s an abundance of quality dramas set to drop over the next few months.
This spring, the TV industry seems to be celebrating the power of women: there’s the feminist utopia of The Power, the gory power plays of Yellowjackets and Dead Ringers, and the family-focused Lily Allen comedy Dreamland. Here are our picks...
The Power
What would happen if teenage girls suddenly developed the ability to shoot electricity from their fingertips? According to Prime Video’s new show The Power – which has been adapted from Naomi Alderman’s excellent 2016 novel – rather a lot, actually.
The show follows five protagonists around the world – from Nigeria to the UK – as they fight to determine their place in a new world order where women are top of the pile. Special mention must be given to Aussie actor Toni Collette, who plays the mayor of Seattle – and whose daughter is one of the first to develop their powers. It’s bold, it’s interesting and – pardon the pun – the performances are electric.
Prime Video, out now
Rain Dogs
Daisy May Cooper shines in this searing HBO/BBC comedy. In it, she plays single mother, writer and sometime peepshow dancer Costello Jones, who’s constantly skirting the edge of poverty and is trying to build a better life for her daughter Iris. When she’s evicted from her flat, she reluctantly lets her former best friend Selby (Jack Farthing) back into her life in the hopes he can save them from the gutter. It’s funny, it’s dark; you’ll laugh, you’ll cry.
BBC, out April 4
The Good Mothers
Foreign-language dramas are definitely having something of a moment, and this excellent Italian contribution deserves a wide audience. It follows the true story of three women who were born and grew up in one of the deadliest Italian Mafia clans in the country. However, these same women were also instrumental in bringing it down, working with a female prosecutor to put together a sting operation for the ages. The show won the first inaugural Berlinale Series Award, a fascinating adaptation of a jaw-dropping true story.
Disney+, out April 5
Dreamland
Lily Allen tops the bill in this starry new comedy from Sky, set – of all places – in Margate. There’s been a lot of buzz around this show and for good reason: based on the 2018 Bafta-winning short, it focuses on four sisters, of which Allen plays the wayward Mel.
Mel appears back in her family’s lives as her eldest sister Trish (Freema Agyeman) announces she’s pregnant – and naturally, Mel’s return threatens to drag up all sorts of dark family secrets and tensions. Judging by the trailer, it will be a hoot: expect loud pink lilos and a fair bit of shouting.
Sky Atlantic and NOW, out April 7
Obsession
This slinky new Netflix show is guaranteed to get pulses racing (especially if BDSM is your thing). Adapted from Josephine Hart’s novella Damage – about a British politician who causes his own downfall by having an affair with his son’s girlfriend – the show stars Richard Armitage as William, the politician in question. He’ll be appearing alongside Irish actress Charlie Murphy, who plays the object of his affections, Anna; the whole thing sounds both timely and bonkers. Did we mention the BDSM?
Netflix, out April 13
Malpractice
ITVX’s new medical thriller is made all-the-more gripping with the knowledge that its writer, Grace Ofori-Attah, was a junior doctor before turning her hand to screenwriting. In it, Niamh Algar is Dr Lucinda Edwards, a brusque A&E doctor who finds herself in the middle of an investigation after a patient dies of an opioid overdose on her watch (after an armed shooter bursts into the hospital reception, naturally). In time-honoured fashion, this is the start of a slippery slope, and Lucinda soon finds herself in hot water as she attempts to hide the dark secrets in her past from the investigators.
ITVX, out April (date TBC)
Dead Ringers
Rachel Weisz’s return to the small screen (this is her first TV role in more than a decade) is a corker. It’s a remaking of the gory horror flick that originally starred Jeremy Irons. Now, Weisz is taking on the role of twin gynaecologists that want to reshape the way women give birth. These twins share everything: drugs, lovers and a healthy disregard for medical boundaries – unfortunately, they are also borderline sociopaths and things go wrong very quickly.
Prime Video, out April 21
Citadel
Could this be Prime Video’s most ambitious TV series yet? Starring Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra and Stanley Tucci, it’s a big-budget spy thriller that includes all the James Bond staples: glamorous locations, epic stunt sequences and skiing down mountains looking cool. Madden plays Mason Kane, a former agent of spy corps Citadel who lost all memory of life as a spy when Citadel fell a decade ago. Unfortunately for him, he’ll need to try and remember when he’s looped into an adventure with some of his former colleagues.
And if you’re a fan, then keep your eyes peeled: this will be followed by several further series set in different countries around the world. These foreign-language spin-offs will be following different agents of Citadel as they go about their business; told you it was ambitious.
Prime Video, out April 28
Fatal Attraction
The infamous bunny boiler is back. That’s right: Paramount+ is rebooting the iconic Eighties film as a TV series, which will be debuting at the start of May and has been billed as a “deep-dive reimagining of the classic psychosexual thriller”. Mean Girls star Lizzy Caplan will take on the role of Alex (aka the modern-day Glenn Close), while Joshua Jackson will take on the role of cheating husband Dan.
Though it remains to be seen exactly what a “deep-dive reimagining” means, expect a much more nuanced take on the film’s central topic (the Eighties weren’t known for their feminism or subtlety), and hopefully it will prove better than the somewhat misguided stage adaptation that hit the West End in 2014.
Paramount+, out May 1
Queen Charlotte
Netflix’s record-breaking bonkbuster series Bridgerton is back – with a twist. In this prequel outing, all attention is firmly on the titular Queen Charlotte, played with magnificent hauteur by Golda Rosheuvel as queen and newcomer India Amarteifio in her younger incarnation. The show flits between two timelines as it tells the queen’s origin story and how she falls in love with her betrothed, King George III (who, by the time Bridgerton rolls around, has gone mad). Be warned... the show’s cast have also teased that it will be exceptionally steamy.
Netflix, out May 4
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
We return to the glorious world of Miriam “Midge” Maisel for the fifth, and sadly final, season of one of Prime Video’s most acclaimed shows. Starring Rachel Brosnahan in the title role of this multiple award-winning series, season five finds Midge rebuilding her comedy career again but the question is, will she ever make it really big? And the second question is, will she get her happily ever after?
Prime Video, out April 14
The Diplomat
Not to be confused with, er, The Diplomat which aired on Alibi in February, The Diplomat lands on Netflix on April 20. The Americans star Keri Russell leads the cast of this political thriller in which she becomes the new US ambassador in London as an international crisis hits - but can she hold her personal life together? The showrunner is Deborah Cahn, who has previously worked on Homeland and Grey’s Anatomy, and Rufus Sewell also stars.
Netflix, out April 20
Tom Jones
Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel is to be reimagined for the screen in this four-part series on ITVX. Starring Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham, Sophie Wilde and Solly McLeod, the story was dubbed “the mother of all rom-coms” by Gwyneth Hughes who did the adaptation. Expect corsets, powdered wigs and lots of hanky panky.
ITV, out May 4
Ten Pound Poms
This six-part BBC drama follows a group of Brits in the Fifties, who seek to change their lives by heading to Australia with the promise of better job prospects, better living conditions and better weather… Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t quite all go to plan. Starring Michelle Keegan and Faye Marsay, this major BBC drama based on the real movement of over 1 million Brits down under after the war (they were nicknamed Ten Pound Poms because that was the cost of the fare) as Australia sought to populate and build its post-war economy, arrives on our screens in late May.
