20 TV shows to look for­ward to in 2019

This year sees the hot­ly-antic­i­pat­ed return of Game of Thrones and Stranger Things, but there’s sure to be a lot of excel­lent new tele­vi­sion to sink your teeth into as well. Here are 20 upcom­ing shows that have piqued our inter­est – let us know what you’re look­ing for­ward to @LWLies.

Adapt­ed from the nov­el writ­ten by Ter­ry Pratch­ett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens is the sto­ry of how two old friends – an angel and a demon – attempt to avert the apoc­a­lypse. It’s been in devel­op­ment hell for years, but final­ly has a home thanks to the BBC and Ama­zon, and an all-star cast to match. David Ten­nant and Michael Sheen play Crow­ley and Azi­raphale, the demon and angel at the cen­tre of it all, with Anna Maxwell Mar­tin, Jon Hamm, Nick Offer­man, Frances McDor­mand and Miran­da Richard­son also join­ing them. Gaiman him­self has writ­ten the script for this six-part series, so we’re expect­ing big things.

Based on the suc­cess­ful Israeli dra­ma of the same name, Eupho­ria fol­lows a group of high school stu­dents as they nav­i­gate sex, drugs, iden­ti­ty, and the many oth­er facets of being a teenag­er in the mod­ern world. That might not sound like much, but it’s a HBO and A24 pro­duc­tion star­ring Zen­daya, Storm Reid and Maude Apa­tow, so don’t write it off just yet…

Don Chea­dle, Andrew Ran­nells and Regi­na Hall star as a band of out­siders who inad­ver­tent­ly cause hav­oc on Wall Street in this 80s dark com­e­dy about the years lead­ing up to the 1987 stock mar­ket crash. Cre­ator David Caspe is best known for helm­ing sit­com Hap­py End­ings and writ­ing the San­dler-Sam­berg vehi­cle That’s My Boy, but hey – Don Cheadle!

Richard Gere stars in his first major tele­vi­sion role as Max, a media tycoon, joined by Helen McCro­ry as his estranged wife Kathryn in this new dra­ma, writ­ten by Tom Rob Smith, who co-wrote the acclaimed FX series The Assas­si­na­tion of Gian­ni Ver­sace. Bil­ly Howle stars as their son, who is a threat to his father’s empire, with Cia­ran Hinds and Sarah Lan­cast­er also slat­ed to appear.

Bob Fos­se is a musi­cal the­atre (and musi­cal film) leg­end, so it’s nice he’s final­ly get­ting a tele­vi­sion trib­ute – but what’s most excit­ing about this minis­eries, cen­tred on the romance between Fos­se and Broad­way dancer Gwen Ver­don, is the cast­ing. Sam Rock­well seems like the per­fect choice to play Fos­se, while Michelle Williams stars oppo­site as Ver­don. We’re high­ly antic­i­pat­ing the dance sequences.

You might be sick of super­hero con­tent by now, but on the off chance you’re still on board, this Seth Rogen and Evan Gold­berg-pro­duced adap­tion of Garth Ennis and Dar­ick Robertson’s dark com­ic book of the same name might be worth a look. Star­ring Karl Urban and Eliz­a­beth Schue, it’s set in a world where super­heroes embrace the dark­er side of their celebri­ty and fame. The tit­u­lar Boys are a team tasked with tak­ing down cor­rupt super­heroes, and giv­en how obscene the com­ic book is, it’ll be inter­est­ing to see the on-screen version.

If you were glued to your Net­flix account binge-watch­ing The End of the F***ing World ear­li­er this year, you’ll be pleased to know that a new series from cre­ator Char­lie Cov­ell is on the way. Kaos is a dark, com­ic mod­ern reimag­in­ing of Greek mythology.

2019 is shap­ing up to be a big year for Jor­dan Peele. While his sec­ond direc­to­r­i­al project Us will hit cin­e­mas, on the small screen he’s behind the reboot of icon­ic sci-fi series The Twi­light Zone. The anthol­o­gy series has an all-star cast, but we already know Adam Scott will star in a remake of Night­mare at 30,000 Feet, the icon­ic episode which saw William Shat­ner wrestling with an air­borne grem­lin only he could see (lat­er par­o­died on The Simp­sons, of course).

George Clooney directs and stars in this six-part adap­ta­tion of Joseph Heller’s blis­ter­ing satire of the same name. Giv­en how dire Clooney’s last direc­to­r­i­al effort was, per­haps a lit­tle appre­hen­sion is fair, but he’s always been quite com­pe­tent when han­dling his­to­ry (see Good Night, and Good Luck) so this will still be worth check­ing out. Christo­pher Abbot stars as US Air Force bom­bardier Yos­sar­i­an, with Kyle Chan­dler, Hugh Lau­rie and Gian­car­lo Gian­ni­ni also on the roster.

