<img src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/480xn/p0pjpv4d.jpg.webp" alt="Prime Video Jaalen Best as Muhammad Ali fighting an opponent in a boxing ring in The Greatest (Credit: Amazon Prime)”>
Prime Video
HBO
1. The Gilded Age
The fourth season of Julian Fellowes’ addictive period drama picks up soon after the previous season ended and answers some burning, melodramatic questions. Will the nouveau riche George Russell (Morgan Spector), having moved out of their ostentatious mansion, go home to his manipulative social-climbing wife, Bertha (Carrie Coon)? Will the pedigreed Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) topple Bertha from the top of the social ladder? She’s certainly going to try. Subplots swirl around them as Peggy (Denée Benton) tries to maintain her career as a writer while dealing with her intrusive mother-in-law-to-be (Phylicia Rashad), while Marian (Louisa Jacobson) and Larry’s (Harry Richardson) on-and-off romance gets especially thorny. Last season’s ratings were among the show’s highest, so there may even be an appetite for the upcoming Voices of the Gilded Age: The Christmas Album, featuring songs from the Broadway-veteran cast. If you’ve ever wanted to hear Baranski sing We Need a Little Christmas or Brian Stokes Mitchell do It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, here you go.
The Gilded Age premieres 1 November on HBO in the US and 2 November on Sky Atlantic in the UK
Prime Video
2. The Greatest
Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest boxers of all time and has also been one of the most often depicted on screen, from Will Smith in the 2001 film Ali to documentaries by Antoine Fuqua and Ken Burns. This dramatic series sets itself apart by focusing on his childhood and the early years of his career, when he was still known as Cassius Clay, in a story that moves from his boyhood in the Jim Crow South to the 1960 Olympics, through to the 1964 fight that made him the world champion. Newcomer Jaalen Best plays Ali in the show, which has the cooperation of the Ali family and counts his widow, Lonnie Ali, and Michael B Jordan as executive producers. “The Greatest is [about] his pathway to growth, at home with his brother and his parents. It’s a granular deep dive into Muhammad’s life,” Lonnie Ali told Esquire. Meanwhile the series’ creator, Ben Watkins (showrunner of the Alex Cross series), teased that despite its family ties, the details on screen “aren’t always flattering”.
The Greatest premieres 4 November on Prime Video internationally
Apple TV
3. Stick
For some reason, middle-aged former golf champions trying to make a comeback are a mini-trend in sitcoms. Will Ferrell’s character set out to do it as the title character in the tongue-in-cheek Netflix series Hawk. And in the second season of Apple TV’s Stick, a comedy that leans toward the heartwarming, Owen Wilson’s character – Pryce Cahill, known as Stick – attempts to come out of retirement too. The cast has always been this show’s biggest draw, and that is enhanced this season with Rhea Seehorn of Pluribus and Better Call Saul in a supporting role as Stick’s new coach. Timothy Olyphant returns as his former rival, who nudges him to try to become the oldest player ever to win the US Open tournament, with Judy Greer as Stick’s ex-wife and Marc Maron as his friend and caddie, Mitts. Apparently the burgeoning television golf world requires cringe-making nicknames.
Stick premieres 4 November on Apple TV internationally
Netflix
4. Black Doves
Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw return in the second season of this thoroughly improbable but always entertaining action-espionage series. Knightley plays Helen Webb, whose husband (Andrew Buchan) is about to become the UK’s prime minister – a situation that is not great for him because she has been leaking information for a decade to the shadowy Black Doves organisation, set on undermining governments around the world. Whishaw plays her best friend, Sam, a hitman who helps her get out of the scrapes while getting into some himself. In the new season, Helen’s Black Doves handler, Mrs Reed, played by Sarah Lancashire, seems to go missing, although Lancashire herself remains a major part of the show. Marital drama plays out in the background of the shootouts and power plays. The new PM might not be fit to govern since he hasn’t noticed his wife spying right under his nose. Or maybe she’s just that clever. The series creator, Joe Barton, captured its droll tone when calling the characters “our murderous little spy family”.
