Russell Baillie & Russel Brown’s picks for the best new television shows of 2024 and where to catch up on the ones you might have missed.
THE DAY OF THE JACKAL
It retained only a few aspects of the Frederick Forsyth 1971 assassin novel, which became the classic Edward Fox movie, but this was a slick contemporary redo. It made for a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase between Eddie Redmayne as the chameleonic hitman and Lashana Lynch’s M16 agent.
See it: TVNZ+
FAKE
This Australian series joins a growing list of romantic fraud dramas but it’s a cut above, both psychologically nuanced and terrifically acted. Asher Keddie plays journalist Birdie, finding herself wooed via dating app and text by David Wenham’s seemingly charming Joe in a fascinating story of deceit and self-delusion.
See it: ThreeNow
FALLOUT
The history of screen adaptations of video game franchises is a grisly one, but like last year’s The Last of Us, Fallout managed to buck the form book. It intelligently expanded on the original game’s post-apocalyptic themes without getting bogged down in its source material.
See it: Prime Video
NOBODY WANTS THIS
Any sitcom in which the female leads are oversharing Los Angeles sisters doing a sex-and-relationship podcast might seem fairly generationally specific. But as one of them, gentile Joanne (Kristen Bell), fell for hot hipster rabbi Noah (Adam Brody), the old-fashioned romantic chemistry and the comedic spark between the pair made this a delight.
See it: Netflix
KAOS
A riotous fantasy black comedy, which dragged Greek mythology into the modern world. Jeff Goldblum played an anxious Zeus clinging on to power while lesser deities – including Cliff Curtis as Poseidon and David Thewlis as Hades – pondered their fates. Swish, witty and surreal, with enough for those with a grasp of the Classics and the rest of us. But canned after one season. Pity.
See it: Netflix
MASTERS OF THE AIR
The high-altitude third in the Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks-produced WWII trilogy after 2001′s Band of Brothers and 2010′s The Pacific. The series embedded us among the Flying Fortress crews of the United States Army Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group on its perilous missions over Nazi Germany. Like those previous shows, it waved the stars and stripes pretty hard, but it also made WWII hellishly entertaining and exciting once more.
See it: Apple TV+
MR. & MRS. SMITH
It may have lifted the contract killer couple idea from the 2005 Brangelina movie of the same name but the series was smarter, funnier and sexier. Pairing Donald Glover and Maya Erskine as married-at-first-sight strangers becoming an assassin team, the show delivered as much kick from their romantic chemistry as it did from its frequent and furious trigger-happy action.
See it: Prime Video
MR BATES VS THE POST OFFICE
The real-life David and Goliath story about the British Post Office scandal which, helped by the performances of Toby Jones, Monica Dolan and others, turned a story about glitches in accounting software and multiple court trials into four hours of riveting television drama.
See it: TVNZ+
ONE DAY
Even if you knew how the story ends, this second – and far better – screen adaptation of David Nicholls’ 2009 bestseller in 14 fly-by half-hour episodes was a sweet, funny, 1990s-nostalgic romantic comedy. Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall were both teriffic and perfectly cast as lead characters Emma and Dexter .
See it: Netflix
THE PENGUIN
This year’s second Joker movie wasn’t much good, but Bat-fans at least had this surprisingly imaginative origin story for Gotham City gangster Oswald Cobblepot. It played more like an old-school mafia drama than a superhero spin-off. An unrecognisable Colin Farrell was terrific as the titular villain, as was Cristin Milioti as his nemesis Sofia Falcone.
See it: Neon
RENEGADE NELL
A rollicking action-fantasy starring Louisa Harland as the 18th-century highwaywoman of the title, which deployed its magical interventions with a sense of wit and measure. Another one-season wonder, sadly.
See it: Disney+
RIPLEY
With its languid pace and black and white cinematography suggesting both film noir and – given its Italian setting – Fellini, this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s first Ripley novel felt like nothing else on television It was also, care of Andrew Scott’s unnerving portrayal of one very bad house guest, chilling, tense and gripping throughout.
See it: Netflix
3 BODY PROBLEM
Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss turned their minds from fantasy to classical physics and pretty much aced it in their series about a group of young scientists charged with a response to a looming alien invasion. And there are two more seasons coming.
See it: Netflix
SAY NOTHING
This series was based on the 2018 non-fiction bestseller of the same name by Patrick Radden Keefe about The Troubles in Northern Ireland. It managed to offer a ripping-yarn version of what real-life Belfast IRA operatives did in the 1970s, while also delivering a sometimes harrowing reminder of the toll of the political violence.
See it: Disney+
SHŌGUN
The second television adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 bestseller harnessed a record 18 Emmys, helped by its, performances, spectacular sets and costumes giving it an authenticity that made it a hit in Japan. Offering a primer in the country’s 16th century feudal history, it was a (gulp) quarter of a billion dollars well spent.
See it: Disney+
Local contenders
ESCAPING UTOPIA
The series on Gloriavale offered the definitive documentary of the past and present of the West Coast fundamentalist Christian community and its survivors. Tellingly, it used much footage from current affairs shows that no longer exist.
See it: TVNZ+
LIVE AND LET DAI
Dai Henwood’s three-part account of living – while facing the prospect of dying – with bowel cancer was frank, funny and, above all, mindful. His best work.
See it: Three Now
MADAM
Playing a character based on American Antonia Murphy, who ran an “ethical” brothel in Whangārei, Australian star Rachel Griffiths led a great local cast in this provocative but entertaining sex-biz dramedy.
See it: ThreeNow
MILES FROM NOWHERE
Poet and journalist Mohamed Hassan’s move into TV comedy was strikingly assured, in a way only someone with talent and a real story to tell could be. The series about a Kiwi-Muslim songwriter who makes friends with an SIS agent was funny, provocative and never merely worthy.
See it: TVNZ+
MOTHERHOOD ANTHOLOGY
TVNZ set out to give emerging talent a budget and a chance to step up with these short screen stories, and largely succeeded, especially in Ankita Singh and Calvin Sang’s riotous Give Me Babies.
See it: TVNZ+
Still going strong
COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS
The second season of the delightful Aussie romcom created by and starring partners Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall went deeper into its lead characters’ personality flaws and their difficult families but still offered much to chuckle about.
See it: TVNZ+
THE DIPLOMAT
The show that’s centred on Keri Russell as US ambassador to the UK continued in its second season to being a merry mix of a foreign outpost of The West Wing and a political thriller.
See it: Netflix
HACKS
Season three of the generation-gap odd couple comedy about Jean Smart’s Vegas veteran stand-up and Hannah Einbinder’s 20-something writer might well have been the best yet.
See it: TVNZ+
ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING
The fourth outing of the crime podcast comedy caper teaming Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez – with Meryl Streep in support – risked inside joke-ishness with a plot involving a movie being made about their earlier exploits. It still worked a treat.
See it: Disney+
SHERWOOD
The second series set among Nottinghamshire’s former mining towns returned there 10 years after the first series with a gripping story of warring crime families and local politics.
See it: TVNZ+ (Season one on Neon)
SLOW HORSES
A shorter, six-episode fourth season of the sardonic spy black comedy led by Gary Oldman was over far too soon, but it still hit the spot the previous instalments did so well.
See it: Apple TV+
SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE
This story of odd-shaped, small-town lives has been aptly described as “a love letter to America”. Moving, funny and authentically human from the beginning to the end of its three seasons.
See it: Neon
WE ARE LADY PARTS
The second season of the bratty comedy about a London punk band made up of Muslim women returned as on-song and offbeat as the first.
See it: Neon
