Here is our Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series of 2024 (The Strike-Affected Edition!) feature. 2023’s WGA/SAG-AFTRA/AMPTP strikes were essentially the COVID-19 of 2020. While thankfully, they weren’t as physically deadly, the work stoppage did significantly affect many people in the business and their financial stability. What ties them both together more closely is the disruption of content and product. With streamers already cutting back, regressing on the streaming boom thanks to Wall Street’s reevaluation of their worth, and the strikes delaying a lot of shows for an entire year, the #AgeOfTooMuchContent might officially be coming to a close. Or at least, it‘s all sunsetting into a more manageable, more sensible form.
READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024
2023 was the second year of TV studios course-correcting from the expenditure of streaming glut over-extension, worrying about overspending. So they cut back and canceled shows (sometimes abruptly; see “Winning Time” season two) and reassessed the future. Disney’s Bob Iger went from claiming streaming was the future of all content in December 2020 during Disney’s Winter Investors Day presentation. By mid-2023, he was singing a much different tune and claiming that bluechip franchise like Marvel and Lucasfilm had “diluted” their brands by doing too much, too fast, and too soon on television. Both companies (and the entire Disney flagship) signaled a return to the theatrical model and started winnowing down or refining their TV plans. Marvel TV, which restarted “Daredevil: Born Again” almost from scratch (now due 2025, instead of 2024), took it in the teeth rather publicly as news of their TV debacles and problems spread.
This may be the longwinded way of saying 2024 will likely have less must-see TV than last year, and or at least, much less franchise TV (which may not be the worst trend, frankly). Still, in many ways, that’s more practical, reasonable, and viable for audiences, the industry, and the critical/journalistic industry that tries to make sense of it all.
What else is coming in 2024? Well, circling back to the strikes, we know from HBO’s recent fall presentation that “The Last Of Us,” “The White Lotus,” “Euphoria,” and the “IT” horror spin-of “Welcome To Derry” aren’t arriving until 2025, so we can scratch those off the list at least (and probably our beloved “The Old Man” with Jeff Bridges, which was shut down just as season two started). FX’s “The Bear” doesn’t look like it’ll be ready until 2025 either, and beloved shows like “Reservation Dogs,” “Barry,” and “Succession” ended this year. That aforementioned ‘Daredevil’ show has been delayed a year, and franchise TV seems to be taking a step back and letting characters flourish again. That may mean less, but as we’ve seen from the last few years of the streaming overload, quality will always trump quantity.
Last caveat, some of these picks might not be ready in time, but we’re hoping the majority of this content will arrive in 2024, fingers crossed.
Follow along with all our Best Of 2023 coverage here.
70. “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” / “Eyes Of Wakanda”
Marvel may only be releasing two live-action shows in 2024 (“Echo” and ‘Agatha’), but they’ve got plenty in store for animation. Formerly known as “Spider-Man: Freshman Year,” the animated “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” centers on a young Peter Parker’s life. While getting ready for his High School orientation, he is forever changed by events that send him on a journey like none before. Images of the series have teased characters like Daredevil, Doc Ock, and Dr. Strange. Danai Gurira voices Okoye in the only recently announced “Eyes of Wakanda.” And one has to wonder: is this surprise series coming instead of the live-action Wakanda series that was supposed to star the same former Dora Milaje character?
Airdate: Both are currently TBD 2024 on Disney+.
69. “Star Wars: The Bad Batch”
A spin-off of “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” no one might have thought that “Star Wars: The Bad Batch,” which felt like more of a limited series in season one, would still be going strong three seasons in, but here we are. The series features the adventures of Clone Force 99, also known as the Bad Batch—a group of elite clone troopers with genetic mutations.
Airdate: TBD 2024 on Disney+.
68. “Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans”
The second installment of Ryan Murphy’s award-winning “Feud” anthology series returns in 2024. Writer Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) surrounds himself with a coterie of society’s most elite women nicknamed “the swans.” These rich, glamorous NY socialites, whom he ingratiates himself to and then betrays in a thinly veiled novel, are played by Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloe Sevigny, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald, and Calista Flockhart. Cue the “much” cliches about catfights and all that.
Airdate: January 31 on FX on Hulu.
67. “Marvel Zombies”
An animated spin-off from the hit “What If…?” episode, this brief four-episode mini-series is meant to act as the sequel to that story where the remaining surviving Avengers have to fight off a global zombie pandemic. Headed to Wakanda, the one place on earth not infected, while zombies killed most of the team, Marvel confirmed 18 new characters joining the fold, including the new Black Widow, Yelena, and more.
Airdate: TBD via Disney+.
66. “The Veil”
While we wait for the sixth and final season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” (delayed because of strikes and now likely 2025), Elisabeth Moss will fill the gap with a thriller series from Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”). “The Veil” centers on a deadly game of truth and lies as two women travel from Istanbul to Paris and London, one possessing a secret that the other must expose. Josh Charles, Dali Benssalah, Yumna Marwan, and Haluk Bilginer co-star.
Airdate: TBD via Hulu.
65. “Sinking Spring”
In a crime drama television series created by Peter Craig (“The Town”), Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura star as two Philadelphia friends who pose as DEA agents to rob a house. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a narcotics lab with bigger-than-expected consequences. Ridley Scott is supposed to direct an episode, and David Fincher’s new trusted DP, Erik Messerschmidt, is shooting the show, though the strikes may have complicated some of those plans. Marin Ireland, Kate Mulgrew, and Ving Rhames also appear.
Airdate: TBD via Apple TV+, and they were shut down, so maybe late in the year.
64. “The Brothers Sun”
When the head of a powerful Taiwanese triad is killed by a mysterious assassin, his eldest son, a legendary killer (Justin Chien), heads to Los Angeles to protect his mother (Michelle Yeoh) and his naive younger brother, Bruce (Sam Song Li). Created by Brad Falchuk and Byron Wu and featuring a twisted sense of humor, this family action drama co-stars Alice Hewkin, Jon Xue Zhang, Jenny Yang, Madison Hu, and more.
Airdate: January 4 via Netflix.
63. “A Man In Full”
Midas Touch TV creator David E. Kelley always has many irons in the fire. Over at Netflix, he has a new series directed by Regina King based on Tom Wolfe’s eponymous novel about an Atlanta conglomerate king whose outsize ego has finally hit up against reality. Jeff Daniels stars alongside a huge cast, including Diane Lane, William Jackson Harper, Tom Pelphrey, Sarah Jones, Jon Michael Hill, Chanté Adams, Lucy Liu, Bill Camp, and more.
Airdate: TBD via Netflix.
62. “Zero Day”
From Noah Oppenheim (NBC’s “Today Show”) and Eric Newman (“Narcos: Mexico”) and directed by Lesli Linka Glatter and starring Robert De Niro and Lizzy Caplan, this six-part series—about what extent conspiracy theories are our own inventions or products of our imagination—was shut down in June during the WGA strike, but maybe it could come back in time. Jesse Plemons, Joan Allen, and Connie Britton are also part of the cast.
Airdate: TBD via Netflix.
61. “The Big Cigar”
André Holland stars as the famous Black Panther revolutionary Huey P. Newton in a big biographical drama thriller miniseries developed by Jim Hecht (“Winning Time”). The story centers on Newton, who seeks the help of film producer Bert Schneider (Alessandro Nivola) as he tries to escape to Cuba. Tiffany Boone, Marc Menchaca, Moses Ingram, Glynn Turman, P. J. Byrne, and more co-star, and Don Cheadle directs a few eps.
Airdate: TBD via Apple TV+.