Black Doves premieres 5 November on Netflix internationally
Channel 4
5. It Gets Worse
Leo Reich, who broke through with his HBO stand-up comedy special Literally Who Cares? in 2023, created and stars in this acerbic series about three Gen Z university friends struggling through their early 20s, characters Reich has described as “self-involved and quite objectionable”. He plays the self-absorbed Ethan, supported by his parents. His best friends are by-the-rules Abi (Emily Fairn) and would-be writer Sam (Olivia Gray). It’s a sign of Reich’s rising star that he has enticed some big names to join in. Andrew Scott appears in an episode, Lena Dunham has a cameo as Abi’s boss and the series’ unlikely narrator is the novelist Zadie Smith. The show is not just another Friends knockoff. It was a hit at the recent London Film Festival, with the Financial Times calling it “a witty Gen Z sex comedy” and the Guardian describing the series as “profound and properly funny” and Reich as “the future of TV comedy”.
It Gets Worse is currently on Channel 4 in the UK and premieres 6 November on Paramount+ in the US
Hulu
6. Rivals
It has been months since the first half of this scathingly funny show’s second season dropped, but finally we’re back in the fictional Cotswold county of Rutshire, beloved from Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster novels. It’s a place where cheating, in business and relationships, is just a way of life for its mix of mischievous, mean-spirited and occasionally good-hearted characters. Tony Baddingham, the tycoon played with devilish glee by David Tennant, is more sinister than ever, and unlikely to soften in the aftermath of a tragedy. His rival, Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner), is ever more desperate to keep his career and marriage intact, which his wife is making more difficult on both counts. And their daughter Taggie (Bella Maclean) must decide whether to give into her love for the playboy Rupert Campbell-Black (Alex Hassell) or do the sensible thing and run for the hills. In the new episodes, Lady Monica Baddingham’s glamorous younger sister turns up. So does a legendary Argentinian polo player. They should fit right in.
Rivals premieres 11 November on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK
Peacock
7. The Good Daughter
Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy – either one could be the good daughter in this thriller about murder, justice and family dynamics. They play sisters from the fictional smalltown of Pikeville, Georgia, who survived a violent home invasion when they were girls. Byrne is Samantha, a patent lawyer who moved to New York. Fahy is Charlotte, who stayed in town and became a defence lawyer like their father (Brendan Gleeson). The sisters have been estranged for a decade, but when Charlotte witnesses a murder that recalls the attack in their childhood, the tension and mysteries ramp up and Samantha is called home. The Good Daughter – not to be confused with those other recent suspense series The Better Sister and The Girlfriend – is written by Karin Slaughter, based on her 2017 bestselling novel, and explores the traumatic effects of violence. “We’re all exposed to trauma all the time,” Fahy told Vanity Fair, adding, “It’s really important to show people navigating their trauma and coming out on the other side.”
The Good Daughter premieres 12 November on Peacock in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK
Apple TV
8. 12 12 12
Two commanding, high-profile actors star in this heist series. Jamie Dornan plays Paul Galvin, a criminal who tries to leave his old life but is forced back in as part of an $800m (£599m) theft from a Zurich bank. Anthony Mackie is Jack Strickland, a disgraced FBI agent on his trail, whose character handily explains the series’ title in the trailer. “FBI principles of crime say a high asset robbery is 12 months in planning, 12 hours in execution. A bank robber who’s not caught within 12 days is not caught at all,” he says. The show mingles those three timelines as the cat-and-mouse game takes the men across Europe – with spectacular settings on dark streets, at sea and against snowy landscapes – en route to their inevitable face-to-face.
