Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos by Netflix, Disney and HBO
As television evolves through the COVID epoch of the late-period streaming era, the once-familiar anticipation cycle built around semi-annual “seasons” has gone increasingly askew: Major, much-hyped series can debut at any point on the calendar, returning shows can go anywhere from mere months to several years between seasons, and projects that have lain dormant for ages can be unexpectedly revived by a parent company’s streaming division. That can be a bit frustrating if you’re trying to cobble together something resembling a schedule of the year’s big television debuts (hello), but it can also be exciting if you relish the feeling that at any point a beloved, or soon-to-be-beloved, series could be just over the horizon (hello again).
So while our annual list of shows we’re excited to see this year may be a bit light on specifics beyond the first few months of 2022, there’s a general sense of great promise and possibility in all the TBDs that lie ahead: The return of pandemic-delayed favorites (Better Call Saul; Barry), new series from some of our favorite comedic talents (Somebody, Somewhere; The Afterparty), long-gestating projects finally emerging into the light of day (The Sandman; Lord of the Rings), revivals of some generational TV touchstones (Law & Order; The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder), and a handful of curiosities whose premises alone have us hooked (what are you, Monarch??). Whenever, wherever, and and in whatever form television delivers unto us this bounty, rest assured we will be watching.
The pilot for this new sitcom about life at a Philadelphia public school aired in December on ABC, but its first season begins in earnest in January. Quinta Brunson of A Black Lady Sketch Show created the show and stars as a young teacher determined to fix the system despite the system’s determination to stay broke. —Jen Chaney
A near-death experience at the end of last season might’ve pushed Dory (Alia Shawkat) to the brink of enlightenment, but as a perpetually self-involved millennial she seems destined to end up trying to monetize it. In Search Party’s fifth and final season, Dory finds herself heading up a cult with the help of none other than Jeff Goldbum while her friends do their best to knock some sense into her — for their own selfish reasons, of course. —Jackson McHenry
Anyone who watched the first season of this lovely Masterpiece–BBC production knows exactly how good it’s going to feel to return to the Yorkshire Dales with these endearing veterinarians. Not many TV series have this show’s balance of sweetness and gravity; it’s a rare treat. —Kathryn VanArendonk
Neither of the two special episodes of Euphoria that dropped on HBO and HBO Max last winter, post–season one and pre–season two, left principal characters Rue (Zendaya) and Jules (Hunter Schaaefer) in a particularly happy place. Let’s hope life gets better for them and for Euphoria fans when the second season finally lands in January, almost two and a half years after the season one finale. — JC
Arriving on HBO just in time to curb Succession withdrawal is the second season of the thematically similar The Righteous Gemstones, about a family of megawealthy televangelists fighting with each other for control of their legacy. Is anyone happy? Of course not, and that pervasive discomfort provides much of the humor for Danny McBride’s black comedy. Like McBride’s previous series Eastbound & Down and Vice Principals, Righteous Gemstones is consistently ridiculous; for lack of a better term, stupid (“car pranks,” Adam DeVine’s ludicrous outfits); and slightly toothless in its criticism of the religious right. But between McBride’s charming sliminess, Walton Goggins’s two-step, and Edi Patterson’s unhinged earnestness, The Righteous Gemstones has an array of absurdist charms. —Roxana Hadadi
When Cheer debuted in the first month of 2020, the docudrama and many of its athletes became instant phenomena. Then the formations started to fall apart. In the second run of episodes, the show rejoins the squad at Navarro College in Texas for a cheer season that gets disrupted by COVID, the pressures of sudden fame, and child-pornography charges surrounding Jerry Harris, one of the breakout stars of season one. —JC
Based very loosely on the podcast of the same name, this horror series tracks what happens to an archivist at the Museum of the Moving Image who gets a side gig piecing together found footage made by a documentarian. Naturally the footage points to something sinister. Honestly, dude should have been suspicious when he was told he had to work at a very remote location upstate with extremely spotty cell service. —JC
