The 6 Best New TV Shows of February 2024
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]