TV shows worth staying home for
Buckle in for some serious TV time next month. A host of new and returning shows coming to free-to-air, pay TV and streaming services in March are well worth your time.
There’s the third seasons of Westworld (March 16, Soho/ Neon) and Ozark (March 27, Netflix), and James Acaster and Josh Widdicombe are back with more Hypothetical (March 12, Duke) antics.
Martin Freeman headlines the parents-behaving-badly comedy Breeders (March 3, Skygo), Nick Offerman teams up with Crazy Rich Asians’ Sonoya Mizuno for the thriller Devs (March 6, Neon) and there’s more space exploration discussion on National Geographic’s Cosmos: Possible Worlds (March 9). Lightbox has new instalments of comedies Better Things (March 6) and Single Parents (March 19), and on Netflix there’s Sundance Film Festival hit Lost Girls (March 13), plus Octavia Spencer starring as African American entrepreneur Madam C J Walker in Self Made (March 20).
Here’s Stuff’s list of shows we’re excited about checking out over the next few weeks.
Amazing Stories (March 6, Appletv+)
Thirty-five years after the original Steven Spielberg-backed Twilight Zone- esque anthology series debuted, it’s back to ‘‘transport the audience to worlds of wonder through the lens of today’s most imaginative film-makers, directors and writers’’.
The 10-episode first season’s cast list includes Edward Burns, Robert Forster (in his final role) and Lost’s Josh Holloway,
Deadwater Fell (March 2, TVNZ Ondemand)
David Tennant stars in this British crime drama about a doctor whose wife and three young children are murdered in a fire in a remote Scottish village.
It has drawn plenty of comparisons to Broadchurch. ‘‘It feels far more solidly engineered, easily as convincing in its portrait of a small community suddenly shattered by an awful event, and it elicits more emotional investment from the off,’’ enthused The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan.
The Letter for the King (March 20, Netflix)
Partly shot in New Zealand, this is a six-part, English-language adaptation of Dutch author Tonke Dragt’s much-loved coming-of-age medieval adventure about a teenage squire who embarks on a perilous mission to deliver a missive.
The cast includes Andy Serkis and his daughter Ruby.
Making the Cut (March 27, Amazon Prime Video)
Former Project Runway dynamic duo Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum begin a new era with this similarly themed reality series.
It will feature 12 entrepreneurs and designers from around the globe battling each other to grow their fashion brands.
The winner will take home US$1 million, the judges include Naomi Campbell and Nicole Richie, and viewers will be able to buy each week’s winning look.
Motherland: Fort Salem (March 19, TVNZ Ondemand)
Will Ferrell and Adam Mckay are among the executive producers for this American
fantasy drama set in an alternative, present-day US.
Having ended the persecution of witches 300 years ago, the country is now relying on a group of young women with
basic training in ‘‘combat magic’’ to help them fight looming terrorist threats.
My Brilliant Friend (March 7, TVNZ Ondemand)
Based on the second of Italian author Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, The Story of a
New Name, this eight-part season offers further adventures of Elena and Lila. Both now 16, Elena is amodel student and Lila is already married, however, both feel ‘‘stuck in a rut’’ until they meet Nino Sarratore once again.
The Pale Horse (March 25, Soho)
Two-part adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1961 novel about one man’s investigation into why his name was found in the shoe of a dead woman. It leads him to a trio of supposed witches. Rufus Sewell, Sean Pertwee and Kaya Scoldelario star.
The Plot Against America (March 17, Soho/neon)
Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan and
Jon Turturro star in David Simon’s ( The Wire) six-part adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2004 award-winning novel.
It posits an alternative America in which Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin D Roosevelt in the US 1940 presidential election, turning the country towards fascism.
‘‘The final hour is one of the most breathtakingly tense episodes of television I’ve ever seen, carrying you on a dark journey through a country on fire,’’ wrote Entertainment
Weekly’s Darren Franich.
Spencer Confidential (March 6, Netflix)
Mark Wahlberg headlines (and reteams with his Lone Survivor and Deepwater Horizon director Peter Berg) this comedy-thriller about a freshly out of prison excop who teams up with his new ‘‘room-mate’’ to take down criminals when two Boston police officers are murdered.
Loosely based on the characters created by author Robert B Parker.