Series to Watch: January 2023

Series to Watch: January 2023


By DQ
December 22, 2022

Ones to Watch

DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new dramas to watch this January, from a new Elena Ferrante adaptation and an Australian mystery thriller to computer game remake The Last of Us and the return of Happy Valley.

Black Snow
From: Australia
Original broadcasters: Stan (Australia), Sundance Now (US, Canada, UK)
Producer: Goalpost Television
Distributor: All3Media International
Starring: Travis Fimmel, Talijah Blackman-Corowa, Jemmason Power, Molly Fatowna and Eden Cassady
Launch date: January 1 (Australia)
This six-part mystery drama opens in 1994 with the murder of high-school student Isabel Baker (Blackman-Corowa), whose killer is never found. Twenty-five years later, Detective Sergeant James Cormack (Fimmel) launches a new investigation after a recently unearthed time capsule sheds new light on the circumstances that led to her death.
Watch trailer

Happy Valley S3
From: UK
Original broadcaster: BBC
Producer: Lookout Point
Distributor: BBC Studios
Starring: Sarah Lancashire, James Norton, Siobhan Finneran and Rhys Connah
Launch date: January 1
Sally Wainwright’s Bafta-winning drama returns for a third and final season, six years after season two first aired. When Sergeant Catherine Cawood (Lancashire) discovers the remains of a gangland murder victim in a drained reservoir, it sparks a chain of events that leads her straight back to Tommy Lee Royce (Norton). Her grandson, Ryan (Connah), is now 16 and has ideas of his own about the kind of relationship he wants to have with the man Catherine refuses to acknowledge as his father, leaving Catherine’s sister Clare (Finneran) caught in the middle. In another part of the valley, a local pharmacist gets in over his head when a neighbour is arrested.
Watch trailer

The Lying Life of Adults
From: Italy
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: Fandango
Starring: Giordana Marengo, Valeria Golino, Alessandro Preziosi, Pina Turco, Azzurra Mennella and Rossella Gamba
Launch date: January 4
Based on Elena Ferrante’s novel of the same name, this six-part Italian-language series stars Marengo as protagonist Giovanna in the story of her turbulent transition from childhood to adolescence against the backdrop of 1990s Naples.
Watch trailer

Copenhagen Cowboy
From: Denmark
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: byNWR Originals
Starring: Angela Bundalovic, Lola Corfixen, Zlatko Buric, Andreas Lykke Jørgensen, Jason Hendil-Forssell, LiIi Zhang and Dragana Milutinovic
Launch date: January 5
Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn (Drive) returns to his home country with this six-part series, which is described as a thrill-inducing, neon-drenched noir. After a lifetime of servitude, Miu (Bundalovic) traverses the ominous landscape of Copenhagen’s criminal netherworld. In search of justice and enacting vengeance, she embarks on a journey with her nemesis Rakel (Corfixen) that takes them through the natural and supernatural.
Watch trailer

The Rig
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Prime Video
Producer: Wild Mercury Productions
Starring: Iain Glen, Emily Hampshire, Martin Compston, Calvin Demba, Owen Teale, Richard Pepple, Mark Bonnar, Rochenda Sandall, Emun Elliott, Stuart McQuarrie, Abraham Popoola, Molly Vevers, Mark Addy, Nikhil Parmar and Cameron Fulton
Launch date: January 6
A character-driven mystery thriller, The Rig follows the crew of Kinloch Bravo oil rig as they fight for survival after a strange fog cuts off all communication and leaves them stranded in the North Sea.
Watch trailer

The Last of Us
From: US
Original broadcaster: HBO
Producers: PlayStation Productions, Word Games, The Mighty Mint and Naughty Dog
Starring: Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Gabriel Luna, Anna Torv, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, Nick Offerman, Melanie Lynskey, Storm Reid, Merle Dandridge, Jeffrey Pierce, Lamar Johnson, Keivonn Woodard, Graham Greene and Elaine Miles
Launch date: January 15
Twenty years after modern civilisation has been destroyed, hardened survivor Joel is hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What begins as a small job soon becomes a brutal and heartbreaking journey across the US as they depend on each other for survival. The Last of Us is based on the hit video game of the same name.
Watch trailer

Accused
From: US
Original broadcaster: Fox
Producers: Fox Entertainment and Sony Pictures Television
Distributor: Sony Pictures Television
Starring: Rachel Bilson, Abigail Breslin, Michael Chiklis, Whitney Cummings, Jack Davenport, Margo Martindale, Molly Parker, Rhea Perlman, Wendell Pierce, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and more
Launch date: January 22
Based on the BBC series created by Jimmy McGovern, this anthology drama is a collection of 15 intense, topical and very human stories of crime and punishment, each exploring a different crime, in a different city, with a different cast. Each episode begins in the courtroom before flashbacks reveal how the defendant came to be there.
Watch trailer

Poker Face
From: US
Original broadcaster: Peacock
Producers: T-Street and MRC Television
Distributor: Paramount Global Content Distribution
Starring: Natasha Lyonne, with guest stars including Adrien Brody, Cherry Jones, Chloë Sevigny, Danielle MacDonald, Jameela Jamil, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Luis Guzmán, Rhea Perlman and Ron Perlman
Launch date: January 26
From director Rian Johnson (Knives Out) comes this mystery-of-the-week series following Charlie (Lyonne), who has an extraordinary ability to determine when someone is lying. She hits the road in her Plymouth Barracuda, but with every new stop comes an encounter with a strange crime she can’t help but solve.
Watch trailer

Lockwood & Co
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: Complete Fiction
Starring: Ruby Stokes, Cameron Chapman, Ali Hadji-Heshmati, Ivanno Jeremiah, Jack Bandeira, Morven Christie, Rhianna Dorris and Paddy Holland
Launch date: January 27
From writer/director Joe Cornish (Attack the Block), this London-set drama (also pictured at the top of this page) sees the most gifted teenage ghost hunters venture nightly into perilous combat with deadly spirits. Amid the many corporate, adult-run ghost-hunting agencies, one stands alone, independent of any commercial imperative or adult supervision – Lockwood & Co, a tiny startup run by two teenage boys and a newly arrived, supremely psychically gifted girl. This renegade trio is destined to unravel a mystery that will change the course of history.
Watch trailer

Extraordinary
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Disney+
Producer: Sid Gentle Films
Starring: Máiréad Tyers, Sofia Oxenham, Bilal Hasna, Luke Rollason, Siobhan McSweeney, Robbie Gee and Safia Oakley-Green
Launch date: January TBC
Ten years ago, everyone over the age of 18 got their superpower. But Jen, a painfully self-aware 25-year-old woman, is still waiting to get hers. She’d take anything at this point. Adrift in a big, confusing world and armed with nothing but a bit of hope, a lot of desperation and her flatmates, Jen begins her journey to find her maybe-superpower.

tagged in: , , , , , , , , ,