February’s schedule of new TV series is off the hook, with bold new sci-fi and period dramas plus adaptations of your favourite anime and best-selling novels. Here’s Eliza Janssen’s top picks for the shows you’ll probably be raving about throughout the month.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Season 1
Alright, ALRIGHT: everybody stop yelling at me for a minute. I’m just saying…Netflix’s adaptation of a beloved American anime series looks, so far, very similar to the widely loathed M. Night Shyamalan movie. I’m sorry! Stop throwing things! Hopefully a ginormous budget, a more authentic Asian cast and aesthetics, and even (at the very least) the corrected pronunciation of character names should push this epic reimagining beyond the doldrums of that film. Expect many, many more seasons down the track à la Stranger Things if this first chapter pans out as the streamer expects.
Constellation
Constellation: Season 1
Poor Noomi Rapace tends to have a pretty crummy time in outer space. Reminding us of her role in Prometheus, the graceful actor stars in this new Apple TV+ sci-fi series, in which her astronaut survives a deadly accident aboard a space station only to find her family life on earth in tatters. Breaking Bad star Jonathan Banks is amongst the supporting cast for this time-space-twisting drama, with a tagline that temptingly reads: “reality is a conspiracy”. Time to put on our tinfoil hats, maybe.
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 12
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 12
It’s the end of Larry David’s long-running cult comedy as we know it, and he feels…fine? The trailers for the supposed final season of Curb show an unsettlingly chirpy Larry, admitting that his life is going far better than he’d ever expected. Don’t worry, though: we’re sure the show’s newest episodes will sic plenty of miserable social dilemmas upon the guy, ready for him to plant his foot in his mouth as usual, Ourouborous-like.
FEUD: Capote Vs. The Swans
FEUD: Capote vs. the Swans
“Tell me everything”, Tom Hollander squeaks as iconic mid-century scribe Truman Capote, in the trailer for Ryan Murphy’s latest scandal-obsessed miniseries. Following on from season one’s depiction of the battle between fading stars Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, season two delves into 1960s New York high society, where Capote infiltrated and then exposed a community of wealthy yet deeply unhappy socialites. The luminous female cast includes Naomi Watts, Demi Moore, Chloë Sevigny, Diane Lane, Calista Flockhart and Molly Ringwald, as the inner circle of women who Capote burned in his scathing literary take-downs.
One Day
One Day: Limited Series
Back in 2011, Anne Hathaway starred in a feature-length version of David Nicholls’ melancholy romance novel, and received meh reviews for her unconvincing Bri’ish accent. Now Netflix has got a legitimate UK team behind their episodic adaptation of the novel, again covering the tumultuous, on-again-off-again love story of university students Emma and Dexter. Each episode meets the pair on the same day of a different year, following how they and their initial attraction are changed by the cruel passing of time.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith: Season 1
Mr. & Mrs. Smith: Season 1
An episodic remix of the Brangelina film of the same name, this Prime original sees comedy stars Donald Glover and Maya Erskine deep undercover, forced into a fake marriage to get their real spy work done. Now partners in marriage and profession, each episode follows the pair as they reluctantly draw closer to one another, discovering they might be a legit good match with each hit, heist, and adventure. Let’s hope the pair’s chemistry together lives up to their charisma in their own individual projects.
The New Look
The New Look: Season 1
If you ate up the Balenciaga biopic series on Disney+, this portrait of legendary fashion designers Dior and Chanel will be right up your runway. Very Aussie star Ben Mendelsohn stars as Christian Dior, whose dream of a modernised feminine aesthetic rails against the gloom and conservatism of WWII-era Europe. Juliette Binoche is Coco Chanel, whose IRL Nazi allegiances will hopefully be acknowledged in the series? At the very least, expect great gowns, beautiful gowns.
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy
The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy: Season 1
Following very much in the footsteps of high-randomness adult animated sci-fi hits like Rick & Morty, this new Prime original has an out-of-this-world voice cast. Oscar-nominee Stephanie Hsu and the ever-charismatic Keke Palmer voice a pair of alien doctors at a dysfunctional intergalactic hospital, with Kieran Culkin, Maya Rudolph, and Natasha Lyonne as their peers. Nurse, bring me gloopy sight gags and familiar-sounding superstar voice cameos—stat!
Shōgun
Shōgun: Miniseries
Ambitious men from very different worlds experience an epic collision, in this historical drama set in feudal Japan. It’s based on a 1970s novel that was previously adapted into a 1980s TV series, but the saga of a British sailor (muso Cosmo Jarvis) teaming up with a powerful samurai lord (martial arts legend Hiroyuki Sanada) is perfected in the form of a big-budget, sweeping limited series. It’s a fictionalised retelling of true, culture-clashing events: well worth a dive down the Wikipedia rabbit hole once you’ve dipped your toes into the series.
Three Women (February 16)
Drawn from the imagined and semi-biographical portraiture of Lisa Taddeo’s novel, this new drama hones in on women in crises. Three of them, in particular, are on the verge of mid-life, marital, and adolescent breakdowns, unearthing new facets of their own desire and identity. It’s all chronicled by Shailene Woodley’s character, a writer whose own broken family gives her aching insight into the temptations and obstacles womanhood has in store.
