New TV shows in 2022: dramas, thrillers, true crime and documentaries

Must-watch series include Killing Eve and Peaky Blinders

1. Killing Eve

Jodie Comer as Villanelle in Killing Eve

Jodie Comer as Villanelle in Killing Eve
(Image credit: Anika Molnar/BBC America)

BBC

Fans of Killing Eve were “sent into meltdown” after the hit show’s official Twitter account released a first-look trailer of season four, the Daily Express said.

Psychotic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) and MI5 analyst Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) return for one “last battle”, said the London Evening Standard. And in the trailer, Eve and Villanelle play their “usual game of cat-and-mouse”.

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The opening episode of the final season will premiere on 27 February. The BBC confirmed that ​​new episodes will be available weekly on iPlayer straight after it airs on BBC America.

2. Peaky Blinders series six

Cillian Murphy plays Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders

Cillian Murphy plays Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders
(Image credit: BBC)

BBC

Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby is another favourite returning to the BBC this year. Birmingham’s “most notorious flat-cap-wearing gangster” will be back on our screens in “early 2022” in the much-loved crime drama’s sixth and final series, Radio Times said. A teaser confirmed the return of Alfie Solomons (Tom Hardy) while Stephen Graham will also join the cast.

3. The Green Planet

The Green Planet with David Attenborough

The Green Planet with David Attenborough
(Image credit: BBC)

BBC

Beginning on Sunday 9 January on BBC One, David Attenborough’s new five-part series looks at the strange and wonderful world of plants. The “indefatigable” 95-year-old has now been presenting prestige nature documentaries for more than two-thirds of the BBC’s century of broadcasting, said Dan Einav in the FT. And his latest is “yet another remarkable product of the symbiosis between his decades of experience and ingenious, cutting-edge filming techniques”.

4. Our House

Tuppence Middleton and Martin Compston will star in Our House

Tuppence Middleton and Martin Compston will star in Our House
(Image credit: ITV/Rob Harper/Stefan Sieler)

ITV

Martin Compston, another Line of Duty alumni, returns to our screens this year in ITV’s psychological thriller Our House. Adapted from Louise Candlish’s international bestselling novel of the same name, the “edge-of-your-seat” four-part series will see Compston joined in the cast by Tuppence Middleton and Rupert Penry-Jones.

Fiona Lawson (Middleton) arrives home one day to find strangers moving into her house. With all her family’s possessions and furniture nowhere to be seen, Fi believes there’s been a huge mistake and insists her home isn’t for sale. With events spiralling beyond her control, her panic rises as she can’t reach her estranged husband, Bram (Compston).

5. House of the Dragon

Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith in House of the Dragon

Emma D’Arcy and Matt Smith in House of the Dragon
(Image credit: HBO)

Sky Atlantic/NOW

Based on George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon is set a few hundred years before the events of Game of Thrones and tells the story of House Targaryen. Emma D’Arcy stars as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, the king’s first-born child who is of pure Valyrian blood and a dragonrider. Matt Smith plays Prince Daemon Targaryen, the younger brother to King Viserys and heir to the throne.

Paddy Considine plays King Viserys Targaryen while Steve Toussaint (Lord Corlys Velaryon), Olivia Cooke (Alicent Hightower) and Rhys Ifans (Otto Hightower) also join the cast for the ten-episode series. HBO has not revealed when it will air but “reports in the US say it is likely to be sometime in 2022”, Sky News said.

6. The Suspect

Aidan Turner plays Dr Joseph O’Loughlin in The Suspect

Aidan Turner plays Dr Joseph O’Loughlin in The Suspect
(Image credit: ITV)

ITV

Upcoming psychological thriller The Suspect promises to have viewers “on the edge of their seats”, said the Daily Express. Adapted from the bestselling novel by Michael Robotham, Poldark star Aidan Turner will play Dr Joseph O’Loughlin in the five-part ITV drama. O’Loughlin is a “complex character” who has a “hidden dark side”.

7. The Crown

Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown

Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown
(Image credit: Alex Bailey/Netflix)

Netflix

Fans of The Crown “will have to wait longer than usual for it to return”, Harper’s Bazaar reported. Season five will premiere in November 2022, with Imelda Staunton introduced as the Netflix show’s new Queen Elizabeth. Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki and will portray Prince Charles and Princess Diana.

8. The Devil’s Hour

Jessica Raine on the set of The Devil’s Hour

Jessica Raine on the set of The Devil’s Hour
(Image credit: Sam Taylor/Hartswood Films)

Amazon Prime Video

This six-episode show for Amazon Prime Video tells the story of a woman who wakes up every night at exactly 3.33am – in the middle of the so-called devil’s hour between 3am and 4am. Starring Jessica Raine and Peter Capaldi in the lead roles, the new TV thriller “sounds scary as hell, so prepare for some sleepless nights”, said Kayleigh Dray on Stylist.

9. Nolly

Noele Gordon in character as Meg Mortimer in TV soap Crossroads in 1975

Noele Gordon in character as Meg Mortimer in TV soap Crossroads in 1975
(Image credit: TV Times via Getty Images)

ITV

Forty years after Noele Gordon’s shock sacking from Crossroads, ITV has commissioned Nolly, a three-part drama starring Academy Award-nominated actor Helena Bonham Carter in the main role and written by It’s a Sin’s Russell T. Davies. Nolly is an “outrageously fun and wildly entertaining ride” through Noele Gordon’s “most tumultuous years”, and a “sharp, affectionate and heart-breaking portrait of a forgotten icon”, ITV said. The show will go into production in 2022.

10. The Staircase

Colin Firth

Colin Firth
(Image credit: David M. Benett/Getty Images for Eco-Age Limited)

Sky Atlantic

Oscar winner Colin Firth and Game of Thrones’s Sophie Turner will star in a new series inspired by true events. The Staircase was one of the “first true-crime documentaries to break out into mainstream culture” when it was released in 2004, said Deadline. Now being remade as a limited series, Firth will play Michael Peterson, the man convicted of murdering his wife, Kathleen Peterson.

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