Your ultimate guide to Spring TV: 30 treats you won't want to miss - from the return of a dystopian smash hit to a fiendish new game show Traitors fans will love
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BLOOMING BRILLIANT! 30 TV TREATS YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS...
Deliciously suspenseful dramas, tantalising true-crime documentaries, shiny new game shows... we’ve picked a fresh bunch of beauties for you.
DRAMA
CATCH YOU LATER
Channel 5 coming soon
Retired police officer Huw Miller (Jason Watkins) is stunned when his new neighbour (Robson Green) grins and says to him, ‘Catch you later,’ in this four-part thriller.
‘It was the sign-off used by stalker-killer Patrick Harbottle,’ explains Robson.
‘When he says it, Miller realises he may have finally found his man after years of searching.’
THE LAST OF US
Sky Atlantic 13 April
The much-anticipated return of one of the biggest TV hits of 2023 starring Pedro Pascal and Brit Bella Ramsey as Joel and Elle (left and below), survivors of a deadly pandemic that turns victims into zombies.
The hunt for a cure for the fungal infection that caused the pandemic continues in series two, while viewers are also introduced to Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), a soldier bent on revenge. The first series won eight Emmys and a BAFTA.
THE STOLEN GIRL
Disney+ 16 April
It’s the ultimate nightmare for a parent: the disappearance of a child while she’s on a playdate.
Elisa (Denise Gough) is thrown into turmoil when her nine-year-old daughter Lucia disappears on a visit to her new best friend’s house and the finger of suspicion points at Rebecca (below, played by Strike star Holliday Grainger), the mother of the child Lucia was supposed to be playing with.
A Europe-wide search then gets underway in this five-part psychological thriller based on a novel by Alex Dahl.
Chillingly, the author’s own daughter briefly went missing while her mother was writing the book, thankfully turning up after a mix-up over a playdate.
THE FEUD
Channel 5 14 April
A dispute over a planning application for a new kitchen may sound a little humdrum, but that quarrel escalates in this six-part drama, dragging more and more people into the row until it runs tragically out of control.
Jill Halfpenny and Rupert Penry-Jones (above) play the couple increasingly at loggerheads with their neighbours.
‘It’s all the planning disputes you’ve ever heard of wrapped up together and taken to extremes,’ says former Spooks star Rupert.
The series was filmed on a road of fully occupied houses in Benton near Newcastle upon Tyne.
GOOD AMERICAN FAMILY
Disney+ 7 May
The incredible true story of Natalia Grace, the girl from Ukraine with a rare form of dwarfism who was adopted by American parents – played by Grey’s Anatomy’s Ellen Pompeo (right, with Imogen Faith Reid as Natalia) and The Morning Show’s Mark Duplass – at the age of seven, and then accused of in fact being an adult.
ETOILE
Prime Video 24 April
Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of showbiz couple Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, plays dance company executive Genevieve (left), who is tasked with putting the buzz back into ballet in this eight-part series which follows the members of two world-famous ballet companies, one in Paris and one in New York.
Etoile (French for star) was created by Daniel Palladino and Amy Sherman-Palladino, the husband-and-wife team behind The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.
I, JACK WRIGHT
Alibi late April
Where there’s a will, there’s trouble. In this six-part thriller, tycoon Jack Wright (Trevor Eve) not only leaves most of his estate to just one person, cutting out his third wife and two sons, it seems he may also have been murdered.
Trevor spent just one day filming his scenes under tight security so details of Jack Wright’s death didn’t leak out.
RANSOM CANYON
Netflix 17 Aprill
A modern-day western with lots of simmering sexual tension as three families in Texas battle to save their long-established ways of life.
At the heart of the ten-part series is the love triangle involving ranch owners Staten Kirkland (Josh Duhamel) and Davis Collins (Eoin Macken), and ex-concert pianist Quinn O’Grady (Minka Kelly, right).
FAKE
ITVX 20 April ITV1 26 April
Magazine writer Birdie Bell can’t help falling for charming, seductive and supposedly successful rancher Joe Burt when she meets him on a dating app, but secrets about him are slowly revealed in this Australian romance-scam thriller.
Nine Perfect Strangers star Asher Keddie plays lovestruck Birdie in the eight-part series based on the novel by Stephanie Wood, who drew on her own experiences at the hands of a romantic fraudster.
FAMILIES LIKE OURS
BBC4 May
Rising sea levels force a nationwide evacuation of Denmark in this epic seven-part apocalyptic series, which centres on the struggles of 19-year-old Laura and her family.
