Honorable Mentions/Also Look Out For
As you might imagine in the era of peak TV, there’s roughly a billion other new shows that may or may not be worth checking out to some degree. HBO have not just the aforementioned “Brothers In Atlanta,” but “Insecure,” a new comedy starring Issa Rae, who broke out in webseries “The Misadventures Of Awkward Black Girl.” They also have a second Duplass Bros show arriving in the shape of animation “Animals,” along with a new series of weed-dealer comedy “High Maintenance,” which began on Vimeo.
We should also finally see the long-delayed miniseries “Crime,” starringJohn Turturro and Riz Ahmed (this was the one held back after original star James Gandolfini passed), though we’re not yet sure of the status of “Lewis & Clark.” This story of the famous explorers has some hefty talent involved, with Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton producing (Norton also co-wrote), and Casey Affleck and Matthias Schoenaerts as the title characters, but production was shut down last year and director John Curran was fired. Last we heard, the plan was to resume in the spring, but no director’s been hired yet, so it seems unlikely we’ll see it in 2016. We were also psyched for “The Devil You Know,” a Salem witch trial show from “Orange Is The New Black” creator Jenji Kohan, but HBO seem to have passed on it.
Netflix also have a ton of stuff coming, with other possible highlights including Winona Ryder-starring mystery show “Stranger Things,” Will Arnett comedy “Flaked,” hopefully the TV version of “Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events,” Guillermo Del Toro animation “Trollhunters,” and “Lady Dynamite,” starring Maria Bamford and hailing from “Arrested Development” creator Mitch Hurwitz.
We hear that season 2 of “American Crime” is well worth your time, while the confusing-similarly-titled “American Crime Story,” with Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J. Simpson, looks a little more interesting and a little lessRyan Murphy-ish than its ‘Horror’ counterpart. Cinemax hope to cash in on “The Walking Dead” with another Robert Kirkman comic book, exorcism drama “Outcast” starring Patrick Fugit and Philip Glenister, while the creators of “The Good Wife” have a new show in the summer, the intriguing sounding “BrainDead,” about zombies taking over congress, and starringMary Elizabeth Winstead, who also stars with Josh Radnor in PBS’s period medical drama “Mercy Street.”
Excellent fantasy novel “The Magicians” gets a slightly ropey-looking SyFy adaptation shortly, while we hear surprisingly good things about MTV’s “Game Of Thrones” challenger “The Shanarra Chronicles.” Jennifer Lopez is about to come to TV with cop drama “Shades of Blue,” “The Omen” gets a “Bates Motel”-style small-screen follow-up with A&E’s “Damien,” and AMC are going where Bradley Cooper failed with “Broke,” best-described as ‘“Halt & Catch Fire” in a restaurant.’
Some old favorites return with Netflix’s revival of “Gilmore Girls” and Fox’s new season of “The X-Files,” while USA might have a reason to tune in beyond “Mr. Robot” with the Alice Braga-starring “Queen Of The South.” It’s not been picked up to series yet, otherwise it would be high on this list, but we’re psyched about Showtime pilot “I’m Dying Up Here” — set in the stand-up comedy world of the 1970s, it’s produced by Jim Carrey,directed by Jonathan Levine, and stars Melissa Leo, Sebastian Stan, Clark Duke, Ari Graynor, RJ Cyler, Alfred Molina, Robert Forster, Cathy Moriarty and Dylan Baker. Fingers crossed for a green light.
We mentioned it above, but the Louis C.K.-produced, Pamela Adlon-starring “Better Things” should hit FX this year, while we hear that theSteve Carell-produced, Rashida Jones-starring “Angie Tribeca” is really funny, a sort of 21st century “Police Squad” — that hits TBS soon. Having made a mark with the excellent “Manhattan,” WGN America have a couple of new shows beginning: slave-escape drama “Underground,” and “Outsiders,” about Appalachian hill people, starring Joe Anderson and David Morse.
All that, plus new series of favorites like “Orange Is The New Black,” “Daredevil,” “Better Call Saul,” “Documentary Now!,” “Mr. Robot,” “Rectify,” “Catastrophe,” “Togetherness,” “Game Of Thrones,” “Broad City,” “The Americans,” “Bojack Horseman,” “Rick & Morty,” “UnReal,” “You’re The Worst,” “The Leftovers,” “Silicon Valley,” “Veep,” “House Of Cards,” Inside Amy Schumer,” “Doctor Who,” “The Last Kingdom,” “Halt & Catch Fire,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Red Oaks,” “Narcos,” and “Transparent” (some others, like “Jessica Jones,” “Master Of None,” “Fargo” and “The Knick” either haven’t yet been formally recommissioned, or definitely won’t be returning until 2017). All that, and “Twin Peaks” coming back in early 2017. THERE’S TOO MUCH DAMN TV, PEOPLE. Let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comments.
— with Jessica Kiang
