“How Hard Is it to Predict Next Year’s TV Shows
(Not That Hard).”
The success of imitation in show business is based on this simple principle: if they liked seeing it once, they’ll like seeing it again. In that spirit, here is a list of all the new streaming shows that we should be watching in the next year. The description of each new show is preceded by an example of its predecessor along with the premise common to both.
[Dickinson: Actual people transformed into characters]
Just as the real 19th century poet Emily Dickinson was re-invented as a modern 21st century woman, so does Drip re-invent Jackson Pollock as a truth-seeking hard-drinking 1950s journalist who poses as an artist to reveal the corruption and fakery of the New York art world. His sidekick in this abstract series is his sassy lover, and actual artist, Lee Krasner.
[Inspector Morse becomes Endeavor, and Prime Suspect becomes Tennison: Old detectives become young people]
Joining the ranks of shows depicting the younger versions of famous detectives is the Young Poirot. This series addresses the origins of Hercule’s fetishes, his fastidiousness, his insistence that he be called Belgian, and his habit of hanging out with groups of stereotypes after a murder. Hercule uncovers clues of his own sexually-fluid identity as he attempts to solve each mystery.
[Pre-Historic Planet: Digitally created animals]
Okay, we’ve looked into the past and watched digital dinosaurs roam the planet. Now there is Post-Historic Planet, a show in which the animals of the future digitally come to life with all of their behaviors narrated by, of course, David Attenborough. (Note: Even if Sir David refuses to have anything to do with this production, there are so many of his recorded descriptions of animal behaviors in the world that his narration will be digitally created for the series.)
[Ted Lasso: Goldfish out of water]
Take a man who knows nothing about what he’s been hired to do and put him in a country where he’s never been and make sure that he has a very corny sense of humor with a baby-boom sense of references and emphasize that he is upbeat and positive about everything and then turn him into a black woman and you’ll be watching Alysha Hope.
[Counterpart and Night Sky: Accessing adjacent worlds]
J.K. Simmons descends into yet another portal beneath where he works and/or lives as he enters yet another parallel and/or alien world. This time the world that J.K. enters transforms him into a praying mantis in Kafka’s Insects.
[Mare of Easttown: Women playing tough-guy detectives]
It seems that every actor wants to play a hardboiled detective at least once in their career. Jennifer Lawrence brings her inner tough-guy to life in a modern gender-bending version of Humphrey Bogart in the mystery series Samantha Spade. The vape smoke will swirl in the air as she slaps her opponent silly, and then calmly straightens her unbuttoned flannel shirt over her slightly tight jeans.
[The Mandalorian and Boba Fett: Endless Star Wars spin-offs]
Disney+ reworks and extends yet another one of its franchises creating The Baby Yoda Program. The storyline is vaguely attached to some kind of Star Warsian adventure with creatures armed with lasers – it doesn’t really matter what the story is – all you have to know is that Baby Yoda is in it.
[Buying Online from Amazon and Returning Purchases at Whole Foods: Celebrating consumerism]
From Amazon Prime Video comes this “Original” series, The Product, The Order, and The Delivery. Each episode tells a three-part story of procurement which makes Jeff Bezos richer by the second. And, if you order an episode by 5:59 pm local time, it will be delivered to your screen by 6 pm.
[The Morning Show: Compelling casting]
Apple+ presents A Generic Title. Very-famous actors and some not-so-very- famous-but-well-respected actors and two unknown-but-about-to-become- very-famous actors make up an ensemble cast who all do something at the same work place. However, the show is not about what the characters do at work so much as it is about their sexual and social lives. You can expect that one of the characters will die, that one will come out, and that two will change into the moral opposites of themselves by the end of the second season.
[Any Netflix Documentary: Documenting anything and everything]
A Netflix Original Documentary (the last one, perhaps): The Rise and Fall of a Streaming Service: An Inside Look at Netflix.
Rick Doehring
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