The holidays are over and for many that means heading back to work. For others it means there’s finally new episodes of television to watch! But I bet you didn’t realize just how much TV was starting so soon. Here’s a primer to get you prepared for the new and returning genre series hitting the small screens this January.
I was late to the party for AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire and FX’s Fargo and trying to watch them legally and without paying extra on top of our cable bill, Netflix, and Amazon Prime subscriptions was more difficult than I’d imagined. You’d think in this age of DVRs, on demand, and the ever-growing number of streaming services, getting caught up on a show that’s currently airing (or just ended) with services you already pay for would be simple as pie. But if you’re not already signed up for every single service, you may find yourself in a financial bind when it comes to finding just-aired TV episodes. Hence my advice. Your interests may vary, but start recording all of these shows right now! Just in case.
The Shannara Chronicles (MTV, January 5th)
Premise: Based on Terry Brooks’ Shannara book series (and focused most closely around The Elfstones of Shannara), this new fantasy series is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which magic now thrives and technology is a thing of the past. The Four Lands depicted are inhabited by humans, elves, dwarves, and gnomes alike and we kick things off with three young heroes (two women, one man) attempting to stop a demon army. And of course a classic love triangle to boot. It’s your basic sword and sorcery type deal but I will admit to being happily surprised with how good the production looks considering MTV isn’t known for this particular kind of story. Fans of the series should be relived to know that although there will be deviations from the books, Brooks has worked closely with the creators.
Items of interest: If, like me, you haven’t read Brooks’ series, you may want to jump on this one based on simply your love of fantasy or the cast involved. While MTV has cast several newcomers, The Shannara Chronicles also features geek favorite actor John Rhys-Davies (Indiana Jones, The Lord of the Rings, Sliders) and Arrow’s Manu Bennett. Also, it was filmed in New Zealand so there’s bound to be fantastic landscapes to ogle over each week.
Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments (Freeform, January 12th)
Premise: One of the newest shows to debut on the rebranded ABC Family, Shadowhunters is another book adaptation. You may recall Cassandra Clare’s series was already brought to life on the big screen in 2013’s The Mortal Instruments. The story remains mostly the same here focusing on young Clary Fray, a human-angel hybrid whose secret destiny (not to mention family tradition) it is to fight demons. She gets to join others in that fight, discover special powers, and learn more about her mother while trying to save her from dark forces.
Items of interest: While this one is filled with lots of unfamiliar faces, it does feature a fairly diverse cast. And hey, if you weren’t a fan of the film this is a great second chance to see one of your favorites come to life.
Second Chance (Fox, January 13th)
Premise: Previously titled The Frankenstein Code and then Lookinglass, Second Chance is a loosely adapted version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It centers on a corrupt and disgraced police officer who is brought back to life after he’s killed at 75. Wealthy twins revive him in a younger state through cell regeneration technology they’d been experimenting with but he needs to return regularly for treatment in order to remain alive. Oh, he also gains super strength.
Items of interest: True Blood and Pacific Rim’s Rob Kazinsky is our lead here. Downside? Fox is notorious for canceling genre shows early. Only start this one if you haven’t already been burned several times over.
Sesame Street (HBO, January 16th)
Premise: Sunny day, sweepin’ the clouds away. You know, the ushe. Ok, I know this one might seem like an odd inclusion but learning is fun and so is passing on the tradition of Sesame Street to your children. The long-running PBS series is starting a new era at HBO with some new sets and a new theme song but it’s sure to be business as usual.
Items of interest: You never know who’s going to show up on Sesame Street and they always make tons of pop culture references for adults. Bonus, if you don’t have HBO the episodes will air on PBS at a later date.
How to get caught up: “D” is for “Don’t worry about it.” But if you’re interested in watching old episodes, you can view them on HBO Go and HBO Now.
