30 TV shows to look for­ward to in 2018

Last year pres­tige tele­vi­sion shows such as Big Lit­tle Lies, Mind­hunter and The Handmaid’s Tale kept us all glued to the small screen – 2018 is shap­ing up to deliv­er more of the same. To save you a lit­tle time, we’ve put togeth­er a list of the most excit­ing projects hit­ting screens this year. Think we’ve missed one? Tell us which shows you’re most look­ing for­ward to by tweet­ing us @LWLies.

Net­flix, late 2018

Despite their frosty recep­tion to FX’s Far­go tele­vi­sion series, the Coen Broth­ers are final­ly mak­ing the leap to the small screen. Very lit­tle is known about their anthol­o­gy West­ern project aside from the fact it has an impres­sive cast – James Fran­co, Zoe Kazan, Tyne Daly, and Ralph Ine­son are all set to star, with fre­quent Coen col­lab­o­ra­tor Tim Blake Nel­son expect­ed to take on the tit­u­lar role.

Ama­zon, TBA

2018 looks like a busy year for Bar­ry Jenk­ins, and right­ly so. As well as work­ing on a film adap­ta­tion of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, he’s also adapt­ing anoth­er nov­el, this time for Amazon’s orig­i­nal pro­gram­ming strand. The Under­ground Rail­road tells the sto­ry of Cora, a young slave in ante­bel­lum Geor­gia, who attempts to escape to the north.

ITV, TBA

There have been numer­ous tele­vi­sion and film adap­ta­tions of William Make­peace Thackeray’s tit­u­lar nov­el about a social climber in Vic­to­ri­an high soci­ety over the years, and 2018 sees ITV (in part­ner­ship with Ama­zon) bring anoth­er one to the screen. How­ev­er, this one might be worth get­ting excit­ed about – ris­ing star Olivia Cooke, soon to be seen in Ready Play­er One and Thor­ough­breds, will play Becky Sharp.

Ama­zon, TBA

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess of Preach­er, Ama­zon are reunit­ing with Seth Rogen and Evan Gold­berg for anoth­er com­ic book adap­ta­tion. The tit­u­lar ​‘boys’ are an elite super­pow­ered CIA task force, charged with mon­i­tor­ing an out-of-con­trol super­hero com­mu­ni­ty on an alter­na­tive ver­sion of Earth. Sounds weird – but we wouldn’t expect any­thing less from cre­ator Garth Ennis.

Starz/​Amazon, January

JK Sim­mons is a mild-man­nered and unre­mark­able UN employ­ee who stum­bles across a gate­way to a par­al­lel dimen­sion – and with it, his iden­ti­cal coun­ter­part – in this intrigu­ing new sci-fi dra­ma, which also stars Olivia Williams and Har­ry Lloyd. Starz did great things with Amer­i­can Gods, so we’re keen to see if they can do the same here.

Net­flix, TBA

Fresh from pen­ning the script for 2017 hor­ror smash IT, True Detec­tive cre­ator Cary Fuku­na­ga is back behind the cam­era, joined by Jon­ah Hill and Emma Stone – them­selves reunit­ing eleven years after Super­bad. Mani­ac is an Amer­i­can adap­ta­tion of a Nor­we­gian show which takes place in a psy­chi­atric facil­i­ty and sees Jon­ah Hill’s impa­tient live out wild fan­tasies through his dreams.

Ama­zon, TBA

Mad Men cre­ator Matthew Weiner’s lat­est effort is an anthol­o­gy series that revolves around fam­i­lies who believe they are relat­ed to the Russ­ian Romonov dynasty. The con­cept itself is intrigu­ing, but what’s even bet­ter is the stel­lar cast – expect to see Diane Lane, Isabelle Hup­pert, Jack Hus­ton, Aaron Eck­hart and Corey Stoll on screen, as well as Mad Men alum­ni Christi­na Hen­dricks and John Slattery.

TNT, TBA

Pat­ty Jenk­ins is team­ing up with Chris Pine again for this dark dra­ma, based on the true sto­ry of Fau­na Hodel, who was giv­en away to a bath­room atten­dant by her teenage moth­er in 1949. Her search for her birth moth­er led her to one of the prime sus­pects in the Black Dahlia Mur­der – one of Hollywood’s most endur­ing crimes.

TNT/​Netflix, Jan­u­ary 22

Exec­u­tive pro­duced by Cary Fuku­na­ga, this peri­od crime dra­ma sees Daniel Bruhl, Dako­ta Fan­ning and Luke Evans join forces to unmask a mur­der­er respon­si­ble for the deaths of child sex work­ers across New York City.

