Ozark (season four on Netflix,January 21)
![Laura Linney and Jason Bateman play a couple indebted to drug cartels in the searing crime thriller Ozark.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/9bdcaba24e3c2e7ec9aae337e7234b0380d3ba09)
Laura Linney and Jason Bateman play a couple indebted to drug cartels in the searing crime thriller Ozark.Steve Deit/Netflix
Jason Bateman’s comic disregard has become a malignant force in this crime drama,which charts the course of a secure,upper-middle class family that has to relocate to rural Missouri to earn back a debt Bateman’s father owes to a brutal Mexican drug cartel.
Grim but knowing on the strained bonds of family,the contradictory marriage between Bateman and a terrific Laura Linney has underpinned a series that has become one of Netflix’s signature productions. The new season is the finale – expect a gripping but uncompromising resolution. Previous three seasons:Netflix
Snowpiercer (season three on Netflix,January 25)
![Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly in Snowpiercer.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/0cc5353ad5c307fa32175ec38246d2419a49f9d7)
Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connelly in Snowpiercer.Netflix
Yes,series reboots of acclaimed movies rarely prosper. Have you ever watched an episode ofAnimal Kingdom? But there are exceptions and this post-apocalyptic railway carriage drama is one of them. As in Bong Joon-ho’s 2013 action-drama,humanity’s remnants circle a frozen globe on a vast,self-contained train where inequality is the governing institution. Jennifer Connelly andHamilton’s Daveed Diggs play adversaries from different ends of the train,in a show that turns on a mix of political intrigue,personal redemption,and genre revelations. Previous two seasons:Netflix
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season four on Amazon Prime,February 19)
![Rachel Brosnahan shines as a 1950s middle-class Jewish housewife who discovers she has a gift for comedy in The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/43e95fce77954469d440f7c976ae1da60bb6ed03)
Rachel Brosnahan shines as a 1950s middle-class Jewish housewife who discovers she has a gift for comedy in The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.Amazon Prime
Rachel Brosnahan gives a powerhouse performance – exuberant and hopeful,quick-witted and yearning – in this period comedy,which painstakingly recreates late 1950s and early 1960s New York City and its many entertainment venues. Inspired by the career of Joan Rivers,Brosnahan’s Midge Maisel is a Jewish-American housewife from the Upper West Side who discovers that she has a gift for stand-up comedy. Making something of that unorthodox talent,while dealing with a tangle of family issues,is the show’s backbone. Previous three seasons:Amazon Prime
Killing Eve (season four on ABC,late February)
![Arguably the most fashionable assassin to grace a TV screen,Jodie Comer plays the mysterious Villanelle in the black comedy thriller Killing Eve.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/63592ead698be1abd7d7589d701c400b8a3a6539)
Arguably the most fashionable assassin to grace a TV screen,Jodie Comer plays the mysterious Villanelle in the black comedy thriller Killing Eve.Des Willie/BBCA
A jaw-dropping sensation upon its debut,with a first season written byFleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge that turned the espionage genre inside out,the female protagonists of this black comedy are a sociopathic Russian assassin (Jodi Comer) and the MI5 analyst (Sandra Oh) tracking her that the killer has a crush on.
