2022 is very nearly here and, if you listen closely, you’ll hear a collective sigh of relief that 2021 is about to be a thing of the past.
There is much to look forward to in the new year, including more travel (hopefully) and time spent with loved ones, lockdowns being a thing of the past (again, hopefully), and 365 more days in which to try new things, enjoy new experiences and discover new passions.
Of course, it also means that new content will be hitting our screens both big and small so there’ll be plenty of reasons to curl up on the couch and fall in love with some new characters, too.
Here, we take a look at the TV shows we cannot wait to watch when they are eventually released in 2022.
How I Met Your Father
The How I Met Your Mother spinoff will finally premiere in 2022 with Hilary Duff in the lead role (and Kim Cattrall as the future version of her character, Sophie).
Per the show’s synopsis, in the near future, Sophie is telling her son the story of how she met his father: a story that catapults us back to the year 2021, when Sophie and her close-knit group of friends are in the midst of figuring out who they are, what they want out of life, and how to fall in love in the age of dating apps and limitless options.
How I Met Your Father is set to premiere on January 18, 2022 in the US, so hopefully, Australia will get it at around the same time.
The series is being made for streaming platform Hulu in the US, so it could mean that it will air in Australia on SBS and SBS on demand.
A League of Their Own
From Will Graham and Broad City co-creator Abbi Jacobson, A League of Their Own uses Penny Marshall’s acclaimed 1992 film as the foundation from which to delve deeper into the topics of race and sexuality that resonate with modern audiences.
Focusing on the women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, A League of Their Own stars Jacobson, along with D’Arcy Carden, Nick Offerman, Chanté Adams, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Kelly McCormack, Roberta Colindrez and Priscilla Delgado, with recurring guest stars Molly Ephraim, Kate Berlant and Melanie Field.
No release date has been confirmed as yet, but the show will be available on Amazon when it drops.
House of the Dragon
One of many Game of Thrones spinoffs that are in the works, the prequel series House of the Dragon has got fans of the fantasy series in a real fervour.
Based on author George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, the series, which is set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, tells the story of House Targaryen.
Production on the new series began in April 2021 and includes two new dragons alongside actors Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Steve Toussaint, Rhys Ifans, Eve Best, Sonoya Mizuno, and Fabien Frankel.
Cooke has previously said that Queen Hightower is “very complex” and that “people are gonna want to see the worst in her.”
The series is being produced by HBO so we’ll likely see it on BINGE and Foxtel when it premieres.
Inventing Anna
This show is based on the wild, yet true, story of Anna Sorokin — a Russian grifter who scammed her way through New York’s high society, leaving a trail of confused friends and investors and a pile of unpaid bills.
The official synopsis for the series reads: “In Inventing Anna, a journalist with a lot to prove investigates the case of Anna Delvey, the Instagram-legendary German heiress who stole the hearts of New York’s social scene — and stole their money as well. But is Anna New York’s biggest con woman or is she simply the new portrait of the American dream? Anna and the reporter form a dark, funny love-hate bond as Anna awaits trial and our reporter fights the clock to answer the biggest question in NYC: who is Anna Delvey?”
This one is from Shonda Rhimes and will debut on Netflix in February 2022.
Lord of the Rings
Twenty-one years after the release of the first film in Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy, a Lord of the Rings TV series will take us back into the fantastical world created by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The series will take place in the Second Age, and will explore new storylines preceding Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring.
The official synopsis reads: “Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.”
This one debuts on Amazon on September 2, 2022.
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Ewan McGregor, who plays the titular character in Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Hayden Christensen, who plays Darth Vader, return for this six-episode Disney+ limited series which will take place ten years after the end of Revenge of the Sith — “where Kenobi faced his greatest defeat, the downfall and corruption of his best friend and Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker turned evil Sith Lord Darth Vader” — as the series’ description reads.
We don’t have an exact date for the release of this one but we know it will be streaming on Disney+ when it lands.
Ms Marvel
Another one coming to Disney+, Ms Marvel, which features newcomer Iman Vellani as the teenage superhero Kamala Khan, the character that broke ground in 2014 as Marvel’s first Muslim character to lead her own comic book.
The series will be directed by Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Meera Menon and will bring to life the character who loves video games, hanging out with friends and writing Avengers fan-fiction.
We are still waiting on a release date for this one.
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
We love a bit of true crime and the case of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is one that continues to fascinate.
Ryan Murphy puts his spin on the prolific criminal with this new Netflix-bound series, with Evan Peters taking on the unsettling role of Dahmer.
The story will be largely told from the point of view of Dahmer’s victims, and dives deeply into the police incompetence and apathy that allowed the Wisconsin native to go on a multiyear killing spree”
Over the course of ten episodes, the series will examine, through dramatisations, at least 10 occasions when Dahmer was close to being apprehended by law enforcement but avoided prosecution. Murphy will dive into how “white privilege, racism, and homophobia” played into these instances.
No release date has been confirmed yet.
Halo
The long-anticipated, live-action show, which is expected to debut sometime in 2022, stars Pablo Schreiber as the iconic Master Chief from the long-running and much loved Xbox video game series. The character is a super-soldier created as part of the Spartan–II program.
The nine-episode TV series is said to follow an epic 26th-century conflict between humanity and an alien threat known as the Covenant, with Steven Spielberg serving as one of the executive producers. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Halo the TV show will attempt to “weave deeply drawn personal stories” with action and adventure set within that “richly imagined vision of the future.”
When Halo debuts, it will do so on Paramount+.
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