Movies And TV Shows To Be Really Excited About In 2018

In LA to Vegas, a flight crew and a few regular passengers travel to and from Las Vegas for the weekend. There's the flight attendant searching for a better job (Kim Matula), the ridiculously mustached pilot (Dylan McDermott, playing against type), a crazed gambler who will bet on anything (Peter Stormare), etc. The first episode is funny — and McDermott is very funny, unexpectedly so — but it's not not claustrophobic. For those of us who don't love planes, it may be a challenge! But perhaps worth it. Veteran TV writer Lon Zimmet (Happy Endings, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) is the show's creator.

Yara Shahidi — a breakout star of ABC's Black-ish, who plays Zoey, the oldest daughter — gets her own show. Zoey is off to college, where she'll face challenges beyond the ones presented by her parents at home, Dre (Anthony Anderson) and Rainbow (Tracee Ellis Ross). This show was originally developed by Black-ish creator Kenya Barris at ABC, but was moved over to the network's cable sibling, Freeform, which caters to younger audiences. Trevor Jackson​, Jordan Buhat,​ Emily Arlook​, ​Francia Raisa​, ​Chris Parnell​, and​ Deon Cole also star in Zoey's different world (pun intended).

9-1-1, by creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, is about first responders in Los Angeles. There's a 911 operator (Connie Britton), a calm problem-solver for those who are in dire need of help; there are the firefighters, led by Peter Krause, a man in recovery for alcohol addiction, who dads his way through his work relationships, particularly with Buck (Oliver Stark) a reckless young recruit; and there are police, led by Angela Bassett, an LAPD officer who has problems at home — actually, they all have problems at home. From the pilot, 9-1-1 appears to be a straightforward procedural, and the least Ryan Murphy–ish show he's ever created: no freakish elements visible so far. That's not a bad thing! 9-1-1's pilot is well-paced and has good performances from these veteran actors. It premieres after the 8 p.m. return of The X-Files. (Fox — a network imperiled by its parent company's sale to Disney — has one more midseason drama, The Resident, starring Matt Czuchry, Emily VanCamp, and Bruce Davison. It premieres after the NFC championship game on Jan. 21.)

Singing competitions! We are staring down so many. (WHY?) The Four is Fox's answer to ABC's unfortunate revival of American Idol — I would have argued the best answer would have been silence, but no one asked me. Sean "Diddy" Combs, DJ Khaled, Meghan Trainor, and Republic Records' executive Charlie Walk are the judges here, and Fergie is the host. The rules already confuse me: The show starts with four finalists, and then newcomers can come along to try to take their spots. Will we care? Unclear!

Emmy-winning writer Lena Waithe has created the drama The Chi about a group of neighbors on the South Side of Chicago, which has become a symbol of gun violence in Donald Trump's America. Obviously, the The Chi goes deeper than the fear-inducing dog whistles do, following the stories of — among others — preteen Kevin (Alex Hibbert, who played Little in Moonlight), Brandon (Jason Mitchell from Straight Outta Compton), and Brandon's girlfriend, Jerrika (Tiffany Boone).

We are already blessed to be living in the era of Taraji P. Henson, television star. It's wonderful that we also seem to be moving into an age of Henson as a female lead in movies, too. (Not that I didn't love her ensemble work in Hidden Figures — but in 2018 she'll also star in Tyler Perry's Acrimony, opening on March 30, which looks wonderfully batshit.) In Proud Mary, Henson plays a hitwoman who works for a Boston crime family. The delightful thing about its trailer is that it's too busy showing Henson in action and playing Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" to get to what apparently is its main plot, which is her becoming enmeshed in the life of a young boy whose family she killed.

This movie is the only repetition from last year's list, and while I usually wouldn't include a movie that had been pushed, much less into January's dead zone for film, I have two words for you: Liam Neeson! In their fourth collaboration, Jaume Collet-Serra (who directed The Shallows, the third-best shark movie ever made) and Neeson, who worked together on Non-Stop, Run All Night, and Unknown, are back together here. Neeson plays an insurance agent on a commuter train who is forced into doing Liam Neeson–like things by Vera Farmiga. The trailer is the Neeson-est! Cannot wait.

This film tells the story of Jan Lewan (Jack Black), a Polish immigrant who came to prominence as a polka magnate — and then got himself into a terrible legal trouble. It's based on a true, crazy story; the trailer reveals some of what will happen. Maya Forbes (who wrote and directed the lovely Infinitely Polar Bear a few years ago) codirects and cowrites The Polka King with her husband, Wally Wolodarsky. Jenny Slate, Jason Schwartzman, Jacki Weaver, and Willie Garson also star. (The Polka King is the first of Netflix's many, many movies in the coming year. Will 2018 be the year Netflix figures out how to create excitement around its feature films like it does with its original series? The streaming service has at least 10 movies coming out before mid-April, so I would imagine it must!)

Black Lightning, the CW's latest DC Comics series, is explicitly political — it's about black rage in response to systemic injustice and feels extremely relevant. Cress Williams plays Jefferson Pierce, a high school principal in a crime-ridden city who has a superhero alter ego that comes out when he's angry. He gets angry when he's needlessly pulled over by the police, for instance, and that happens a lot. But he also gets angry when the One Hundred, the gang that's ruining the city, targets his two daughters, Jennifer (China Anne McClain) and Anissa (Nafessa Williams). If it weren't for the promise he made to his ex-wife, Lynn (Christine Adams), with whom he wants to reconcile, he would just let loose and go full Black Lightning. Created by Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil, Black Lightning feels different from the shows in the Arrowverse (Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow), which have varying degrees of darkness and political engagement. (And according to the CW, this show may or may not be part of the Arrowverse; it's basically up to the creators.) The first two episodes of Black Lightning are doing a lot of work: creating the dangers and the relationships in Jefferson's world, as well as laying out what's at stake for his family and who the bad guys are. Black Lightning engages with the issues of race, crime, and policing in a way no show in my memory has.

The People v. O.J. Simpson set a high hurdle for the second installment of American Crime Story to jump over, but every detail of this project — particularly its casting — has seemed perfect. The story is based on Maureen Orth's book Vulgar Favors, and Darren Criss plays the 1997 spree-killer Andrew Cunanan; Penélope Cruz plays Donatella Versace; and Edgar Ramirez is Gianni Versace, who becomes Cunanan's target. This murder — and Cunanan's backstory — is truly one of the most spectacular crimes ever committed, and who better to bring it to our televisions than Ryan Murphy and the American Crime Story team? Tom Rob Smith, who created the moody, compelling miniseries London Spy, wrote all but one episode by himself.

