As the nights get longer and outdoor temperatures get cooler, there’s no excuse not to snuggle up on the couch and get lost in the plethora of new viewing options on offer this month.
For free-to-air fans, TVNZ 2 introduces a local version of popular reality competition Lego Masters (7.30pm, May 9), dating show with a difference Down For Love (8.30pm, May 9) and British quiz series Tom Allen’s Quizness (9.30pm, May 4), while Eden has Keeley Hawes’ latest dramedy Finding Alice (8.30pm, May 5) and the Tinie Tempah-hosted home renovation programme Extraordinary Extensions (8.30pm, May 9).
Over on Sky, Miriam Margolyes and Alan Cumming team up for Lost in Scotland (May 14, Living) and UKTV’s line-up includes 1920s-set period drama Hotel Portafino (May 23).
Netflix’s always eclectic mix this time features new seasons of Love & Death & Robots (May 20), Somebody Feed Phil (May 25) and Stranger Things (May 27), while there’s a US version of Australian reality hit Love on the Spectrum (May 18) and Canadian comedian Mike Myers returns to the spotlight in The Pentaverate (May 5).
Amazon Prime Video’s roster includes the return of teen thriller The Wilds, spin-off detective drama Bosch: Legacy (both May 6) and Sissy Spacek and JK Simmons’ starring sci-fi series The Night Sky (May 20), while TVNZ OnDemand boasts local docu-series 2000s Baby (May 7), Auckland-set comedy Kid Sister (May 26) and hotly anticipated British true-crime drama The Thief His Wife and the Canoe (May 9).
Elsewhere, Apple TV+ has the second season of Tehran (May 6), Neon the sophomore season of Made For Love (May 20) and killer doll Chucky’s small screen debut (May 13), while Disney+ is home to immersive fantasy reality show The Quest (May 11).
However, after looking through the schedules, Stuff to Watch has come up with a list of the 12 shows we’re most excited to see debut over the next four weeks.
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The Essex Serpent, We Own This City and Obi-Wan Kenobi are amongst the most hotly anticipated shows scheduled to debut this month.
READ MORE:
* 1883: Amazon’s visceral, violent Yellowstone prequel presents an even wilder west
* Ten Percent: Netflix’s French hit Call My Agent gets effective Amazon English makeover
* A Very British Scandal: Claire Foy is simply superb in Amazon’s right Royal spat
* We Own This City: The Wire’s David Simon makes a compelling return to Baltimore
* Neon’s First Lady, Amazon’s Outer Range, Apple’s Roar amongst April’s must see TV
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Joe Alwyn and Alison Oliver feature in Conversations with Friends.
Conversations with Friends (May 16, Amazon Prime Video)
Hoping to emulate the runaway success of 2020 lockdown hit Normal People, this is a 12-part adaptation of Sally Rooney’s 2017 debut novel.
Directed by Room’s Lenny Abrahamson and His Dark Materials’ Leanne Welham, it follows a 21-year-old Dublin college student as she navigates a series of relationships that forces her to confront her own vulnerabilities for the first time. The cast includes Alison Oliver, Sasha Lane, Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke.
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Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston join forces in The Essex Serpent.
The Essex Serpent (May 13, Apple TV+)
Claire Danes and Tom Hiddleston team up for this six-part adaptation of Sarah Perry’s Victorian England-set 2016 novel.
It follows London widow Cora Seaborne, who moves to Essex to investigate reports of a mythical serpent. She forms a surprising bond of science and skepticism with a local pastor, but when tragedy strikes, locals accuse her of attracting the creature.
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Jean Smart has won plenty of plenty of plaudits – and awards – for her role in Hacks.
Hacks (May 12, TVNZ OnDemand)
When she wasn’t stealing scenes as Kate Winslet’s character’s plain-speaking mother in last year’s Mare of Easttown, Jean Smart was starring in this acerbic 10-part tale (finally screening here almost a year after its US debut) about an established Las Vegas comedian who is advised to modernise her act in order to save her career.
However, she immediately clashes with the much younger writer she hires. “There are plenty of laughs along the way, but it’s the unforced emotional truths that make Hacks a right and proper vehicle for Smart,” wrote The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan.
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Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Jazz Raycole team up for The Lincoln Lawyer.
The Lincoln Lawyer (May 13, Netflix)
Having already been adapted into a 2011 Matthew McConaughey-starring movie, novelist Michael Connelly’s iconoclastic idealist now gets the series treatment with this 10-part crime-drama which sees From Dusk Till Dawn and Goliath’s Manuel Garcia-Rulfo take on the role of Mickey Haller.
