11 of one of the best TV reveals to look at this February

From the return of HBO’s holiday-resort satire to a political thriller starring Robert De Niro and the most recent violent interval drama from Peaky Blinders creator Stephen Knight.

After Jane Austen died, in 1817, her sister, Cassandra, destroyed lots of her letters, guarding her privateness and setting generations of Janeites’ and students’ hair on fireplace. Miss Austen, primarily based on Gill Hornby’s bestselling novel, imagines what might need been behind all that. The sequence is splendidly solid, with Keeley Hawes as Cassandra. It begins years after Jane’s loss of life, when Cassandra visits Isabella Fowle (Rose Leslie),  the niece of her long-dead fiancé, with the key objective of looking for letters from Jane that could be within the vicarage. In flashbacks, Synnove Karlsen is the youthful Cassandra and Patsy Ferran the younger Jane. Max Irons and Alfred Enoch are additionally within the solid, as a result of an Austen story at all times wants romance. Hawes teased the present in an interview with the Guardian, saying: “It appears like a traditional costume drama, within the vein of Colin Firth in Delight and Prejudice. Fashionable takes like Bridgerton are good, however this appears like a part of the Austen canon, so her followers will probably be happy.” The Austen business is in overdrive this 12 months, the 250th anniversary of her beginning, however few tasks are as tempting as this.

Miss Austen premieres 2 February on BBC within the UK and 4 Could on PBS within the US

Kaitlyn Dever, who has been nice at comedy (Booksmart) and drama (2019 miniseries Unbelievable), takes on a little bit of each on this fictional model of a real story. She performs Belle Gibson, an Australian influencer and con lady, who falsely stated she had mind most cancers and was curing it with pure substances and life-style, turning that lie right into a monetary empire promoting apps and cookbooks. The present goes past her to incorporate 4 different ladies in her orbit. One in every of them is beneath her spell, one other turns into a enterprise rival. The sequence is ready within the early 2010s, on the daybreak of Instagram, and tackles the rise of social media influencers. You may guess at its enchantment. The present appears to echo the Netflix hit Inventing Anna, with Julia Garner as Anna Delvey, who masqueraded as an heiress, and was convicted of grand larceny and theft of companies for her cons.

Apple Cider Vinegar premieres 6 February on Netflix internationally

Laverne Cox stars in one of many final tasks govt produced by the comedy legend Norman Lear, who died in 2023 at 101. She performs Desiree, a New York artwork gallery proprietor whose enterprise collapses, and who returns residence to Cellular, Alabama after 23 years away. Placing a brand new gender spin on some previous sitcom tropes, the premise is that her father, Harry (comic George Wallace), a car-wash proprietor she hasn’t spoken to in all that point, has no concept that the kid he considered his son has transitioned. Desiree strikes into her previous room, and the odd-couple, city-girl-in-a-small-town jokes start, together with one which has Harry placing cash in a “Pronoun Jar” at any time when he by chance calls Desiree “son”. Cox has been a staple of pink carpet awards protection these days. Nevertheless this sequence seems, it is most likely time to recollect how good she was in Orange is the New Black.

Clear Slate premieres 6 February on Amazon Prime

This drama concerning the decades-long aftershocks from a high-school soccer workforce’s airplane crash is one other present returning after such a protracted hole, nearly two years, that you simply want a refresher course earlier than watching. Final season, as if being stranded within the woods and resorting to cannibalism after they had been teenage ladies wasn’t sufficient, the grownup variations of the characters confronted life-or-death horror on the remoted location the place Lottie (Simone Kessell) has fashioned a cult. Because the grownup Shauna (Melanie Lynskey, the present’s anchor) says within the third season trailer, “Somebody desires us useless”. Whoever it’s already received poor Natalie in season two. The back-and-forth in time continues, with the primary solid returning, together with Lauren Ambrose because the grownup Van, and Liv Hewson as her youthful self, Christina Ricci as grownup Misty, at all times as much as one thing suspicious, and Elijah Wooden as Walter, her demented citizen-sleuth colleague. Hilary Swank makes some visitor appearances within the current day timeline. All we all know up to now is that she is already drenched in blood.

Yellowjackets premieres 14 February on Paramount Plus with Showtime within the US and Paramount Plus within the UK

Season three of Mike White’s mordant social satire is ready on the White Lotus resort in Thailand, and now there are snakes and monkeys together with the standard emotional upheaval. Belinda (Natasha Rothwell), the spa supervisor on the Hawaii White Lotus within the first season, returns to take a coaching course on the new location. This time the company embrace three previous mates on a ladies’ journey, performed by Carrie Coon, Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb, together with Jason Isaacs and Parker Posey as a married couple. Lalisa Manobal, higher generally known as Lisa from the South Korean group Blackpink, performs Mook, a well being and wellness counsellor on the resort, the place well being and wellness are undoubtedly in brief provide. 