Corporate is a dark satire of modern office life at a huge company — called Hampton DeVille — that's created by Pat Bishop, Matt Ingebretson, and Jake Weisman (Ingebretson and Weisman also star in it). Corporate also stars Lance Reddick as Hampton DeVille's vicious CEO — casting The Wire's Reddick in a comedy is not his usual sort of role, but it works. Adam Lustick and Anne Dudek play his seconds-in-command. The bad news is Comedy Central made the first two episodes available, and I laughed only once (when Reddick tells Lustick's character he should put his glasses back on because he looks like "a prepubescent Voldemort"). But Corporate certainly knows what it is, and maybe that means it will be funnier down the line.

J.K. Simmons plays Howard Silk, a dutiful, low-rung spy in a secretive Berlin-based agency. When he finds out that there's a parallel universe in which another version of him exists — a much more slick, assertive version, that is — his world is upended. I watched the first two (of 10) episodes of Counterpart and found it stylish, if a bit dour. Simmons is always great, and he's excellent here as sad Howard and as cool Howard. Olivia Williams plays Howard's wife in both worlds (though it's complicated) and Harry Lloyd is his boss.

The first episode of Mosaic felt like a bit of a slog. Written by Ed Solomon and directed by (and the brainchild of) Steven Soderbergh, some of the performances were mannered, and the long takes seemed show-offy to me, rather than seamless and natural. But midway through Episode 2, I realized I was riveted, a feeling that carried through to the end. The most straightforward description of Mosaic is that it's a mystery about the disappearance and presumed murder of a famous children's book author, Olivia Lake (Sharon Stone — who needs her own quality show now, preferably one with Paul Reubens, who flanks her here as her gay BFF). One suspect, her fiancé, Eric (Frederick Weller, who, disclosure, is a friend of mine), pleads guilty to killing her, going to prison for the crime, despite also insisting on his innocence. When his sister, Petra (Jennifer Ferrin), comes to believe him, she enlists the help of Nate (Devin Ratray), a detective who never thought Eric did it. I will say no more about the plot! There's another level to Mosaic, which is an app through which you can follow different characters and threads of stories. The New York Times' James Poniewozik reviewed the experience, calling it "fascinating, if not ultimately successful."

When Caleb Carr's cinematic novel The Alienist came out in 1994, it seemed obvious it should be a movie, but despite many attempts, one never came together. It's better suited to longform television anyway! The Alienist is set in late 19th-century New York City, where Theodore Roosevelt (Brian Geraghty) has just taken over as police commissioner. Determined to actually solve crimes (while ridding the department of corruption), he enlists an unorthodox psychologist, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl), and a socialite newspaperman, John Moore (Luke Evans), to find out who is killing boy sex workers in the city — crimes so unseemly the police department barely wants to admit they're happening. Helping solve the murders is Dakota Fanning's Sara Howard, a police secretary who wants to be the first female detective in the NYPD.

The fourth season of Pop's (funny) Schitt’s Creek will lead into Let's Get Physical, a half-hour comedy about Joe Force (Matt Jones), whose dad was an aerobics superstar in the '80s. When his father dies suddenly, Joe has to come home and take over the aged family gym to get his inheritance. Jane Seymour plays Joe's mother, Chris Diamantopoulos plays his rival, and AnnaLynne McCord plays his high school love.

This six-part miniseries dramatizes the 1993 standoff between the FBI (led by Michael Shannon, playing a hostage negotiator) and the Branch Davidian cult (with Taylor Kitsch playing its leader, David Koresh). Waco will not be a happy story — spoiler alert from life! — as the siege lasted 51 days and resulted in 76 deaths. Waco is the first project that will kick off the brand-new Paramount Network, which will launch on Jan. 18. (Spike is turning into the Paramount Network.) And they're making a big bet on scripted television, with Waco and Heathers (see below), Yellowstone (June), and American Woman (also June — and this is the Kyle Richards show, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills fans!), all premiering in the first half of the year. One other interesting thing of note: Both Waco and Yellowstone were produced by the Weinstein Company, but after the disgrace of Harvey Weinstein, his name and the company's name were stripped from the credits.

The Maze Runner movies have done surprisingly well in what's become an increasingly challenging environment for YA book adaptation — it's especially shocking because they're not good! Yet the first movie made nearly $350 million, and the second one made $312 million. Which is why when Dylan O'Brien, the franchise's star, was nearly killed in an on-set injury in March 2016, the production waited for him to recover, which took months. (If you haven't read Kyle Buchanan's excellent profile of O'Brien, you're in for a treat.) So The Death Cure will conclude this series, and when I see it with the friend with whom I've seen the first two, I know one of us will turn to the other and say, "I have no idea what's happening" — because that's what we've done twice before. Apparently, there's another maze in this one, and all our questions will be answered.

Stana Katic, who was so terrific on Castle for all those years, plays Emily Byrne, an FBI agent chasing a serial killer in Boston — until she disappears for six years. With no memory of how she spent that time, Byrne turns up in a remote cabin. Her life has moved on without her: Her husband has gotten married again, and his new wife is raising his son with Emily. That's bad, of course! But worse is that she's then blamed for a bunch of murders. (This show has aired in a few European countries already and was a hit.)

A 10-episode series set 300 years in the future in some semblance of Northern California, Altered Carbon presents a world in which death no longer exists if you have enough money. Joel Kinnaman (The Killing) plays Takeshi Kovacs, a detective resurrected in order to investigate an attempt to kill the world's richest man (James Purefoy). Kristin Lehman, Martha Higareda, and Renée Elise Goldsberry (yay, Angelica from Hamilton) are among the show's costars, and Laeta Kalogridis is the showrunner. After many disappointments as a lifelong TV fan, I try not to get excited over a show's premise. But but but…Altered Carbon sounds so good, and is so up my alley, that I just can't help myself! (I have not read Richard K. Morgan’s 2002 novel, on which this show is based.)

The terrific, hilarious (and popular) podcast by Jessica Williams and Phoebe Robinson comes to HBO with four themed specials. And what themes they are! According to HBO, they will be "Blerds (Black Nerds)," "Hot Peen," "New York," and "Hair." The format will be the same as the podcast, with Williams and Robinson riffing, then guests, stand-up, and more riffing. The guests: Uzo Aduba, Tituss Burgess, Jon Stewart, and Sarah Jessica Parker. A million yays.

