While tech bros and timely dystopia feature prominently in this month’s new series, you can also find big swings on history and nostalgia. Plus, there’s the return of TV greats past and present: we’re looking at you David E. Kelley and Richard Gadd.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
The latest from David E. Kelley, the TV giant who brought us The Practice, Ally McBeal and Big Little Lies, follows the playful misadventures of a struggling young mother who creates an elaborate OnlyFans account. Elle Fanning is the titular young woman raising a child alone after an illicit relationship with her professor. Kelley directs three-time Oscar nominee (and wife) Michelle Pfeiffer as Margo’s mother, a former waitress who hoped her daughter would break the generational dropout cycle. And the offbeat and loving found family that gathers around them includes Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) as the prodigal father and Kelley regular Nicole Kidman as Margo’s lawyer.
Where to Watch: Streaming on AppleTV+ starting Apr. 15 (8 episodes)
A Taste for Murder
A widowed high-ranking detective goes on leave, taking his teen daughter to Capri, where his late wife’s parents (played by Italian star Urbano Barberini and Phyllis Logan, Downton Abbey’s Mrs. Hughes) run a seaside restaurant. Naturally, he soon forms an unlikely partnership with the local carabinieri, helping tackle the unusually high rate of crime on the island. In the tradition of Death in Paradise, Madame Blanc and Signora Volpe, escapist travel brochure vistas are key to the appeal – for armchair travel with a side of murder mystery, this show is an escapist dream.
Where to Watch: Streaming on BritBox starting Apr. 7 (6 episodes)
The Testaments
Drawing on Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning 2019 sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, Hulu’s atmospheric The Testaments is about coming-of-age in the patriarchal theocracy of Gilead. June’s daughter Hannah (now called Agnes) is played by breakout One Battle After Another star Chase Infiniti, and is under the watchful eye of Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) at the preparatory academy for future wives. Will the fictional (for now) dystopia take our mind off of our current reality – or be a call to action?
Where to Watch: Streaming on Disney+ starting Apr. 8 (10 episodes)
Big Mistakes
Emmy-winning Schitt’s Creek co-creator Dan Levy ups the ante on quirky family bonds by giving comedic antics a crime caper twist. When hapless siblings Nicky (Levy) and Morgan (rising star Taylor Ortega) attempt to appease their hard-to-please mother (Laurie Metcalf), they unwittingly fall into a life of crime. Soon, they’re extorted into doing ever-escalating mob jobs they are seriously unqualified to pull off – particularly Nick, a priest trying to hold it together for his flock. The escalating assignments that imperil them are inspired. And a whole new universe of reaction gifs is born.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Netflix starting Apr. 9 (8 episodes)
The Miniature Wife
Middling scientist Les (Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen) accidentally miniaturizes his very successful wife Lindy (Cocaine Bear actress and filmmaker Elizabeth Banks). The new power – and now size – imbalance between spouses is a clever high-concept way to probe relationship dynamics (and deploy inventive visual humour and set design). Macfadyen calls it “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids crossed with Scenes from a Marriage.”
Where to Watch: Streaming on Crave starting Apr. 9 (10 episodes)
The Audacity
If you liked Silicon Valley, here’s your next obsession. From Succession and Better Call Saul writer Jonathan Glatzer, The Audacity stars Big Bang Theory’s Simon Helberg (playing another endearing nerd) and The Franchise’s Billy Magnussen (playing another narcissistic buffoon) in this satire about power, wealth and ego in … Silicon Valley (with Vancouver in the role of Palo Alto.) Standing out from the ensemble cast is The Hangover comedian Zach Galifianakis as a misanthropic elder statesman among the wannabe thought leaders who combine word salad with entitlement and toxic self-confidence. So entertaining, it’s already been renewed for a second season.
Where to Watch: Streaming on AMC+ starting Apr. 12 (8 episodes)
Half Man
Baby Reindeer was such a phenomenon that everyone’s been waiting to see what comes next for creator and Emmy winner Richard Gadd. In Half Man, another character-driven limited series, Gadd continues to explore the fallout of sexual confusion through the story of two characters’ close and mutually destructive lifelong relationship. Played by Gadd himself and forever-Billy-Elliot Jamie Bell, the pair are essentially brothers in all but blood, and the show flashes back over the nearly 40 years of their bond, from the 1980s to present day.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Crave Apr. 24 (6 episodes)
Widow’s Bay
Star of The Americans and The Beast in Me, Matthew Rhys executive produces this series, which is being kept cryptically under wraps from TV reviewers. What we do know is that Rhys also stars, playing the desperate mayor of a struggling New England coastal community. The locals believe the island is cursed; he’s hoping to make it a tourist hub. Apparently, they’re both right – and horror comedy likely ensues.
Where to Watch: Streaming on AppleTV+ starting Apr. 29 (10 episodes)
King & Conqueror
This BBC historical epic dramatizes the Battle of Hastings and the interconnected family dynasties of Harold, Earl of Wessex (Happy Valley’s James Norton) after he saves the life of William, Duke of Normandy (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones). Cue up the Middle Ages swords and tunics for a gripping investigation into the friendship that changed the course of British and European history.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Showcase/StackTV starting Apr. 30 (8 episodes)
The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende has enthusiastically endorsed this lavish new international series (produced by Eva Longoria) as the truest expression of her beloved book. In the epic family saga sprinkled with magical realism, three generations of women in a conservative Latin American country navigate the shifting landscape of class and politics, reshaped by violent social change and bound together by family loyalty and defiance of expectation.
Where to Watch: Streaming on Prime starting Apr. 29 (8 episodes)
