The Singapore Grip to Small Axe: Autumn's best new TV offerings (2024)

While this summer has delivered a handful of fantastic original new shows (thank you Michaela Coel), the pandemic has meant things have been more than a little quiet on the television front.

As coronavirus spread, TV studios across the globe were temporarily closed and broadcasters were forced to postpone plenty of new releases, instead relying on replays of old favourites.

Thankfully as the winter months draw in, this is set to change.

Filming has now resumed on fan favourites including Line of Duty and Peaky Blinders, and broadcasters are finally revealing the new dramas completed before coronavirus hit.

Whether you're looking for gripping tales based on real-life events or a comedy offering to ignite belly laughs, there's something for you airing before the end of year - we promise.

Here are our top picks of the shows airing in the next four months...

The Singapore Grip, ITV

The Singapore Grip to Small Axe: Autumn's best new TV offerings (1)

Elizabeth Tan in The Singapore Grip

ITV

Landing in the Sunday night ITV slot synonymous with Downton, this jaunty but surprisingly timely adaptation of J G Farrell’s sprawling novel takes aim at colonialism. Set in Singapore, it charts the culture clash between an idealistic British youngster (Luke Treadaway) and his father’s stuffy business associates against the backdrop of the Second World War. Sunday

Us, BBC One

Douglas’s wife Connie thinks their marriage is over — but their already-planned holiday around Europe is not. Based on arguably the finest novel from One Day author David Nicholls (and Booker-longlisted to boot), the brilliantly wry Tom Hollander takes the lead in a story about regrets and second chances. Sunday

Des, ITV

The Singapore Grip to Small Axe: Autumn's best new TV offerings (2)

Left: serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Right: David Tennant

ITV

ITV’s flagship autumn drama sees David Tennant transform into serial killer Dennis Nilsen, who was arrested in 1983. Nilsen detailed his crimes to the police in gruesome detail and his accounts are the three-part series’s starting point, as it focuses on his retelling rather than depicting the disturbing acts themselves. Monday

The Third Day, Sky Atlantic and NOW TV

The first telly project from super-­immersive, live-action, bafflingly non-linear theatre specialists Punchdrunk has been knocked by the Covid-loss of its “live” element (a real festival with real punters, filmed), but the sinister Wicker Man-ish lunacy of this three-parter set on Osea Island in the Thames estuary, starring Emily Watson, Jude Law and Naomie Harris, looks set to chill nonetheless. Sept 18

Utopia, Amazon Prime

Few shows on British television in recent years have been as audacious as Dennis Kelly’s Utopia. No wonder America wants a piece of it — although it remains to be seen if Gone Girl writer Gillian Flynn’s version, starring John Cusack, will be quite as gruesome. Sept 25

LIFE, BBC One

The Singapore Grip to Small Axe: Autumn's best new TV offerings (3)

Spin-off: LIFE will feature follow Hamilton's (right) character

BBC

Victoria Hamilton’s character from Doctor Foster has escaped the world of extramarital bonking and been given a new lease of life for Mike Bartlett’s Manchester-set drama, which follows the intersected lives of neighbours in a big house divided into flats. Alison Steadman and Adrian Lester also star. Sept

Honour, ITV

This ITV two-parter is another of the channel’s offerings which dramatises harrowing real-life events. Keeley Hawes has once again been called upon to play a cop, starring as a detective intent on uncovering the truth about the death of Banaz Mahmod, murdered in an “honour killing” in 2006. Sept

Truth Seekers, Amazon Prime

Going to the Winchester and waiting for this all to blow over hasn’t worked out so far this year, so maybe Nick Frost and Simon Pegg have some new life advice for us in their latest surreal caper. Described by Frost as “like the British X Files”, he plays Gus, a broadband engineer by day and a paranormal investigator by night. Oct

Brave New World, Sky One and NOW TV

Loads of sex and free drugs all the time sounded great, until Aldous Huxley came along to wee on that bonfire. Jessica Brown Findlay and Demi Moore star in this lavish new adaptation of his 1932 dystopian novel, where scientific advances have created the “perfect” society. Oct

The Mandalorian, Disney+

Star Wars’s small-screen venture has had a much warmer reception than the majority of its recent film releases have enjoyed. That’s not all thanks to that picture of Baby Yoda drinking a cup-a-soup: with its Space Western feel, The Mandalorian has brought a sense of fun back to the galaxy far, far away. Series two sees Rosario Dawson join the cast as fan favourite Ahsoka Tano. Oct 30

