With the arrival of February, we’re now solidly into a new year.
Though the prestige TV season is due to ramp up in a few weeks, this month’s new premieres still have a couple selections that could very well prove to be part of the conversation when the fall awards season crests. Regardless of how they’ll play with eventual voters, these 18 shows cut a nice cross-section across where TV stands right now. This month showcases animation both aimed and very much not aimed at kids, biodramas of the recent and not-so-recent past, and overseas imports, all with the requisite side dish of reboots, continuations, and spinoffs.
And, as usual, these new shows are spread out across broadcast networks, streaming services, as well as cable channels that may or may not cost extra with your standard package. This is a collection we put together every month, so if you’re curious how the year started, here is our roundup from the beginning of January. For now, here is a smattering of what could be vying for your attention between now and the start of spring.
-
“Pam & Tommy” (February 2, Hulu)
Image Credit: Erin Simkin/Hulu Lily James and Sebastian Stan hop into the lives of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, the ’90s celebrity couple who burned in the tabloid spotlight. Seth Rogen co-stars as Rand Gauthier, who used a dispute over payment to release a secret tape that transformed Anderson and Lee’s public image and reshaped a giant swath of pop culture in the process. Craig Gillespie, Lake Bell, Hannah Fidell, and Gwyneth Horder-Payton all direct episodes of this eight-part series, written by “The Wrestler” scribe Robert Siegel and developed by Rogen and Evan Goldberg.
-
“Phat Tuesdays” (February 4, Prime Video)
Image Credit: Prime Video This three-episode doc series chronicles a decade-long LA comedy institution: a weekly lineup of black comedians at the Sunset Strip’s Comedy Store. Featuring interviews with a bevy of performers who benefited from or were witness to the attention it got within industry ranks — Cedric the Entertainer, Tiffany Haddish, Regina King, JB Smoove, Craig Robinson, and Snoop Dogg among many others — the series also features performance footage from the late 90s and early 2000s. Reginald Hudlin, no stranger to TV, film, or comedy, directs all three episodes.
-
“Reacher” (February 4, Prime Video)
Image Credit: Keri Anderson/Amazon Prime Video Lee Child’s Jack Reacher book series has already enjoyed the movie treatment twice, with Tom Cruise taking the reins of the title character. Now, Alan Ritchson takes his turn wearing the two-sizes-two-small black polo shirt as a man trying to clear his name after being falsely accused of murder. The season, which draws on Child’s first book, 1997’s “Killing Floor,” co-stars Malcolm Goodwin, Bruce McGill, Willa Fitzgerald, Maria Sten, and Kristin Kreuk.
-
“Suspicion” (February 4, Apple TV+)
Image Credit: Apple TV+ Uma Thurman stars as an American business mogul whose son disappears from a New York-area hotel. In the process of tracking down his whereabouts, the resulting investigation identifies a group of British visitors to the same hotel. The eight-episode season, in a global hunt for the truth, features one woman’s quest to figure out who’s really responsible for the kidnapping. Kunal Nayyar, Noah Emmerich, Georgina Campbell, and Elizabeth Henstridge also make up the ensemble in this remake of the award-winning Israeli series “False Flag.”
-
“Power Book IV: Force” (February 6, Starz)
Image Credit: Sandy Morris The ever-expanding “Power” universe adds another spinoff to its collection, this time focusing on Joseph Sikora’s Tommy Egan. As Tommy tries to say goodbye to New York, his past and the necessity to fill out an entire season of television keep him on the search for both answers and closure. “Force” eventually finds him caught up in the Chicago drug market, in a new set of circumstances that feature fellow cast members Isaac Keys, Lili Simmons, Gabrielle Ryan, Shane Harper, Kris D. Lofton, Anthony Fleming III, Lucien Cambric, and Tommy Flanagan.
-
“Fairview” (February 9, Comedy Central)
Image Credit: Comedy Central The producing team led by RJ Fried, Stephen Colbert, and Chris Licht has birthed a few different series across the Viacom family of networks, including Showtime’s “Our Cartoon President” and Paramount+’s “Tooning Out the News.” This latest addition, spanning eight weeks, will keep that topical animation train running with a series of check-ins on a small town and its occasionally-overmatched mayor. The voice cast for the series includes Marina Cockenberg, James Austin Johnson, Aparna Nancherla, Blair Socci, and Atsuko Okatsuka.
-
“The Girl Before” (February 10, HBO Max)
Image Credit: Amanda Searle Originally released in the UK last December, this four-part drama finds author JP Delaney adapting his 2016 novel about a woman (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who moves into a house designed by a kindly-seeming architect (David Oyelowo). But when her new place starts to come with a list of increasingly restrictive rules, she realizes that there might have been a reason the house was on the market to begin with. Lisa Brühlmann, a vet of “Killing Eve” and “Servant,” directs the series, also co-starring Jessica Plummer and Ben Hardy.
-
“Everything’s Gonna Be All White” (February 11, Showtime)
Image Credit: Showtime Sacha Jenkins’ latest Showtime documentary project (following in the footsteps of past docs “Burn Motherfucker, Burn!,” “Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James,” and “Wu-Tang Can: Of Mics and Men”) looks at America’s racial history, as experienced by people of color. Unpacking the inequities in areas of life ranging from healthcare to housing to property rights, Jenkins calls on an expansive roster of artists, entertainers, scholars, writers, and beyond to help illustrate a long-standing American divide.
