Mark these winter TV shows on your calendar
Last year was a tough one for Hollywood with the dual strikes slowing down production, resulting in fewer shows for viewers in the fall. Now that writers and actors have a new contract, production is back in full force. It’s one of the reasons to be hopeful in 2024. New series and new seasons that were held back are on the horizon, so you can expect lots more television to make its way to your screen.
Here, The Times’ television writers weigh in on a sampling of shows that they’re looking forward to watching this winter and that they recommend you put on your calendar and in your queue.
‘True Detective: Night Country’ (HBO, Jan. 14)
It’s been four years since the last season of “True Detective,” but after a long hiatus, the anthology series finally returns to HBO on Jan. 14. “True Detective: Night Country” puts an icy, female-driven spin on the regional crime drama. The action unfolds during the dark of winter in Ennis, Alaska, where eight scientists vanish from a remote research facility. Detectives Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) and Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster, in her first on-camera TV role in nearly 50 years) investigate the disappearance and, according to the show’s logline, “will have to confront the darkness they carry in themselves, and dig into the haunted truths that lie buried under the eternal ice.” Issa López writes and directs the series, which was filmed in Iceland and — if the icy trailer is any indication — makes the most of the arctic setting. Have a down comforter ready when you watch. — Meredith Blake
‘Monsieur Spade’ (AMC, Jan. 14)
Clive Owen, so dry as to make Humphrey Bogart sound like Weird Al, plays Dashiell Hammett’s famous detective, living in a small town in the south of France in the early ‘60s and retired for just as long as this limited series — created by Tom Fontana and Scott Frank — takes to say “bonjour.” Among the many other things you’ll need to take notes on, the plot involves the war in Algeria, a sassy gamine in need of protection, much village drama and a lot of things popping up out of the past. With Denis Ménochet, appealing as the local commissaire, and, eventually, Alfre Woodard. — Robert Lloyd
‘Masters of the Air’ (Apple TV+, Jan. 26)
Producers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg add a third big miniseries to their World War II collection, turning their eyes to the war in the air. Ten-episodes long with a roughly $200 million price tag, it promises the same sort of military camaraderie, romantic subplots, selfless sacrifice, bureaucratic snafus, explosive action, you-are-almost-there special effects and moments of strange poetry that made “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific” so watchable. The cast features stars like Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan and Ncuti Gatwa, but the rest of the cast is largely little-known to keep things, relatively speaking, real. — Robert Lloyd
‘Vanderpump Rules,’ Season 11 (Bravo, Jan. 30)
It seems like a fever dream now, but just 10 months ago, “Vanderpump Rules’’ had the culture in a chokehold with a messy affair and breakup dubbed #Scandoval, igniting a torrent of TikToks and memes — and raising awareness of the use of galaxy lights as a coping mechanism. Those who get it, get it: Tom Sandoval cheated on Ariana Madix, his girlfriend of nine years, with Raquel Leviss, their friend and co-star on the reality series, all of which came to light after the 10th season wrapped filming. (After the scandal broke out, Bravo filmed a bonus episode that chronicled the fallout.) As the season aired, it became an all-out spectacle, with viewers dissecting each interaction for hints and clues to the affair. Leviss will not return for Season 11; meanwhile, Madix is still living with Sandoval in the home they own together, though she has made it clear she had no interest in sharing screen time with him. (Also Tom Schwartz made out with Scheana Shay? What?) If fans haven’t grown tired of the scandal, the rubbernecking is sure to continue when the cast makes its dramatic return. — Yvonne Villarreal
‘Feud: Capote vs. the Swans’ (FX, Jan. 31)
“Feud” premiered in 2017 with an ingenious deconstruction of the rivalry between studio system icons Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and then disappeared — at times, one feared, for good — into anthology series purgatory. Now, as if to herald co-creator Ryan Murphy’s return to the Fox (now Disney) fold, the show is finally back for Season 2, and boy, does it sound delicious. For fans of dueling biopics “Capote” and “Infamous,” it might even function as something of a coda: Where those mid-aughts movies focused on Truman Capote at the height of his stardom, basking in the success of “In Cold Blood,” “Capote vs. the Swans” depicts the writer’s agonizing decline, fueled by his falling-out with the New York society mavens who fed him the martinis — and secrets — behind his unfinished final novel, “Answered Prayers.” The cast, as it ever was with Murphy, is truly scintillating, with Tom Hollander (“The White Lotus”) an inspired choice for Capote and a cavalcade of bold-faced names (Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockhart) as the swans. Plus, the pairing of Jon Robin Baitz and Gus Van Sant leaves my messy gay heart all aflutter. — Matt Brennan
‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith’ (Prime Video, Feb. 2)
In 2023, Donald Glover’s credits included the breakout hit “Swarm,” which he co-created with Janine Nabers, and some voice work and cameos. But this year, he’s back in front of the camera in the new Prime Video series “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” starring alongside Maya Erskine as a secret agent. Glover co-created the series with showrunner Francesca Sloane, who previously worked on “Atlanta.” It’s based on the film of the same name (the one that brought you Brangelina); however, there are differences — namely that Jane and John Smith start out as strangers who are put into an arranged marriage as part of their spy work and it’s set in Manhattan. “Atlanta” fans will be happy to see that the series reunites Glover with director Hiro Murai.
— Maira Garcia
‘One Day’ (Netflix, Feb. 8)
David Nicholls’ bestselling novel, a melancholic romance chronicling the lives of two tentative friends-turnedlovebirds, Emma and Dexter, as their friendship and relationship deepens over the course of 20 years, got the Hollywood treatment in 2011 with a feature film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. The story checks in on the pair on one day every year, July 15, beginning with their final night at university, and visits their evolving relationship and lives in the ensuing years. All the angst and tension and longing stares from the novel and film have been turned into a 14-episode series that romance aficionados will surely inhale before Valentine’s Day thanks to the chemistry between Leo Woodall (“The White Lotus”), who plays Dexter, and Ambika Mod (“This Is Going to Hurt”), who plays Emma. — Yvonne Villarreal