10. “Succession” Season 3 (HBO)
HBO’s Emmy winner for Best Drama hasn’t been on the air in well over a year and it will probably be at least six more months until the juicy drama of the Roy family picks up again. The pandemic-delayed shoot for the third season has already started, but the production is staying tight-lipped about any details, except one interesting tidbit snuck out: three familiar faces from the first two years have been upgraded from guest players to series regulars: Justine Lupe, David Rasche, and Fisher Stevens. What does this mean for the story of Season 3? Who knows? Another interesting tidbit that snuck out may be an answer to the question of if a very modern show set in New York City would tackle COVID-19 in its narrative. It doesn’t look like it. Sarah Snook told Variety recently that creator Jesse Armstrong was unlikely to address it directly, saying, “We want to see the Roys doing the thing that they’ve been doing that we love, not pivoting towards a pandemic story.” That’s for sure.
Airdate: TBD 2021 – BT
9. “Killing Eve” Season 4 (BBC America)
“Killing Eve” continues to be one of the more pleasurably stupefying thrill rides of the streaming era: each new season of this strange and addictive show has been darker, giddier, and more amusingly twisted than the one that preceded it. To date, the show has provided a platform for some of the most gifted female creatives currently working, from Phoebe Waller-Bridge to “Promising Young Woman” director Emerald Fennell, and for this new chapter in the ongoing and unpredictable saga of Eve and Villanelle, Season 3 maestro Suzanne Heathcoate will be handing off showrunner duties to “Sex Education” writer Laura Neal. The show’s EP, Sally Woodward Gentle, has promised that Season 4 will be a “pitch-black riot,” so if nothing else, there is that to look forward to.
Airdate: No exact release date has been set, but the word is that BBC America will air the first few episodes sometime in April. – NL
8. “Mare of Easttown” (HBO)
HBO had a very strong year in the mini-series department with offerings like “I Know This Much is True” and “The Plot Against America,” and they hope to repeat that success in 2021. One of their most high-profile efforts in this lane is the series from creator Brad Ingelsby, directed by Gavin O’Connor, who last collaborated as writer/director on Ben Affleck’s “The Way Back,” and Craig Zobel (known for work on HBO’s “The Leftovers“; both filmmakers are executive producers on the show) The main draw? Kate Winslet returns to TV for the first time since her Emmy Award-winning work on HBO’s “Mildred Pierce” in 2011. This very different project casts the Oscar winner as a detective in a small town in Pennsylvania who has to balance a tough investigation with her disintegrating personal life. Winslet is supported by Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, Angourie Rice, Evan Peters, and dozens more. This is another project that was in production and largely filmed pre-COVID and appears to only need a limited amount of time to wrap it up. It could be on HBO before the Summer if that happens soon.
Airdate: TBD 2021 – BT
7. “Ripley” (Showtime)
Tom Ripley has a long history in fiction and film with the Patricia Highsmith novels about the character adapted into projects like “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “Ripley’s Game.” This project, from the excellent Steven Zaillian (“The Irishman”), will start with the first book in the series, capturing Tom Ripley in the early ‘60s, traveling to Italy at the behest of a man who wants his son to come home (it’s the story of the excellent Anthony Minghella film with Matt Damon and Jude Law). The hope is that each season will tackle a different book in the series, presumably running for five seasons on Showtime. Who steps into this charming criminal’s shoes? None other than Andrew Scott, the scene-stealer from the second season of “Fleabag.”
Airdate: It’s hard to say exactly where this is in production, but it already has an official Showtime page, so expect it sooner than later. – BT
6. “Lisey’s Story” (AppleTV)
Way back in April 2019, Apple announced that one of the projects for their upcoming streaming service would be this mini-series adaptation of the Stephen King book of the same name, and the announcement included an absolutely mind-blowing cast of A-list talent. Oscar-winner Julianne Moore is set to star as Lisey Landon, the book’s narrator who is grieving the death of her famous author husband Scott (played by Clive Owen). The book cuts between the current day aftermath of his passing and flashbacks to his life. It’s one of King’s most ambitious novels and should fit the mini-series format perfectly. As if Moore and Owen aren’t enough to hook viewers, the production also includes Joan Allen, Dane DeHaan, Sung Kang, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. And it was directed by Pablo Larrain from episode scripts by King himself. Wow. Something interesting: The show was almost done pre-pandemic. Larrain told Indiewire that they had shot for six months in a row and had only a few weeks left. As of November, it hadn’t yet resumed production, but with so little left to shoot, it shouldn’t be long after it does before it hits the air.
