Series to Watch: May 2025

DQ checks out the upcoming schedules to pick 10 new series to watch this May, from a Judy Blume adaptation and a British crime thriller to a tense friendship drama and the next projects from Lost’s JJ Abrams and Succession creator Jesse Armstrong.

The Four Seasons
From: US
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producers: Little Stranger, Universal Television
Starring: Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, Marco Calvani, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Erika Henningsen and Kerry Kenny-Silver
Launch date: May 1
In this adaptation of Alan Alda’s 1981 romantic comedy film, six old friends head for a relaxing weekend away, only to learn that one couple in the group are about to split up. Over the course of a year, the three couples – Kate (Fey) and Jack (Forte), Nick (Carell) and Anne (Kenney-Silver), and Danny (Domingo) and Claude (Calvani) – gather for four vacations as this shake-up affects their dynamics, sending issues old and new bubbling to the surface.
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Poker Face S2
From: US
Original broadcaster: Peacock
Producers: T-Street, MRC and Animal Pictures
Starring: Natasha Lyonne, with guest stars including Cynthia Erivo, John Mulaney, Katie Holmes
Launch date: May 8
Following its debut in 2023, Lyonne and Rian Johnson’s case-of-the-week procedural catches up with Charlie (Lyonne), who has an extraordinary ability to determine when someone is lying. She hits the road in her Plymouth Barracuda and, with every stop, encounters a new cast of characters and strange crimes she can’t help but solve.
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Forever
From: US
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: Story27 Productions
Starring: Lovie Simone, Michael Cooper Jr, Wood Harris, Barry Shabaka Henley, Xosha Roquemore, Niles Fitch and Karen Pittman
Launch date: May 8
Judy Blume’s groundbreaking 1975 novel, Forever, is reimagined for a new generation by Mara Brock Akil (Being Mary Jane). It’s an epic love story of black teens Keisha (Simone) and Justin (Cooper Jr) as they explore romance and their identities through the awkward journey of being each other’s firsts, set in 2018 LA.
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Murderbot
From: US
Original broadcaster: Apple TV+
Producer: Apple Studios
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Noma Dumezweni, David Dastmalchian and Sabrina Wu
Launch date: May 16
Based on Martha Wells’s book series, Murderbot is a sci-fi thriller/comedy about a self-hacking security construct who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable clients. Murderbot must hide its free will and complete a dangerous assignment when all it really wants is to be left alone to watch futuristic soap operas and figure out its place in the universe.
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Duster
From: US
Original broadcaster: Max
Producers: Warner Bros Television and Tinker Toy Productions
Starring: Josh Holloway, Rachel Hilson, Keith David, Sydney Elisabeth, Greg Grunberg, Camille Guaty, Asivak Koostachin, Adriana Aluna Martinez and Benjamin Charles Watson
Launch date: May 16
From JJ Abrams (Lost) and showrunner LaToya Morgan comes this drama set in the US Southwest in the 1970s. The story explores the life of a gutsy getaway driver for a growing crime syndicate that goes from dangerous to wildly, stupidly dangerous when a tenacious young agent comes into town hellbent on taking the criminals down.
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Code of Silence
From: UK
Original broadcaster: ITV
Producer: Mammoth Screen
Starring: Rose Ayling-Ellis, Kieron Moore, Charlotte Ritchie and Andrew Buchan
Launch date: May 18 (ITV)
This six-part crime thriller follows Alison Brooks (Ayling-Ellis), a smart and determined deaf woman. Having spent years working in a police canteen and secretly observing conversations, her life takes an unexpected turn when her exceptional lip-reading skills catch the attention of DS Ashleigh Francis (Ritchie) and DI James Marsh (Buchan). Recruited for a covert operation, Alison is tasked with surveilling a dangerous gang as they plot a high-stakes heist, thrusting her into a world of crime, deception and risk like never before. But when she crosses paths with Liam Barlow (Moore), the gang’s newest recruit, an unexpected and dangerous bond forms between them, one that threatens to expose her true identity while pulling her further into the criminal world.

Little Disasters
From: UK
Original broadcaster: Paramount+
Producer: Roughcut Television
Starring: Diane Kruger, Jo Joyner, Shelley Conn and Emily Taaffe
Launch date: May 22
A “tense and compelling” six-part drama focusing on a decade-long friendship between Jess (Kruger), Liz (Joyner), Mel (Taaffe) and Charlotte (Conn), four expectant mothers who were thrown together with little in common apart from their due dates. When Jess takes her baby daughter to hospital with a head injury she can’t explain, her close friend and on-duty A&E doctor Liz must make the excruciating decision of whether to call social services on her longtime friend – a decision that sets in motion a chain of events that show how one moment can fracture and nearly destroy entire families and friendships.

Sirens
From: US
Original broadcaster: Netflix
Producer: Lucky Chap
Starring: Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy, Mily Alcock, Kevin Bacon, Glenn Howerton, Felix Solis and Bill Camp
Launch date: May 22
Based on creator Molly Smith Metzler’s play Elemeno Pea, this dark comedy is set over the course of one explosive weekend at an exclusive beach estate. Devon (Fahy) thinks her sister Simone (Alcock) has a really creepy relationship with her new boss, the enigmatic socialite Michaela Kell (Moore, pictured top). Michaela’s cultish life of luxury is like a drug to Simone, and Devon has decided it’s time for an intervention, but she has no idea what a formidable opponent Michaela will be.

The Better Sister
From: US
Original broadcaster: Prime Video
Producers: Tomorrow Studios and Amazon MGM Studios
Starring: Elizabeth Banks, Jessica Biel, Corey Stoll, Kim Dickens, Maxwell Acee Donovan, Bobby Naderi, Gabriel Sloyer, Gloria Reuben, Matthew Modine and Lorraine Toussaint
Launch date: May 29
Based on the novel by Alafair Burke, The Better Sister is an eight-episode thriller about the terrible things that drive sisters apart and ultimately bring them back together. Chloe (Biel), a high-profile media executive, lives a picturesque life with her handsome lawyer husband Adam (Stoll) and teenage son Ethan (Donovan) by her side, while her estranged sister Nicky (Banks) struggles to make ends meet and stay clean. When Adam is brutally murdered, the prime suspect sends shockwaves through the family, reuniting the two sisters as they try to untangle a complicated family history to discover the truth behind his death.

Mountainhead
From: US
Original broadcaster: HBO
Starring: Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith and Ramy Youssef
Launch date: May 31
Written, directed and executive produced by Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, this HBO film marks Armstrong’s directorial debut. The story follows a group of billionaire friends who get together against the backdrop of a rolling international crisis.

tagged in: Code of Silence, Duster, Forever, Little Disasters, Mountainhead, Murderbot, Poker Face, Sirens, The Better Sister, The Four Seasons