Five new TV shows you should watch this winter
How many of you have ever felt personally victimized by Peak TV?
We know the feeling: lying to your friends that you’ve been “meaning” to watch The Leftovers when you’re not even caught up on Game of Thrones, or wondering how Ray Donovan just scored an eighth Golden Globe nomination when no one but your dad still watches it. There are simply too many series to keep up with.
But before you start stress-eating those leftover Christmas cookies, take a deep breath and clear some space on your DVR.
After sifting through dozens of cable and network offerings, we picked a few new shows worth watching this winter.
LA to Vegas
Jan. 2 (Tuesdays, 9 p.m.)
Low ratings be damned, Fox has a knack for sniffing out whipsmart, offbeat workplace sitcoms, especially Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Grinder and The Mindy Project. The network has another potential gem with the similarly joke-dense LA to Vegas, an ensemble comedy set on that 45minute flight between Los Angeles and Sin City. Dylan McDermott (The Practice) soars as a cocky pilot, but it’s the colourful cast of sardonic flight attendants and kooky passengers that helps stick the landing.
Phillip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (Amazon)
Jan. 12
Following in the footsteps of Netflix’s Black Mirror, Electric Dreams is a sci-fi anthology with a new story in every episode. Its 10 tales are based on the writings of Phillip K. Dick, who penned The Man in the High Castle and whose Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? inspired Blade Runner. The episodes span the near (and far) future, veering from familiar locales to exotic new worlds, and feature Terrence Howard, Bryan Cranston, Steve Buscemi and Anna Paquin.
Black Lightning (CW)
Jan. 16 (Tuesdays, 9 p.m.)
The latest superhero saga feels different from CW’s previous DC Comics series. Created by husband-and-wife team Salim and Mara Brock Akil (The Game, Girlfriends), Black Lightning, unlike many other series, doesn’t tell an origin story of a young, naïve hero learning his powers. Instead, it’s the story of a mature hero who is also a parent, educator and community leader who put his heroics aside but dons the costume and mask again in a time of need.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ (FX)
Jan. 17 (Wednesdays, 10 p.m.)
In its followup to 2016’s lauded The People vs. O.J. Simpson, the anthology series from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk turns its attention to another high-profile murder of the 1990s: The death of renowned fashion designer Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramírez).
Here and Now (HBO)
Feb. 11 (Sundays, 9 p.m.)
Trust us: We still have PTSD from the excessively preachy, werepanther-populated last few seasons of True Blood.
But we’re willing to try a bite of creator Alan Ball’s next outing, which is described as a “darkly comic meditation on the disparate forces polarizing American culture.”