E4, TBA

Peep Show dream team Sam Bain and Jesse Arm­strong are back, and they’ve brought a new com­e­dy show with them. Described as ​“part-live action, part-com­put­er ani­ma­tion series”, it cen­tres on a group of friends obsessed with a pop­u­lar online fan­ta­sy RPG called King­dom Scrolls.

BBC1, TBA

Hot off the heels of The Night Man­ag­er the BBC have teamed up with AMC for anoth­er John Le Carre out­ing, this time with the help of leg­endary direc­tor Park Chan-Wook. Lady Mac­beth​‘s Flo­rence Pugh will star in the lead role as aspir­ing actress Char­lie, whilst Alexan­der Skars­gård is also set to make an appearance.

HBO, Jan­u­ary

“It’s not a TV show, and it’s not a movie,” claims Steven Soder­bergh of Mosa­ic. ​“It’s some­thing else.” We wouldn’t expect any­thing less from Soder­bergh, and Mosa­ic is a high­ly con­cep­tu­al project in which view­ers can explore the plot and choose to watch dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives via a ded­i­cat­ed app. It’s been three years in the mak­ing and plot details are sparse, but the cast includes Sharon Stone, Gar­rett Hed­lund and Beau Bridges.

HBO, sum­mer 2018

Fol­low­ing David Fincher’s bril­liant adap­ta­tion of Gone Girl and Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s less-than-bril­liant adap­ta­tion of Dark Places, Sharp Objects is the third Gillian Fly­nn nov­el to get a live-action makeover. In Jean-Marc Vallée’s HBO series Amy Adams stars as Camil­la Preak­er, a jour­nal­ist who returns to her home­town fol­low­ing the mur­der of a young girl and becomes embroiled once more in her own mother’s insid­i­ous web of lies.

FX, Jan­u­ary

The Peo­ple vs OJ Simp­son was a run­away suc­cess for FX in 2016, and they’re hop­ing to repli­cate that with the sec­ond series of Amer­i­can Crime Sto­ry. Édgar Ramírez will play the ill-fat­ed fash­ion design­er, whilst Pene­lope Cruz takes on the role of his sis­ter Donatel­la Ver­sace and Dar­ren Criss appears as ser­i­al killer Andrew Cunanan.

Chan­nel 4, TBA

Showrun­ner Bash Doran has worked on some big shows (Board­walk Empire, Smash, Mas­ters of Sex) and his lat­est six-episode thriller for Chan­nel 4 is no excep­tion. Set in the after­math of World War Two, Jerusalem exam­ines Britain’s attempts to define itself fol­low­ing a seis­mic change in the world order.

Sky One, TBA

Idris Elba fans are in for a treat – not only is Luther back in 2018, but Elba’s also pro­duced a com­e­dy loose­ly based on his own child­hood in East Lon­don. He plays Wal­ter Eas­mon, who has a qui­et life until his broth­er Valen­tine arrives in town from Sier­ra Leone and shakes up his domes­tic idyll.

Hulu, TBA

Hulu have been pret­ty tight-lipped about their new Stephen King-based psy­cho­log­i­cal hor­ror show, but with JJ Abrams as exec­u­tive pro­duc­er, it’s look­ing pret­ty excit­ing. The show takes place in the fic­tion­al town of Cas­tle Rock – the set­ting for many of King’s nov­els, and a host of hor­ror tal­ent will star includ­ing The Evil Dead​’s Jane Levy, Car­rie​’s Sis­sy Spacek and Bill Skars­gard (recent­ly seen ter­ror­is­ing chil­dren in IT).

Chan­nel 4, TBA

A young woman who suf­fered abuse at the hands of a male author­i­ty fig­ure as a teenag­er plots her revenge in this time­ly dra­ma writ­ten and direct­ed by Antho­ny Phillip­son, who pre­vi­ous­ly brought us the excel­lent My Mad Fat Diary.

BBC1, TBA

Adapt­ed by Andrew Davies from Vikram Seth’s mam­moth nov­el of the same name, A Suit­able Boy is the BBC’s first peri­od dra­ma that takes place out­side of Eng­land. The set­ting is a new­ly inde­pen­dent, post-Par­ti­tion India, as a young woman named Lata search­es for love and a sense of identity.

