Ones to Watch

Series to Watch: April 2024

DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new series to watch this April, from a French home-invasion thriller and a Dutch royal drama to Colin Farrell playing investigator and a new take on Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley.

IN FOCUS

Miracle workers

Director David Schalko and writer Daniel Kehlmann join NDR head of fiction Christian Granderath and ORF head of features Klaus Lintschinger to reveal how they came together for a biopic of Franz Kafka, airing in the centenary year of the celebrated novelist’s death.

The Writers Room

Hot property

After developing her screenwriting career on TV thrillers such as Fool Me Once, Charlotte Coben has created her first original series in Prime Video’s comedic thriller Dead Hot. She tells DQ about blending humour with grief, filming in Liverpool and working with her author father Harlan.

ON LOCATION

Northern exposure

DQ heads to the fictional Cheddar Vale, the setting for the ‘otherworldy’ ITV drama Passenger, in which a detective investigates the disappearance of young people in mysterious circumstances.

DQ100

DQ100 2024/25 – Part one

In the first part of the DQ100 2024/25, DQ picks out a range of shows to tune in for and the actors, directors and writers making them, as well as some of the trends and trailblazers worth catching up with.

SHOWRUNNER

Jean therapy

Stanislavs Tokalovs and Teodora Markova, showrunners of Latvian comedy-drama Padomju džinsi (Soviet Jeans), discuss crossing borders with comedy for this story of a rock music fan who starts an illegal clothing line inside a psychiatric hospital.

IN FOCUS

Peste control

After Albert Camus’ seminal 1947 novel La Peste (The Plague) topped reading charts during the pandemic, writer George-Marc Benamou and director Antoine Garceau reveal why they wanted to adapt it for television and how they have updated the story for modern audiences.

SHOWRUNNER

Fading force

Déjate Ver (Show Yourself) writer and director Álvaro Carmona takes DQ inside the making of this idiosyncratic dramedy, in which the protagonist begins to disappear, forcing her to reconnect with a world she doesn’t quite understand.

In production

No laughing matter

Alex Smith, creative director at Big Boys and Stath Lets Flats producer Roughcut, considers the challenge of moving into drama when you’re known for being funny as the company launches Channel 5 thriller Coma.

IN FOCUS

High drama

Showrunner Chris Brancato and director Guillermo Navarro invite DQ to stay at Hotel Cocaine, a crime drama set in 1970s Miami at the time of a huge explosion in the drug’s use and where a hotel manager is pitted in a war between federal agents and his drug-lord brother.

STAR POWER

Under no illusions

Actor and producer Alexandra Rapaport tells DQ about her love of crime series and why she was attracted to playing the protagonist in Swedish supernatural thriller Veronika, in which the title character is haunted by visions that might relate to a recent murder.

Job Description

Gentlemanly appearance

Production designer Martyn John and costume designer LouLou Bontemps escort DQ into the world of The Gentlemen to detail how they created the look and fashion of Guy Ritchie’s series based on his 2019 film.

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