At its Up Next showcase, Sky unveiled a raft of new programmes across sports, animation, reality TV, drama and comedy, with everyone from Steve Coogan to Ashley Walters to Aardman to Gemma Collins – plus Danny and Danni Dyer – onboard.
Personally, what I really love is a thriller, so those were the sections that had me scribbling down notes in my programme. Here are my picks of the comedy, political and crime thrillers available from today on Sky or coming up soon – starring the likes of Keke Palmer, Eddie Redmayne, Rose Byrne and Meghann Fahy.
The ‘Burbs
All eight episodes of season one are available from today. Watch it on Sky or Now.
Sky
Not enough people have seen the 1989 Joe Dante film starring Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher that inspired this new Sky series. It’s a bit of an underrated gem, a comedy thriller set in the suburbs that’s come some way towards achieving cult status.
The film plays with the familiar notion that the suburbs aren’t as wholesome as they appear, as well as satirising the figure of the curtain-twitching neighbour.
Hanks plays regular guy Ray Peterson, who becomes convinced that his oddball neighbours, the Klopeks, might be hiding a murderous secret.
The Sky mystery series is taking a slightly different angle. Keke Palmer and Jack Whitehall play Samira and Rob Fisher, a couple who reluctantly leave city life behind and move to Rob’s childhood home in the suburbs to provide a better life for their new baby.
But Samira begins to obsess over the creepy house opposite, and Gary, the creepy guy who moves into it – and the situation only worsens when she discovers that a girl who lived there 20 years earlier went missing.
Before long, she gets her new friends invested in the mystery and they launch their own neighbourhood investigation into what happened to the girl.
It sounds like a cosy crime show that fans of Only Murders in the Building will enjoy – so, count me in.
The Day of the Jackal season 2
Sky hasn‘t yet announced a premiere date for The Day of the Jackal season two, so keep an eye out. Series one had 10 episodes and we’d expect the same from its successor.
(Spoilers for season one follow.)
Sky
Technically, there’s no earthly reason why we need a second season of this thriller. The plot of season one of the show was, in many respects, closely based on the Frederick Forsyth novel and the 1973 Fred Zinnemann film of the same name, led by Edward Fox as the chameleonic assassin. Those stories concluded with the death of the Jackal and realisation that his true identity would never be uncovered.
But the 2024 show, starring Eddie Redmayne as the gifted sniper turned gun for hire, left its ending wide open. As the series was so thrillingly addictive, with its mix of high tension and European glamour, it’s hard not to be excited for another season. Stylistically, the pitch for the reboot could well have been: James Bond, but make him a bad guy.
Crucially, the series added new story strands and characters, so there are threads for the second season to pick up. Most notably, Calthrop will surely try to track down his wife Nuria, who escaped with their infant son after learning about her husband’s double life.
The series kept things interesting, and the morality murky, with the creation of an antagonist, M16 agent Bianca Pullman (played by Lashana Lynch, who also played 007 in No Time To Die, fact fans), who proves herself just as ruthless as the assassin she’s chasing.
However, Lynch won’t be returning for season two. The Jackal shot and killed Bianca when she tracked him down to his home. So, a new antagonist will be needed for season two – as well as plenty of exotic filming locations.
In the meantime, I might have convinced myself to rewatch season one.
The Good Daughter
Like The Day of the Jackal, Sky hasn’t announced a premiere date for The Good Daughter. It’s expected to consist of eight episodes.
Sky
The Good Daughter is a twisty crime thriller based on the 2017 novel of the same name by bestselling author Karin Slaughter. She adapted her novel for the screen.
The plot concerns two sisters, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn, who’ve spent their lives trying to overcome the effects of a horrific night of violence they experienced as children. 28 years later, Charlotte, now a lawyer like her father, witnesses another attack in their small town. The sisters are forced to piece together the events of the night that left their mother dead.
It’s hard to tell much from that summary. But wait. One of the reasons to anticipate this series is that it stars Meghann Fahy as Charlotte and Rose Byrne as Samantha Quinn. As Byrne is at the top of her game – she was just nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You – you can imagine that she has her pick of projects at the moment. So it seems noteworthy that she chose this one. Even better, she’s producing the series as well.
Fahy is no slouch either, having carved out a niche for herself in high-quality TV, with an award-winning performance in The White Lotus, and appearances in The Perfect Couple, with Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber, and Sirens, alongside Julianne Moore and Milly Allcock.
I will be sat.
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