TELLY in 2024 is promising heaps of treats.
Following on from last year’s brilliant offerings of bonkbuster dramas to reality shows brought back from the dead, there will be plenty to feast your eyes on.
True-crime thrillers, second seasons for blockbuster hits and even the revamped Nineties game show Gladiators will all be hitting small screens.
So get comfy and let Jess Lester guide you through the shows to look out for . . .
BREATHTAKING: Has all the ingredients for a hit drama: Line Of Duty creator Jed Mercurio, Downton Abbey actress Joanne Froggatt in the lead and the true story of Rachel Clarke, who battled on the front line during the Covid crisis.
Jed is adapting Rachel’s book for this three-parter on ITV. Should not be missed.
THE JETTY: Jenna Coleman plays rookie detective Ember Manning in the BBC thriller.
After a fire tears through a scenic holiday home, she’s led down a winding path to find the truth about a podcast journalist who has been investigating a missing person cold case in the area, uncovering a “love” triangle between a man and two underage girls.
AFTER THE FLOOD: New mystery thriller from ITV sees Sophie Rundle as PC Joanna Marshall, a police officer who investigates the death of an unidentified man.
After his body is found in an underground car park following a devastating flood, she must fight to prove not all is as it seems.
MR BATES vs THE POST OFFICE: ITV true-crime drama will tell the story of the innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting in the Post Office scandal.
Amy Nuttall, Toby Jones and Shaun Dooley are among the stars playing the wrongfully accused and imprisoned workers, who were blamed following a catastrophic IT system failure.
TRUELOVE: Channel 4’s new comedy-drama stars Lindsay Duncan and Clarke Peters as Phil and Ken, two pensioners desperate to engineer a plan for a dignified death to avoid a slow decline while also avoiding the wrong end of the law.
FOOL ME ONCE: Based on an American thriller, the Netflix series sees Michelle Keegan’s Maya Stern fighting for the truth after she finds footage of her dead husband Joe, played by Obsession actor Richard Armitage, alive and well on her toddler’s hidden nanny cam.
CRIMINAL RECORD: Bafta-nominated Paul Rutman is behind the Apple TV+ crime thriller starring former Doctor Who Peter Capaldi.
He plays veteran detective chief inspector Daniel Hegarty, who clashes over an old murder case with up-and-coming investigator June, portrayed by Cush Jumbo.
WHEEL OF FORTUNE: The iconic game show, launched in the Eighties, is making a comeback, this time with Graham Norton as host.
Contestants will spin to win life-changing cash sums in the game of skill and luck as they reveal the winning phrase letter by letter.
Two celebrities are set to appear with the hopefuls.
JEOPARDY!: Stephen Fry hosts the ITV quiz based on the hit US series that sees contestants presented with clues in the form of answers.
It is the third time the series has been revived, last airing on our screens in 1996, following its ongoing popularity across the pond.
GLADIATORS: Forget the long line of mediocre reboots, this is the comeback we all wanted — and here it is.
The first few glimpses of the BBC contest reveal it has all the colour, atmosphere and competitiveness of its former incarnations.
Only this time father and son Bradley and Barney Walsh are running the show.
LOVE ISLAND ALL STARS: If the regular Love Island wasn’t your type on paper, then the All Stars version might just prove more attractive.
ITV2 has invited back some of the biggest and most popular names from previous shows and ditched the also-rans.
It’s all killer and no filler in the villa and it looks set to be the biggest dating show of the year.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WEIGHS: Six Brits looking to slim down their waistlines embark on a tour from Japan to Tonga on Channel 4.
Cameras follow the group over six episodes as they find out whether they can shed pounds by learning about differing cultures around the world which have the lowest — and highest — rates of obesity.
THE TRAITORS: The first series was the breakout hit of 2022, and it is set to be even bigger when its sequel starts next month.
Claudia Winkleman returns to the spooky Scottish castle which will play host to all sorts of skullduggery.
With an accompanying podcast, there’s a huge buzz around the programme’s second outing which is set to send social media into meltdown.
TRIGGER POINT: Vicky McClure is back as bomb disposal expert Lana Washington for a second run of the hit ITV crime thriller.
Scenes will likely pick up where we left off in 2022, with the war veteran and her team, played by Adrian Lester and Mark Stanley, heading to hearings following the death of Karl Maguire — portrayed by Warren Brown — who was shot at the end of the first series for carrying a bomb.
THE TOURIST: Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald return as Irishman Elliot and Aussie cop Helen for the next instalment of the thriller as they continue to uncover the mysteries of his murky past.
Now set in Ireland, the second series of the BBC hit promises to unearth a family feud.
AMANDA & ALAN’S ITALIAN JOB: Amanda Holden and Alan Carr are off on another trip to Italy to bring crumbling homes back to life on the BBC.
This time the pair head to Tuscany to join a group of local tradespeople in renovating a property with a historic Medieval tower — and a desperate need for a new look.
FIRST DATES: It’s the tenth anniversary of First Dates, so the Channel 4 show is celebrating with a new restaurant and a fresh crop of romantic hopefuls, including some celebrity cameos.
Maitre d’ Fred Sirieix is re-joined by cocktail master Merlin Griffiths, waitress Cici Coleman and a team of new staff.
SEXY BEAST: The Paramount Plus prequel to the hit 2001 movie of the same name starring Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley, this eight-part series follows Gal Dove and Don Logan — now played by James McArdle and Emun Elliott — as small-town thieves in 1990s East London who are offered a chance to work on a high-profile heist.
JAMES MAY: OUR MAN IN INDIA: Prime Video has sent James on a tour of this fascinating country in the third instalment of his travel series.
The former Top Gear host will cover 3,000 miles, coast to coast, from Mumbai through Udaipur, Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and around the Himalayan foothills before ending his journey in the Sundarbans forest.
ATTENBOROUGH AND THE GIANT SEA MONSTER: Sir David’s latest natural history documentary looks into the ancient pliosaur through the discovery of a lifetime, a skeleton of the pre-historic creature.
But the fossil is trapped within rocks off the Dorset coast.
Using clever CGI and a robotic model of the giant monster, David brings the tyrannosaurus rex of the seas back to life on the BBC.
MR & MRS SMITH: Rapper Donald Glover plays John Smith in the new Prime Video series based on the 2005 film that starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as an upper-middle class couple who learn they are assassins working for competing agencies and hired to kill each other.
THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ: Sky Atlantic will re-tell the real-life love story of the Auschwitz survivors Lali and Gita Sokolov.
Following the story captured in the best-selling novel of the same name, Little Mermaid star Jonah Hauer-King and Anna Prochniak from Shameless play the couple.
MARY & GEORGE: It’s not family viewing, but for grown-ups who love royalty and romps it’s essential viewing.
This tells the incredible true story of social-climbing mother Mary Villiers, played by Julianne Moore, who pimped out her handsome son George to the bisexual King James I.
Outrageous and with lavish production, it is an outstanding option on Sky Atlantic and Now.
THE REGIME: Kate Winslet stars in this HBO miniseries, available to watch on Sky Atlantic, that follows the story of one year within the walls of a palace of a dictatorial ruler as she fights to keep control of her rebellious nation, and a political team who struggling to put their trust in her
