Happy New Year! Time to chug the last of the eggnog before starting the diet that will be inevitably broken in three weeks. Luckily, with television season running at full steam all year round, there are plenty of quality shows to get you through the darkest months of winter. Below are the top ten television picks to start off 2018:
“Lovesick”
Synopsis: Dylan grows closer to Abigail, but things remain complicated with Evie. Angus and Luke try to start new chapters in their lives.
What You Need To Know: Disclaimer for audiences: nine times out of ten informing your past sexual partners of your STD won’t go as as depicted in Netflix’s “Lovesick.” However, from a television perspective third time is the very increasing charm with Netflix’s unique rom-com, starring Johnny Flynn (“Genius”), Antonia Thomas (“The Good Doctor”) and Daniel Ings (“The Crown”) for the tv-binging generation.
Release Date: January 1st
“Grown-ish”
Synopsis: Zoey Johnson heads to college and begins her journey to adulthood, but quickly discovers that life is more complicated than originally anticipated when she leaves the nest.
What You Need To Know: It was a no brainer that ABC’s “black-ish” breakout star Yara Shahidi would eventually get her own spin-off now that Zoey has officially left the nest. While Zoey was the grounded center of the Johnson family, she quickly learns as a college freshman the tough lesson that YOU DON’T MEAN SQUAT outside of high school. However, she and her friends appear to be on the path to figuring life out.
Release Date: January 3rd
“The End of the F**king World”
Synopsis: James is seventeen and is pretty sure he is a psychopath; Alyssa, also seventeen is the cool and moody new girl at school. The pair make a connection and she persuades him to embark on a road trip in search of her birth father.
What You Need To Know: Adapted from Charles S. Forman’s graphic novels, Alex Lawther (“The Imitation Game”) and Jessica Barden (“Penny Dreadful”) star as two seriously maladjusted teens who embark on a road trip, leaving behind them enough mayhem and collateral damage to make Bonnie and Clyde raise their eyebrows. I suppose it was only a matter of time before teen psychopaths became in the new Twilight vampires.
Release Date: January 5th
“The Chi”
Synopsis: A young man and his friends come of age in the South Side of Chicago.
What You Need To Know: Lena Waithe (“Master of None”) has her brass ring and she is running with it, wielding her career level-up to create “The Chi” for Showtime. Jason Mitchell (“Mudbound”), Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine (“Treme”), Jacob Latimore (“Sleight”), Tiffany Boone (“The Following”) and Alex Hibbert star as a group of Southie friends struggling to stay on the right side of the wrong side of the tracks.
Release Date: January 7th
“Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams”
Synopsis: A sci-fi stand-alone anthology series based on the works of Phillip K. Dick.
What You Need To Know: I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad thing that there are now two anthology series cautioning the dangers and potential abuse of technology. However, if Amazon is determined to ape the success of “Black Mirror,” they couldn’t have done better than mining from the granddaddy of science fiction’s bibliography, from which came the basis for “Minority Report” and “Blade Runner.” The cast is certainly top notch, starring Richard Madden, Holliday Grainger, Jack Reynor, Benedict Wong, Timothy Spall, Steve Buscemi, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Anna Paquin, Terrence Howard, Bryan Cranston, Vera Farmiga, Janelle Monae, Maura Tierney, Mireille Enos and Greg Kinnear throughout the anthology’s ten episodes.
Release Date: January 12th