Normally, pushing a movie's release date twice is a sign of doom. [Update: And now it's been moved thrice.] But with the Cloverfield franchise, the usual rules may not apply. This third one was once called God Particle (but not anymore) and is directed by Julius Onah from a script by Oren Uziel and Doug Jung. It's set on the International Space Station, with an excellent cast — Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Daniel Brühl, David Oyelowo, Elizabeth Debicki, Zhang Ziyi, Chris O'Dowd, and John Ortiz — playing a group of astronauts (I think?) who discover something bad. Or maybe they do something that causes something bad to happen — it's unclear. A few early stories said the Earth disappears in this movie, which would certainly be a problem! Being a J.J. Abrams project, this film is shrouded in mystery. Let's hope it's not pushed again and we can finally see for ourselves.

[Update: Netflix bought this movie, and put it up after the Super Bowl. Read here for details.]

In 2003, Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy played a small but significant role in advancing civil rights: It was part of the sea change in LGBT representation that helped create mainstream acceptance for ideas (and now, laws) like same-sex marriage. In this Netflix reboot, a new Fab Five — Antoni Porowski (for food and wine), Bobby Berk (design), Karamo Brown (culture), Jonathan Van Ness (grooming) and Tan France (fashion) — will serve as cultural liaisons, this time not only to men, but to women as well. The logline makes a point of saying the show, set around Atlanta this time, will reach out to people with "backgrounds and beliefs often contrary" to the Fab Five's for the makeovers. We’ll see how that goes.

The teaser for Our Cartoon President, Showtime's animated parody of the State of Our Union, feels somewhat real, given the questions surrounding Donald Trump's general health. And I guess that's the point! The Late Show's Stephen Colbert and Chris Licht are Our Cartoon President's executive producers; R.J. Fried is the showrunner; and Tim Luecke, who created the Trump character for Colbert's show, is the lead animator. Though animation is a notoriously slow process, this show will have a fast turnaround so it can be newsy. We laugh so we don't cry.

Alan Ball, the auteur behind HBO's True Blood and Six Feet Under, has created Here and Now, the story of two families: One is a white couple (Tim Robbins and Holly Hunter) with adopted (now-adult) children from Vietnam, Liberia, and Colombia (Raymond Lee, Jerrika Hinton, and Daniel Zovatto, respectively), and one younger biological daughter (Sosie Bacon). The second family is a psychiatrist's (played by Ball's partner, Peter Macdissi), who is treating one of the adult kids of the other family. (I'm confused, but I think it will be clear on the show.)

HBO will also have Barry in March, co-created by and starring Bill Hader, in which Hader plays a down-and-out hitman from the Midwest who moves to Los Angeles and finds a life in the theater community (!!!).

Irreplaceable You is the first feature film for director Stephanie Laing, who has directed and produced hundreds of hours of television (her credits include Veep, Divorce, and Eastbound & Down). Bess Wohl, a playwright and actor, wrote the screenplay about Abbie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, in her second movie in February) and Sam (Michiel Huisman), best friends since childhood whose romantic idyll is interrupted by her terminal cancer diagnosis. Kate McKinnon, Christopher Walken, and Timothy Simons also star.

Alex Garland, who wrote and directed the riveting, wildly original Ex Machina in 2015, has directed and adapted Annihilation. (It's based on a novel by Jeff VanderMeer, the first of his Southern Reach trilogy.) Natalie Portman plays a biologist whose husband (Oscar Isaac, who was also in Ex Machina) disappears. When he reappears in some sort of coma, she goes into something called "the shimmer" to find out what happened to him, and cure him. What she and a team — featuring characters played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, and Tuva Novotny — discover there looks very scary in the trailer.

In Good Girls, three women — played by Retta, Christina Hendricks, and Mae Whitman — try to solve their money problems by robbing a store. I love this cast, and the trailer looks good to me, yet I'm concerned by the finite-seeming nature of the plot. But Good Girls is created by Jenna Bans, a longtime Grey's Anatomy and Scandal writer, so we're in good hands with the show's plan. (NBC's midseason will also feature A.P. Bio, a comedy that will get a sneak on Feb. 1, and then will air after Will & Grace when the Olympics are done, beginning on March 1. The network's other comedy Champions and its hostage-negotiator drama, Reverie, don't have premiere dates yet.)

Jay R. Ferguson (Stan from Mad Men) is Chip Curry, a lapsed Catholic who — after his childhood friend dies — decides to live his life "100% by the Bible." It's an idea that causes his priest (Ian Gomez) to laugh in his face during confession, but Chip is determined to do it for nine months until his wife (Lindsey Kraft) gives birth to their first child. There's some suspension of disbelief necessary here: On top of everything else, Chip doesn't seem like any film critic I know, for instance. But I did laugh at how he deals with the edict to stone adulterers.

The latest in the true-crime drama wave, Unsolved will portray the parallel investigations into the murders of Biggie (Wavyy Jonez) and Tupac (Marcc Rose). Josh Duhamel plays LAPD detective Greg Kading, who investigated both murders, and Jimmi Simpson plays Russell Poole, also an LAPD detective, who led the investigation into the death of Biggie. If the high bar for true-crime dramas is FX's The People v. O.J. Simpson, the low might be the recent Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders — so let's hope Unsolved's quality tilts more toward the former than the latter. (And yes, these cases are indeed unsolved, but in the past year, Detective Poole's theory of who killed Tupac — they're people you've likely never heard of — seems to have gained credence.)

Based on Lawrence Wright's Pulitzer Prize–winning nonfiction book from 2006, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, this drama adaptation is by Wright, Alex Gibney, and Dan Futterman, who is the showrunner. It traces the rise of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and the US intelligence failures in the FBI and CIA that set the stage for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Jeff Daniels stars as John O'Neill, the head of the FBI's counterterrorism unit. (After The Handmaid's Tale's Emmy victory for outstanding drama in September, Hulu has become a formidable player in original scripted television, and Castle Rock and The First are detailed further down. But there's also Hard Sun, by Luther creator Neil Cross, starring Jim Sturgess and Agyness Deyn. They play detectives who are partners, but utterly distrust each other. All six episodes will go up on March 7.)

