A lot of period dramas from BBC, quite a few spy thrillers, a few genre picks, and an occasional quirky comedy. My picks are Dietland, The Rook, A Very English Scandel and The City & The City.
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
The year in the life of a young woman, Tess, set in the world of a famous downtown New York restaurant. It will star Ella Purnell (Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children). Richard Shepard (Girls) has joined as executive producer and will direct the series premiere episode. Stu Zicherman (The Americans, The Affair) executive producer along with Plan B Entertainment and Shepard. Donna Bloom will serve as a producer on the six-episode freshman season.
Network: Starz
Premiere date: May 6th
You by Caroline Kepnes
Social Media stalking! Fun Times! A bookstore employee becomes obsessed with a customer after he googles her name. Elizabeth Lail will star opposite Penn Badgley in this psychological thriller (or I-told-you-so-to-set-your-privacy-settings) from Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble.
Network: Lifetime
Premiere date: TBA in 2018
Castle Rock based works by Stephen King
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3U7Z94NHgg
‘A psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock combines The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King’s literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, It, and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock.’
A collaboration between J.J. Abrams and Stephen King, under Bad Robot Productions. The clip they have of it looks great, and SISSY SPACEK! As well starring Melanie Lynskey and Jane Levy, who are two favorites. Hopefully, it doesn’t end the way of Haven.
Network: Hulu
Premiere date: TBA in 2018
Dietland by Sarai Walker
A new 10-episode series, from Marti Noxon, also producing Unreal and Sharp Objects, with Skydance TV and AMC Studios. The story looks a the beauty industry, as it follows Plum Kettle (Joy Nash), an obese woman who is preparing for weight-loss surgery. Her world is turned upside down, as she straddles with opposite-ends of the feminist spectrum. The series stars Tramell Tillman, Robin Weigert, Juliana Margulies, Will Seefried and Rowena King.
I’ll watch this.
Network: AMC
Premiere date: June 4th
The Terror by Dan Simmons
A fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s lost expedition to the Arctic in 1845. As the trend of swashbuckling continues, though I’m not sure how they will show off their pecs in this one. It stars Jared Harris, Ciarán Hinds, and Tobias Menzies. Expect lots of double-breasted peacoats.
Network: AMC
Premiere date: April 24th
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
We all know about Gone Girl adaptation with Ben Affleck, it was only time before they did another adaptation of Flynn’s popular oeuvre. Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. Starring Amy Adams as Camille Preaker and adapted by Marti Noxon (Unreal, Girls Guide to Divorce, Glee). Produced by Blumhouse Productions and eOne Television.
Network: HBO
Premiere date: June
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I won’t give you a summary of Fahrenheit 451 because if you don’t know it then SHAME. They burn books, kay? I’m always surprised there hasn’t been more adaptations of it, but looking forward to seeing Micheal B. Jordan as the lead role, and Micheal Shannon. Who are both fresh off of big hits, Black Panther and The Shape of Water, if you’ve been living under a rock.
Network: HBO
Premiere date: May
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
Starring Olivia Cooke from the upcoming Ready Player One. This will be a seven-part series, which will be adapted by Dark Angel screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes.
Suranne Jones, Michael Palin, and Martin Clunes are also starring, while Broadchurch and Liar director, James Strong, is on board behind the camera.
We all remember Reese Witherspoon in this. And do we really need another period drama of people trying to get it on while fumbling with corsets?
Network: Amazon Prime/ITV
Premiere date: TBA 2018
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Ben Hardy stars as young teacher Walter Hartright in the BBC’s adaptation this 1859 psychological thriller. Hartwright’s life is changed forever when he encounters a woman dressed in white on a dark road. Jessie Buckley co-stars as Marian Halcombe.
It is produced by Origin Pictures and adapted by Fiona Seres. David Thompson exec produces along with BBC’s Sarah Stack while Sarah Curtis produces. Black Mirror and Humans helmer Carl Tibbetts is set to direct.
Network: BBC
Premiere date: TBA 2018
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
There has been lot’s of buzz around this project because everyone loves Gaiman (well except me *sigh*). But the casting looks superb, so maybe the amp up his dry writing style.
David Tennant stars as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale in this six-part series, which also includes Mad Men’s John Hamm, Line of Duty’s Daniel Mays and Sherlock’s Sian Brooke. Summary: it’s about the end of the world and angels who don’t want it to happen.
Gaiman penned every episode and will serve as showrunner. Come back Pratchett, we miss you.
Network: BBC/Amazon
Premiere date: TBA 2018
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Really enjoyed this series in that it’s easy to digest like Twilight/Fifty Shades crack writing style.
