Scoundrels, spies and squires in January TV
For much of the northern hemisphere, January is the height of winter, a time of year when people tend to consume a lot of television. With several new and returning series headlining this month’s streaming options, they will have plenty to choose from.
‘The Pitt’
Season one of this network-style hospital drama was a discourse-driving hit. Unfolding over the course of a single (pretty terrible!) day, it included the carnage of a music festival mass shooting among many other hot-button storylines. In season two, ten months later, emergency doctor Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) heads in for his final shift at the hospital before taking off on a long, well-deserved leave, and meets his replacement, Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi). This season, the series “shows little interest in the kind of hysterical stake-raising that could easily turn a hospital drama absurd,” focusing instead on the “subtler pleasures of observing how characters evolve and connect,” said Judy Berman at Time. (Jan. 8 on HBO Max)
‘Industry’
HBO Max’s critically acclaimed drama about a group of callow, London-based financial traders finally found an audience in its third season. In the season three finale, staid trading company Pierpoint went up in flames after its sale to Al-Miraj Holdings — thanks in large part to the antics of its selfish protagonists — leaving many jobless, including the magnetic Eric (Ken Leung) and Harper (Myha’la), the closest thing this series has to a traditional protagonist, who is contemplating blowing up her new venture for the allure of illegal financial maneuvers. The fourth season “proves to be as gleefully provocative and endlessly perverse as those that came before,” said Ross McIndoe at Slant Magazine. (Jan. 11 on HBO Max)
‘The Night Manager’
The streaming TV era is known for the passage of significant time between seasons, but “The Night Manager” has really outdone itself, with its second season dropping a full decade after the widely-praised first. Tom Hiddleston reprises his role as Jonathan Pine, the night manager at a luxury hotel in Cairo, hired by MI6 to infiltrate and take down international arms dealer and billionaire Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie). In season two, he’s still working for MI6 and gets drawn back into high-level intrigue after he’s asked by Colombian arms dealer Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva). The show’s “comeback is the first must-watch show of 2026,” said Michael Hogan at The Guardian. (Jan. 11 on Prime Video)
‘Ponies’
In 1977, Bea (Emilia Clarke) and Twila (Haley Lu Richardson) work as wisecracking secretaries in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow when their CIA husbands are killed. Rather than send the grieving widows back to the States, the head honchos decide to turn them into spies. It was probably only a matter of time before someone took the period aesthetic of “The Americans” and gave it a twist, and “Ponies” looks like it will situate itself in the spy saga universe somewhere between pure thriller and comedy. Peacock was “so confident in the idea for the show that a pilot” was deemed unnecessary when the series was ordered, said Yahoo Entertainment. (Jan. 15 on Peacock)
‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’
After the success of 2024’s “Dune: Prophecy” prequel, HBO Max is trying a similar maneuver with “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” a second spinoff set chronologically between fellow prequel “House of the Dragon” and “Game of Thrones” itself. Peter Claffey is Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall, accompanied by his adolescent squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) as they travel around Westeros in a kind of medieval road narrative.
The series is meant to be more easily digestible than its epic counterparts. The “markedly lighter tone, plus the half-hour-and-change episodes” make the series “feel like the rare spin-off that is actually doing something novel with its IP,” said Jack King at GQ. (Jan. 18 on HBO Max)