Agent Carter Season 2 (ABC, January 19th)
Premise: A 1940s period piece featuring one of the best characters to come out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Agent Carter is a spinoff of Agents of SHIELD which doesn’t require you to be a comic book fan at all. It focuses on Agent Peggy Carter’s dilemma of always being the best man for the job in a time when women are meant to fetch coffee and stay silent. Suffice to say, Peggy faces these challenges head on, manages double spy duty and saves the world many times over. It also features lots of intrigue, spy gadgets, dynamic friendships with both men and women, and fantastic costumes. Season 2 has Peggy moving from New York to Los Angeles.
Items of interest: Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy, Peggy…
How to get caught up: Right now the first eight episodes of the series aren’t streaming anywhere for free but you can purchase a hard copy of Season 1 or purchase the season and single episodes on both Amazon Prime and iTunes.
The 100 Season 3 (The CW, January 21st)
Premise: Another book adaptation, The 100 is a story about humanity retreating to the stars after a nuclear apocalypse laid waste to the Earth. Things are getting dicey on their space station home after almost a century when leadership decides to send 100 prisoners (who just happen to be under the age of 18) to the surface to test whether or not the land is inhabitable yet. Way harsh. Turns out Earth is survivable but not desolate as they were led to believe. Also, just because the Earth is survivable doesn’t mean everyone will survive and hard choices must be made by all.
Items of interest: After hearing the hype I just recently binged all of this one and was really surprised by it. The 100 is part Lost, part Battlestar Galactica and shares cast members from both. Also, if you like “strong female characters” this one has them in spades. If you dislike violence, this one probably isn’t for you.
How to get caught up: Seasons 1 (13 episodes) and 2 (16 episodes) of The 100 are currently streaming on Netflix while the whole series is available on Amazon and iTunes.
Note: Below is a trailer for Season 3, do not watch if you’re not caught up. (Here’s a link to the trailer for Season 1.)
Legends of Tomorrow (The CW, January 21st)
Premise: Based on DC Comics characters, this new series is a superhero spinoff from The CW’s Arrow and The Flash. But this time there’s time travel! Ok, we got a small bit of time travel on The Flash but Legends of Tomorrow is all about time travel! It features a time traveling professional who joins together heroes and villains for one epic group meant to save the world from immortal Vandal Savage. Hilarity (and awesome period clothing) ensues.
Items of interest: Arthur Darvill, Rory from Doctor Who, gets to be the Time Lord for a change! It also stars Victor Garber who is an international treasure. I hope they let him sing.
How to get caught up: Well you could watch approximately four seasons of Arrow and two seasons of The Flash but I’m going to say it’s not necessary. Just enjoy the ride and hit up Wikipedia if you’re wondering about any of the characters.
The X-Files (Fox, January 24th)
Premise: The truth is still out there! Mulder and Scully return for a relaunch of the ’90s TV series focusing on alien abductions and other unexplained phenomena. If you’re new to the FBI-focused show it’s been said the first and last episodes will tie into the larger mythology while everything in between will be standalone episodes. FYI: While the premiere is on a Sunday night (after the NFC Championship Game), it continues the following night and will eventually settle in its Monday slot. There will be six episodes.
Items of interest: We’re getting the band back together!!!! Yes, this is a big nostalgia trip for most of us. Also, Gillian Anderson is the best.
How to get caught up: Hmm. Quit your job and watch nothing but the X-Files this month? There’s nine seasons and two feature films.
Lucifer (Fox, January 25th)
Premise: Another comic book adaptation, this time it’s based on the Lucifer character created by Neil Gaiman for The Sandman, who eventually got his own self-titled series from Mike Carey. As you might have guessed, Lucifer is the Devil and after a hella long time ruling the underworld, he’s bored and now living on Earth. He’s also causing a bit of havoc along the way thanks to his unnatural abilities. In this TV version he chooses Los Angeles first and helps the LAPD solve cases. Lucifer premieres just after the second episode of the X-Files.
