TV’s hottest month is, for some reason, February. The weeks leading up to Leap Day 2024 have brought us stunning prestige epics like Shōgun, heart-twisting romantic dramedies like One Day, cerebral sci-fi head trips like Constellation, and surprisingly fun auteur vehicles like Mr. & Mrs. Smith—plus a few under-the-radar gems that deserve more attention than they’ve gotten. Which is why there are not five but six titles in this month’s roundup of the best new shows.
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00:00 Times TV critic Judy Berman breaks down her top new TV shows of February 2024.
00:11 When I was up there, the only thing I could focus on was getting back to my daughter.
00:17 I miss you, Mommy. Will you be careful up there?
00:20 Mommy, who was that?
00:21 That was you and me right before the accident.
00:24 Berman writes, "Jo Ericsson, an astronaut played by Numi Rapace, appears to be losing
00:30 her mind in the opening scenes of the gripping Apple TV+ thriller Constellation.
00:36 Holed up in a cabin in snowy northern Sweden with her 10-year-old daughter Alice, Jo dashes
00:41 out into the frigid night in pursuit of another voice screaming, 'Mama!'
00:46 Little of what we see in these first few minutes makes sense, but the disconcerting sequence
00:51 sets up a smartly paced sci-fi epic that is as perceptive about human psychology as it
00:57 is about quantum physics."
00:59 What is it that you two do?
01:02 We're software engineers.
01:06 Administer single dose, no casualties.
01:09 In her review of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Berman writes, "Donald Glover is known as a provocateur,
01:14 taking aim at pieties around race, celebrity and the entertainment industry in dark comedies,
01:20 but he also has a romantic side."
01:23 Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Glover and co-creator Francesca Sloan's reimagining of the 2005
01:29 action romp that birthed Brangelina, is his first series to foreground that sweeter sensibility.
01:35 In fact, it's more reminiscent in tone of Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne's mostly
01:41 lighthearted detective dramedy Poker Face than of its high-octane inspiration about
01:47 two married assassins who lie to each other about their professions until they're assigned
01:51 to kill one another.
01:57 It's one of the great cosmic mysteries.
01:59 How is that someone can go from being a total stranger to being the most important person
02:05 in your life?
02:08 Of One Day on Netflix, Berman says, "The second coming of age that happens in early adulthood
02:14 is the subject of this charming and perceptive Netflix dramedy."
02:18 The series is also a love story with a controversial ending, as millions who read the mega-hit
02:24 novel by David Nichols or watched the disappointing film adaptation starring Anne Hathaway and
02:30 Jim Sturgess are already aware.
02:32 But its lead writer Nicole Taylor's patient attention to the two protagonists' evolution
02:37 from wide-eyed students into adults weathered by life's vicissitudes, much more than the
02:43 will-they-or-won't-they plot that defines this lovely retelling.
02:47 Even if you don't like the destination, it's a journey worth taking.
02:57 Berman says humanoid alien best friends Dr. Slake and Dr. Clock are star surgeons at an
03:04 intergalactic hospital where their challenges include defusing a literal, anthropomorphic
03:10 sex bomb.
03:11 They occupy a candy-colored universe where talking yellow whales are motor vehicles and
03:16 the hospital admin is a two-headed creature who's always playing good cop/bad cop with
03:21 himself.
03:22 But just like physicians in our own public health care system, they face challenges like
03:26 bureaucracy and scant funding.
03:28 And just like all of us Earthlings, they're rife with neuroses from anxiety to mommy issues.
03:35 Berman says The New Shogun is not a remake of the wildly popular 1980 miniseries so much
03:56 as a radical reimagining.
03:58 Adapted directly from James Clavel's best-selling 1975 novel, this sprawling, ten-part historical
04:05 drama takes a far broader view than its predecessor, moving beyond the Western outsider's perspective
04:11 to survey a fracturing society that is just as baffled by this interloper's ways as he
04:16 is by theirs.
04:18 It's an epic of war, love, faith, honor, culture clash, and political intrigue.
04:23 And at a time when so many of TV's biggest swings have yielded at least partial misses,
04:29 FX's Shogun stands apart as a genuine masterpiece.
04:46 Berman writes the best thing to come out of blackish creator Kenya Barris' Netflix deal
04:51 is this semi-autobiographical comedy co-created by and starring the rapper Vince Staples.
04:58 Set in Staples' hometown of Long Beach, California, the series has a touch of Atlanta's
05:02 racially conscious surrealism and a dose of Dave's bemusement about the often absurd
05:07 experience of being a niche celebrity.
05:10 Vince is anonymous enough to be put in jail for a traffic violation, but famous enough
05:14 that a guard quotes one of his best-known lyrics back to him.
05:17 With just five episodes, some of them less than 20 minutes long, the show offers a skewed
05:22 slice of an unusual life that is bound to leave you wanting more.
05:26 the show.
05:27 the show.
05:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]