Deadpan violence,madcap exploits,and the most withering of English manners are all intertwined through the lead’s exemplary performances. Every scene shared by Comer and Oh is a fuse already lit. Previous three seasons:Stan
Better Things (season five on Binge,early March)
![Pamela Adlon,the creator and star of Better Things,with her on-screen daughter played by Olivia Edward.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/ba8a26aa8a1d752496c2680de1446e5013408150)
Pamela Adlon,the creator and star of Better Things,with her on-screen daughter played by Olivia Edward.Suzanne Tenner/FX
Co-creator Pamela Adlon’s portrait of a single mother,a working actor in the Los Angeles trenches who Adlon also plays,has got better with every season – and it started at a high standard. The complicated relationship she has with her three daughters is bittersweet and idiosyncratic. The feel of the show,from the domestic dialogue to Adlon’s shooting style,has become increasingly distinctive,even as Adlon has brutally dissected the realities of working in Hollywood. Previous four seasons:Binge
Atlanta (season three on SBS,late March)
![Lakeith Stanfield and Donald Glover in a scene from Atlanta.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/ac5a01159925327cdccb0322272f791f0c1158ec)
Lakeith Stanfield and Donald Glover in a scene from Atlanta.Guy D’Alema/FX
The last new episode of this immense comic-drama,which is the creation ofCommunity star Donald Glover,arrived in May 2018. Where the show is almost three years later,with a new season set entirely in Europe,is unclear,but the first two seasons are a fraught,funny depiction of black life in contemporary America as a struggling college dropout (Glover) tries to make something of managing the burgeoning rapping career of his cousin (Bryan Tyree Henry).Atlanta has profound truths tinged with the surreal. It’s a genuine one-off. Previous two seasons:Binge
Outlander (season six on Foxtel,March 7)
![Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe in Outlander.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/1a0a39732d8813aa5738754c3d8b042fee26dc82)
Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe in Outlander.AP/Sony/Ed Miller
A cult-sized success with an audience of devotees,this 18th-century historical drama adapted from the best-selling novels of Diana Gabaldon is a deceptive mix of revisionist intrigue,period romance,and fantasy epic.
When a World War II nurse (Caitriona Balfe) travels back in time,she finds herself with Scottish rebels in the Highlands of 1743,where her husband’s English forebear (Tobias Menzies) is the brutal occupier. The narrative has crossed both centuries and oceans since,so that historic realities are seen with a modern lens. Previous five seasons:Netflix
Better Call Saul (season six on Stan,mid-2022)
![Bob Odenkirk in the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul,which will return for its final season in 2022.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/49cc939a79ec60fcb088d5f727c2db7588fc70be)
Bob Odenkirk in the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul,which will return for its final season in 2022.Supplied
You could be excused for having skipped this crime drama when it launched in 2015:what could a spin-off prequel toBreaking Bad,focused on corrupt lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk),tell us? The answer,it turns out,is a great deal. Steeped in tragedy and flickering with mordant humour,Vince Gilligan’s show has found unexpected resonance in the known backstory. The new season is the last – cast members are saying it’s “devastating”. Previous five seasons:Stan
The Boys (seasons three on Amazon Prime,mid-2022)
![Tomer Capon,Jack Quaid and Karl Urban from the series The Boys.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/4e086a25c9cf220d9526968c6df79ad56dd2de78)
Tomer Capon,Jack Quaid and Karl Urban from the series The Boys.Panagiotis Pantazidis/Amazon Studios via AP
This scabrous superhero satire has become a runaway success for Amazon – an R-rated splatter comedy where caped crusaders work for a corporation that has them killing criminals,making movies,and appearing in adverts. With a cell of regular-powered operatives trying to bring down the “supes”,the storylines are a wild mix of gory excess and political critique. But every time it looks as if the storytelling has gone too far,that’s when the show delivers a barbed commentary on our not-so-different reality. Previous two seasons:Amazon Prime
Stranger Things (season four on Netflix,mid-2022)
![Breakout star Maya Hawke,left,with Joe Keery and Gaten Matarazzo,in Stranger Things.](https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_300%2C$height_150/t_crop_auto/t_sharpen%2Cq_auto%2Cf_auto/aa68ae93a31eab20c517b6d2ca816c0b5f04ff12)
Breakout star Maya Hawke,left,with Joe Keery and Gaten Matarazzo,in Stranger Things.Supplied
There’s a fair chanceThe Crown will return by year’s end,but it’s Netflix’s other flagship series that has a fresh season reaching audiences first. A paean to the horror movies and teen adventures that lived long lives on VHS cassettes in the 1980s,this mix of science-fiction and horror is both a source of nostalgia and a gateway show for tweens ready for monsters from another dimension and the all-in performance of Winona Ryder as the mother of a missing child. It’s become,in some twisted way,family viewing. Previous three seasons:Netflix
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