With the Hollywood strikes resolved, 2024 promises a return to normal, or whatever “normal” looks like in an increasingly unstable TV landscape.
New and returning shows are back on the broadcast networks, with truncated seasons in the 10-13 episode range. NBC’s “Chicago Med,” “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago P.D.” are back Wednesday. The “Law & Order” franchise returns the following night, with Kelli Giddish returning for the Season 25 premiere of “Law & Order: SVU.” The freshman NBC drama “The Irrational,” starring Jesse L. Martin, returns for Season 2 on Jan. 29.
The CBS lineup kicks off a month later with familiar shows such as “The Neighborhood,” “NCIS,” “So Help Me Todd,” and “Ghosts,” among others. This will also be the final season for “Young Sheldon.” For those curious about the Kathy Bates-led reboot of “Matlock,” the series has been pushed to next season.
If you don’t subscribe to Hulu and haven’t seen “Only Murders in the Building,” ABC is broadcasting the first season of the comedic murder mystery starring Martin Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez.
Some last bits of housekeeping: Showtime is getting a name change and will now be called Paramount+ with Showtime and starting this year Amazon is adding ads to its default Prime Video subscription.
Here’s a look at what else is on tap in the coming weeks:
- “Finding Your Roots” (began earlier this month on PBS): The long running series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. delves into the family histories of a new batch of celebrities including Valerie Bertinelli, Brendan Fraser, LeVar Burton, Michael Douglas, Lena Dunham, Tracy Morgan, Ed O’Neill, Bob Odenkirk, Sammy Hagar and Dionne Warwick. There’s also a new twist this season: Three non-famous guests will be featured as well, who were selected from a nationwide casting call.
- “Criminal Record” (Apple TV+): This eight-episode crime thriller stars Peter Capaldi (“Doctor Who” and “The Thick of It”) as a seasoned detective and Cush Jumbo (“The Good Fight”) as his less experienced colleague who are in a tug of war over a high-profile murder case.
- “True Detective: Night Country” (Monday on HBO): The anthology series returns for Season 4. When a team at an Alaska research station vanish, two detectives (Jodie Foster and Kali Reis) are on the case. Issa López is the showrunner, writer and director of all the episodes.
- “Monsieur Spade” (Monday on AMC): Monsieur Spade is Sam Spade, the private eye of Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” played by Clive Owen (stepping into Humphrey Bogart’s shoes). The year is 1963 and he’s retired in the south of France, but those relaxing days come to an end when nuns at a local convent are murdered.
- “Death and Other Details” (Tuesday on Hulu): Mandy Patinkin stars as a world-renowned private detective in a series that feels like Hulu’s answer to “Knives Out.” Patinkin’s sleuth is on a swanky Mediterranean cruise when there’s a murder. The suspects are an array of entitled passengers and exhausted, possibly compromised crew members. The game is afoot.
- “The Woman in the Wall” (Jan. 21 on Paramount+ with Showtime): A mystery that originally aired on the BBC, Ruth Wilson (“Luther” and “The Affair”) stars a woman in small-town Ireland who wakes up one morning to find a dead body in her house. Because she experiences bouts of sleepwalking, she worries she might be responsible. The sleepwalking started when she was sent to one of Ireland’s infamous Magdalene Laundries as a teenager, where she gave birth to a child, whose fate remains unknown. A police detective searches for the murderer while Wilson’s character searches for her daughter.
- “Griselda” (Jan. 25 on Netflix): The six-episode series starring (and executive produced by) Sofia Vergara is based on the life of the ’80s-era drug queenpin Griselda Blanco, aka the Cocaine Godmother. Why isn’t her catchy nickname the title? Because Lifetime beat Netflix to the punch with its 2017 movie starring Catherine Zeta-Jones.
- “Expats” (Jan. 26 on Amazon): An adaptation of the 2016 novel “The Expatriates” by Janice Y. K. Lee and starring Nicole Kidman, the story centers on three American women living in Hong Kong.
- “Masters of the Air” (Jan. 26 on Apple TV+): Another World War II series from Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks starring Austin Butler (“Elvis”) among others and based on the book “Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany” by Donald L. Miller.
- “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” (Feb. 2 on Amazon): Donald Glover and Maya Erskine star in this eight-episode remake of the 2005 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie movie. Spies in an arranged marriage, their cover story is threatened when they develop real feelings for each other.
- “Abbott Elementary” (Feb. 7 on ABC): The return of Quinta Brunson’s sitcom for a belated Season 3 — huzzah! The TV landscape has been noticeably barren without the talents of the show’s writers and cast members. The first episode back will be one hour long. (“Abbott” will also have a special Sunday broadcast this season, airing after the Oscars on March 10.)
- “Tracker” (Feb. 11 on CBS): This case-of-the-week drama starring “This Is Us” alum Justin Hartley is based on “The Never Game” books about a survivalist who travels around the country using his tracking skills to help people — and the cops — solve mysteries. He doesn’t do it for free, folks! This is how he earns a living.
- “The New Look” (Feb. 14 on Apple TV+): Per Apple’s press materials, the series centers on fashion designers Christian Dior and Coco Chanel “as they navigated the horrors of World War II and launched modern fashion” — a description that is disconcertingly coy about the activities of both during this time frame, considering that Dior designed dresses for the wives of Nazi officials (by contrast, his sister, for whom he named the fragrance Miss Dior, was part of the French resistance and was later a prisoner of a concentration camp) and Chanel worked as a secret agent for the Nazis. Here’s hoping that’s actually what this series is about and not a whitewashed version of their stories! Ben Mendelsohn stars as Dior and Juliette Binoche as Chanel.
- “Shogun” (Feb. 27 on Hulu): NBC first adapted James Clavell’s novel into a miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain in 1980. Nearly a quarter-century later, we’re getting a new version from FX (on Hulu) in the form of a 10-episode limited series. The story takes us inside Japanese power circles (circa the 1600s) from the point of view of a Westerner named John Blackthorne. That’s the Chamberlain role, which is being played by British actor Cosmo Jarvis (“Persuasion”) this time out.
- “Elsbeth” (Feb. 29 on CBS): The CBS legal drama “The Good Wife” has spawned not one but two spinoffs, first “The Good Fight” and now “Elsbeth,” which is built around Carrie Preston’s recurring character, Elsbeth Tascioni, a very smart, very canny lawyer with personality quirks to spare. Now she utilizes her oddball outlook on the world to “make unique observations and corner brilliant criminals alongside the NYPD.” I have no idea why creators Michelle and Robert King are making what is more or less a cop show. Really? A cop show? Elsbeth was so much fun as a lawyer outmaneuvering her opposing counsel. But I’m a fan enough of the Kings’ previous work (and Preston as Elsbeth) to be cautiously optimistic.