-
“Pretzel and the Puppies” (February 11, Apple TV+)
Image Credit: Apple TV+ Based on a character from Margret and H.A. Rey outside the “Curious George” family, this kids’ series follows an animated dachshund family of seven, all living in the town of (you guessed it) Muttgomery. Mark Duplass and Nasim Pedrad voice the parents of this cute little dog collective. The five kids are all puppies. Just look at them. They’re adorable.
-
“Bel-Air” (February 13, Peacock)
Image Credit: Evans Vestal Ward/Peacock As NBC hosts this month’s Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, the big programming push on Peacock is for this dramatic origin story set before the events of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” Jabari Banks plays young Will, as he makes he way from his hometown of West Philadelphia to the unfamiliar world of greater Los Angeles. The series is based on a 2019 viral video by Morgan Cooper, who also serves as a director here as well. T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson, who previously worked together on “The Chi” and “The 100,” are co-showrunners on the series.
-
“Lov3” (February 18, Prime Video)
Image Credit: Prime Video When their parents spilt up after three decades of marriage, a trio of siblings take a fresh look at love, sex, and relationships in this Brazilian comedy. Between open relationships with ex-husbands, frustrated polyamory, and short-lived flings with unavailable men, the three of them use this new chapter of their family’s life as a way to reexamine their own choices. Elen Clarice, Bella Camero, and João Oliveira star in this series from co-creators Felipe Braga and Rita Moraes.
-
“Severance” (February 18, Apple TV+)
Image Credit: Apple TV+ This nine-episode season centers on Mark (Adam Scott), a middle-management worker at mysterious company Lumon Industries. Like his co-workers, Mark has undergone a procedure to ensure that his home and work lives never get the chance to mix. That reality gets distorted, though, the higher up the corporate ladder he goes. Ben Stiller directs multiple episodes of the series, which co-stars Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, Michael Chernus, Tramell Tilman, Yul Vazquez, and Christopher Walken.
-
“Abraham Lincoln” (February 20, History)
Image Credit: Joe Alblas/The HISTORY© Channel One of a handful of projects this month focusing on the 16th president, this hybrid three-part series is part-documentary, part-biopic. With Graham Sibley inhabiting the role of Lincoln, from his younger days through his time in the White House, the seven-and-a-half-hour project weaves in interviews with President Obama and a collection of historians. Covering the lesser-known areas of Lincoln’s life in addition to the pivotal moments for which he’s best known, “Abraham Lincoln” draws on executive producer Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book “Leadership: In Turbulent Times.”
-
“From” (February 20, Epix)
Image Credit: Chris Reardon/Epix This impossible-to-Google Epix series follows the residents of a midwestern town who find that they can’t leave once they’ve arrived. The series is something of a “Lost” reunion, bringing together star Harold Perrineau, director Jack Bender, and showrunner Jeff Pinker, who all had multi-year runs on the show. Among the others in “From” playing folks trying to figure out the puzzle of the forest surrounding the town are Eion Bailey, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Shaun Majumder, and Ricky He.
-
“All American: Homecoming” (February 21, The CW)
Image Credit: The CW A spinoff of the ongoing CW series “All American,” this new series follows a pair of standout athletes as they navigate life at fictional HBCU Bringston University. As Simone (Geffri Maya) faces down opponents on the tennis court and Damon (Peyton Alex Smith) deals with the pressure of being a standout baseball prospect, the two of them also discover what it really means to be a college student.
-
“The Endgame” (February 21, NBC)
Image Credit: Eric Liebowitz/NBC Justin Lin directs the pilot for this psychological showdown between two women on opposite sides of the law. Elena (Morena Baccarin) is a global arms trader who’s picked up in the middle of a coordinated attack on New York-area banks. One person trying to thwart her efforts is Val (Ryan Michelle Bathé), an FBI agent with an extreme commitment to her job. Who’ll emerge on top? Who knows!
-
“The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder” (February 23, Disney+)
Image Credit: Disney+ This update of the early-2000s Disney Channel mainstay brings back most of the show’s main voice cast — including Kyla Pratt, Tommy Davidson, Paula Jai Parker, and Jo Marie Payton — to pick back up on the story of young Penny Proud and her hard-to-handle family. Everyone is still the same age, but this continuation takes place in the present, with Penny, Oscar, Trudy, Suga Mama, and the baby twins BeBe and CeCe all trying to figure out their version of a normal life in the 2020s.
-
“Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber” (February 27, Showtime)
Image Credit: Elizabeth Morris/Showtime Drawing on Mike Isaac’s book of the same name, this new potential anthology series from “Billions” duo Brian Koppelman and David Levien charts the rise of the rideshare company through the predatory ambitions of co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Featuring a notable cast playing notable names (Hank Azaria plays Tim Cook while Uma Thurman steps into the role of Arianna Huffington), the season looks at the internal workings of the Uber corporate culture and the ramifications those decisions had on the business world at large. Kyle Chandler, Kerry Bishé, and Elisabeth Shue are also part of the show’s ensemble cast.
Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.