Items of interest: Buffy’s D.B. Woodside stars alongside lead Tom Ellis (who you may recognize from tons of British TV) as Amenadiel, an angel trying to get Lucifer back to hell. True Blood/Arrow actor Kevin Alejandro and Lesley-Ann Brandt (Spartacus) also star.
The Magicians (Syfy, January 25th)
Premise: It’s been said to death this is Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia for adults, but that really is the easiest way to describe The Magicians from author Lev Grossman. Based on a trilogy, this adaptation is my personal pick for most-anticipated new series this season because I’m a sucker for magical tales about magical people and places. The story focuses on Quentin Coldwater, a normal guy from Brooklyn who finds out magic is real, he can do it, and he’s going to a special school to learn more about it. Along the way he and his friends drink and screw a lot and get themselves into some trouble when they learn the fictional land of Fillory (read: Narnia) is a real place.
Items of interest: One of the standouts for me is the story of Quentin’s friend Julia, who learns about the magical world along with him but is denied entrance to the school. Oh, and Supernatural writer Sera Gamble one of the creators of the TV series. Needless to say, if part of you still wishes magic were real and you long to visit another land, get hooked on this immediately.
Jill Pantozzi is a pop culture writer and host who reports on all things nerdy and beyond! Her blog The Nerdy Birdwas recently relaunched with Patreon support and she’s formerly Editor in Chief of The Mary Sue. She’s written for MTV, Publishers Weekly, IGN & more. You can keep up with Jill, and her cats, on Twitter at @JillPantozzi and “like” her on Facebook.
I’m glad I got rid of my cable… Most of these look awful. But I will watch The Magicians and Agent Carter once they’re streaming.
Thanks for the list! I wouldn’t know about any of these if someone didn’t post about them.
“Fox is notorious for canceling genre shows early.”
Was notorious. This is based on FOX’s behavior from over a decade ago, most infamously Firefly. But the execs responsible for those decisions left the network long ago, and their successors have been much more supportive of SF and fantasy. Look at the actual statistics, compare FOX’s treatment of genre shows over the past decade to any other commercial network, and you’ll find that FOX has been the least likely one to cancel a genre show prematurely. For example, in the 2012-13 season, a number of new genre shows were pulled after only a few episodes — NBC’s Do No Harm, ABC’s Zero Hour and The Last Resort, The CW’s Cult. That year was a bloodbath for freshman SF/F shows. But the only genre shows FOX cancelled that year were Touch in its second season and Fringe in its fifth — both shows that had struggled in the ratings before that year, but that FOX had renewed in spite of it, giving them more of a chance than other networks probably would have. Indeed, even though Fringe had low ratings, they were loyal to the show and allowed it to do a foreshortened final season to wrap up its arc, rather than simply cancelling it as their predecessors would have done in the past. And even though Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse had poor ratings, FOX kept it on the air for a full 13-episode season, then gambled on a second full season, keeping it on the air long enough to let it wrap up its story most satisfactorily.
Indeed, while other networks have frequently pulled shows off the air with episodes still unshown, the last time FOX did that with a genre show was with Tru Calling back in 2005 (though there was at least one other non-genre show they did that with more recently). Since then, they’ve always at least allowed the shows to complete their seasons, which is more than networks like NBC or ABC can say. And, heck, CBS has hardly had any genre shows in the past couple of decades, up until the past few years.
The truth is that, despite some missteps like Firefly, FOX has always been more supportive to genre shows than most other broadcast networks. The only reason it’s cancelled so many SF/fantasy shows is because it’s bought so many more than other networks, and so, statistically speaking, it would inevitably cancel more. No TV show is ever guaranteed success; cancellation is a fact of life on every network. And survival has always been most difficult for SF/fantasy shows because of their niche audience and expensive production values. None of that is FOX’s fault. If anything, it’s a testament to FOX that their commitment to buying genre shows has remained strong for decades while other networks’ interest in SF/F has waxed and waned. The only other networks that have carried a percentage of genre shows comparable to FOX’s have been UPN, The WB, and The CW, none of which has lasted as long as FOX.