Lucy Hale plays Stella, a young woman with a terminal illness whose cancer is cured — after which she learns some ugly truths the people around her have been hiding from her. Her parents (Dylan Walsh and Gillian Vigman) are no longer in love; her brother (Jayson Blair) is an Adderall-dealing disaster; she and her husband (Elliot Knight), whom she married on impulse, barely know each other; and her sister (Brooke Lyons) gave up her life to take care of her. They all have a lot of feelings about these things, which Stella is no longer spared.

This is happening whether we like it or not, and I have yet to talk to anyone who is looking forward to it. The whole process has seemed painful, from the protracted, seemingly unpleasant negotiations with Ryan Seacrest to return as the show's host, to Katy Perry's $25 million salary scaring away other possible judges (since it ate up so much of the budget). Nevertheless, they persisted! Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie will be the other judges. Right now, it all just feels exhausting. Maybe once the show gets going it will be good, she wrote unconvincingly?

Alan Cumming plays Dr. Dylan Reinhart, a former CIA something or other, and an expert on serial killers, who has retired from that formerly exciting work to be a professor at Penn. Then he's lured into a case by an NYPD detective (Bojana Novakovic) who has trouble working with partners, but gets along well with Dylan. I wonder whether the pitch for this show was What if Castle had been gay? The pilot has some pilot-itis: Cumming's hair keeps changing color, and there's snow on the ground in one scene, then it's seemingly a different season in the next one — but those things can be worked out, obviously. Instinct is a perfectly fine entry into CBS's procedural offerings.

Did you hear the sound of my sobs? I'm gearing up to cry my eyes out from this new Jason Katims show: The creator of Friday Night Lights and Parenthood is the master of tears, and one must train for months in advance to watch his shows. In Rise, Lou Mazzuchelli (Josh Radnor) is a teacher who takes over the high school's drama department, giving a boost not only to the school, but also to the surrounding town. Rosie Perez, Auli'i Cravalho (so psyched for Moana to be in this), and a large ensemble of largely unknown actors make up Rise's cast. Given Katims' knack for mining young talent (Michael B. Jordan, Jesse Plemons, Taylor Kitsch, and more), I can't wait to see Rise.

This movie, directed by TV super-producer Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, Brothers & Sisters, Everwood, and zillions more), is based on Becky Albertalli's 2015 YA novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Simon, played by Nick Robinson (he was the dick-ish older brother in Jurassic World), is closeted and, like, thinking about stuff, as 17-year-olds do. Katherine Langford (the doomed Hannah from 13 Reasons Why) is his best friend, Jennifer Garner plays his mom — and someone is blackmailing him, threatening to reveal emails he sent to a secret pen pal. From its trailer, Love, Simon appears to ask, Don't gay teens deserve the same mediocre movies straight teens get?

My first reaction to the reboot of the Lara Croft franchise: eyeroll. My second reaction after watching the trailer with Alicia Vikander: Why can't this be a female-led Indiana Jones–like franchise if it's in the right hands? The Norwegian director Roar Uthaug, who was behind the well-done 2015 tsunami movie The Wave, is in charge here, and Vikander is, as we know, awesome. Walton Goggins is the villain. Let's try it.

Two generations before Superman's home planet blows up, his grandfather, Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe), tries to redeem the house of El after the family has been shunned. Georgina Campbell plays Seg-El's love interest, Lyta Zod of the evil Zod family. It gives the whole business a Romeo and Juliet twist. (Campbell stars in a wonderful Black Mirror episode, "Hang the DJ," in the recently released fourth season — go watch it now if you want to see her excellent work.) DC Comics mainstay David S. Goyer is an executive producer of Krypton; Cameron Welsh is the showrunner; and this Superman prequel is based on characters by the superhero's co-creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

In one of those strange cultural coincidences that happens sometimes, the events of Trust will portray the same story as Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World (the movie Kevin Spacey was kicked out of). That is, this 10-episode series will dramatize the kidnapping and ransoming of John Paul Getty III (Harris Dickinson), the refusal of his grandfather (Donald Sutherland) to pay the ransom, and the attempts of his mother (Hilary Swank) to figure out how to save her son. Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy, and Christian Colson — the Oscar-winning team behind Slumdog Millionaire, and many other films — created Trust. If this season is successful, they would focus future seasons on different time periods of the Getty dynasty.

The original Muppet Babies ran from 1984 to 1991; now, because Disney is simply the best at mining its own past, they are back. The show will follow the romps of baby Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, and Animal, as overseen by Miss Nanny.

Like the first Pacific Rim, but with no Idris Elba or Charlie Hunnam, and without Guillermo del Toro as a director. (Steven S. DeKnight took over for del Toro, who is a producer.) John Boyega is the lead, playing the son of General Pentecost (Idris Elba, who delivered the "canceling the apocalypse" speech from the first movie, now a meme). This sequel picks up 10 years after the action of the original. Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, and Burn Gorman do return from Pacific Rim. I think it's sort of funny that because of "canceling the apocalypse," this franchise considers speeches (along with monsters) to be part of its thing, but the fans seem excited, so what do I know.

In The Terror, which is "inspired by a true story," the British Royal Navy seeks to discover the Northwest Passage, but everything goes wrong. Jared Harris, Ciarán Hinds, and Tobias Menzies lead this cast, as three captains with their own internal politics that may cause deaths among their crew, as well as their own doom. The Terror is a Ridley Scott production.

This country has never needed Roseanne's insights into the white working class more than it does now. But does Roseanne Barr, who espouses right-wing views and conspiracy theories on her Twitter feed, feel the same way her classic television character once did? Her politics confuse me so much! Here's what we know about the new version: Dan (John Goodman) never died; the Conners never won the lottery; Lecy Goranson will be back as Becky, but Sarah Chalke, who played Becky later, will also appear; and Johnny Galecki will be back — at least for a minute — as David, despite his Big Bang Theory duties (he posted a picture from the set). Will he and Darlene (Sara Gilbert) still be married? Please say yes. As a reminder of how brilliantly funny this show could be, do watch this scene from Season 6, when Roseanne, Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), and Dan get high in the bathroom. And cross every finger you have that it will be good again, if not great. (While you're doing that, ask that Metcalf win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Lady Bird too — because she really should!)

When I asked Freeform for its 2018 offerings, I requested information about Grown-ish and the "scary mermaid show" — which is Siren! The residents of Bristol Cove, "known for its legend of once being home to mermaids," as the logline says, start being tormented by a "mysterious girl" (code for "scary mermaid" if I've ever seen it) played by Eline Powell. The heroes of this show are two marine biologists, Ben (Alex Roe) and Maddie (Fola Evans-Akingbola), which is nerdy fun. I AM IN. For at least two episodes.