A pre­quel to the Jim Henson’s 1982 cult clas­sic, this Net­flix series will explore the world of Thra, fol­low­ing three Gelflings – Rian, Brea and Deet – as they attempt to start a rebel­lion which could save their world. Of course the main sell­ing point of this series will be what­ev­er incred­i­ble pup­pets are cooked up by the Hen­son Crea­ture Work­shop, but the voice cast is pret­ty phe­nom­e­nal: Taron Egerton, Anya Tay­lor-Joy, Hele­na Bon­ham Carter, Har­ri­son Dick­in­son, Mark Hamill, Jason Isaacs, Andy Sam­berg, Simon Pegg, Mark Strong and Ali­cia Vikan­der are all on the call sheet.

Sheri­dan Smith stars in this four-part dra­ma about Jolene Dol­lar, a moth­er of three and lead­ing British porn star, which exam­ines the adult film indus­try. Jolene is a vet­er­an of the indus­try, but when she meets 19-year-old Amy, things quick­ly start to unrav­el. Sounds intrigu­ing – and it’s refresh­ing to see a light shined on an indus­try so often kept in the dark.

Anoth­er good get for Ama­zon, this is Nico­las Winding-Refn’s pet project, star­ring Miles Teller, Jena Mal­one, John Hawkes and, uh, Bil­ly Bald­win. Refn has kept sch­tum on key details so far, but we know it’s set in Los Ange­les and fol­lows a griev­ing police offi­cer who finds him­self embroiled in an under­ground world occu­pied by hit­men, Yakuza sol­diers, car­tel assas­sins, and ​“gangs of teen killers”. Sign us the hell up.

Rus­sell T Davies is back with a new series, but this time he’s brought Emma Thomp­son with him. She stars at Vivi­enne Rook, an out­spo­ken celebri­ty turned con­tro­ver­sial polit­i­cal fig­ure, in this fam­i­ly drama.

David Atten­bor­ough fans will get their fix from Net­flix this year – Our Plan­et is a new doc­u­men­tary series filmed over the past four years in 50 dif­fer­ent coun­tries. Atten­bor­ough nar­rates, and it’s from the team behind Blue Plan­et and Plan­et Earth, so expect visu­al excel­lence too.

If you love BoJack Horse­man, pre­pare to make room in your sched­ule for anoth­er anthro­po­mor­phic ani­mal ani­ma­tion. Tuca & Bertie stars Tiffany Had­dish and Ali Wong as two thir­tysome­thing birds who live in the same apart­ment build­ing, and it’s cre­at­ed by Lisa Hanawalt, who worked on BoJack. The dream team of Had­dish and Wong along is enough to ensure our viewership.

This minis­eries exam­in­ing the 1986 nuclear acci­dent at Cher­nobyl pow­er plant is sure to be a har­row­ing watch, but will shed light on the man-made dis­as­ter which still affects Ukraine today. Emi­ly Wat­son, Stel­lan Skars­gård and Jared Har­ris star.

Damien Chazelle’s back with anoth­er musi­cal – sort of, any­way. Tak­ing place in Paris, The Eddy cen­tres on a jazz club threat­ened with clo­sure. It’s script­ed by British screen­writer Jack Thorne, who start­ed out on Shame­less and Skins before gain­ing crit­i­cal acclaim for This is Eng­land ​’90 and Nation­al Trea­ture (the Rob­bie Coltrane minis­eries, not the Nico­las Cage film). Amer­i­can music leg­end Glen Bal­lard (who co-wrote and pro­duced Ala­nis Morissette’s ​‘Jagged Lit­tle Pill’) has writ­ten the music, but there’s no word on cast­ing yet.

Fol­low­ing the same premise as the 2014 film, this mock­u­men­tary fol­lows three vam­pires who are room­mates – and have been for hun­dreds of years. Although Jer­maine Clement and Tai­ka Wait­i­ti exec­u­tive pro­duced, they won’t be star­ring; this time the action’s in New York City, with Matt Berry, Kay­van Novak and Nata­sia Demetri­ou lead­ing the cast.

Can you believe Zak Snyder’s much-maligned adap­ta­tion of Alan Moore’s cel­e­brat­ed graph­ic nov­el hap­pened ten years ago? Seems like a good time for a do-over – cour­tesy of The Left­overs cre­ator and Lost co-cre­ator Damon Lin­de­lof. Regi­na King, Don John­son, Tim Blake Nel­son and Jere­my Irons star – which is a pre­dictably stel­lar line-up for this HBO series.

Ava DuVernay’s lat­est project fol­lows the true sto­ry of a hor­rif­ic attack on a woman in Cen­tral Park in 1989, and the media fren­zy that ensued. Five young black men were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed as the per­pe­tra­tors, and it took 25 years to clear their names. There’s a good cast too, includ­ing Michael K Williams, John Leguizamo, and Vera Farmiga.