1. The Mandalorian

It has been more than two years since the end of season two of this Star Wars spinoff with Pedro Pascal mostly hidden under a helmet as the bounty hunter Din Djarin. Since then we’ve gotten used to seeing Pascal’s face on The Last of Us, but now he is back in the helmet and reunited with his little green sidekick, Grogu, earlier known as The Child or Baby Yoda. Their new adventures have them traveling back to Mandalore so Din can atone for having violated the rules by showing Grogu his face. Giancarlo Esposito returns as the villainous Moff Gideon, along with Carl Weathers and Amy Sedaris. Will we actually see more of Pascal? And, as Slash Film wondered, “How Does Grogu Keep Getting Cuter?”
 
The Mandalorian premieres on 1 March on Disney+ internationally

2. Daisy Jones & the Six

Music, personal crises, showbiz drama and sexual tension are the volatile ingredients in this fictional story of a 1970s rock group fronted by the talented Daisy Jones (Riley Keough) and charismatic Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin), and loosely inspired by Fleetwood Mac. The frame of a contemporary documentary about the band’s spectacular success and sudden breakup allows the characters to rehash the past and the series to flash back to the early days, where there is a love triangle and lots of shaggy ’70s hair. Based on Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling novel, the high-profile series has original music written by Blake Mills, with contributions from Phoebe Bridgers, Marcus Mumford and others, and has spawned a real-life album featuring the cast.

Daisy Jones & the Six premieres on 3 March on Prime Video internationally

3. History of the World, Part II

Four decades after his film History of the World, Part I, Mel Brooks, now 96, returns as writer and narrator with a series of short sketches that offer the same loopy, inaccurate depictions of high points in history. Nick Kroll, Wanda Sykes and Ike Barinholtz all do double duty as actors and writers, along with a sprawling, generation-spanning cast including Jack Black, Danny DeVito, Zazie Beetz and Quinta Brunson. Hulu has insisted on secrecy about some of the historical figures, but there’s plenty to see in the trailer, including Taika Waititi as Sigmund, making a Freudian slip, Seth Rogen as Noah, of Ark fame, and Sykes, whose character confronts Civil War soldiers who think they recognise her. “Harriet Tubman. Inventor of the bathtub?” Brooks’ brand of silliness never gets old.  

History of the World Part II premieres on 6 March on Hulu in the US

4. Ted Lasso

If you’ve heard rumours that this third season of the Emmy-winning show will be its last, relax. Bill Lawrence, one of the creators of the series about an endearing, often clueless American coach and his struggling Premier League football club, hasn’t entirely ruled out more. “The story the writing staff has been telling had a beginning, middle and end for the first three seasons. And then it might veer off from that,” he has said. A few things lingering from last season need some answers. How will Ted (Jason Sudeikis) deal with his panic attacks and emotional health? What about team owner Rebecca’s (Hannah Waddingham) love life now that she has split from the charming Sam (Toheeb Jimoh)? (Big mistake if you ask me, but some fans are rooting for her and Ted.) How will they all deal with Nate’s (Nick Mohammed) betrayal, since the put-upon assistant has angrily become coach of a rival club?

Ted Lasso premieres on 15 March on Apple TV+ internationally

5. Extrapolations

A climate change warning wrapped in entertainment has been a tough sell on screen. Adam McKay’s A lister-filled Don’t Look Up with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Cate Blanchett comes to mind as one of the more prominent examples. Now writer and director Scott Z Burns, writer of the tense and prescient plague-warning film Contagion, tries to master the challenge, recruiting a wealth of stars of his own who move in and out of eight connected episodes. Meryl Streep, Kit Harington, Yara Shahidi, Edward Norton, Daveed Diggs, Matthew Rhys, Keri Russell, Marion Cotillard and Judd Hirsch are just a sampling of the actors in a drama with multiple personal storylines, set in a recognisable near future in which the air is toxic and today’s warnings about the effects of climate change have come true. It’s not a bad strategy: come for the stars, stay for the worst-case scenario.   