The Undoing, Sky Atlantic

Nicole Kidman takes the lead in this starry psychological thriller, which she also produced. The actress plays a successful New York therapist forced to re-examine her life after a shock death and the disappearance of her husband — played by the king of romantic comedies, Hugh Grant, who once again reminds us of his serious side. Oct 26

Small Axe, BBC One

The Singapore Grip to Small Axe: Autumn's best new TV offerings (5)

John Boyega in his first role since the latest Star Wars trilogy

BBC

Steve McQueen’s first foray into television is an anthology series telling stories from London’s West Indian communities. Spanning the late Sixties to the mid-Eighties, it kicks off with two films dramatising the trial of the Mangrove 9, black activists who protested against police racism in Notting Hill. Later in the series we’ll see John Boyega in his first post-Star Wars role, as pioneering Met Police officer Leroy Logan. Autumn

Adult Material, Channel 4

Playwright Lucy Kirkwood’s first major TV project since her adaptation of her own play Chimerica in 2019 is an apparently highly raunchy four-parter about an, er, experienced adult film star (Hayley Squires, from I, Daniel Blake) watching the industry changing around her. And it’s got Rupert Everett, so what more do you want? Autumn

Roadkill, BBC One

Hugh Laurie plays a self-interested Conservative minister who doesn’t let a series of revelations about his personal life get in the way of his quest for power. How on earth did writer David Hare come up with that? The four-part drama also stars Helen McCrory as the Prime Minister, which is perfect. Autumn

His Dark Materials season 2, BBC One

BBC's His Dark Materials 2019 - In pictures

The Singapore Grip to Small Axe: Autumn's best new TV offerings (6)

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The first season of Philip Pullman’s glorious existential fantasy achieved the rare 21st-century status of event TV by eking itself out over successive Sunday nights to much excitement across the country. Season 2 will introduce Jade Anouka as the witch-queen Ruta Skadi, and Terence Stamp as Giacomo Paradisi, the bearer of the Subtle Knife. Magic awaits. Nov

Out of her Mind, BBC2

It was only a matter of time before comedian Sara Pascoe got her own show, and the subject feels inevitable. Having made an entire stand-up routine about breaking up with her ex (he did the same) in this fictional series Pascoe sets out to prove that love is nothing but biology. While preparing for her sister’s wedding. And her best friend’s first baby. Awks. Autumn

The Comey Rule, Sky Atlantic and NOW TV

Dropping straight into a fraught US election season, The Comey Rule has the dubious honour of featuring the first ever dramatic depiction of one Donald J Trump. Based on former FBI boss James Comey’s contentious 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, it stars a tangerine-hued, bewigged Brendan Gleeson as the Donald. Prepare for a presidential Twitter storm (Bad ratings! Very bad!) on its debut. Autumn

The Crown, Netflix

Characters from The Crown Series 3 versus real life

The Singapore Grip to Small Axe: Autumn's best new TV offerings (7)

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Peter Morgan’s lavish royal saga has finally made it to the Diana years. Naturally Prince Charles’s (played by Josh O’Connor) courtship of the future People’s Princess (newcomer Emma Corrin) will dominate The Crown’s fourth series, but there’ll be plenty of other stiff-upper-lipped dramas playing out too, from the kidnapping attempt on Princess Anne to Her Majesty’s run-ins with Margaret Thatcher (a bouffanted Gillian Anderson). Nov 15

Industry, BBC Two

If you had to take a guess as to what Lena Dunham’s first show after Girls would be about, international finance might not be at the top of your list. She’s on directing duties rather than writing, but it’s not a million miles from her usual milieu. Filmed in Wales and London last year, it follows the messy lives of twentysomethings with bad boundaries. Late autumn

Bridgerton, Netflix

No launch date yet but rumour has it this glittering, multi-faceted bauble of a series about the scheming, cut-throat marriage mart of Regency London’s high society will arrive around Christmas. The stonking ensemble features Julie Andrews, Nicola Coughlan, Jonathan Bailey, Adjoa Andoh and more, and all the breeches and bonnets you could wish for. Bliss. End Dec

The Singapore Grip to Small Axe: Autumn's best new TV offerings (2024)
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