Details on All the HBO Shows You Saw in That Thrilling 2019 Promo
This should be a banner year for HBO — and not just because the long-awaited final season of Game of Thrones kicks off in April.
The premium cabler’s recent “It All Starts Here” promo showcased all the new and returning content coming to the channel this year, and alongside old favorites — Big Little Lies, Divorce, Veep, Barry, and even a Deadwood movie — viewers saw glimpses of the new series in the HBO pipeline.
In case your curiosity was piqued, here are details on those upcoming debuts.
Euphoria
Adapted from an Israeli series of the same name, this drama “follows a group of high school students as they navigate drugs, sex, identity, trauma, social media, love and friendship,” per HBO. Zendaya is the lead, Grey’s Anatomy’s Eric Dane and A Wrinkle in Time’s Storm Reid are cast members, and Drake is on board as an executive producer.
The Righteous Gemstones
In this HBO comedy, televangelist Jesse Gemstone (Danny McBride) tries to bring father Eli’s (John Goodman) global TV ministry into the 21st century — following “a long tradition of deviance, greed, and charitable work, all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Mrs. Fletcher
Based on the Tom Perrotta bestseller of the same name — and described as “a dual coming-of-age story” — this comedy “[explores] the impact of internet porn and social media” on the lives of empty-nester mom Eve Fletcher (Kathryn Hahn) and her college-aged son, Brendan (Jackson White).
Years and Years
Emma Thompson leads the cast of this six-part limited series from Doctor Who writer Russell T. Davies, playing a divisive celebrity-turned-politician named Vivienne Rook. Quoth HBO: “She’s a new breed of politician: an entertainer, a rebel, and a trickster, her rise to power leads into an unknown future. “
Gentleman Jack
Amid the industrialization of 1830s-era Halifax, England, landowner Anne Lister (Suranne Jones) seeks to transform her ancestral home, reopen the coal mines, and marry well — hoping to make wealthy heiress Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle) her wife — in this eight-episode series based on Lister’s real-life, once-encrypted diaries.
Los Espookys
In this half-hour comedy — executive-produced by SNL’s Fred Armisen and Lorne Michaels — a group of horror-obsessed friends starts a business catering to people’s need for thrills and chills in their lives “in a dreamy Latin American country where the strange and eerie are just part of daily life.”
Catherine the Great
Set in the waning years of Catherine’s nearly half-century reign, this four-part series tracks the Russian empress and her “politically tumultuous and sexually charged court,” honing in on her affair with military leader Grigory Potemkin (Jason Clarke.)
The Case Against Adnan Syed
Picking up where the hit podcast Serial left off, this four-part documentary series investigates the 1999 murder of Baltimore County high school student Hae Min Lee, for which her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was convicted and for which he has spent nearly 20 years in prison.
Chernobyl
This five-part miniseries — starring Jared Harris, Stellan Starsgård, and Emily Watson— chronicles the panic and investigation following the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in what was then called the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
His Dark Materials
In this adaptation of Philip Pullman’s book trilogy of the same name — which also inspired the 2007 film The Golden Compass — a young girl (Dafne Keen) uncovers a dark conspiracy while searching for her kidnapped friend in a multiverse where science and theology intermingle. James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson, and Lin-Manuel Miranda also star in the series.
Watchmen
Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, who previously developed The Leftovers for HBO, turns his attention to the DC comic book series Watchmen for this superhero drama, which “embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel while attempting to break new ground of its own.” The series stars Regina King, Tim Blake Nelson, and Frances Fisher.
