What I’m Watching For January 2025 onward

Dune: Prophecy – season 1

Set 10,000 years before the events of Dune, the series follows sisters Valya and Tula Harkonnen. After words on the screen, “Victory is celebrated in the light, but it is won in the darkness.”, Valya asks in voice-over whether more truth lies in history or prophecy. After Valya’s great-grandfather’s desertion from the Atreides-led war against thinking machines, the Harkonnens were exiled as cowards to a cold planet. War hero Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul starts the fabled Bene Gesserit sect, truthsayers useful to the powerful, and begins a genetics program to breed better leaders controllable by the Sisters. As Raquella dies, she envisions a sandworm threatening civilization, and a burning body, and urges Valya, who supports her genetics program, to lead. Valya urges the Sisters to put a Sister on the throne.

Raquella’s granddaughter Reverend Mother Dorotea tries to destroy the breeding program as something impure; Valya uses her new invention, the Voice, to order her to commit suicide, and feels damned for this in history’s eyes, but not prophecy’s. 30 years later, Valya is Mother Superior. Constantine Corrino watches Keiran Atreides train in swordsmanship his half-sister Princess Ynez, who is also to train with the Bene Gesserit. Duke Richese offers a fleet to Emperor Javicco to subdue Fremen on Arrakis, as his 9-year-old son Pruwet prepares to marry Ynez. Empress Natalya opposes the wedding. Reverend Mother Kasha discerns Desmond Hart tells the truth when reporting that the Fremen are blameless for a raid on Arrakis; later, she has a nightmare about Ynez’ future.

Valya and Tula plan a mentor for Ynez, as they put acolytes through their paces – combat training, truthsaying practice -, and seek to weaken the Emperor on Arrakis by putting a Sister on the throne. Ynez is engaged to Pruwet in a pomegranate ceremony. Harrow Harkonnen offers whale fur to Javicco. Pruwet brings out a forbidden toy, a scurrying robotic lizard, which Desmond stabs; Natalya is outraged, but Javicco overrules her. Ynez and Constantine go out clubbing for a last night of freedom, and snort a powder. Desmond tells Javicco of rebellious stirrings galaxywide; Javicco decries the wedding. Ynez takes Keiran to a private room at the club; they share drugs and have sex.

Javicco views a video of Arrakis and a sandworm attacking a spice-gathering machine. Desmond finds Pruwet playing in a corridor and complains of Bene Gesserit control; he then psychically burns Pruwet to death, which kills Kasha too, as in Raquella’s vision, as Valya remembers that vision, and others watch in horror.

The Orville – season 1

The Orville is an American science fiction comedy drama television series created by Seth MacFarlane, who also stars as the protagonist Ed Mercer, an officer in the Planetary Union’s line of exploratory space vessels in the 25th century. It was inspired primarily by the original Star Trek and Next Generation eras, both of which it heavily parodies and pays homage to. The series also uses inspiration from the Star Wars franchise. It follows the crew of the starship USS Orville on their episodic adventures, as well as a serialized story which develops over the length of the series.

Produced by Fuzzy Door Productions and 20th Television, The Orville premiered on September 10, 2017 and ran for two seasons on Fox and became available on streaming service Hulu the following day, followed by a third season exclusively on Hulu. Season one received generally negative reviews while seasons two and three received critical acclaim. The show had relatively successful ratings on Fox, becoming the broadcaster’s highest-rated Thursday show as well as Fox’s “most-viewed debut drama” since 2015.

Premise:
The Orville is set on the titular spacecraft: USS Orville (ECV-197), a mid-level exploratory vessel in the Planetary Union, a 25th-century interstellar alliance of Earth and many other planets. The series begins in the year 2417, and consists of adventures encountered by the ship’s crew, usually involving planet exploration and visits to various parts of the galaxy.

Everyone Else Burns – season 1

Everyone Else Burns is a British television sitcom made for Channel 4 by JAX Media and Universal International Studios, starring Simon Bird, Kate O’Flynn, Amy James-Kelly, Harry Connor and Morgana Robinson. The first series premiered in January 2023, with a second broadcast in October 2024; all episodes were made available at once on streaming.