Steven Spielberg directed Ready Player One, and it has a zillion special effects — in November, Spielberg told IndieWire that Ready Player One is "the most difficult movie I’ve done since Saving Private Ryan." In 2045, Earth is a wasteland, and the virtual world — the OASIS, created by the late tech bazillionaire James Halliday (Mark Rylance) — is where people go to enjoy life the way it once was (going to school, having relationships, and so on). The desperately poor, very bright teenager Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) faces a life with no prospects at all, and so he throws himself into Halliday's final creation in the OASIS, Anorak's Game: the stakes of which are tens of billions of dollars and the OASIS itself. The tests of the game are based on Halliday's interests, which are deeply rooted in 1980s pop culture. I'm a fan of the 2011 novel by Ernest Cline, but the trailers for Ready Player One have worried me a bit: The plot is complicated, there needs to be a lot of world-building, and not everyone is who he or she appears to be (especially with avatars, of course). Will Ready Player One be worth compressing, or will it lose its pleasures in the process?

Because NBC scrapped its plans for Bye Bye Birdie, the network didn't air a live musical in 2017 for the first time since 2013's Sound of Music Live! But this Easter, the network will produce the 1971 Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical that tells the story of the last week of Jesus' life, with John Legend playing Jesus. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the Chicago producers who are behind all of the previous NBC live stagings, return.

Steve Zahn stars as a sheriff in a coastal Oregon town faced with refugees turning up in the water — but the refugees are from 150 years in the future, and they're escaping a war that hasn't happened yet. Forty-seven of them survive, more than 400 drown, according to the trailer, and at least one of them has cool powers. Another wrinkle: Apparently, some future people have come already, and they're not nice. Network television hasn't had any luck with a mythology show in a while, but perhaps The Crossing can break the curse.

Tracy Morgan returns to series television with his and Jordan Peele's co-creation, The Last O.G.. Morgan plays Tray, released from prison after 15 years, who returns home to Brooklyn to find that his ex-girlfriend (Tiffany Haddish) is raising their twins he didn't know about with a new white husband (Ryan Gaul). According to the logline, Tray "falls back on the skills he learned in prison to make ends meet." Cedric the Entertainer heads up the halfway house where Tray lives, and Allen Maldonado plays his cousin. This one's had a little creative trouble behind the scenes, but perhaps it's recovered.

This coproduction between Starz and BBC One has already aired (and been well-reviewed) in the UK, so we can look forward to it with confidence. The four hour-long adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel was written by the Oscar-winning writer-director Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea) and directed by Hettie Macdonald. Hayley Atwell plays Margaret Schlegel and Philippa Coulthard plays her sister, Helen. Howards End is a house, and Matthew Macfadyen plays its owner; it's bestowed to him after his wife, Ruth (Julia Ormond), dies. Lonergan cast several actors of color in an effort to make the story more resonant for today, and according to British critics, it seems to have worked.

This has been a hit series in the UK, with the Telegraph calling it the "best detective drama of the decade." In its first season, two detectives — played by Masterpiece veterans Nicola Walker (Last Tango in Halifax) and Sanjeev Bhaskar (Indian Summers) — investigate a 39-year-old cold case: the unsolved murder of a boy.

When you think that the original Bug Juice started in 1998 — before Survivor, and long before the uproar over Kid Nation, the doomed 2007 CBS reality series that featured children — it was pretty revolutionary reality TV. I guess it was just The Real World at sleepaway camp, but no one else was doing anything like it. It ran for three seasons, with its last one airing in 2001; I'm kind of surprised it took this long to return. Now, a whole new group of campers — ages 10–12 — will go to Camp Waziyatah, bonding and bunking.

There are 4,000 Avengers at this point — just watch the trailer for proof — and in Infinity War, they will meet up with the Guardians of the Galaxy in order to try to defeat Thanos (Josh Brolin). Thanos is trying to collect the Infinity Stones, which will ... this is where these stories lose me, but I'm sure it's something like destroy the universe or make him all-powerful. Joe and Anthony Russo, who directed the very good Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War are at the helm here, and also filmed the next Avengers movie at the same time (scheduled for release in 2019). The two movies were once called Infinity War — Part 1 and Infinity War — Part 2, but they have changed it so it doesn't seem like one movie split in half (the second movie's title is still to come, though). Back to there being so many Avengers — will one or two of them ever die to make these movies have stakes? I would bet on Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), if anyone, but that's a wild guess.

If you haven't seen the charming promo for Netflix's Carol Burnett show, run, don't walk — er, just click on your browser to launch this YouTube link. In front of a live audience, a panel of children (ranging in age from 4 to 8) will advise adults — both celebrities and normal people — on how to solve real-life problems. The show is 12 half-hour episodes.

I am so excited for this new version of Little Women — Call the Midwife's Heidi Thomas has adapted Louisa May Alcott's classic novel — that you all would mock me if I fully expressed the nerdiness that it brings out in me. There will be a few familiar faces here: Emily Watson plays Marmee, the mother of the March sisters; Michael Gambon plays Mr. Laurence (the grandfather and guardian of Laurie, one of the main characters); and Angela Lansbury is in the role of Aunt March, the cranky, wealthy great aunt of the March girls. The younger cast — the March sisters — are newcomers, but given the eye for talent Thomas showed on Call the Midwife, we are surely in good hands. Vanessa Caswill directed this two-part, three-hour Little Women. This trailer! Oh, my heart.

This adaptation of J.K. Rowling's Robert Galbraith mysteries aired last summer in the UK on BBC One, starring Tom Burke as private detective Cormoran Strike, and Holliday Grainger as his office temp, Robin. It's a seven-episode season, and looks cozy AF. Also, I like that at least one YouTube user ships Robin and Cormoran.

Marti Noxon — of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce, and the movie To the Bone — adapts Sarai Walker's 2015 satiric novel of the same name into a 10-episode series. Joy Nash plays Plum Kettle, an overweight magazine writer soon to have gastric bypass surgery. According to the logline, she gets caught between "two rival feminist factions," one of which seems to be a terrorist organization. Julianna Margulies, in her first TV role since The Good Wife, plays Kitty Montgomery, a magazine editor, and Mya Taylor (who won an Indie Spirit Award for Tangerine), plays Barbara, a trans woman who is a member of one of the feminist groups.

