THE HANDMAID’S TALE
Channel 4
Since its premiere in 2017, Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 masterpiece of speculative fiction has been queasily contemporary and always compelling: an on-screen manual to the new era of religious nationalism. In this sixth and final season, June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss) goes in search of her daughter Hannah – still captive in the totalitarian Christian state of Gilead that has replaced the United States. A spin-off series, based on Atwood’s sequel, The Testaments (2019), will follow.
WICARO 339
Apple TV+
Having created two of the greatest television dramas of all time – Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul – Vince Gilligan stays in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but returns to science fiction for the first time since he was a writer and director on The X-Files. His new series will star Rhea Seehorn, who played Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul, but is otherwise shrouded in secrecy. Gilligan has revealed only that “the world changes very abruptly in the first episode, and then it is quite different”. Even the title is a placeholder.
ZERO DAY
Netflix
At 81, Robert De Niro takes on his first recurring television role as former US president George Mullen, tasked to head the Zero Day Commission investigating a global cyber-attack. The cast is formidable (Jesse Plemons, Angela Bassett, Matthew Modine, Lizzy Caplan, Joan Allen), further evidence of the entertainment industry’s shift from movies to prestige television.
FIRST DAY ON EARTH
BBC
Michaela Coel’s award-winning performance in
I May Destroy You (2020) – which she also wrote, produced and co-directed – was a stunning achievement. In this new 10-part series, she plays Henri, a British novelist struggling professionally and romantically, who heads for Ghana where her estranged father lives. Succession creator Jess Armstrong is among the executive producers.
A must-see.
THE WHITE LOTUS
NOW
For its third, much-anticipated season, the black comedy drama anthology series heads to Thailand (following Maui and Sicily). With a cast headed by Leslie Bibb, Parker Posey, Jason Isaacs, Patrick Schwarzenegger and K-pop star Lisa, this iteration of the White Lotus franchise is expected to focus upon death, spirituality and Eastern mysticism. The genius of the show is the grafting of noir-ish twists and deceits on to satire at its most barbed.