Showtime/​Sky Atlantic, TBA

Cum­ber­batch takes a break from Dr Strange and Dr Holmes for this adap­ta­tion of Edward St Aubyn’s nov­els, play­ing the tit­u­lar play­boy who wres­tles with his dys­func­tion­al fam­i­ly, trau­mat­ic child­hood, and sub­stance abuse. David Nicholls, who pre­vi­ous­ly adapt­ed his own nov­el One Day and Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd for the big screen, has penned the script.

AMC, March

AMC are used to bring­ing pres­tige dra­ma to the mass­es such as Mad Men and Break­ing Bad, but they’re turn­ing back to the suc­cess­ful hor­ror route which brought them The Walk­ing Dead with their lat­est pick. The Ter­ror stars Jared Har­ris, Tobias Men­zies and Cia­ran Hinds as the crew of a Roy­al Naval expe­di­tion, who dis­cov­er a mon­ster lurk­ing in the Arctic.

Ama­zon, TBA

This intrigu­ing show imag­ines a present-day USA in which African-Amer­i­cans formed a nation-state after the Civ­il War as repa­ra­tions for slav­ery. A joint ven­ture by The Boon­docks cre­ator Aaron McGrud­er and pro­duc­er Will Pack­er, it’ll sit in direct com­pe­ti­tion with HBO’s already con­tro­ver­sial Con­fed­er­ate, cre­at­ed by Game of Thrones showrun­ners David Benioff and DB Weiss.

Para­mount, Jan­u­ary 24

Based on the trag­ic events of the 1993 Waco siege, this mini-series sees FBI hostage nego­tia­tor Gary Noes­ner face off against cult leader David Kroesh in a siege that last­ed 55 days. The cast is pret­ty excep­tion­al too – Michael Shan­non plays Noes­ner and Tay­lor Kitsch plays Kroesh, with Rory Culkin, John Leguizamo and Andrea Rise­bor­ough also set to appear.

BBC, TBA

The seem­ing­ly ran­dom mur­der of a piz­za deliv­ery man sparks a sin­is­ter chain reac­tion in this dra­ma from play­wright David Hare, who was respon­si­ble for adapt­ing The Hours and The Read­er to crit­i­cal acclaim. The cast isn’t half bad either, with Carey Mul­li­gan in the lead role and sup­port com­ing from John Simm and Bil­lie Piper.

TBA

Jamie Hewlett announced he was work­ing on a 10-part ani­mat­ed tele­vi­sion series at the begin­ning of 2017, but we haven’t heard much since. Ani­ma­tion has always played a big role in Goril­laz, so we’re excit­ed to see where Hewlett and co. take us with a full-blown series.

NBC, ear­ly 2018

Sat­ur­day Night Live stal­warts Seth Mey­ers, Lorne Michaels and Mike O’Brien are behind this new NBC series, which stars It’s Always Sun­ny in Philadel­phia​’s Glenn How­er­ton as a phi­los­o­phy schol­ar who is forced to take a job teach­ing high school biol­o­gy. Pat­ton Oswalt co-stars as a nefar­i­ous principal.

Hulu, Feb­ru­ary 28

Adapt­ed from the book of the same name, this lim­it­ed series will chart the rise of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qae­da in the 1990s, as well as the rival­ry between the CIA and FBI which plight­ed America’s covert oper­a­tions. Jeff Daniels, Peter Sars­gaard, Alec Bald­win, Michael Stuhlbarg and Tahar Rahim are all set to star.

HBO, spring 2018

Bill Had­er plays the tit­u­lar Bar­ry in this new HBO com­e­dy. He’s an ex-marine turned small­time hit­man, who moves to Los Ange­les to car­ry out a hit, and finds an unex­pect­ed com­mu­ni­ty in a local the­atre troupe. Sounds good. Hen­ry Wrin­kler co-stars. Sounds even better.

BBC1, TBA

A time­ly new six-part thriller from the BBC sees new­com­er Nab­haan Rizwar play a sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Pak­istani-Brit, coerced by a Counter-Ter­ror­ism offi­cer (played by Pad­dy Con­si­dine) into work­ing under­cov­er as an infor­mant. Bel Pow­ley also stars as Considine’s part­ner, round­ing off a pret­ty excep­tion­al cast.

Ama­zon, TBA

Nico­las Wind­ing Refn’s been pret­ty vague about his new Ama­zon crime-thriller, say­ing only that it will ​“explore var­i­ous char­ac­ters’ exis­ten­tial jour­neys from being killers to becom­ing samu­rai in the city of angels.” …Right you are, Nico­las. He’s been less vague about the cast though – Miles Teller, Jena Mal­one, John Hawkes and Bil­ly Bald­win are all set to star.