Synopsis
A coming-of-age sitcom about a Manchester family who are part of a puritanical Christian sect.

Secret Level – season 1

Secret Level is an American adult animated anthology series created by Tim Miller for Amazon Prime Video. It is produced by his Blur Studio with Amazon MGM Studios. Dave Wilson executive produces and serves as supervising director. It consists of 15 stories set in the worlds of different video games. The voice cast includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Kevin Hart, Laura Bailey, Heaven Hart, Keanu Reeves, Gabriel Luna, Ariana Greenblatt, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Michael Beach, Emily Swallow, and Claudia Doumit.

The series was ordered by Amazon in August 2024 and was first revealed at Gamescom that month. It was released worldwide on December 10, 2024.

Premise
The series consists of fifteen animated, standalone short stories based on the following video games and franchises:

Star Wars Skeleton Crew – season 1

Four children end up on an adventure to make their way home after being lost in the galaxy following a discovery they make on their home planet.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is an American science fiction adventure television series created by Jon Watts and Christopher Ford for the streaming service Disney+. It is part of the Star Wars franchise, taking place in the same time frame as the The Mandalorian series and its interconnected spin-offs after the events of the film Return of the Jedi (1983). Skeleton Crew tells a coming-of-age story about four children who make a discovery on their home planet, get lost in the galaxy, and go on an adventure to get back home.

Jude Law stars in the series with Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Kyriana Kratter, Robert Timothy Smith, and Nick Frost. Watts approached Lucasfilm about telling an Amblin Entertainment-style coming-of-age story set in the Star Wars universe, and he was developing the series with Ford by early 2022. It was officially announced that May at Star Wars Celebration, with Law revealed to be starring. Filming began by September 2022 in Los Angeles, and wrapped by late January 2023. The child actors in the series were revealed in April 2023. Kathleen Kennedy, Jon Favreau, and Dave Filoni returned from The Mandalorian as additional executive producers.

Creature Commandos – season 1

Creature Commandos is set to kick off James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new DC Universe with an animated series that includes some of DC’s strangest characters. Gunn revealed in January 2023 that he had begun writing a new TV series for his revamped DCU, confirmed to be Creature Commandos on January 31, 2023, when Gunn revealed part of the slate for the DC Universe’s Chapter 1, titled “Gods and Monsters”. The seven-episode series will mark the first project in the new DCU, and is currently scheduled for release in 2024, with the DCU Superman movie releasing the year after.

Creature Commandos will adapt several characters from the comics that haven’t been seen or mentioned in previous live-action projects. Creature Commandos won’t be live-action either, but Gunn confirmed that the new DC Universe would share continuity between feature films, TV shows, and numerous animated series, so there’s an opportunity for these obscure characters to crossover into live-action in upcoming DC releases. The team shares similarities with DC’s Suicide Squad, as a group of monsters will be brought together to form a special black ops unit, also under the watchful eye of Amanda Waller herself.

The Franchise – season 1

The Franchise is a 2024 satirical comedy television series created by Jon Brown, and executive produced by Brown, Armando Iannucci and Sam Mendes. The series premiered on HBO on October 6, 2024.

Premise
Depicts a behind-the-scenes look at a film that’s part of a larger superhero film franchise. The series follows Daniel, the first assistant director (1st AD), as he deals with the day to day problems working on Tecto: Eye of the Storm, which is a minor film in the franchise compared to the higher priority “team-up” film, Centurios 2.

The Penguin – season 1

Following the events of The Batman (2022), the series explores the rise to power of Oz Cobb / The Penguin in Gotham City’s criminal underworld.

Arcane – season 2

Amidst the escalating unrest between the rich, utopian city of Piltover and the seedy, oppressed underbelly of Zaun, sisters Vi and Jinx find themselves embroiled in a developing conflict over clashing convictions and arcane technologies.