The White Lotus premieres 16 February on HBO and Max within the US and 17 February on Sky Atlantic and Now within the UK

This political thriller starring Robert De Niro is intriguing and well timed. When a cyberattack hits the US, inflicting devastation and deaths, former president George Mullen (De Niro) is known as in to go a fee investigating the supply, working in opposition to a barrage of issues and forces: large tech, Wall Avenue, rival political factions and a world of disinformation. Connie Britton performs Mullen’s former chief of workers and Jesse Plemons is a former aide with political ambitions of his personal. Joan Allen performs Mullen’s spouse, and Lizzy Caplan their daughter, a member of Congress. The plot offers with the slippery nature of reality itself. “That is the backbone of my character within the present,” De Niro has stated. “Do not dodge something. Do not play video games. Be trustworthy about what is going on on in order that the general public is aware of what is going on on.” Angela Bassett performs the US president in casting that might have landed very otherwise if the US election had gone one other manner.

Zero Day premieres 20 February on Netflix internationally

On this animated household sequence from Pixar, eight members of a middle-school co-ed softball workforce, the Portland Pickles, are making ready for a championship sport, with Will Forte because the voice of Coach Dan. Every episode focuses on a distinct character, from the school-age gamers to folks and coaches, and appears at their particular person hopes, fears and insecurities, in a present whose message is to think about different individuals’s factors of view. There was not too long ago a flutter of consideration to the sequence for an extraneous motive, although, after phrase emerged that strains of dialogue figuring out one character as transgender had been minimize. Chanel Stewart, the 18-year-old trans actress who voices that character, advised Deadline she was “very disheartened”, and that “I used to be excited to share my journey to assist empower different trans youth”. In an announcement, Disney stated, “In terms of animated content material for a youthful viewers, we understand that many dad and mom would favor to debate sure topics with their kids on their very own phrases and timeline.”

Win or Lose premieres 19 February on Disney+

Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, is true in his wheelhouse with one other interval piece a few legal gang impressed by real-life tales, this time set in Victorian London and the world of unlawful bare-knuckle boxing. Hezekiah (Malachi Kirby of Small Axe) and his good friend Alec (Francis Lovehall, additionally of Small Axe) are Jamaicans who’ve come to London and who attempt to search their fortunes as boxers. Hezekiah finds himself taken up and exploited by Mary Carr, the chief of the all-female band of robbers generally known as The Forty Elephants. Erin Doherty, who performed Princess Anne as a younger lady in The Crown, is way from that position as Carr. Stephen Graham stars as a boxer named Sugar Goodman, decided to defend his turf from the upstart Hezekiah. The stalwart Graham has performed loads of gritty characters, in Peaky Blinders and not too long ago in Blitz, however needed to bulk up for this position. “5 meals a day, a great deal of protein, ice baths, I turned like a correct athlete,” he advised Empire.

A Thousand Blows premieres 21 February on Hulu within the US and Disney+ internationally

David Attenborough’s nature documentaries have confirmed there’s an apparently bottomless urge for food for the style. This variation stands aside as a result of it has Tom Hanks narrating, with a way of marvel. The sequence is an bold 10-part have a look at the Americas, with every episode specializing in a distinct space, starting from Canada to Patagonia, the Atlantic coast to the Amazon. The manufacturing was epic, with 180 expeditions that took 5 years, making it what is probably going essentially the most costly non-fiction present Common Studios has ever performed. Common co-produced the present with the BBC, which additionally produces the Attenborough sequence. The music consists by Oscar-winner Hans Zimmer, whose film scores embrace Gladiator and Dune. However the soundtrack right here additionally contains animal sounds, waves, and Hanks luring viewers in by saying, “A wandering salamander. To discover a mate he units out on a rare journey.”

The Americas premieres 23 February on NBC within the US and in 2025 on BBC One within the UK

As Taylor Sheridan’s prequel to his mega-hit sequence Yellowstone returns, the presence of both Harrison Ford or Helen Mirren could be sufficient to make you wish to watch, and regardless of the near-death of Ford’s character in season one, this sequence nonetheless has each. They’re again as Jacob and Cara Dutton, who’re enduring an particularly onerous winter on that acquainted Montana ranch, to not point out the risk from an evil land-baron performed by Timothy Dalton. In the meantime, their nephew Spencer (Brandon Sklenar), is heading again from his African safari to assist out, and Spencer’s spouse, Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer), an aristocrat from the UK, is making an attempt to get throughout the Atlantic to her new residence on the vary (tradition shock awaits). Ford growls within the teaser trailer, “This ranch is beneath assault. Our complete lifestyle is beneath assault,” which is just about an all-purpose Dutton line, out there to make use of in any Yellowstone iteration.

1923 premieres 23 February within the US and 24 February within the UK on Paramount+

Fits, which ran on cable channel USA Community from 2011 to 2019, turned out to be a great present to binge. When the sequence a few agency of high-powered New York legal professionals landed on Netflix, it turned one of many most streamed sequence of 2023. We might by no means know the way a lot that needed to do with one in every of its stars being Meghan Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex. We do know that she isn’t on this spinoff set on the alternative coast. Neither is the remainder of that solid (up to now), apart from some visitor appearances by Gabriel Macht as Harvey Specter. The primary character now’s Ted Black (Stephen Amell), a former federal prosecutor in New York now operating a strong Los Angeles agency specialising in legal and leisure legislation. Aaron Korsh, the creator of Fits, additionally created the LA model. At first it was a distinct sequence, about Hollywood brokers, which NBC handed on. He reconfigured that concept to exist in the identical universe as Fits, and right here we’re.

Fits LA premieres 23 February on NBC within the US