Extrapolations premieres on 17 March on Apple TV+ internationally

6. Lucky Hank

Bob Odenkirk returns in his first show since Better Call Saul as Hank, the chairman of an English department at a last-choice college in Pennsylvania. He is in the midst of a mid-life crisis and also has an unfortunate tendency to put his foot in his mouth. He tells a student who suggests that he’s a failure, “The fact that you’re here means that you show very little promise” and calls the college “mediocrity capital”, comments that set off a commotion. The story is updated from Richard Russo’s 1997 satiric campus novel, Straight Man, and Hank is no more likely to thrive in the viral age. Mireille Enos (The Killing) stars as his unhappy wife. The blend of comedy and drama evokes Odenkirk’s last, already-classic series.

Lucky Hank premieres on 19 March on AMC and AMC+ in the US

7. Succession

The King Lear echoes are stronger than ever in season four of the show that continues to fascinate us with the manoeuvres of the media mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his greedy, scheming children. The father-children rupture was stark when we last saw them, with Logan outsmarting his would-be heirs again with plans to sell the company to Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgard returns), who is pretty wily himself. “This is not about getting back at Dad,” Shiv (Sarah Snook) tells her brothers Kendall (Jeremy Strong) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) in the new trailer. “But if it hurts him it doesn’t bother me.” All the Roys are wicked. That’s apparently what we like about them. Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, has said this season will be its last. He hasn’t promised to reveal which, if any, of those serpent-toothed children will take over the media throne.

Succession premieres on 26 March on HBO and HBO Max in the US and 27 March on Sky Atlantic in the UK

8. Great Expectations

Steven Knight, creator of gritty series including Peaky Blinders and Rogue Heroes, also has a soft spot for Dickens. Knight wrote a dark adaptation of A Christmas Carol (2019) and now takes on another classic. Faithful to the 19th-Century setting and colourful Dickensian characters, the series has the advantage of Olivia Colman, reason enough to watch, as the haunting Miss Havisham, left at the altar and ever since determined to live among cobwebs and memories while vowing revenge against all men. Fionn Whitehead, recently seen in another period piece as Branwell Bronte in the film Emily, is the adult Pip, in love with the cold-hearted Estella (Shalom Brune-Franklin). As a poor boy on the marsh (played by Tom Sweet), he never imagines the inheritance that will change his life.

Great Expectations premieres on 26 March on Hulu in the US and this spring on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK

9. Yellowjackets

The surprise hit that is like “Extreme Mean Girls” returns for its second season, continuing with its split timeline. In the past, we see more of the high school girls’ soccer team whose plane crashed in the wilderness, leading to rivalries and cult rituals. In the present day, those survivors are still dealing with the aftermath. Melanie Lynskey returns as the adult Shauna, struggling with her marriage, along with Juliette Lewis, Tawny Cypress and Christina Ricci as the lethal Misty, the most diabolical of the group, as least so far. “I would imagine it gets more insane,” Ricci has said, teasing the next season, which is likely to reveal more dark secrets. Lauren Ambrose joins the cast as the adult Van, and Elijah Wood is a citizen detective, just like Misty.

Yellowjackets premieres on 26 March on Showtime in the US

10. The Big Door Prize

Chris O’Dowd plays Dusty, a high school teacher and a sympathetic, often hapless everyman – a type he excels at – in this comic drama set in a very small town in the US, where a mysterious machine called Morphos spits out cards telling people what their true potential is, like royalty, magician or liar. Based on a novel by MO Walsh, the series was created by David West Read, a producer on Schitt’s Creek. It shares some of that series’ small-town intimacy, along with a more dramatic streak. Everyone from the local priest to Dusty’s wife and teenage daughter question their futures, wondering if Morphos is a fraud, just an AI run amok, or truly a message from destiny.  

The Big Door Prize premieres on 29 March on Apple TV+ internationally

11. The Power

Girl Power takes on a whole new meaning in this series based on Naomi Alderman’s 2016 novel, in which teenage girls everywhere suddenly find they can electrocute people with jolts from their fingers. The ability soon extends to women of all ages, changing power dynamics around the globe. Toni Collette stars as the Mayor of Seattle, Washington, with John Leguizamo as her husband and Auli’i Cravalho as their newly empowered daughter. Other settings include the UK, Nigeria and Eastern Europe. Alderman has said her book asks whether the world would be more peaceful or not if women were in charge. Whatever happens on screen, off screen women are definitely in control. All the writers, including Alderman, and directors are women too.

The Power premieres on 31 March on Prime Video internationally