The leads are Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode. Loving that it will also have Alex Kingston, the curly-haired goddess. It’s essentially witches vs. vampires, with a Romeo & Juliet storyline. So it is Twilight!
It’ll be an eight-part series.
Network: Sky1
Premiere date: TBA 2018
The War of The Worlds by HG Wells
Not much has been announced about this since it’s announcement last year. So I’m not even sure it’s still happening, as apparently, it should be in production this spring.
The series is to be written by screenwriter Peter Harness, who adapted Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
Network: BBC
Premiere date: TBA 2018
The City & The City by China Mieville
Just finished this book, and very excited to hear it will be coming out as a TV series. I’m a big fan of Miéville’s works. And I just saw David Morrissey in Julius Caesar, he was brilliant.
David Morrissey will play the lead Inspector Tyador Borlú. This is a very politically relevant story. I am very interested to see how they set up the styles of the two cities. The book is set in two cities that occupy the same territory, but you are not allowed to ‘see’ the other city when you are in the other. It follows our Inspector who must navigate the politics, as they find a murder has occurred between the cities.
Tony Grisoni (The Young Pope) is adapting this four-part show and it is produced by Mammoth Screen.
The cast includes Lara Pulver as Borlú’s wife Katrynia; Mandeep Dhillon (Some Girls) as Constable Corwi of the Besźel Policzai; Maria Schrader (Deutschland 83) as Senior Detective Dhatt of the Ul Qoma Militsya; Ron Cook (Mr Selfridge) as Borlú’s superior Commissar Gadlem; Danny Webb (Humans) as hard-right nationalist politician Major Syedr; and Christian Camargo (Penny Dreadful) as Doctor Bowden, an American academic.
Network: BBC2
Premiere date: TBA 2018
The Little Drummer Girl by John Le Carre
Following the BBC’s hugely successful series The Night Manager, another John le Carré adaptation is in the works starring Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård. I mean every le Carre adaptation has been a hit.
BBC, along with US broadcast partner AMC and producers The Ink Factory, will begin production on the six-part adaptation of Little Drummer Girl in early 2018.
Network: BBC2
Premiere date: TBA 2019
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Based on Richard Adams famed novel, it tells the tale of Hazel, Fiver and a warren of rabbits who had to leave their burrow for the “safety” of Watership Down following seer Fiver’s apocalyptic vision of its destruction.
The Netflix and BBC co-production is a four-part series with John Boyega as Bigwig and James McAvoy as Hazel. Nicholas Hoult plays Hazel’s younger brother Fiver.
Gemma Arterton plays Clover, with Miles Jupp as Blackberry, Freddie Fox as Captain Holly, Olivia Colman is Strawberry and Anne-Marie Duff as Hyzenthlay.
Network: BBC/Netflix
Premiere date: TBA 2018
A Very English Scandal by John Preston
Hugh Grant returns to TV after the success of his roles in Paddington 2 to star in Russell T Davies’ adaptation of John Preston’s book about Jeremy Thorpe. Ben Whishaw will co-star as Norman Scott, the ex-lover of Thorpe that he conspires to murder.
This will be the first production from Sony-backed Blueprint Television, which launched last June. Headed by Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, and Dominic Treadwell-Collins, it’s the sister company to Blueprint Picture.
A Very English Scandal is executive produced by Treadwell-Collins, Broadbent and Czernin, and Lucy Richer for the BBC.
Network: BBC
Premiere date: TBA 2018
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Poldark and Victoria producers Mammoth Screen have commissioned playwright Nina Raine – author of 2017 hit National Theatre play Consent – to adapt the classic novel, in a darker toned version.
There’s no air date confirmed for the series.
Network: TBA
Premiere date: TBA 2018
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pulman
The series is set to start production in Wales soon. It will be exec produced by Pullman, Tranter, Gardner, Toby Emmerich and Carolyn Blackwood for New Line; Piers Wenger and Chris Irving for BBC One and Deborah Forte for Scholastic
Network: BBC
Premiere date: TBA 2018
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
This was an amazing find when I came across it on the selves. Badass female supernatural spy thriller. YAAS. Nothing is known about the casting of it. I did roll my eyes when it said Stephanie Meyer is producing. It’s adapted and co-produced by playwrights and screenwriters Sam Holcroft (Rules for Living) and Al Muriel (Precious & Rich). It’s a Lionsgate-Starz partnership which should be interesting. The showrunner Stephen Garrett just came from working on The Night Manager so hopefully, that balances things out.
Network: Starz
Premiere date: TBA in 2018
The Book to Screen Club 