Top New Shows You Should Be Watching On UK TV In February 2018
We’re already in the 2nd month of 2018, and the stream of new and interesting tv shows doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all. We have a bunch of shows returning from their mid-season breaks and for new seasons, but this list is our pick of new dramas coming to a screen near you over the next month.
Stargate Origins, Season 1 – Stargate Command – 15 February 2018
The first show we’re singling out is a bit of an oddity, as it is technically a web series, not a tv show. However, the ‘Stargate’ brand which has spawned everything from tv spin-offs to hats, to mugs and slot machines you can find on top slot sites, so I think it proves fans will follow it wherever it goes! This new version stars Ellie Gall (‘Blind’, ‘A Midsummer’s Nightmare’) as Catherine Langford, whose father, Professor Paul Langford (Connor Trinneer – ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’, Stargate: Atlantis’), discovered the original Earth Stargate.The show will dive deep into the adventures that provide additional context to Catherine’s lifelong fascination with the ancient artefact her father uncovered in the Egyptian desert, revealing a story that sits at the heart of the entire Stargate saga. You can get the series by visiting the Stargate Command digital service.
Altered Carbon, Season 1 – Netflix – 02 February 2018
https://youtu.be/dhFM8akm9a4
Already available on Netflix to stream, if you’re a fan of cyberpunk/Blade Runner type things, this one is definitely for you! Based on the classic cyberpunk noir novel by Richard K. Morgan, ‘Altered Carbon’ is a story of murder, love, sex, and betrayal, set more than 300 years in the future. Society has been transformed by new technology: consciousness can be digitized; human bodies are interchangeable; death is no longer permanent. Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman – ‘Suicide Squad’, ‘The Killing’), is the lone surviving soldier in a group of elite interstellar warriors who were defeated in an uprising against the new world order. His mind was imprisoned, “on ice”, for centuries until Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy – ‘Hap and Leonard’, ‘The Following’), an impossibly wealthy, long-lived man, offers Kovacs the chance to live again. In exchange, Kovacs has to solve a murder… that of Bancroft himself.
Absentia, Season 1 – Amazon Prime – 02 February 2018
The show centres on FBI agent Emily Byrne (‘Castle’ star Stana Katic). While hunting one of Boston’s most notorious serial killers, Agent Byrne disappears without a trace and is declared dead. Six years later, Emily is found in a cabin in the woods, barely alive, and with no memory of the years, she was missing. Returning home to learn her husband has remarried and her son is being raised by another woman, she soon finds herself implicated in a new series of murders. I’ve been watching the first few episodes of this, and if you like shows such as ‘The Following’, this is one for you.
Bliss, Season 1 – Sky One – 14 February 2018 at 10pm
‘Bliss’ follows the complicated double life of Andrew (Stephen Mangan – ‘Episodes’, ‘Green Wing’), a successful travel writer who, through extenuating circumstances, finds himself living between two sets of wives and children whose existences are unknown to each other. Andrew, in a constant state of moral crisis, must find a way to balance his time and energies between his wife Kim (Heather Graham) and teenage daughter, while travelling back and forth across Bristol to his other family, wife Denise (Jo Hartley) and their teenage son. As Andrew’s two worlds become ever harder to contain, so does his sanity. And he finds himself going to increasingly drastic lengths to protect the two families he loves. This show makes it onto the list, purely on the basis that the brilliant Stephen Mangan is in it!
Everything Sucks!, Season 1 – Netflix – 16 February 2018
https://youtu.be/HuG2uAWVlP4
This is one for all you 90’s kids out there! The series is set in the real-life town of Boring, Oregon in 1996. It’s a time free of smartphones… Free of iPods… If you wanted to watch a film, you had to physically go to a store and rent a VHS tape. The funny coming of age story that revolves around Boring High School’s A/V Club and Drama Club – two crews of nerdy-edgy outsiders, who join forces to make a movie and endure the purgatory known as high school. The series stars Peyton Kennedy (‘American Fable’, ‘The Captive’) and Jahi Winston (‘The New Edition Story’) as students Kate Messner and Luke O’Neil, with Patch Darragh (‘Sully’, ‘Boardwalk Empire’) and Claudine Nako (‘Grimm’) as their respective parents.
Here and Now, Season 1 – Sky Atlantic edit 20 February 2018 at 9pm
Whilst its rather hard to gauge exactly what this show is from the trailer and the description, I’m saying its worth a look based on the creator and cast alone! From Alan Ball, the Academy Award® and Emmy®-winning creator of ‘Six Feet Under’ and ‘True Blood’, ‘Here and Now’ tells the story of Greg and Audrey Bayer-Boatwright, (Tim Robbins and Holly Hunter), a Portland-based couple who have built a family they consider to reflect the multicultural potential of the US. Adopting three children, Ashley from Liberia, Duc from Vietnam, and Ramone from Colombia, as well as having one biological child, Kristen, they appear to be the model family for progressive America. However, the family in fact harbours deep rifts and divisive secrets, and as Greg’s 60th birthday party approaches, the cracks begin to show.
Save Me, Season 1 – Sky Atlantic edit 28 February 2018
New drama created by ‘The Walking Dead’s’ Lennie James with producers of the award-winning ‘Line of Duty’, and starring James with Suranne Jones (‘Dr Foster’) and Stephen Graham (‘Boardwalk Empire’), this really needs to be on your watch list! ‘Save Me’ is the story of a most unlikely hero, Nelson Nelly Rowe (James), and his search for Jody, his missing daughter. A daughter he hasn’t seen for 13 years – more than half her life. Nelly’s a charmer, a chancer, a lover, a fighter, a liar. And now an estranged father accused of kidnapping the daughter he’s barely ever seen. On his way to finding Jody, Nelly will save lives, find others who have been lost, reunite loved ones, make enemies from friends, risk his life and the lives of others close to him and continually end up back on his feet after finding himself flat on his face. He’s a man that faces a stark reality, as hard as it may be to admit, that in losing his daughter he finds himself.
For all the latest on new tv shows and returning series, go to the UK TV Air Dates page!