Morgan Neville, who won the Academy Award for Best Documentary for 20 Feet From Stardom, this time has tackled the subject of Fred Rogers, the deity of children's educational television, and the star of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. The man was a saint, but if you think that will be boring to watch, do take a look at his riveting1969 testimony in front of a Senate subcommittee that was set on cutting funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — until he changed their minds. (Real question: Do senators ever reverse their positions anymore?)

Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), the sister of Danny Ocean (George Clooney, of the Ocean's trilogy), decides to pull off a heist herself, and enlists Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, Mindy Kaling, Awkwafina, and Sarah Paulson to form her eight. Is this real life, or is it heaven? As my colleague Lauren Yapalater wrote a year ago, "Based On Set Photos, It Looks Like 'Ocean's Eight' Will Be The Greatest Movie In The History Of Movies."

By the time The Incredibles 2 is released, it will be nearly 14 years since the 2004 original came out — Pixar is so strange sometimes. But according to the (now on leave) Pixar chief, John Lasseter, the movie's action will pick up right where the first one left off, when the Parrs were about to battle The Underminer. Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Sarah Vowell, and Samuel L. Jackson are all back as the voice cast, and Brad Bird returned to direct.

Emily Blunt won't be back for this sequel to 2015's Sicario — Taylor Sheridan, who wrote both movies, explained to the Wrap that Blunt's Kate had completed her arc. Sicario director Denis Villeneuve isn't doing this one, either; Stefano Sollima — who directed a number of episodes of the Italian crime drama Gomorrah, is taking over. But Josh Brolin and Benicio del Toro do return, and will be joined by Catherine Keener and Matthew Modine.

Another Marti Noxon offering, this time an adaptation of the first novel of Gillian Flynn, the Gone Girl author. Amy Adams plays Camille, a newspaper reporter and cutter, who after a recent institutionalization is sent to her hometown to investigate a crime. Once there, she reunites with her gothically crazy (and rich) mother, played by Patricia Clarkson, and her teenage half sister (Eliza Scanlen). Flynn is one of the eight-episode series' writers, too, and Jean-Marc Vallée (Big Little Lies) is the director and an executive producer.

Created by House of Cards' Beau Willimon, The First is about the first human mission to Mars. Sean Penn make his debut as a TV series regular on this show, which comprises eight episodes in its first season. Natascha McElhone and LisaGay Hamilton also star in this secretive project (further details about the plot and characters are not available). The First is a British coproduction and will also air on Channel 4 in the UK in 2018.

I know I saw and enjoyed the first Ant-Man, but...I struggle to remember it! It seemed to me at the time to be the most mild movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which isn't a bad thing, but the result is, I can't really remember it. Paul Rudd returns as Ant-Man (real name: Scott Lang), and Michael Douglas is Hank Pym, an entomologist (and former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent) who was the original Ant-Man. Evangeline Lilly is back as Pym's daughter, Hope, aka the Wasp. From the movie's title, and from interviews with the movie's director, Peyton Reed, she will clearly be central to the story.

Developed by Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason (and executive produced by J.J. Abrams), Castle Rock is a mashup of Stephen King stories set in the fictional Maine town King created. The 10-episode first season will follow Henry Deaver (André Holland, who played adult Kevin in Moonlight) who returns home to Castle Rock to represent a Shawshank Prison inmate (Bill Skarsgård, aka Pennywise from It — I'm sobbing with fear at the thought). Melanie Lynskey, Scott Glenn, Jane Levy, Sissy Spacek (who doesn't seem to be playing Carrie) are also among the cast. I'm no King expert, but even I can find a whole lot of visual references to his work in this teaser, giving us an idea of what this multiverse might entail. Already scared, not gonna lie.

Have you read Kevin Kwan's book series, which begins with Crazy Rich Asians? They're a damn delight! And now, director Jon M. Chu (of two Step Up movies, and Now You See Me 2) has carefully assembled an Asian cast filled with a few well-known actors (Constance Wu and Michelle Yeoh) and many unknown performers. (For a full list of the cast, here you go.) Wu plays Rachel Chu, an NYU professor dating a fellow academic, Nick Young (Henry Golding), who, unbeknownst to her, is from one of the richest families in Singapore. Which she discovers when she goes home with him for his best friend's wedding. Family strife ensues, over-the-top wealth is on display, soapy backstabbing occurs, and incredible food is consumed. Crazy Rich Asians is the first romantic comedy with an all-Asian cast to be released by a major studio (Warner Bros.). Cannot wait.

I loved this John Bellairs book (and its sequels) when I was a tween. Now it's being adapted as a movie, with 10-year-old Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) going to live with his uncle (Jack Black), a wizard, with a talented witch as a next-door-neighbor (Cate Blanchett). There's a clock in the house's walls counting down to the end of the world, so they're going to need all the magic they can muster. Eli Roth is the director of this project, and I can't tell if that means it's going to be genuinely scary (the book kind of is, despite being geared toward kids) or if the presence of Black pushes it more toward Goosebumps territory. Either way, I will be psyched to see it on screen after all this time.

Garrard, played by Lucas Hedges (Oscar-nominated for his role in Manchester by the Sea), is outed as gay to his parents at age 19, which goes over poorly with his Baptist pastor father (Russell Crowe) and conservative mother (Nicole Kidman). Garrard is forced into an ex-gay conversion program led by Victor Sykes, a character played by Joel Edgerton, who also directed, produced, and adapted Garrard Conley's widely praised 2016 memoir. Edgerton's previous auteur effort, 2015's thriller The Gift, was terrific — scary and witty at the same time.

Kevin Hart's character, Teddy, can't get a job until he gets his GED, so he enrolls in night school. (This movie is based on Hart's idea; he is credited as a cowriter.) Tiffany Haddish, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Taran Killam, and Insecure's Yvonne Orji (in her feature film debut) costar in what will be director Malcolm D. Lee's first movie since Girls Trip.

A standalone Venom movie has been in the works for a decade, with various writers and directors attached as the years passed. It's finally happening, with Tom Hardy starring as Eddie Brock, who is inhabited by Venom, an alien symbiote. A lot of the details about the movie are being kept secret, but we do know that it will probably be rated R (as inspired by Deadpool and Logan); Michelle Williams is playing Brock's ex-wife, Anne Weying; and Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) is directing.