Airdate: TBD 2021 – BT
5. “Scenes from a Marriage (HBO)
One of HBO’s most notable projects in the pipeline, this is a remake of the perfect Ingmar Bergman mini-series of the same name. While that may inherently seem like a bad idea, consider the talent involved. Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac (who appeared together in “A Most Violent Year”) reunite in the central roles in this new version helmed by Hagai Levi (“The Affair”). It was once to star Michelle Williams, but she had to drop out, and the production recently was halted due to a COVID outbreak on the set. The new version of the very personal Bergman piece will examine many of the same issues but update them to a modern American couple. While it seems unlikely to live up to the original, Chastain and Isaac could be captivating enough to allow it to escape that long shadow.
Airdate: TBD 2021, but filming has already begun. – BT
4. “The North Water” (BBC)
The excellent Andrew Haigh (“45 Years”) wrote and directed this mini-series adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian McGuire, and the cast is just fire enough to thaw its icy setting. Colin Farrell stars as Henry Drax, a killer who sets sail on a whaling expedition in the Arctic and terrorizes his shipmates, including Jack O’Connell, Stephen Graham, Tom Courtenay, and Peter Mullan.
Airdate: It filmed in the far North of the world in October 2019 — reportedly the furthest north a show has ever shot — so it’s probably done and ready to thaw out anytime now. – RP
3. “The Old Man” (FX on Hulu)
This adaptation of Thomas Perry’s 2017 book —about a former CIA officer, living off the grid who finds himself on the run from people who want to kill him— was originally announced as an FX series. Now, “The Old Man” is now one of the several FX shows now destined to premiere exclusively on FX on Hulu. The series boasts a prestigious cast including John Lithgow, Amy Brenneman, Alia Shawkat, and Jeff Bridges in the lead role. It is executive-produced by Jon Watts (“Spiders-Man: Homecoming” and “Far From Home”), who also directs the pilot. Watts hasn’t had a chance to get back to his indie roots since “Cop Car,” so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. Bridges is battling cancer right now, so let’s hope there’s a happy ending to that story too.
Airdate: TBD, but it’s unclear if Bridges was finished shooting before his public cancer announcement which may mean a much longer delay than originally expected.
2. “Atlanta” Season 3 (and 4?) (FX)
The long-awaited and overdue 3rd and 4th seasons of Donald Glover’s critically acclaimed series “Atlanta,” are returning to FX in 2021 and the news was recently confirmed at Disney’s Investors Day (the series will even be available to stream on Disney+). Louie C.K is obviously a hugely disgraced figure now, but his show “Louie” was deeply influential to comedians and rewrote a lot of the rules of television. Donald Glover was one of the people influenced by the undefinable nature of “Louie,” but he used the basic template —little plot, lots of situational, experiential, emotional, absurdist vignettes—and used to launch into something much more grand and ambitious: ‘Twin Peaks’ for rappers” is how he initially described it, but that may not capture the hard-to-pin-down social surrealism of the show commenting on race, privilege, America, relationships and more. In just two seasons, Glover’s strange, absurd, hilarious, and magical realism show transformed television and then it went dark. Very little is known about Season 3, but Glover, Brian Tyree Henry, and Lakeith Stanfield are all expected to return as the trio that navigates Atlanta’s rap scene, along with Zazie Beetz as Glover’s love interest and baby mama.
Airdate: Unknown, but at Disney’s Investors Day, FX chiefs said both seasons were coming in 2021. – RP
1. “The Underground Railroad” (Amazon)
Lauded Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk ”) is set to direct all seven episodes of Amazon’s alternate-reality slave drama about the underground railroad and a notorious slave catcher. Jenkins has assembled an incredibly enticing cast including South African actress as the lead character Thuso Mbedu, Aaron Pierre as the second lead, plus Joel Edgerton, William Jackson Harper (“The Good Place”), and Damon Herriman (“Mindhunter”). The prospect of Jenkins bringing his unique cinematic perspective to episodic television for the first time is sure to excite viewers everywhere, not least members of the Television Academy.