Bridget Everett, a mainstay of New York’s cabaret scene, heads up a very downtown–New York cast of theater people in a comedy loosely inspired by her own life but set in her native Kansas. She plays Sam, who’s struggling to fit into her own hometown but finds an outlet through performing, which means, thank God, Everett will be singing. —JM
After the end of How I Met Your Mother, CBS tried this once before, with a failed pilot of How I Met Your Dad that starred Greta Gerwig (imagine the universe where she’s a sitcom star and Lady Bird maybe doesn’t exist). Now Hulu is trying to make the legen … dary happen again with Hilary Duff starring as an unlucky-in-love gal from Brooklyn. Duff previously tried to make a modern-day Lizzie McGuire reboot with actual sex happen, so congrats to her for landing a show that’s pretty much that without the Disney+ censorship. —JM
Jason Katims, whose Parenthood and Friday Night Lights remain among the most poignant, fulfilling TV series of the last decade or so, serves as the showrunner, writer, and producer on Prime Video’s comedy-drama As We See It. The ensemble series follows three 20-something roommates on the autism spectrum and stars Albert Rutecki, Rick Glassman, and Sue Ann Pien, who identify as part of that community. Rutecki’s Harrison, Glassman’s Jack, and Pien’s Violet make friends, find jobs, and fall in love with the help of each other, their families, and their aide Mandy (Sosie Bacon, of Mare of Easttown) in this eight-episode series. —RH
The first half of the fourth season of Ozark gets underway with an episode called, appropriately, “The Beginning of the End.” While I am sworn to silence about what the Byrdes are up to in the new season, I will say that it begins in a jarring fashion. —JC
It’s taken a very long time for Julian Fellowes’s The Gilded Age, a portrait of upper-crusty New York in the late 1800s, to finally arrive on television. Initial rumblings about a Fellowes saga set in the U.S. began all the way back in 2012 when The Gilded Age was planned as an NBC series. It remained in development at the Peacock network until 2019, when HBO announced it had picked up the period piece. Now, a decade after it was first discussed, we’ll finally get to see this costume drama, starring Carrie Coon, Christine Baranski, Denée Benton, and Cynthia Nixon. —JC
Rashomon-style storytelling is having a moment in film and TV, from prestige drama like Ridley Scott’s excellent and underseen The Last Duel to Netflix’s deeply silly, surprisingly watchable miniseries Clickbait. Phil Lord and Chris Miller take a break from their Spider-Man and LEGO franchise responsibilities with The Afterparty, which picks up the rotating-perspective mantle with a murder mystery at a high-school reunion. The, well, murderer’s row of comedians that populate this cast — including Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, Zoë Chao, Ben Schwartz, Ike Barinholtz, John Early, and Ilana Glazer — should give each installment a singular tone. —RH
A strong contender for the Netflix series with the most garbled title, the show sets out to parody the Gone Girl/Girl on a Train/Sharp Objects universe of unstable-white-woman thrillers. Kristen Bell plays a homebody who loves wine and may or may not have witnessed a murder. It’s a clever idea, even if The Woman in the Window may have already been the best possible (unintentional) parody of itself. —JM
Is this Empire but with country music? Succession with a twang? Nashville but, like, not Nashville? As of this writing it’s hard to say since we haven’t seen Monarch yet. But its premise — about the power-hungry dynamics within a country music family that includes singing patriarch and matriarch Albie Roman (country star Trace Adkins) and Dottie Cantrell Roman (Susan Sarandon) as well as their heir-apparent daughter Nicky (Anna Friel) — contains echoes of all those previous series. The first episode debuts after the NFL’s NFC championship, suggesting that Fox aims to make a big splash with this one. — JC
The story behind the famous Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape is part revenge heist, part ’90s Boogie Nights, and part love story — and that’s based solely on the first two episodes in what is, not surprisingly, a wild limited series. Seth Rogen plays the frustrated electrician who stumbles upon the legendary Hi8 cassette, Lily James is the Baywatch star, and Sebastian Stan portrays the Motley Crüe drummer, which means you need to be prepared to see Bucky Barnes wearing nothing but a pair of thong underwear for extended periods of time. —JC
