TV is back! Here are the best shows in winter 2024 from 'True Detective' to 'Shogun'
We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
Television was interrupted in 2023 by the writers and actors strikes, which shut down production for nearly the entire second half of the year. That meant TV shows, particularly broadcast TV shows that work on tight schedules, faced unintended cliffhangers and delayed premieres. But all that is coming to an end (sort of).
This winter sees the return of a more normal TV schedule, with broadcast shows like NBC's "Chicago" dramas and ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" returning with new episodes. There are plenty of new shows from streamers and cable as well as the pipeline replenishes.
Amid the onslaught of new content, five new shows stand out as being genuinely worth your time this winter. Some are literally chilly (like HBO's "True Detective: Night Country"), but others are just chillingly good:
'The Brothers Sun' (Netflix)
Now streaming
If you ever thought you might enjoy watching a martial arts fight while "The Great British Baking Show" plays in the background, Netflix has a new show for you. The action comedy mixes elaborate fight scenes with often downright silly humor, creating a genuinely fun and fast-moving series. The young actors playing the estranged brothers (Justin Chien and Sam Song Li) caught up in international criminal activity are sweet and charming, but the real treat is Michelle Yeoh as their wisecracking mother.
'True Detective: Night Country' (HBO)
Jan. 14 (Sundays, 9 EST/PST)
Jodie Foster and Kali Reis revive the inconsistent HBO franchise with this new, Alaska-set installment that is as gripping and relevant as the first season starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. A horrific mystery sets Detectives Liz Danvers (Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Reis) on a sometimes confrontational quest for the truth in the eerie period of Alaskan winter where it's dark 24 hours a day. The series has ambience on top of ambience and heavier coats than you can find at any REI store.
'Death and Other Details' (Hulu)
Jan. 16 (Streaming Tuesdays)
Broadway legend (and "Princess Bride" swordsman) Mandy Patinkin plays a venerable but washed-up detective in this tongue-in-cheek whodunit, clearly seeking to mine the appetite for Agatha-Christie style locked-door mysteries sparked by "Knives Out." This one includes secluded rich people on a boat rather than an island like "Knives Out: Glass Onion" (or in remote Iceland like FX's frosty techno-mystery "A Murder at the End of the World"). The colors pop, the comedy is arch and the mystery is good enough to try to solve.
'The New Look' (Apple TV+)
Feb. 14 (Streaming Wednesdays)
Set in 1940s Nazi-occupied France and the 1960s, Apple's period piece traces the rise of Christan Dior (a very suave Ben Mendelsohn) and his "New Look," a new feminine sense of style that defined high fashion in the mid-20th century, in stark contrast to the work of Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche). But more than just Dior's sense of style, "Look" is about dark days and hard decisions during the war, as Chanel accepts the adoration and even helps the occupying Nazis while Dior's sister Catherine (Maisie Williams, "Game of Thrones") fights with the French Resistance. It's a mix of the whimsical and deadly serious, with Glenn Close appearing as a deliciously acerbic Harper's Bazaar editor. No cheap threads or jokes here, only a reminder of how everything in our lives, down to the clothes we wear, has a weighty history.
'Shōgun' (FX)
Feb. 27 (Streaming Tuesdays on Hulu)
FX's adaptation of James Clavell's 1975 novel set in feudal Japan is a feast for the senses. An expensive epic that might give you "Game of Thrones" vibes (although there is no magic or dragons here), the series takes place on the island in 1600, on the cusp of 100 years of civil war. While Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada, also a producer) fights internal political battles, Japan is rocked by the arrival of a mysterious English ship and its pilot, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis). It's a vast and compelling story, told mostly in subtitled Japanese, but there is never a moment when you're not glued to the story and its beauty and brutality.