FALL GONE DOUR BRINGS SPRING SHOWERS
TV FANS ARE ABUZZ AS INDUSTRY RECOVERS FROM LAST YEAR’S STRIKE
It turns out a fall TV strike makes for a very lush TV spring. A number of shows originally slated for last fall are finally airing, such as Donald Glover’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Prime Video), a wryly unglamorous riff on the 2005 film of the same name. Other delayed shows include season 3 of ABC’S Abbott Elementary and season 6 of CBS’S The Conners, which (rumour has it) may not be ending after all.
Series that are ending this spring include Curb Your Enthusiasm (the 12th season started Feb. 4) and Young Sheldon, which began its seventh and final season Feb. 15.
But the biggest story of the season is its bumper crop of star-studded miniseries. Those already in progress include Jodie Foster in Crave’s True Detective: Night Country, Austin Butler in Apple TV+’S Masters of the Air, Tom Hollander in FX’S Feud: Capote vs. the Swans and Sofia Vergara as Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco in Netflix’s Griselda. Nicole Kidman headlines Lulu Wang’s Expats, a Prime Video miniseries following three American women living in Hong Kong, along with Sarayu Blue and Jiyoung Yoo.
Forthcoming limited series include Mary & George starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine as a mother-son pair conspiring to seduce King James I; Alexander Woo and Game of Thrones duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s adaptation of 3 Body Problem; and a production based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, featuring Hoa Xuande, Sandra Oh and Robert Downey Jr.
Here’s a closer look at some of the big, buzzy, mostly “limited” shows coming your way this spring. All airing information is subject to change.
THE NEW LOOK
The Nazis in German-occupied Paris want pretty gowns for their girlfriends. You can experience the Second World War through the lens of couture designers Christian Dior and Coco Chanel in Todd A. Kessler’s curious series investigating how two fashion pioneers navigated the period’s moral hazards and practical traps. Juliette Binoche stars as Chanel, Ben Mendelsohn as Dior, and Maisie Williams as Catherine Dior, his sister. John Malkovich plays Lucien Lelong, and a messy Emily Mortimer steals the show as Chanel frenemy Elsa Lombardi (an upper-crust Brit who married a member of the Italian Fascist party and eventually denounced Chanel as a Nazi collaborator). Apple TV+
CONSTELLATION
Noomi Rapace plays Jo, an astronaut on a long mission aboard the International Space Station that gets cut short when the corpse of a female cosmonaut smashes into some vital equipment, causing catastrophic damage. She makes it back to Earth to find parts of her life missing or different, including her relationship with her husband (James D’arcy) and her 10-year-old daughter. Jonathan Banks plays an older ex-astronaut suffering from similar gaps. Three episodes in, this disconcerting sci-fi series about the observer effect might be as eerie a fable about parenthood as The Changeling. Feb. 21, Apple TV+
SHOGUN
The first draft of Shogun, James Clavell’s 1975 novel set during an explosive moment
of transition in feudal Japan, was 2,300 pages long. It’s a testament to the ambition and density of this FX adaptation (helmed by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks) that it’s only 10 episodes long. Starring Cosmo Jarvis as English pilot John Blackthorne (whose journey from outsider to samurai the series tracks), Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Yoshii Toranaga and Anna Sawai as Lady Mariko, the series — boasting a formidably deep bench of Japanese actors — looks hard to resist. Feb. 27, Disney+
ELSBETH
A spinoff of a spinoff is hard to get excited about, but Elsbeth creators Michelle and Robert King, who made The Good Wife and spinoff The Good Fight, have a solid track record. And Elsbeth Tascioni — the sunny, eccentric attorney played by Carrie Preston in both series — might be their finest joint creation. Still set in the King universe (the pilot mentions Good Wife character Cary Agos), Elsbeth has Tascioni relocating from Chicago to New York, where she’s observing the NYPD as part of a consent decree. And (you guessed it) solving crimes. Feb. 29, Cbs/global
THE REGIME
Not much is known yet about this peculiar and stylish production except that showrunner Will Tracy, one of the writers for Succession, has Kate Winslet playing some kind of (modern) mad king. Set in a fictional country in Central Europe at a moment of institutional collapse, the six-episode mock satire also stars Andrea Riseborough, Hugh Grant, Martha Plimpton and Matthias Schoenaerts. Crave, March 3
THE GIRLS ON THE BUS
Based on a chapter from Amy Chozick’s book Chasing Hillary, this comedy about journalists on the campaign trail follows Sadie Mccarthy (Melissa Benoist), a reporter whose intense breakdown when her preferred candidate lost made her a meme and a laughingstock. Determined to try again, she’s told to cover a presidential candidate on the road. Also on the campaign bus are the people she’ll be competing with for stories: a cynical political reporter (Carla Gugino), a Black reporter for a Conservative network (Christina Elmore) and a Tiktok influencer with no journalistic scruples and a massive following (Natasha Behnam). March 14, Crave
RIPLEY
There’s a new talented Mr. Ripley, and it’s Andrew Scott, the priest from Fleabag! Also starring Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood and Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf, this eight-episode limited series about Patricia Highsmith’s obsessive grifter is written, directed and executive produced by Steve Zaillian. April 4, Netflix
MANHUNT
After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies), his secretary of war, spearheads the search for murderer and actor John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle). The slightly unstable tone of this historical thriller may be an artifact of the James L. Swanson book on which it’s based (it packages the historical events into a kind of action-adventure). Combining period costumes with unabashedly modern dialogue, the series features Patton Oswalt, Matt Walsh and Lovie Simone. The series also sees Lili Taylor portraying a lively and intemperate Mary Lincoln. TBC, Apple TV+