How to even begin explaining Ridley Scott and Aaron Guzikowski’s series? Well, it’s about robots who are raising children on an inhospitable planet and cultish humans who have landed there and gotten into conflict with them and creepy creatures on that planet that may or may not be linked to ancient prophecies. We can’t wait to see whatever maximalist sci-fi plot twists come next. —JM
Not that we’re proud or anything, but a Shondaland Netflix adaptation of the story of scammer queen Anna Delvey? With Julia Garner as Anna and Anna Chlumsky as former New York writer Jessica Pressler? Yes we will, thank you very much. —KVA
At the end of season three, Midge Maisel experienced a rare thing for her: a consequence, losing out on a European tour after hinting onstage about singer Shy Baldwin’s sexuality. That seems like the show acknowledging that perhaps our Mrs. Maisel has been a little too blessed, potentially leading into a season that gives her more substantial challenges to face. If not, then hey, at least Tony Shalhoub will still be there! —JM
Morena Baccarin deserves better than being fridged in Deadpool 2, and she may get it with this. With The Endgame, the longtime TV actress from Firefly, V, Gotham, and The Flash gets the chance to stray from her established sci-fi/superhero path as Elena Federova, an imprisoned arms dealer who plots a series of bank heists. While captive, she’ll spar with Ryan Michelle Bathé (from First Wives Club and All Rise) as FBI agent Val Turner, who tries to stop Elena’s plans. Justin Lin’s status as a producer will hopefully make for some visual slickness on top of the Killing Eve vibes. —RH
It’s honestly bizarre that the mothership of the Law & Order franchise ever left TV, but that strange absence is now being rectified. The revival series will star Anthony Anderson, Jeffrey Donovan, and Hugh Dancy (good!) as well as legal-TV royalty Camryn Manheim. —KVA
The final season of Pamela Adlon’s beautiful portrait of single motherhood and the demands of middle age arrives in February. We both eagerly anticipate watching the last episodes and dread it since there won’t be any more after we’re done. —JC
Cherished as a millennial artifact by virtue of its Destiny’s Child theme song alone, the early-’00s Disney Channel series about a Black family is coming back on Disney+. The new version brings back the original voice cast as the main characters, alongside an of-the-moment set of guest stars that includes Lizzo and Lil Nas X. Destined to launch a thousand memes. —JM
The cast of Shining Vale alone would make it worth a look (Greg Kinnear and Sherilyn Fenn! Mira Sorvino and Courtney Cox! Judith Light and Merrin Dungey!), but the real draw for this horror-comedy haunted-house series is the behind-the-scenes firepower: It’s co-created by Sharon Horgan of Catastrophe fame and Jeff Astrof, the guy behind the wildly underrated comedy Trial & Error. Funny-scary sounds like a great fit for 2022. —KVA
It was only a matter of time before NBC began to adapt the most popular stories from its long-running newsmagazine Dateline NBC into scripted true-crime content. Their coverage of Pam Hupp has included numerous episodes and a 2019 podcast, a pervasive buzziness that presumably attracted Renée Zellweger to both produce and star in The Thing About Pam. The miniseries will focus on Hupp’s tangled web of crimes, including framing a man for his wife’s murder, and co-stars perpetual scene-stealers Judy Greer and Katy Mixon. —RH
Surely you already know about Bridgerton, yes? Even Mr. Big knew about Bridgerton. But just in case the wildly popular romantic Netflix series hasn’t crossed your radar: It’s big, it’s bosomy, and it will be back. Season two will be about Anthony, one of the many brothers of the Bridgerton family. Will he find true love? C’mon, you know he will. —KVA
At the end of the second season of Barry, Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) learned that Barry Berkman (Bill Hader) was responsible for the death of Gene’s girlfriend, Janice (Paula Newsome), who also happened to be a detective. What will Gene do with this information? Three years after that season-two finale, we’ll hopefully get some answers. —JC
This limited series about the 1980s rise of the L.A. Lakers is now also known as the TV project that broke up longtime friends and producing partners Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. That’s because McKay, an executive producer who directed the first of Winning Time’s ten episodes, supported the casting of John C. Reilly in the role of Lakers owner Jerry Buss, a part he knew Ferrell wanted, without telling Ferrell about the decision. (Wow, what a cutthroat, Chicago Bulls move.) Anyway: Reilly is one of many actors in this massive ensemble, which also includes Sally Field, Jason Clarke, Adrien Brody, Gaby Hoffmann, Jason Segel, and, making his screen debut as Magic Johnson, Quincy Isaiah. This one definitely gives off some scripted Last Dance vibes. —JC
