Series to watch this May

There’s a show for every season.

THE GIRL FROM PLAINVILLE 

Inspired by real events, The Girl From Plainville sees Critics Choice nominee Elle Fanning (The Great, Maleficent) take on the role of Michelle Carter, the teenager at the centre of the unprecedented “texting suicide case” following the death of her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, in 2014.

THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES S2

Brothers and sisters, can we get a Hallelujah? The mega-famous televangelist family is back, with more deviance, greed and charitable work in The Righteous Gemstones. Season 2 finds our blessed Gemstone family threatened by outsiders from both the past and present who wish to destroy their empire.

WOMEN OF THE MOVEMENT

One of Rotten Tomatoes’ Most Anticipated Shows of 2022, Women of the Movement tells the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley (Adrienne Warren), who devoted her life to seeking justice for her son Emmett Till (Cedric Joe from Space Jam: A New Legacy) following his brutal murder in 1955 in the Jim Crow South.

AND JUST LIKE THAT S1

Carrie Bradshaw and the girls are back in HBO Max’s Sex and the City revival, And Just Like That. Set 11 years after the events of the 2010 film Sex and the City 2, the ten-episode series catches up with the gang as they navigate the journey from the complicated reality of life and friendship in their 30s to the even more complicated reality of their 50s.

THE NORTH WATER

Based on Ian McGuire’s acclaimed 2016 novel, The North Water is set in 1859 and follows disgraced ex-army surgeon Patrick Sumner (BAFTA winner Jack O’Connell from ‘71 and Unbroken), who signs up as ship’s doctor on a whaling expedition to the Arctic. But the ferocity of the elements is matched by the violence of his crew mates, chiefly Drax (MTV Movie Award winner Colin Farrell from The Lobster and In Bruges), a harpooner and a distinctly brutal force of nature. As the true purpose of the expedition becomes clear, the conflict between the two men takes them on a journey far from solid ground and beyond the safe moorings of civilisation.

ALEX RIDER S2  

After the deadly mission to bring down Point Blanc, Alex Rider is eager to put the past behind him and rebuild his life. But when a horrific attack on a friend’s family draws him back into the world of spies, Alex must unravel a sinister plan with global ramifications. 

CHEATERS S1 

BBC romantic comedy drama Cheaters is a sexy, messy comedy about love, morality, monogamy and how the heart, brain and body are idiots who are never on the same page. Cheaters kicks off with a cancelled flight, a chance meeting, and a night of drunken airport-hotel sex between two strangers who’d both prefer to forget it ever happened. Except, they – and their respective partners – are about to become neighbours.

THE PEMBROKESHIRE MURDERS

The Pembrokeshire Murders dramatises the real-life 2006 investigation into two unsolved murder cases linked to a string of burglaries in the 1980s. Teen Choice Award winner Luke Evans (The Alienist, Beauty and the Beast, and Fast & Furious’ Owen Shaw) stars as newly promoted Detective Superintendent Steve Wilkins, who goes all in to reopen the investigation against a ticking clock as his prime suspect awaits release from prison.

CATHERINE THE GREAT 

A sumptuous historical drama, HBO’s four-part limited series Catherine the Great stars Oscar winner Dame Helen Mirren (who also executive produced) as the 18th-Century Empress Regent of Russia. Determinedly independent in both her political and private life, Catherine became the country’s longest-ruling female leader, reforming the Russian empire and presiding over a golden age in Russian history and the age of the Russian Enlightenment.

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