12 12 12 premieres 13 November on Apple TV internationally
9. Blue Lights
This fourth season of the exhilarating police series set in Belfast keeps things fresh by returning to a much-loved character from the past. Mo McIntyre, whose mother, Tina, runs the family crime ring, finally goes on trial for orchestrating the attack that killed Gerry Cliff (Richard Dornan), devastating his police colleagues, in season one. That storyline becomes a touching opportunity to look back at Gerry’s romance with his wife, Sandra (beautifully played by Andi Osho), a sergeant who worked alongside him in Blackthorn Station. Apart from the trial, the team of regular characters grapples with anti-immigrant protests that turn violent. And all the while, higher-ups are threatening to shut down Blackthorn for inefficiency. As always, the show deftly puts crime-fighting against the backdrop of lingering political divisions going back to the Troubles, while mixing in personal stories. The Guardian, in its review of this season, rightly called it “TV’s most thrilling cop show”.
Blue Lights is currently on BBC iPlayer in the UK and premieres 12 November on Britbox in the US
Netflix
10. The Altruists
Another day, another drama about a tech-adjacent mogul. This time it’s the saga of Sam Bankman-Fried, coming in the wake of those about Mark Zuckerberg (The Social Reckoning), Elizabeth Holmes (You Can See Everything) or Sam Altman (Artificial). Anthony Boyle (House of Guinness) plays Bankman-Fried, who founded the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which fell apart in 2022. Convicted of fraud, conspiracy and money-laundering, he is currently in prison. (He is appealing his conviction and has formally requested a presidential pardon.) Julia Garner, who played a different fraudster in Inventing Anna, is Bankman-Fried’s colleague and sometime girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud. The series was created by Graham Moore, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of The Imitation Game, and who has an unusual, to say the least, take on the convicted criminals. In his view, Moore has said, Bankman-Fried and Ellison started as “deeply committed altruists,” out to change the financial world for everyone’s benefit, then “with the very best of intentions talked each other and themselves into committing a number of terrible crimes”.
The Altruists premieres 19 November on Netflix internationally
Peacock
11. Dig
Amy Poehler and Hugh Laurie play archaeologists on a dig in Greece, a setting Poehler has said is ideal for comedy. “A dig is a really funny place,” she told TV Insider. “It’s part summer camp, part mysterious uncovering of relics.” Laurie goes back to his wry comic roots as professor Neville Wycombe, who runs the archaeological program, and Poehler is Elise, the dedicated, serious head of a team of women. They arrive for the summer only to find themselves in an international muddle when they discover a priceless artifact. Geraldine Viswanathan and Antonia Thomas are members of Elise’s team, with Fina Strazza as Wycombe’s guileless in-over-her-head assistant. Poehler created the show with Mike Schur, a creator of her previous series, Parks and Recreation, one of television’s best sitcoms. Schur is a master of smart, low-key character-driven comedies including The Good Place, so whatever madcap adventures the archaeologists land in, the show promises to be slyly funny.
Dig premieres 23 November on Peacock in the US
Prime Video
12. Blade Runner 2099
Michelle Yeoh stars in this series that takes the Blade Runner franchise racing toward everyone’s worst fears about artificial intelligence. In Ridley Scott’s classic film Blade Runner and Denis Villeneuve’s sequel, Blade Runner 2049, humans hunted down replicants. Now the robots have taken over and replicants are hunting down humans. Yeoh plays Olwen, a replicant on the Los Angeles police force. Hunter Schafer is Cora, who is actually a human masquerading as a replicant, so she can worm her way into the LA police as a way of protecting her brother. The series’ showrunner, Silka Luisa, told Empire magazine, “Everyone, globally, has been very aware of this palpable fear of the end of our species. Climate change, pandemics.” The series, she said, considers: “What would the world look like when it’s no longer ours?” Well, Cora is partnered with Olwen, who happens to be days from reaching the end of her lifespan, so while the world may be different, the old trope of an about-to-retire-cop paired with a rookie obviously lives on.
Blade Runner 2099 premieres 25 November on Prime Video internationally
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