Netflix’s latest big-budget bet is an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s classic horror-tinged, lore-heavy graphic novel. Tom Sturridge leads a cast full of name actors playing anthropomorphized concepts as Dream, with Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer. It’s taken decades for an adaptation of Gaiman’s book to finally happen, and just maybe this will be one that pulls it off. —JM
All the way back in 2019, Russian Doll debuted on Netflix and presented a world in which Nadia, a New Yorker played by series co-creator Natasha Lyonne, found herself caught in a time loop. Three years later, following a period in which many New Yorkers felt like they were living the same weird day over and over again, Russian Doll returns with Lyonne and Charlie Barnett’s Alan, also stuck in a time loop, along with some new characters played by Annie Murphy and Sharlto Copley. Specifics about plot are hush-hush, but hopefully time will operate a bit more traditionally this season, for Nadia’s sake. —JC
The last time we saw Stranger Things, all the way back in 2019, the Byer family and Eleven were moving out of Hawkins, Indiana, and Hopper appeared to possibly be alive in Russia. The fourth season reportedly takes place a few months later, during spring break 1986. So expect to find out what the deal is with all of the characters while (I assume) hearing “Rock Me Amadeus” on the soundtrack. —JC
Knock knock. Who’s there? It’s yet another attempt to create a Game of Thrones–audience-chasing giant fantasy-series hit on Amazon Prime. —KVA
Beloved raunchy mom comic Ali Wong returns in 2022 with a new Netflix special, sure to contain many disgusting and all-too-real jokes about bodies, sex, and parenting. Only time will tell whether Wong, whose past stand-up includes frank discussions of money, also addresses her increasing power as a Hollywood player. (Remember when she cast herself to make out with Keanu Reeves?) —KVA
After a COVID delay and a brief halt in production while star Bob Odenkirk recovered from a heart attack, the last season of Better Call Saul will finally unfold in the new year and hopefully result in a long-overdue Emmy nomination for Kim Wexler, a.k.a. Rhea Seehorn. —JC
Bouncy, funny spy thrillers are so appealing and so hard to actually get right. The Flight Attendant’s first season was a rare achievement in that regard, silly and propulsive without being sloppy or empty. It will be so nice to have hapless flight attendant Cassie (Kaley Cuoco) back in our lives. —KVA
From Carlos to Wasp Network, Point Break to The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Edgar Ramírez can balance gruff toughness and unexpected vulnerability like few actors this ruggedly attractive can. In the smirkingly titled Florida Man, Ramírez plays an ex-cop returning to his home state with one simple task: track down the runaway girlfriend of a Philadelphia mobster. Surprise! The job isn’t that easy. With actors Anthony LaPaglia, Emory Cohen, and Abbey Lee as series regulars and Haifaa Al-Mansour directing an installment, this eight-episode series is shaping up nicely. —RH
Fans of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro are well-aware of his fondness for curation and collection. In 2013, del Toro released a beautiful hardcover book that was essentially a tour of his guiding creative influences: Cabinet of Curiosities: My Notebooks, Collections, and Other Obsessions. The title of that work is repurposed for his Netflix horror anthology series, which includes two original stories from del Toro and additional offerings from his handpicked selection of directors, including David Prior of The Empty Man, Jennifer Kent of The Babadook and The Nightingale, and Panos Cosmatos of Mandy. —RH
The relationship between legendary comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and upstart comedy writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) was in a good place at the end of the first season of this well-received comedy about generational divides. But that’s only because Deborah doesn’t know that Ava may have tried to publicly discredit her. Anyway: Expect these two to get in a bunch more boomer-versus-millennial fights when the second season lands. —JC
Seemingly everyone has tried for the title of “the next Game of Thrones”: Netflix with The Witcher and Shadow and Bone, Prime Video with The Wheel of Time and its upcoming bajillion-dollar Lord of the Rings, etc. In an attempt to remind competitors of its OG status, HBO delivers House of the Dragon, the first spinoff of David Benioff and D. B. Weiss’s ignominiously ended adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Another Martin novel, Fire & Blood, serves as the basis for House of the Dragon, which is set 200 years before Game of Thrones and follows the rise of House Targaryen as they became the first royal house in the Seven Kingdoms. The members of the silver-haired, purple-eyed, often-high-key-crazy house were described in the original GOT as reckless and ruthless, and will be played in House of the Dragon by the likes of Paddy Considine, Emma D’Arcy, and Matt Smith. They rode dragons and married each other; what else does TV need to be compelling? —RH