Arcane (titled onscreen as Arcane: League of Legends) is an adult animated steampunk action-adventure television series created by Christian Linke and Alex Yee. It was produced by the French animation studio Fortiche under the supervision of Riot Games, and distributed by Netflix. Set in Riot’s League of Legends universe, it primarily focuses on sisters Vi and Jinx. The series was announced at the League of Legends tenth anniversary celebration in 2019, and its first season was released between November 6 and 20, 2021. The second and final season premiered on November 9, 2024 and will continue to be released through to November 23.

Arcane was released to widespread acclaim, with praise directed at its animation, story, worldbuilding, action sequences, characters, emotional weight, sound, and voice acting. Some have noted the series’ appeal both to casual viewers who have never played League of Legends and to long-time fans of the game. It also set the record as Netflix’s highest-rated series at the time within a week of its premiere, ranked first on the Netflix Top 10 Chart in 52 countries, and ranked second on the chart in the United States. Several critics and publications considered it one of the best video game adaptations ever made. In 2022, the series became the first streaming series to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program and won an Annie Award for Best General Audience Animated Television Broadcast Production.

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace – season 1

The spoof comedy series, released in 2004, lampoons 1980s television drama, particularly horror, sci-fi, and “the rampant egotism of self-appointed ‘mastermind’ authors”. The show presents Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace as though it were a real, low-budget television series produced in the 1980s and now getting its first screening, framed as part of a director’s commentary series. Darkplace’s fictional show-within-a-show includes deliberately poor production and special effects, sub-par acting, choppy editing and storylines that are “severely flawed and open-ended”.

Inside Job – season 1 and 2

Inside Job is a workplace comedy set in a world where many conspiracy theories are real. It is centered on an American shadow government organization Cognito, Inc. at Washington, D.C., which is one of 6 organizations that control Earth (the others being the Illuminati, the Atlantians, the Reptoids, the Catholic Church and the Juggalos). The series follows a team led by a tech genius and her new partner as they work in the organization alongside reptilian shapeshifters, a human-dolphin hybrid, and a sapient mushroom from Hollow Earth.

Snowpiecer – season 1

Snowpiercer is set in 2026, seven years after the world becomes a frozen wasteland due to ecocide, and follows the remnants of humanity who have taken shelter on a perpetually moving luxury train. Designed and built by the eccentric billionaire Mr. Wilford, the train consists of 1,001 carriages and circles the globe 2.7 times per year. The constant motion of the train provides energy and prevents the passengers from freezing as well. Since the catastrophe, the train’s population has become rigidly separated by class, caught up in a revolutionary struggle against the strictly imposed social hierarchy and unbalanced allocation of limited resources. The show explores issues of class warfare, social injustice, and the politics of survival.

The Decameron – season 1

The Decameron is an American medieval black comedy television series created by Kathleen Jordan. It was inspired by the 14th century Italian short-story collection The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. The series was released on Netflix on July 25, 2024, to critical acclaim as well as mixed reviews.

Premise
In 1348, as the Black Death ravages Florence, a group of nobles and their servants retreat to the countryside Villa Santa. As they attempt to wait out the plague in the hills of Tuscany with wine and sex, the protagonists eventually must fight for their survival.

Cast
Amar Chadha-Patel as Dioneo, Tindaro’s doctor
Leila Farzad as Stratilia, one of the remaining servants at the villa
Lou Gala as Neifile, Panfilo’s religious wife
Karan Gill as Panfilo, Neifile’s husband
Tony Hale as Sirisco, one of the remaining servants at thee villa
Saoirse-Monica Jackson as Misia, Pampinea’s loyal servant
Zosia Mamet as Pampinea, a spoiled noble
Douggie McMeekin as Tindaro, a noble hypochondriac
Jessica Plummer as Filomena, a spoiled noble
Tanya Reynolds as Licisca, Filomena’s servant

Brassic – season 4

Brassic is a British comedy-drama television series created by Joe Gilgun and Danny Brocklehurst for Sky One and became Sky’s most successful comedy series in seven years. The series follows the lives of Vinnie O’Neill and his friends in the fictional town of Hawley. Other primary cast members include Michelle Keegan, Damien Molony, Tom Hanson, Aaron Heffernan, Ryan Sampson, Parth Thakerar and Steve Evets.