I didn't like Damien Chazelle's Whiplash, nor did I like his La La Land, yet I have high hopes for this movie, in which Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong — the, uh, first man on the moon. A movie about Armstrong has been in the works since at least 2003, when Clint Eastwood was going to direct an adaptation of James R. Hansen's authorized biography of the famous astronaut (which hadn't yet been published at the time). This Chazelle-Gosling pairing came about during the filming of La La Land. Other key roles will be played by Corey Stoll (Buzz Aldrin, who was not chosen by NASA to be the "first man" to set foot on the moon, apparently a big distinction), Claire Foy (Armstrong's wife, Janet), Kyle Chandler (Deke Slayton, an astronaut turned NASA bigwig), and Jason Clarke (Ed White, an astronaut who ends up dying in a test mission — spoiler alert for something you will not remember by the time the movie is released!). Josh Singer, who won an Oscar for cowriting Spotlight (with Tom McCarthy), wrote this version of the screenplay.

I believe I screamed (while alone on my couch!) when Jamie Lee Curtis tweeted in September that she would star in a new Halloween movie in 2018: "Same porch. Same clothes. Same issues. 40 years later. Headed back to Haddonfield one last time for Halloween. Release date 10/19/18." If you've lost track of the many Halloween movies, and which are considered canon, then this may be for you. According to John Carpenter, its creator and an executive producer of this one, the new movie will wipe out everything that happened in all the sequels! In an interview with Stereogum, Carpenter said: "It’s almost an alternative reality. It picks up after the first one and it pretends that none of the other [sequels] were made." So there you go — it will also ignore that Michael Myers actually killed Laurie Strode, Curtis's character. Twice, I think? David Gordon Green, who has such an eclectic career these days (Stronger, Our Brand Is Crisis), is directing.

This movie was first announced in 2010, and has seemingly operated under a curse ever since. Sacha Baron Cohen was attached to play the late Queen singer Freddie Mercury, but he left in 2013 after disagreements with the rest of the band about the movie's direction — he wanted it to be more adult, he said, than they did. A number of directors and screenwriters have since been associated with the movie, and Ben Whishaw was going to play Mercury at one point. The final configuration of Bohemian Rhapsody was seemingly set this fall, with Rami Malek as Mercury and Bryan Singer directing — but then in early December, Singer was fired for being negligent and fighting with Malek. Cursed, I tell you! Dexter Fletcher is finishing the movie after Singer's ouster. (This Empire story from September has a good account of the movie's prior shenanigans, but obviously was written before the Singer ones.)

October will have two consecutive weeks of Claire Foy movies: She will play Lisbeth Salander in this second attempt to adapt the Stieg Larsson Millennium series for American audiences. This one will be based on David Lagercrantz's continuation of the books, The Girl in the Spider's Web; he took over writing them in 2015 (Larsson died in 2004). Fede Alvarez (Don't Breathe) will direct. David Fincher's 2011 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo — which starred Rooney Mara as Salander, the autistic hacker, and Daniel Craig as the crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who join together to solve a murder — was meant to be the first of the Larsson movies, but the next two books proved too difficult to adapt. So Sony, which owns the rights to series, opted to skip to the more straightforward Spider’s Web with a new director and cast. Sverrir Gudnason will play Blomkvist, and Sylvia Hoeks (an evil replicant in Blade Runner 2049) will play Salander's long-lost twin sister, who is a villain in the story. (This book is pretty good, if you haven't read it.) The Girl in the Spider’s Web will begin filming in early 2018.

Widows is director Steve McQueen's first movie since his 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards. It's based on a 1983 UK TV series of the same name by Lynda La Plante, the creator of Prime Suspect, and is about the wives of a group of men who are killed during an armed robbery attempt — and then, as widows, take over the operation. Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Michelle Rodriguez, and Elizabeth Debicki play the widows, and, as if they're not enough of a lure, they're surrounded by a terrific cast.

I don't clock a lot of enthusiasm for this franchise, but the first movie made more than $800 million, so clearly I'm just not hanging out in the right circles for it. The Crimes of Grindelwald will focus on the Voldemort-y Grindelwald, played by the, er, Voldemort-y Johnny Depp. (There is a lot of controversy about keeping him in the movie after Amber Heard's allegations of physical abuse; read this smart essay by my colleague Alanna Bennett about why many fans feel betrayed by J.K. Rowling over this issue.) Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) and the other good guys — Jacob (Dan Fogler), Tina (Katherine Waterston), and Queenie (Alison Sudol) — all return to fight him. David Yates, who directed the first Fantastic Beasts and the final four Harry Potter films — will be back for this one. Jude Law will play the young Albus Dumbledore here, which does seem exciting. Maybe these movies will get better like the Harry Potter ones did. One can hope.

In 2012's Wreck-It Ralph, John C. Reilly played Ralph, a character from an arcade video game who yearns to shed his villain day job and be a hero. He's eventually helped by a character from a different game, Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). In Wreck-It Ralph 2, Vanellope's game breaks and she and Ralph have to venture into the internet to get the part to fix it. From the footage Disney showed at D23, it seems there's a self-referential scene in the movie when Ralph and Vanellope come across the site OhMy.Disney.com, where a new character named Yesss (Taraji P. Henson) gives a tour of an amusement park filled with Disney-owned characters, such as Iron Man, Dumbo, the Stormtroopers of Star Wars, C-3PO, and a slew of Disney princesses voiced by the voice actors who have played them, such as Moana’s Auli’i Cravalho and Tangled's Mandy Moore. (For the full list, read this Entertainment Weekly story.) Codirected by Phil Johnston and Rich Moore (they directed Zootopia), Wreck-It Ralph 2 should be a clever good time.

This Spider-Man story, an animated movie from producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, and not of Solo, see above) follows the story of Spider-Man Miles Morales, who became a Marvel Comics character in 2011. Miles is the first black Spidey, a direction Marvel wanted to go in because of Barack Obama; the comic's writer, Brian Michael Bendis, was further inspired by Donald Glover's (doomed) campaign to play Peter Parker. Phil Lord wrote the screenplay for Into the Spider-Verse, and Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman are the directors.

On the late HBO show Entourage, Vince starred as Aquaman in his big bid for mainstream stardom. The idea of an Aquaman movie was satiric, and somewhat ridiculous — that was then, this is now! Jason Momoa, who has played Arthur Curry/Aquaman in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League (pictured above), takes center stage here, with Arthur returning to Atlantis to lead his people. Amber Heard is Mera, his love interest; Patrick Wilson plays Orm, his half-brother and a bad guy; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Black Manta, another bad guy; and Nicole Kidman plays Aquaman's mother. James Wan directs.