The Weeknd, whose cinematic music videos include nods to David Lynch and Martin Scorsese, is the co-creator and star of this miniseries about the leader of a self-help movement — and, essentially, cult — who becomes involved with a pop star. Amy Seimetz, whose dreamy, surreal aesthetic was so effective in her directorial effort She Dies Tomorrow, will helm all six episodes. —RH
An Alicia Vikander–led TV adaptation of a French film, Irma Vep is an A24 TV-thriller production about an actress who goes to France to attempt to remake a French silent film (meta!). There’s a strong pedigree behind the show, but maybe just as important, take a moment to say the name “Irma Vep” out loud to yourself. —KVA
David E. Kelley is everywhere these days, to varying degrees of success: The second season of Big Little Lies was so-so; The Undoing and Nine Perfect Strangers were patience-testing. But Kelley’s sweet spot remains women doing crime, and Love and Death, about axe murderer Candy Montgomery, gives the writer and producer the opportunity to play around with a 1980s aesthetic. Elizabeth Olsen, whose range was the most impressive part of WandaVision, stars as Montgomery and leads a stacked ensemble including Jesse Plemons, Patrick Fugit, Lily Rabe, and Krysten Ritter. —RH
Marvel’s comics have always been more inclusive and experimental than the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, but 2021 felt like a turning point for the latter, with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals on the big screen, and WandaVision, Loki, and Hawkeye on Disney+. (No points awarded to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier due to John Walker’s redemption arc.) That trend will continue with Phase Four’s Ms. Marvel, writer and executive-producer Bisha K. Ali’s six-episode miniseries about the fan favorite and first Muslim Marvel character to headline their own comic. Iman Vellani stars as Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American teenager by day and the masked crime-fighter Ms. Marvel by night. The series will explore Khan’s cultural identity and her transformation after gaining her superpowers — which are rumored to be different from the comics. Hopefully that change doesn’t signify too many alterations from the energetic, vibrant source material. —RH
Frequent collaborators Mike Flanagan and Trevor Macy return to their horror sandbox with The Midnight Club, an adaptation of the eponymous Christopher Pike novel. A group of terminally ill teens tell each other scary stories each night, making a vow to contact each other through the life-death veil when they pass away. Returning faces to the Flanagan universe include Zach Gilford and Samantha Sloyan. —RH
The true-crime industry seems to have been leading up to something like this: A scripted TV show based on the docuseries (first airing in 2004 and then updated in 2013 and 2018) about Michael Peterson, who was convicted of killing his wife, Kathleen, though Jean-Xavier de Lestrade’s filmmaking cast doubt on the proceedings. HBO Max has recruited top-tier stars for its retelling, with Colin Firth playing Peterson and Toni Collette as Kathleen. Antonio Campos, who recreated another infamous real-life tragedy with Christine, created the project alongside American Crime Story’s Maggie Cohn. —JM
Tomlinson’s first Netflix special, 2020’s Quarter-Life Crisis, was impressively assured, a confident mix of personal weirdness and existential observations. It makes Tomlinson’s second special a daunting but thrilling prospect; if anyone can deliver a satisfying follow-up to such a notable first special, though, it’s Tomlinson. —KVA
Stand-up comedian and actor Mo Amer stars in this series as a Palestinian refugee living in Houston, Texas, with his mother and brother. It’s possible that the series, about Mo trying to navigate contrasting cultures and the asylum-to-citizenship process, might evoke Hulu series Ramy or the animated documentary Flee, but that’s good company to be in. —RH
If you’ve looked at the TV schedule lately and thought, Huh, where is my new David Simon show?, then we have good news. We Own This City is a six-hour limited series HBO production about a gun-trace task force inside the police department of, where else, Baltimore, Maryland. —KVA