Look out for former Party of Five star Neve Campbell in her first TV role since House of Cards.
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Chiwetel Ejiofor is The Man Who Fell to Earth.
The Man Who Fell to Earth (May 11, SoHo/Sky Go)
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Naomie Harris and Bill Nighy star in this 10-part adaptation of Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel (previously, memorably brought to life in 1976 by Nicolas Roeg and David Bowie) about an alien who arrives on Earth at a critical point in human evolution and must confront his own past in order to determine our future.
Serial Star Trek showrunners and writers Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet are the ones steering the ship.
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Obi-Wan Kenobi is set a decade after the dramatic events of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Obi-Wan Kenobi (May 27, Disney)
Ewan McGregor returns to the Jedi robes for the first time in 17 years, in this six-part Star Wars series which begins a decade after the dramatic events of Revenge of the Sith. That was where Obi-Wan suffered his greatest defeat – the downfall and corruption of his best friend and apprentice Anakin Skywalker.
Hadyn Christensen is back as Anakin’s alter ego Darth Vader, while the acting ensemble also includes Joel Edgerton, Rupert Friend, Kumail Nanjiani and Kiwi Simone Kessell.
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Pistol is directed by Danny Boyle.
Pistol (May 31, Disney)
Based on the memoir of Steve Jones, the legendary Sex Pistols guitarist who helped usher in Britain’s punk revolution, this six-part biopic aims to tell the story of a band of spotty, noisy, working-class kids with “no future,” who shook the boring, corrupt establishment to its core, threatened to bring down the government and changed music and culture forever.
Directed by Danny Boyle and created by Baz Luhrmann’s go-to screenwriter Craig Pearce, it features Maisie Williams.
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Toni Collette and Colin Firth play husband and wife in The Staircase.
The Staircase (May 5, Neon)
Crime novelist Michael Peterson is accused of bludgeoning his wife Kathleen to death after she is found dead at the bottom of a staircase in their home in this eight-part drama based on a true story that included a 16-year court battle. The impressive cast includes Toni Collette, Colin Firth, Sophie Turner, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Dane DeHaan, Olivia DeJonge and Michael Stuhlbarg.
“The linchpin of this delicate portrayal is Colin Firth’s performance as Michael. Best known for playing romantic leads and other charismatic types, he disappears, here, into a far murkier character,” wrote Time magazine’s Judy Berman.
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Paul Wesley plays James T. Kirk in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (May 5, TVNZ OnDemand)
Both a spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery and a prequel to the original 1960s series, this 10-episode sci-fi drama follows the crew of the USS Enterprise under the stewardship of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount).
Ethan Peck, Paul Wesley and Rebecca Romijn also feature, while specific links are promised to one of the most beloved movies from the long-running franchise.
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Rose Leslie is The Time Traveler’s Wife.
The Time Traveler’s Wife (May 16, Neon)
Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat gets stuck into more timey-wimey misadventures with this six-part adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s beloved best-selling 2003 sci-fi romance novel.
Game of Thrones’ Rose Leslie and Divergence’s Theo James star. For those unfamiliar with the tale, it shows how the marriage of Clare and Henry is complicated by time-travel.
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Stuff Entertainment. Supplied image for May TV. The Thing About Pam.
The Thing About Pam (May 13, Amazon Prime Video)
Renee Zellweger, Josh Duhamel and Judy Greer star in this six-part drama based on the hit 2019 podcast of the same name. Both revolve around the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria, a brutal crime that set off a chain of events that would not only result in her husband Russ’ conviction, but also expose a diabolical scheme involving a woman named Pam Hupp.
”A welcome departure from the current avalanche of poker-faced true-crime efforts,” wrote Entertainment Weekly’s Kristen Baldwin.
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Josh Charles and Jon Bernthal play controversial cops in We Own This City.
We Own This City (May 3, Neon/Sky Go)
As with The Corner and the groundbreaking The Wire, Baltimore is the backdrop for David Simon’s latest six-part drama.
Based on Baltimore Sun crime reporter Justin Fenton’s 2021 book of the same name, it is, as his tome’s subtitle suggests, the dramatisation of a “true story of crime, cops and corruption in an American city”.
Specifically, it details the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force, a group lauded as the answer to the city’s rising tide of violent crime, held up as an example of modern less-confrontational policing, but who, in truth, were seemingly rotten to the core.