Emily Blunt takes the role of the titular character in this sequel — yes, sequel, not a remake — of the 1964 Disney classic for which Julie Andrews won an Oscar for Best Actress. Set in 1935, 20 years after the first film, Mary will return to the family of Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) to help him and his children through a tragedy. (Emily Mortimer will play Jane Banks.) Lin-Manuel Miranda plays Jack, a similar character to Dick Van Dyke's Bert in the first film. (He's also apparently contributing music.) Colin Firth and Meryl Streep costar; Rob Marshall (Chicago) directs.

Netflix will once again be offering approximately 1 million new shows, and most don't have dates yet. There's the teen dramedy Everything Sucks!, set in 1996 Oregon, about a group of high school outsiders who band together to make a movie. Peyton Kennedy and Jahi Winston star; the 10-episode, half-hour series was created by Ben York Jones and Michael Mohan. There's also On My Block (pictured above) — by Awkward creator Lauren Iungerich, Eddie Gonzalez, and Jeremy Haft — a comedy about teenagers (and their parents) living in South Central Los Angeles. And it's a Netflix teen trifecta with Alexa & Katie, in which one best friend, the extrovert Alexa (Paris Berelc) is undergoing cancer treatments, and the other, the quirky Katie (Isabel May) is not. They're about to start their freshman year of high school. For crime fans, there's David Hare's Collateral, a coproduction with BBC Two, in which Carey Mulligan plays a detective investigating fatal shooting of a pizza delivery man. John Simm (a politician), Billie Piper (the politician's ex), and Nicola Walker (a vicar), also star. And then there is the live-action adaptation of The Umbrella Academy, based on Gerard Way's comics and graphic novels, in which an estranged family of superheroes comes together to try to solve the father's mysterious death. Ellen Page will be in the large cast.

In Maniac, Emma Stone and Jonah Hill costar in an adaptation of a dark Norwegian comedy about a man who lives in an institution, but lives a fantasy life in his dreams. Cary Fukunaga is the director; Patrick Somerville is the writer. There's also Lost in Space, which ditches the kitsch of the 1960s original in favor of a straight science-fiction drama about the colonist Robinson family being, well, lost in space. Toby Stephens and Molly Parker play the Robinson parents caring for their three children as they try to save themselves, and Parker Posey will play the also-stranded Dr. Smith. And the logline for Insatiable, which was initially developed for the CW, grabbed my attention: "A disgraced, dissatisfied civil lawyer-turned-beauty pageant coach takes on a vengeful, bullied teenager as his client, and has no idea what he’s about to unleash upon the world."

(Last but not least, let's not forget about the six-episode David Letterman series, which doesn't have a name yet.)

Having ousted its head of programming in the fall, Amazon is in a state of flux. But it has a lot of programming heading our way anyway, most of which has not been dated yet. There are a number of unscripted shows — Grand Prix Driver (probably for February), Hannah Grant’s Tour de France, All Blacks, and Gymkhana Files — all of which focus on sports.

The streaming service also has a number of scripted shows, many of which sound ambitious. Among them is Picnic at Hanging Rock, starring Natalie Dormer. Set in Australia, it's an hourlong drama about the disappearance of a teacher and three female students in Australia in 1900. (The Peter Weir film version of this Joan Lindsay novel is very creepy, if you haven't seen it.) Amazon also has a reimagining of King Lear, starring Anthony Hopkins as a totalitarian ruler of a fictional, present-day England. Playing Lear's three daughters are Emma Thompson (Goneril), Emily Watson (Regan), and Florence Pugh (Cordelia). Jim Broadbent, Andrew Scott, and Christopher Eccleston also star — geez, what a great cast! In other literary adaptations, Gwyneth Hughes has Vanity Fair, with Olivia Cooke from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl playing Becky Sharp. And Hugh Grant comes to television! He stars in the based-on-a-true-story drama A Very English Scandal, playing Jeremy Thorpe, a member of Parliament and a closeted gay man in the late 1960s — when that was not an acceptable way to live. Thorpe stood trial for conspiring to murder his ex-lover, Norman Scott (Ben Whishaw).

The highest-profile Amazon projects of next year are The Romanoffs, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, and Homecoming. In Matthew Weiner's The Romanoffs, each episode will tell the story of someone who believes he or she is a descendant of the Russian royal family. Weiner — who was recently accused of sexual harassment, which he denies — directs every episode, and the project will reunite him with some of his Mad Men cast (Christina Hendricks and John Slattery). The Romanoffs also stars Diane Lane, Andrew Rannells, Corey Stoll, and more. In Jack Ryan, an eight-episode thriller, John Krasinski stars as the Tom Clancy character who in film was played by many men: Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and, most recently, Chris Pine. Carlton Cuse, who steered Lost for years, is the showrunner, and Wendell Pierce and Abbie Cornish costar. And with Homecoming, Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg will adapt their their Gimlet Media podcast, with Mr. Robot's Sam Esmail executive-producing and directing. But I've buried the lede! Julia Roberts is Homecoming's star, playing a government caseworker treating a soldier (Stephan James). Julia fucking Roberts! On the TV! Needless to say, Amazon ordered two seasons of Homecoming from the start.

The 1988 movie Heathers meant so much to me that I'm terrified of this TV adaptation. I...I may have no words to express my terror. To base an opinion on a 30-second teaser is deeply unfair, and yet I will admit this snippet did nothing but compound my worry. I actually sighed just now, like audibly. I appreciate that one of the Heathers is a black lesbian, and that another is gender-queer. However, that the logline specifies that "Heather Chandler has a body like Martha Dumptruck" is not reassuring — is this meant to be transgressive? Grace Victoria Cox plays Veronica, the character Winona Ryder made iconic (an overused word, but not here), and James Scully plays J.D. (the Christian Slater role). I do like that Leslye Headland directed the pilot, and it seems to be a good sign that the network seems so excited about it. I also like that it's an anthology that, in success, would reboot every year. I am, of course, rooting for this show to be great. Or at least pretty good. PLEASE BE PRETTY GOOD.

[Update: After the Parkland shootings, Paramount Network wisely pulled Heathers, which makes a mockery of children's deaths, from its premiere date, rescheduling it for sometime this year. To be real, though, having seen the truly terrible first few episodes, I don't think this show will see the light of day ever.