So really, this myth that FOX likes to kill genre shows is ignorant, outdated, and unfair, and it needs to die.
Your Shannara trailer is fanmade, not the official one, by the way.
OMG!!! X-Files is coming Back!!!!!!! Be still my heart!!
Jill!!!!!
I’m pretty sure the only one I’ll be watching is Agent Carter!
Might want to correct this sentence:
“It’s you’re basic sword…”
But I agree with you about the Magicians. Loved the book and the series look good.
Hey look, it’s Rupert Murdoch! ;-)
@@@@@2. ChristopherLBennett
Some things are unforgivable lol
You may well be right, but I went through too much pain with Fox, in fact, they changed my TV watching all by themselves. I cancelled my cable subscription when Firefly was cancelled and have never gone back. If it’s not on Netflix, I don’t care about it.
@9/DougL: But “Fox” is not a single person, it’s an organization. The people who cancelled Firefly don’t work there anymore. The people who work there today had nothing to do with their predecessors’ decision. It’s like blaming President Obama for the decisions of the Bush administration, or blaming Peter Capaldi for Matt Smith’s acting choices as the Doctor. It makes no sense and is completely unfair to blame the current people in the job for the decisions of the people who held the job before them.
And come on, seriously, it’s been over a dozen years since Firefly ended. Grieving becomes unhealthy and self-destructive if you cling to it so long that you never get back to living in the present and for the future. And science fiction fans are the last people who should let themselves be trapped forever in the past.
Thanks to the NFC preceding the new Xfiles, the game will run over and DVR’s probably will not record the show in it’s completion.
Thanks Fox.
@11/Scott: Does your DVR allow you to program it to record for an extra length of time at the end of the scheduled block? Alternatively, I’m sure the show will be available via On Demand cable. (I wish they’d named it something else. I just can’t bring myself to write “available on On Demand cable.”)
Great info on the FOX issue, Chris. Reminds me of a situation here in my country where one of the three local channels’ newscast a few years back had a tendency to overdo it with crime and accident news; using dramatic music, generally hyping those stories to shock the audience, and giving them a lot of more air time than the other channel’s newscasts.
This channel gained a reputation for being sensationalist, and the idea got stuck in the public mind. Years passed, the newscast authorities for that channel changed, and they dialed it a lot back. Yet today, many people keep referring to that channel as being the most sensationalist of all when it comes to news… when it’s no longer true.
“MTV isn’t known for this particular kind of story.” I’m more worried that they’re not known for supporting good series for very long. In particular, the remarkable “Death Valley” was on MTV. It was a great, very funny series about vampires, werewolves, zombies, etc. suddenly appearing in the Los Angeles area, and a special police task force set up to combat it. I don’t know what its rating were, but it was well reviewed and MTV did not pick it up for a second season. (And I think it’s available for streaming purchase from Amazon, and perhaps other places, and I highly recommend it.)
And that is definitely not the only good fiction series that MTV has quietly let go after just one or two seasons.
Oh, and “Death Valley” shared at least one note of interest with one of the shows on your list: Specifically, Caity Lotz was one of the stars, and has more recently been the first Black Canary on “Arrow” and will soon be the White Canary on “Legends of Tomorrow.” (I’ll admit to not recognizing her *at all* when she first appeared on Arrow.)
Hey, @Aeryl! :)
And who said anything about Firefly, I’m still dealing with the loss of Almost Human… :)
I was originally intrigued by The 100 after reading a decent review of it in the Washington Post and watched the first two seasons. I’m not planning on continuing. While I don’t demand my chosen TV shows to be all rainbows, kittens and babies, the latter parts of Season 2 and the finale were just far too dark and grim for my tastes.
