With such a huge offering of television — cable, premium channels, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and more — it can be hard to keep track of all the exciting things that are on the horizon. Luckily, we've narrowed down 20 television events of 2018 to mark on your calendars. There are several big shows ending (we still aren't ready for Scandal to be over) and several premieres that look exciting, and Justin Timberlake is returning to the Super Bowl for the first time since the "wardrobe malfunction." (There's no word on if Janet Jackson or her bosom is making an appearance.) Take a look!
The CW has a lot of superhero shows, but Black Lightning wastes no time making itself stand out. It focuses on a black father of two who is a retired superhero, though it won't be long before the crime fighting is a family affair.
Olivia Pope goes down a dark road at the end of season six and the first half of season seven, so we can't wait to see how Shonda Rhimes's political soap wraps things up. Can Olivia be redeemed? Time will tell.
The Daily Show alum Jessica Williams and her podcast partner, Phoebe Robinson, bring their brash yet adorable humor to the screen with a series of four HBO specials running on Friday nights in February.
It's been 14 years since the infamous Super Bowl halftime performance where Justin Timberlake "accidentally" exposed Janet Jackson's breast on national TV. Well, now JT is back for Super Bowl LII — no word on if Ms. Jackson will be making a cameo, but it would not surprise us if they managed to pull that off.
The Olympics will dominate NBC's family of networks for two weeks in February. What to watch for: Lindsey Vonn returns to the Olympics after being plagued by injuries for the past several years; Nathan Chen may be the USA's best chance to medal in figuring skating; the women's hockey rivalry between the US and Canada; Chloe Kim is a rising star in the snowboarding world and she goes into the Olympics ranked No. 1 in the world. And, of course, the figure skating.
This is one of my favorite new shows of the 2017-18 TV season. Christina Hendricks, Mae Whitman, and Retta star as three women who find themselves in various desperate situations, so they concoct a scheme to hold up a grocery store . . . and get a lot more than they bargained for. It nicely rides the edge between comedy and drama, and the three lead actresses are terrific together.
The second season of this award-winning FX show is subtitled "Robbin' Season." Executive producer and writer Stephen Glover explained at the 2018 TCA Winter press tour that "robbin' season" is a time in the city of Atlanta right before Christmas when a lot of crimes happen.
"People just have more stuff, money, and people, you know, need money. So it's just a time where robberies go up, all kinds," Glover said. "Like, you might get your package stolen off your front porch. When we were there, a shooting. My neighbor got her car stolen out of her driveway. It's just like a very tense and desperate time. So we wanted to kind of make that the backdrop to the season, and our characters are kind of going through that same desperate type of transition from their old lives to where they are heading now."
When: March 1
7 / 20
8The Premiere of Heathers
Image Source: Paramount Network
The newly rebranded Spike, now called the Paramount Network, is bringing this 1988 dark comedy to the small screen in anthology format. The first season stars Grace Victoria Cox in the role Winona Ryder made famous, and judging by the teasers, it looks pretty fun.
Nearly a year and a half after season one dropped, Netflix is finally bringing us a second season of what is arguably its strongest Marvel show. David Tennant will be reprising his role as the villainous Kilgrave, and two-time Oscar nominee Janet McTeer has been cast in a mystery role, someone who has "an enormous impact on Jessica's life."
When: March 8
9 / 20
10The Premiere of Station 19
Bailey's husband, Ben, has given up the surgical life to become a firefighter in this Grey's Anatomy spinoff series. We've seen the premiere, and trust us, it looks like Shonda Rhimes and company have another hit on their hands.
More than two decades after wrapping up the Conners' story, ABC is bringing back this award-winning sitcom. The first couple of episodes are pretty solid, so we think Roseanne fans will be pleased.
This underrated FX drama about Russian spies living as US citizens in the early- to mid-1980s is returning for a sixth and final season in March. It will feature a three-year time jump, which executive producer Joel Fields told the 2018 TCA Winter press tour is because they wanted to get into the Mikhail Gorbachev years in the Soviet Union.
"[We] set the show in the early '80s because of Ronald Reagan, and that's when the Cold War was at its fiercest, and the time jump came about because as we looked at what we wanted to do with the end of the show, Gorbachev was such an important figure and we knew would trigger so much for Philip and Elizabeth and the other characters, so that's what really took us there," Fields explained.
The latest musical to get the live TV treatment is Tim Rice's 1970s Tony-nominated rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. It won't be a full-fledged production; instead, it's a "live in concert" spectacular featuring John Legend, Sara Bareilles, and Alice Cooper.
Did the series finale of Orphan Black leave a hole in your BBC America viewing schedule? Look no further than Killing Eve, a thriller about an international assassin (Jodie Comer) and the British Intelligence agent (Sandra Oh) determined to track her down. The first two episodes are great, so be sure to mark your calendars for this one.
Jess and the gang are back to wrap up their stories with an eight-episode final season. There will be a three-year time jump between the end of the sixth season and the start of the seventh — and the group is reunited because of a death. Sad face.
It's another time jump, this one six years ahead of where the show left off at the end of season four. At this point, Clarke and Madi have been living alone together on Earth, but a hostile-looking prison transport ship has returned to the war-torn planet. But what of the Ark and bunker inhabitants? We can't wait to find out.
Emmy-winning star Elisabeth Moss told the 2018 TCA Winter press tour that season two of this dystopian drama is even darker than the first season, "if that's possible." Executive producer Bruce Miller added that when they were developing the show, he actually pitched ideas for "about 10 seasons." So at least they have a plan! And it sounds like The Handmaid's Tale could run for a very long time.
Ryan Murphy continues his takeover of all of television with Pose, a show about the cultural world of 1980s New York. It contains the largest transgender cast ever assembled for a scripted series, including five main characters.
Sense8 fans yelled, and Netflix listened. When the streaming giant unceremoniously canceled the fan-favorite series after just two seasons, fans were livid and took to social media to express their disappointment and outrage. After much fervor, Netflix gave creators J. Michael Straczynski and Lana and Lilly Wachowski a chance to wrap up the show with a finale movie, debuting sometime in 2018. No specific date has yet been announced.
After a triumphant third season that saw Claire reunited with Jamie after 20 years apart and featured an adventurous sea voyage, the reappearance of Geillis Duncan, and a bloody hurricane, the Outlander crew has landed in the brand-new colony of Georgia, with the Revolutionary War on the horizon.