‘I wasn’t interested in making a “climate-warning” series, this is about human resilience and how we create coping strategies when there’s a crisis,’ says Danish creator Thomas Vinterberg.
Filmed across Europe and involving more than 40 main actors and 2,500 extras, it was originally set in Kyiv before the Russian invasion of Ukraine scotched those plans.
MURDERBOT
Apple TV+ 16 May
Swede Alexander Skarsgard, who played tech guru Lukas Matsson in Succession, has been voted Sweden’s sexiest man five times.
In this ten-part sci-fi thriller he plays an android (below) who is tasked with protecting scientists on a dangerous planet – but prefers watching soap operas to better understand human emotions.
THE PUZZLE LADY
Channel 5 coming soon
A crossword puzzle is left on the body of a murder victim in the sleepy English market town of Bakerbury – and a recent arrival may be the perfect person to help link it to the crime.
Cora Felton is asked by the police to try to shed light on the murder, but she harbours secretsof her own.
The six-part series stars Phyllis Logan – Mrs Hughes in Downton Abbey – as Cora.
CODE OF SILENCE
ITV1 and ITVX 18 May
Rose Ayling-Ellis hoped her victory on Strictly Come Dancing would provide a gateway into television for deaf people – and this six-part thriller (as well as Reunion, see page 10) suggests it has.
Many of the cast and crew are deaf, and writer Catherine Moulton drew on her own experiences to create the story.
Rose plays Alison (right), a police canteen worker who is called upon to lip-read the covert conversations of a dangerous group of criminals but then falls for one of the gang.
THE EX-WIFE
Paramount+ 10 April
Tasha (Celine Buckens) faked her child’s death to escape her obsessive husband Jack (Tom Mison) and started a new life in Cyprus in series one of this disturbing thriller.
Three years on, Jack is trying to track her down.
His first wife Jen is still on the scene – but played by a new actress.
Katie McGrath (above right, with Mison and Buckens) replaces Janet Montgomery, who’s starring in Yellowstone spin-off 1923.
SAFE HARBOR
ITVX 27 April
Tech experts meet Irish mobsters in a thriller from Mark Williams, co-creator of hit money-laundering drama Ozark. Tobias (Alfie Allen) and Marco (Martijn Lakemeier) are hired by Sloane (Happy Valley star Charlie Murphy) and her brother Farrell (Jack Gleeson, below right, with Allen, Lakemeier and Murphy) to hack into computers at the Dutch port of Rotterdam to ease illegal drug shipments to Ireland.
The eight-part series was inspired by a major real-life hacking case.
GOVERNMENT CHEESE
Apple TV+ 16 April
Hampton Chambers would be a hit on Dragons’ Den with his invention, a self-sharpening power drill.
But in this US series set in 1969, Hampton (David Oyelowo, left) has to use word of mouth to sell his gizmo after a spell in prison.
The show’s title is a reference to the processed cheese supplied to those on welfare in the US at that time.
‘It required innovation to make a tasty meal from it, the kind of ingenuity Hampton needs to turn his life around,’ explains co-creator Paul Hunter.
DEATH VALLEY
BBC1 and iPlayer May
Timothy Spall plays John Chapel, a retired actor who uses his experience of playing a TV detective to investigate real crimes.
He forms an unlikely partnership with local detective Janie Mallowan (Gwyneth Keyworth, above with Spall) in this six-parter set in Wales.
Spall was inspired by a larger-than-life actor he’s worked with when it came to playing John Chapel, but has so far declined to name him...
THE LAST ANNIVERSARY
BBC1 May
A Discovery Of Witches’ Teresa Palmer plays Sophie Honeywell, who inherits a house – and an unsolved mystery – on the wonderfully named Australian island of Scribbly Gum in this six-part comedy thriller.
Brit Miranda Richardson had to perfect an Australian accent for her role as one of the island’s matriarchs.
WALKING WITH DINOSAURS
BBC1 coming soon
The Albertosaurus, a smaller but equally deadly relative of the T Rex, is just one of the creatures featured in this updated version of the BBC series that aired to such acclaim a quarter of a century ago.
Each of the six episodes follows a particular dinosaur using analysis of bones dug up over the last 25 years, and advances in technology mean even more of their stories can be told.
Beasts re-created by CGI include the Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai, an animal with a unique ‘unicorn’ horn in the centre of its head.
FACTUAL
GARETH MALONE’S MESSIAH
BBC2 Easter weekend
Gareth Malone has taken on some significant musical challenges during his career but this, he reckons, is his biggest.