Inside No. 9 – season 2

Inside No. 9 is a British black comedy anthology television programme that first aired on 5 February 2014. It is written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith and produced by the BBC. Each 30-minute episode is a self-contained story with new characters and a new setting, almost all starring Pemberton or Shearsmith (usually both). Aside from the writers, each episode has a new cast, allowing Inside No. 9 to attract a number of well-known actors. The stories are linked only by the number 9 in some way, typically taking the form of a door marked with the number 9, and a brass hare statue that is in the background of all episodes.[1] Themes and tone vary from episode to episode, but all have elements of comedy and horror or perverse humour, in addition to a plot twist. Pemberton and Shearsmith took inspiration for Inside No. 9 from an episode of Psychoville, a previous project, which was filmed in a single room – this in turn was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope.

ILucifer – season 2

The series focuses on Lucifer Morningstar, a powerful angel who was cast out of Heaven for his rebellion and forced to spend millennia punishing people as the lord of Hell. Bored and unhappy with his life in Hell, he abdicates his throne in defiance of his father (God) and moves to Los Angeles, where he runs his own nightclub. When he finds himself involved in a murder investigation, he meets Chloe Decker, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department who intrigues him as she is the first human to be immune to his charms. After helping the police solve the case with his most commonly used power – manipulating humans into revealing their deepest desires to him – Lucifer accepts a subsequent invitation to work continuously with Chloe as a police consultant. Throughout the series, they encounter countless supernatural beings while solving crimes together and developing their relationship.

Mortimer and Whitehouse gone fishing – season 2

The show’s origins lie in Mortimer’s triple heart bypass surgery and Whitehouse, like Mortimer, having had heart problems that were only detected at the last minute. Whitehouse was talking to Mortimer’s wife, Lisa about Bob’s recovery from the operation; he discovered that Mortimer wasn’t going out anymore and so Whitehouse invited him to go fishing with him. Mortimer enjoyed it; describing it later, he said “I’ve never felt anything like it.” “There comes a moment when you realise that you’ve said nothing for an hour and a half. I haven’t thought about anything else. I haven’t worried about the past, or future.” It wasn’t until a later date that Mortimer discovered it had all been a “ruse to get me back into life” that Whitehouse had been conspiring with Lisa. The fishing trips worked and brought Mortimer out of his trough, and then Whitehouse had the idea for the show. They thought there might be the chance to make a humorous and informative programme that was beyond “two old blokes going fishing”. Whitehouse described the pitch for the show as combining the real-life jeopardy of their medical conditions, two old friends who had had a reprieve, and the timeless wonder of the English countryside.

Schitt’s Creek – season 2

The wealthy Rose family — video store magnate Johnny (Eugene Levy), his wife and former soap opera actress Moira (Catherine O’Hara), and their pampered adult children David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy) — lose their fortune after being defrauded by their business manager. They move towards rebuilding their lives with their sole remaining asset: a remote town named Schitt’s Creek somewhere in Canada, which Johnny bought for David’s birthday in 1991 as a joke.

The Roses are forced to relocate to Schitt’s Creek, moving into two adjacent rooms in a run-down motel. While the family adjusts to their new lives, their well-to-do attitudes conflict with the town’s more provincial residents, including mayor Roland Schitt (Chris Elliott), his wife Jocelyn (Jenn Robertson), and their son Mutt (Tim Rozon), the motel’s clerk Stevie Budd (Emily Hampshire), town council members Ronnie Lee (Karen Robinson) and Bob Currie (John Hemphill), veterinarian Ted Mullens (Dustin Milligan), and Jazzagal member and Café Tropical waitress Twyla Sands (Sarah Levy).