Time to get excited – there’s an excellent selection of shows to stream on Neon in 2024. Steve Newall is here with the lowdown.
Warning – contains minor spoilers and speculation about some new and returning shows.
The catalogue of shows available to stream on Neon continues to expand, with some great new titles on the way in 2024. Some high-profile hit shows return, alongside our first look at some tantalising new prospects. There’s a lot more to come on Neon this year – but here are six shows that will be instant adds to many watchlists in the coming months.
True Detective
True Detective: Season 4 - Night Country
Almost a decade ago now, we thrilled to the team-up of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in the first, Louisiana-set season of True Detective back in 2014. Perhaps one of the last big appointment viewing, mad fan theorising shows, it gave us “time is a flat circle” and plenty of other ponderings as the two/true detectives chased a killer across two distinctly different time periods. Showrunner Nick Pizzolatto swung big with 2015’s divisive season two, with Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch the cops in a seedy, corrupt Californian tale, before a lower-key third season in 2019. Taking place in the Ozarks and starring Mahershala Ali, the show had seemingly come to a solid end, but one not seen by nearly enough viewers.
Now, True Detective‘s return is on the horizon with its fourth season, True Detective: Night Country. The show’s always impressive casting continues, securing perhaps its biggest star yet with multiple Oscar winner Jodie Foster, playing detective Liz Danvers—reluctantly paired with mutually displeased fellow investigator Evangeline Navarro (former world champion boxer, now actor, Kali Reis). They’ve got a (literally) chilling mystery to solve, with the disappearance of the eight men staffing Alaska’s Tsalal Arctic Research Station. During long sunless days, the pair work a case full of True Detective trademarks—supernatural overtones, hidden secrets, long car rides—joined by a strong supporting cast including the likes of John Hawkes, Fiona Shaw and Christopher Eccleston.
The Regime
The Regime: Miniseries
Stephen Frears has made plenty of films about monarchs and the ruling classes (The Queen, The Deal, Dangerous Liasons, Victoria and Abdul etc etc) and here the director teams up with acting royalty in the form of Kate Winslet. Succession producer/writer Will Tracy is showrunner of this sharp, satirical miniseries, The Regime looking full of palace intrigue as it follows Winslet’s Chancellor, the autocratic ruler of a fictional European nation.
As domestic turmoil threatens the regime’s rule, the Chancellor will find herself having to maintain a facade of composure while shoring up international support, using every expletive in the world in private, and suppressing a democratic uprising using any means necessary. With Winslet looking in brutal dictatorial form and Andrea Riseborough, Matthias Schoenaerts, Martha Plimpton and Hugh Grant also along for the ride, there’s plenty of black comedy on the horizon here.
Image courtesy of Facebook / author Paul Cleave
Dark City
Dark City: The Cleaner - Season 1
New Zealand crime author Paul Cleave notched up an international bestseller on his first published attempt with The Cleaner in 2006, going on to build a global audience with a body of work that now stands at thirteen novels. Largely funded and internationally distributed by Lionsgate (Mad Men, The Walking Dead), who are poised to take this homegrown crime tale to the world, series adaptation Dark City: The Cleaner is set in Christchurch and stars Cohen Holloway (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) and Chelsie Florence (Nude Tuesday).
The show’s premise lives up to its title, with Holloway playing Joe, the cleaner at Christchurch’s Central Police Station. As one description of the show notes, “everyone thinks Joe is not very smart”—but the underestimated Joe has successfully been living a double life. He’s killed six people, but the police now think there’s a seventh… It seems Joe has a copycat killer to reckon with, but that is also someone he might be able to pin his whole murder spree on if he plays his cards right.
The Penguin
The Penguin: Miniseries
Robert Pattinson brought a watchable mopey goth mood to 2022’s The Batman alongside Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman—but the pair’s disguises couldn’t impress as much as the layers of makeup that transformed Colin Farrell into unrecognisable gangster Oswald Cobblepot. He was a mid-level mob guy in Matt Reeves’ grimy film, but as The Batman ends, a power vacuum has arisen and this leaves space for upcoming miniseries The Penguin to chronicle Cobblepot’s ascent to Gotham kingpin.
The Batman concluded with much of Gotham underwater after a series of bombings, and it’s this soggy city that we’ll see become The Penguin’s playground. Reported to commence one week after the events of the film, there are plenty of obstacles in Cobblepot’s way—his former boss’s daughter Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti, Made For Love) leading a fight for control over Gotham that also sees Clancy Brown and Michael Kelly play mob figures. With Craig Zobel (Mare of Easttown) directing the opening episodes, this looks set to be much more than just a gapfiller before a Pattinson return as the Caped Crusader…
House of the Dragon
House of the Dragon: Season 2
When Game of Thrones ended in 2019, we already knew that at least one return to Westeros was on the cards. Like the struggle for the Iron Throne itself, a number of different projects were in the works based on George R.R. Martin’s extensive source material, with most of them never destined to see the light of day. House of the Dragon came out as the victor of this competitive process, set about 200 years before the events of GoT and chronicling the Targaryen civil war whose effects are still felt centuries later.
It may have taken a minute to get to know season one’s whole new cast of backstabbing plotters and would-be rulers, but the likes of Paddy Considine, Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, and Olivia Cooke quickly impressed. Fortunately, given that the first season ends on one hell of a cliffhanger, we won’t be waiting as long for more episodes of House of the Dragon as some other shows, as it was able to shoot during recent Hollywood strikes. Simon Russell Beale, Freddie Fox, Gayle Rankin, and Abubakar Salim join the cast for season two, which sees the vicious struggle between various Targaryen factions continue to heat up.
Yellowstone
It seems we’ve had more offscreen drama from Yellowstone than the streamable kind recently. In June of 2023, a Hollywood Reporter feature on the show had this juicy opener: “”They’re scared,” says Taylor Sheridan, looking amused as he steps onto his porch and away from a gaggle of publicists huddled inside his house. “They’re scared of what I might say.””
And rightly so. In that interview, showrunner Sheridan candidly addresses the shock announcement by star Kevin Costner that the actor would be leaving the series, hastening the end of Yellowstone (but not its prequels or spinoffs) with the final episodes arriving this year. “My opinion of Kevin as an actor hasn’t altered,” Sheridan told his interviewer. “His creation of John Dutton is symbolic and powerful … and I’ve never had an issue with Kevin that he and I couldn’t work out on the phone. But once lawyers get involved, then people don’t get to talk to each other and start saying things that aren’t true and attempt to shift blame based on how the press or public seem to be reacting.”
Exactly what we can expect from Yellowstone‘s final batch of episodes remains unclear. Costner’s departure hasn’t changed the show’s destination (as Sheridan puts it, “It truncates the closure of his character. It doesn’t alter it, but it truncates it”). With November earmarked for the first new episodes, there’s still a while to wait to see how this all plays out—but you can’t imagine fans are in any hurry to say goodbye…