Airdate: TBD, but filming wrapped in September 2020 and two teasers have already been released, so it feels like something we’ll see relatively soon. – RP
Honorable Mention:
“The Crown” Season 5, you ask? It’s already been confirmed the show won’t return until 2022, just FYI. Ted Griffin‘s “Gone Hollywood” with Lola Kirke and more? FX surprisingly passed on the pilot in the end and didn’t take the series to order. What about “Cortes” from the minds of frickin’ Steven Spielberg and Steven Zaillian starring Javier Bardem? Well, director Ciro Guerra (“Birds of Passage”) essentially was canceled this year after some ugly allegations of sexual impropriety. Find a new filmmaker? Well, it was already in pre-production, costing money and Amazon decided to cancel it altogether. Maybe it’ll resurface one day with a new filmmaker, we don’t like the idea of a Zaillian/Spielberg project going to waste.
As you’ve probably seen, we’ve mostly stuck to new shows, with some exceptions of series that haven’t been around for a while. There’s also lots of great series we love coming next year that we are looking forward to, Season 5 of FX’s “Better Things,” Season 3 of “What We Do In The Shadows,” Season 3 of “Mayans M.C.”; Season 4 of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” to name just a few returning shows. What else is coming? Pixar and Disney+’s series and “Up” spin-off, “Dug Days” which will probably arrive in the late fall, the animated “Star Wars: Visions,” which likely will be the second “Star Wars” series to ever arrive on Disney+, the Untitled “Friends” reunion on HBO Max, “American Horror Story” Season 10 on FX, “Breeders” Season 2 on FX, Season 8 of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” the one that allegedly tackles the notion of Defund the Police and the post-Black Lives Matter response to law enforcement that happened this summer; and probably the fourth season of Amazon’s “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” which was delayed by COVID this year and has forced the filmmaker to reassess their idea of when the show should end (which suggest Season 5 is it).
There are a ton of series coming, some that may not make 2021, some that already definitely scheduled so here’s a few to keep a look out for including HBO Max’s “Generation” from producer Lena Dunham; HBO Max’s “Made For Love” starring Cristin Milioti, from “Maniac” creator Patrick Somerville; an Untitled Jean Smart/Michael Schur comedy coming to HBO Max project from the producers of “Broad City”; Netflix drama, “Firefly Lane” featuring the return of Katherine Heigl; Netflix fantasy project “Shadow & Bone” from “Arrival” writer Eric Heisserer; Netflix and Ryan Murphy’s “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”; “Jupiter’s Legacy,” a Mark Millar superhero series on Netflix; HBO‘s “The Nevers” from Joss Whedon; “Frank Of Ireland,” an Amazon comedy, starring Domhnall Gleeson and Brian Gleeson; “The Chair” on Netflix, starring Sandra Oh, Jay Duplass, Amanda Peet and created by “Game of Thrones” guys Benioff & Weiss; “Physical” (Apple+, ‘80s aerobics, Rose Byrne); “Mosquito Coast” (Apple+, Rupert Wyatt, Justin Theroux movie remake); “The Irregulars” (Sherlock Holmes riff, Netflix); “Landscapers” (HBO, Olivia Colman, true crime, Will Sharpe directs); “Guilty Party” (CBS All-Access, Isla Fisher, “Dead To Me” writer); “Angelyne” (Peacock, Sam Esmail of “Mr Robot,” Emmy Rossum, Martin Freeman); “Dr. Death” (Peacock, Joshua Jackson, Alec Baldwin, true crime); “Girls5Eva” (Peacock, Tina Fey comedy about a reunited girl band, Sara Bareilles, Busy Phillips) “Rutherford Falls” (Peacock, Mike Schur comedy, Ed Helms); “Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K.” (Hulu, stop-motion animated comedy, Patton Oswalt); “Only Murders In The Building” (Hulu, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez); “This Is Going To Hurt” (BBC, Ben Whishaw, “Fleabag,” if Fleabag was a medical drama) and “Masters Of The Air,” an Apple+, “Band Of Brothers” sequel from Cary Fukunaga would easily be in our top 10, possibly top 5, but it’s very likely 2022 at this point. There’s even a new “Gossip Girl” coming to HBO Max.
There’s also BBC’s “Cheaters,” from the producers of “End Of F***ing World” and created by our boy and former Playlist staff member Oliver Lyttelton, so yes, we’re very excited about that one too!
There’s probably much more that you could add, CBS has the long-delayed “The Equalizer” starring Queen Latifah for example, but hey, that’s what the comments section is for, right? Feel free to sound off below and let us know what you think we’re missing or what you’re anticipating the most.
– Written by Rodrigo Perez, Brian Tallerico, Andrew Bundy, and Nicholas Laskin