We’ll definitely be watching Agent Carter and Legends of Tomorrow, I’m hopeful about X-Files (and happy an old filksong of mine gets a brief new life), and planning on checking out The Magicians (since I enjoyed the books).
In addition to Firefly, Fox killed Almost Human, as well as The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Their track record is decidedly mixed.
@17/Porphyrogenitus: Every network cancels shows. Here is how it works: Making shows costs money. In order to get that money, networks sell commercial time to advertisers. If a lot of people watch a show and its commercials, then the advertisers keep spending money and the show can stay on the air. If not enough people watch the show and its commercials, then the advertisers don’t want to spend money, and the network can’t keep the show on the air no matter how much they may want to.
So it isn’t like shows get cancelled or renewed purely through the whim of evil executives. That’s not how capitalism works. It’s the audience that decides whether a show lives or dies, by whether or not they watch it. A network’s executives may love a show dearly, may be proud of the critical acclaim it receives and the prestige it brings them, but if viewers don’t watch and advertisers don’t pay, then they just can’t afford to keep making it.
This is why every network ever cancels shows. No series is ever guaranteed success. The vast majority of TV shows — on any network, of any genre — get cancelled in their first season. Cancellation is simply a fact of life. It is not done because networks are evil, it is done because shows cost money and can only be made if enough people watch them. Networks don’t “kill” shows, audiences starve them to death.
Now, it is true that sometimes, a network makes bad decisions that keep a show from finding an audience and thus hurt its chances for survival. There is no dispute that the FOX executives at the time (again, FOX is not a person, it’s a place where various different people work) mishandled Firefly in ways that contributed to its cancellation. And long before Firefly, their execs at the time made plenty of bad decisions about SF shows I cared for — like cancelling Alien Nation (though they did eventually bring it back as movies) or meddling harmfully in the writing of Sliders. But those executives are long gone, and I believe the current execs have learned from their predecessors’ mistakes, judging from how differently they treat their shows today.
FOX was very supportive of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It was the subject of the largest promotional campaign that any network had undertaken in years. Unfortunately, the 2007-8 Writer’s Guild strike delayed its premiere and forced the cutting of its first season to only 9 episodes, which gave it less opportunity to build an audience. FOX nonetheless had enough confidence in it to renew it for an entire 22-episode second season. They wanted it on their network, and they wanted it to succeed. But they couldn’t guarantee its success, because no network can ever do that. They gave it every reasonable chance, but the ratings for season 2 were half as high as those for season 1. The audience just wasn’t there, so they couldn’t afford to keep making it.
As for Almost Human, that just wasn’t a very good show. Again, survival is not an entitlement, but something a show has to earn by being engaging enough to hold an audience. Almost Human was a clumsy attempt at some sort of retro-’80s futurism, and it didn’t really bring anything fresh or effective. Its fans like to point out that its episodes were aired out of order, “just like Firefly,” but the fact is that Almost Human‘s producers chose to change the order of the episodes, because several of the early episodes they produced just didn’t quite work, and so they asked FOX to postpone them and run stronger ones in their place. This is something that a lot of TV series have done voluntarily as an attempt to put their best foot forward. And in the producers’ own view, the impact on continuity was minor enough not to matter. But ultimately they just couldn’t hold an audience. The ratings fell steadily throughout the season. (For myself, I lost interest after about six episodes, and I was barely invested before then.)
Okay, once again, a post I made hours ago is failing to show up for me. Last time that happened, posting again made it appear, so we’ll see if that works this time. In any case, it’s just one more instance of this lousy “upgrade” continuing to be dreadfully dysfunctional and far, far worse than the software it replaced.
EDIT: Yup, now my previous post is visible. Still, there’s clearly a software glitch that needs to be addressed.
“Almost Human, that just wasn’t a very good show.”
Agree to disagree. :)
Anyone have any thoughts on Colony starting tonight (1/14) on USA? Comes from Carlton Cuse (LOST) and it set in a Los Angeles held by aliens.