He aims to teach eight singers who have never appeared in a classical choir to perform Handel’s Messiah in Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff.
‘They will need enthusiasm and a lot of hard work to succeed,’ says Gareth.
THE DIAMOND HEIST
Netflix 16 April
After stealing a diamond worth £350m, thieves hoped to whizz off down the Thames in a boat.
Instead they ended up with jail sentences totalling 75 years.
Guy Ritchie’s three-part documentary has interviews with those who tried to pilfer the Millennium Star Diamond from the Millennium Dome in 2000, and the officers who caught them.
SECRETS OF THE PENGUINS
Disney+ 21 April National Geographic Wild 22 April
A three-person film crew spent 274 days on the Ekstrom Ice Shelf in Antarctica, capturing the behaviour of the 20,000-strong colony of emperor penguins that lives there (left).
Narrated by American actress Blake Lively, it claims to provide examples of penguin behaviour not captured on camera before, including footage of emperors practising egg transfers with a snowball to hone their skills for the moment they need to pass a real egg between them, and young penguins using their beaks to hoist themselves out of a crevasse.
INSIDE THERAPY WITH MATT and EMMA WILLIS
BBC1 coming soon
This four-part series, in which people will receive therapy to help improve their mental health in front of the cameras at a specially created clinic, is a TV first.
It’s fronted by married couple Matt and Emma Willis (above), who have spoken about the way therapy has improved their own wellbeing, and who will be teaming up with some of Britain’s leading therapists to explore how we can all navigate the challenges life throws at us.
ESSEX MILLIONAIRE MURDERS
ITV1 coming soon
A chilling two-part documentary about the deaths of Stephen and Carol Baxter on Mersea Island in Essex in 2023.
It reveals how what was first seen as an accident turned into a murder hunt after fentanyl was found in their blood.
IT worker Luke D’Wit had befriended them before lacing their medicationsand rewriting their wills.
NOEL EDMONDS’ KIWI ADVENTURE
ITV1 coming soon
Jeremy Clarkson scored a huge hit with a fly-on-the-wall show about his Cotswolds farm, so can former TV titan Noel Edmonds (above) do the same with this three-part series about his business venture in New Zealand?
Noel quit the UK in 2018 after decades of success with shows such as Deal Or No Deal and Noel’s House Party, setting up a vineyard, restaurant, coffee shop, pub and store.
But will bad weather, bad press and hostility from locals scupper his and his wife Liz’s plans?
THE BRITISH BLOOD SCANDAL: POISONED AT SCHOOL
ITV1 coming soon
ITV has a drama in the works about the scandal in which more than 30,000 people were given contaminated blood products between 1970 and the early 90s, but first comes this documentary that deals with a small but tragic group of victims.
It centres on children with haemophilia who were sent to a specialist boarding school with the promise of a normal childhood, but became victims of secret medical research that left many with hepatitis and HIV.
TRAVELS WITH AGATHA CHRISTIE & DAVID SUCHET
Channel 4 coming soon
Sir David Suchet was famous for playing Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot – now he’s following in her globetrotting footsteps.
In this five-part series he replicates the trip Agatha took in 1922 with husband Archie to raise support for the British Empire Exhibition, going as far as Hawaii, where she learned to surf.
‘I feel Agatha was sitting on my shoulders, urging me to share her passion for knowledge, travel... and, of course, mystery,’ says David.
JANE AUSTEN: RISE OF A GENIUS
BBC2 coming soon
Those who watched Keeley Hawes in the BBC drama Miss Austen will know that the novelist’s sister Cassandra burnt most of the letters she received from her. This three-part series, featuring Austen experts, contemporary novelists and actors, uses the surviving letters to paint a detailed picture of the woman behind the great works (above).
ENTERTAINMENT
GENIUS GAME
ITV1 coming soon
There’s a touch of The Traitors about this reality game show hosted by David Tennant (below), with those taking part invited to use stealth and guile to outfox their opponents in tasks testing reasoning, memory and attention to detail.
Task winners accumulate ‘garnets’, which are cashed in at the end.
The show is based on a South Korean hit, The Genius.
SILENCE IS GOLDEN
U&Dave coming soon
Some of Britain’s top comedians are cracking their best gags – but you’re absolutely not allowed to laugh.
Dermot O’Leary hosts a show created by former Blue Peter presenter Richard Bacon in which the studio audience starts with a prize pot of £250,000,but each time one of them chuckles at the performers, including Katherine Ryan and Seann Walsh, the pot is reduced.
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