Series to Watch: December 2022
DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new dramas to watch this December, from a flatshare romcom and a quirky Canadian detective drama to a quartet of new series launching on ITV’s revamped streamer ITVX.
The Flatshare
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Paramount+
Starring: Jessica Brown Findlay and Anthony Welsh
Launch date: December 1
Based on Beth O’Leary’s book of the same name, the series introduces Tiffany (Brown Findlay) and Leon (Welsh), two cash-strapped London 20-somethings who share a bed but have never met – and if their plan works, they never will. Tiffany spends her days earning minimum wage on a viral news website, while Leon works night shifts in a hospice. But as Post-it notes start to fly between the pair, they become drawn into each other’s messy lives.
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Three Pines
From: Canada
Original broadcaster: Prime Video
Starring: Alfred Molina, Rossif Sutherland, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Sarah Booth, Pierre Simpson, Fréderic-Antoine Guimond, Julian Bailey, Anna Tierney and Tamara Brown
Launch date: December 2
Based on Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels, this series stars Molina as the empathetic and astute investigator who is tasked with solving a number of mysterious and perplexing murders in the strange-but-beguiling Quebec village of Three Pines.
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Rosie Molloy Gives Up Everything
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Sky
Starring: Sheridan Smith
Launch date: December 7
Smith reunites with writer Susan Nickson (Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps) for this comedy about a woman who is addicted to everything – smoking, alcohol, caffeine and more. But after an embarrassing incident at her brother’s wedding, Rosie (Smith) wakes up in hospital and decides to change her life by giving up everything as she juggles her father’s ill health, the possibility of losing her job and the realisation that her addictions are destroying her friendships, her family and her work life.
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A Spy Among Friends
From: UK
Original broadcaster: ITVX
Starring: Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce, Anna Maxwell Martin, Adrian Edmondson and Stephen Kunken
Launch date: December 8
Based on the book by Ben Macintyre, this six-parter dramatises the true story of Nicholas Elliott (Lewis) and Kim Philby (Pearce), two British spies and lifelong friends. Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet double agent in history, and the discovery of his personal betrayal, uncovered at the height of the Cold War, led to the gutting of British and American Intelligence.
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The Confessions of Frannie Langton
From: UK
Original broadcaster: ITVX
Starring: Karla-Simone Spence, Sophie Cookson, Patrick Martins, Stephen Campbell Moore, Steven Mackintosh and Amarah-Jae St Aubyn
Launch date: December 8
Sara Collins has adapted her own debut novel into this four-part drama. Set in Georgian London, it follows Frannie’s journey from a Jamaican plantation to the grand Mayfair mansion of celebrated scientist George Benham and his wife Madame Marguerite Benham. When the Benhams are both found murdered in their beds, with Frannie lying beside Marguerite, she is accused of murder. Frannie proclaims her innocence – but deep into a laudanum addiction, she is unclear about what really happened.
Litvinenko
From: UK
Original broadcaster: ITVX
Starring: David Tennant, Margarita Levieva, Mark Bonnar and Neil Maskell
Launch date: Dec 15
In this four-part factual drama, Tennant portrays Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian Federal Security Services and KGB officer whose death from Polonium-210 poisoning in November 2006 triggered one of the most complex and dangerous investigations in the history of London’s Metropolitan Police. The series follows both the police investigation into Litvinenko’s death and his wife Marina (Levieva)’s fight to persuade the UK government to acknowledge the role of the Russian state in his death.
1923
From: US
Original broadcaster: Paramount+
Starring: Jennifer Ehle, Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, Brandon Sklenar, Darren Mann, Michelle Randolph, James Badge Dale, Marley Shelton, Brian Geraghty, Aminah Nieves, Julia Schlaepfer and Jerome Flynn
Launch date: December 18 (US), December 19 (UK, Australia)
Following in the footsteps of 1883, this is a second sequel to hit US western drama Yellowstone. It introduces a new generation of the Dutton family and explores the early 20th century when pandemics, historic drought, the end of Prohibition and the Great Depression all plague the mountain west and the Duttons who call it home.
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I Hate Suzie Too
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Sky, NOW
Starring: Billie Piper, Daniel Ings, Phil Daniels, Lorraine Ashbourne, Elle Piper, Douglas Hodge, Blake Harrison, Layton Williams, Omari Douglas, Anastasia Hille, Angela Sant’Albano, Reza Diako and Yaz Zadeh
Launch date: December 20
After the events of I Hate Suzie and the tabloid scandal that threw the titular character’s life into turmoil, this sequel finds former child star-turned-actor Suzie Pickles (Piper) with a new agent, new PR and a new job – dancing for likes on reality TV competition Dance Crazee. But having lost everyone who matters to her, Suzie returns to her first love – the public. In this ‘anti-Christmas special,’ Suzie fights to regain the love of the British public while her personal life continues to spiral out of control. Can she restore her reputation, and at what cost?
Riches
From: UK
Original broadcaster: ITVX (UK), Prime Video
Starring: Deborah Ayorinde, Hugh Quarshie, Sarah Niles, Adeyinka Akinrinade, Ola Orebiyi, CJ Beckford, Nneka Okoye, Emmanue Imani, Brendan Coyle andHermione Norris
Launch date: December 22 (UK)
Described as a love letter to Black London by creator Abby Ajayi, this high-stakes family drama tells the story of the brash, super-successful and wealthy Richards family. When patriarch Stephen suffers a stroke, his two sets of children vie for control of his business empire as secrets and lies are uncovered.
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Treason
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Starring: Charlie Cox, Olga Kurylenko, Oona Chaplin, Ciarán Hinds and Tracey Ifeachor
Launch date: December 26
From Bridge of Spies writer Matt Charman comes this spy thriller about MI6 operative Adam Laurence (Cox), whose past catches up with him in the form of Kara (Kurylenko), a Russian spy with whom he shares a complicated past. As Adam is forced to question everything and everyone in his life, a triangular relationship forms between Kara, Adam and his wife, Maddy (Chaplin) – three people who are trying to expose each other’s secrets and navigate political and diplomatic relationships, while hanging on to their personal lives and those they love most.
tagged in: 1923, A Spy Among Friends, I Hate Suzie Too, Litvinenko, Riches, Rosie Molloy Gives Up Everything, The Confessions of Frannie Langton, The Flatshare, Three Pines, Treason