It's never too early to get ahead of the curve where our Netflix viewing schedules are concerned. From returning favourites to hotly anticipated new releases, reserve a spot on the sofa for the original dramas we'll be streaming in 2018...
New: Everything Sucks
What with being the fashion world’s current era of choice, the 90s are hardly in need of better PR, but Netflix’s new coming-of-age comedy looks set to provide just that anyway. Everything Sucks! will doubtless do what Stranger Things did for pulpy 80s sci-fi to the following decade’s high school dramas (ie. fill everyone with youthful nostalgia) – and it’ll give us another gang of sweet child actors surely destined to charm red carpets for the next couple of seasons at least. Following the collision of two different groups of misfits, an A/V club (read: nerds) and a Drama group (read: theatrical nerds), it will star Peyton Kennedy and Jahi Winston, teens for whom the 90s are practically prehistoric…
Returning: The OA
Last December, The OA quietly dropped onto our Netflix dashboard with zero fanfare and zero expectation. With one of the most truly batsh-t narrative arcs ever seen on the small screen, words like 'sci-fi' and 'drama' didn't quite do justice to the eight cinematic episodes starring Brit Marling as a missing girl who shares the story of her abduction with a bunch of local misfits. Such was the allure of its unabashed weirdness that it quickly became a sleeper hit, and Netflix have since confirmed a second season with a typically cryptic teaser. Does this mean we'll finally get some answers in 2018? In the mean time, we've adopted the Movements as our new cardio regime...
New: The Rain
As you’d expect from a part of the world best known for bringing us brooding murder mysteries (and Sarah Lundt’s knitwear), the first Scandi original drama from Netflix is firmly in the noir mode, with a touch of The Walking Dead-esque dystopia. Cheerful, we know. The Rain (grim-sounding noun in the title? Check…) is set a decade after a deadly virus has wiped out the majority of Scandinavia’s population, and follows two siblings as they search for safety and join forces with a group of other young survivors. From what we know so far, things look set to go into full Lord of the Flies mode from that point…
New: Alias Grace
Wait for one Margaret Atwood adaptation and two will come along (almost) at once. After Hulu’s critically acclaimed, eerily prescient adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale set the agenda for TV in the Trump era, Netflix will take on Alias Grace, a lesser known slice of historical fiction from the Canadian novelist. Based upon a notorious real-life case from 1843, the novel is period drama meets true crime: when landowner Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper were found dead, housemaid Grace Marks (who’ll be played by Sarah Gadon) and a stable hand were accused of and eventually tried for the murder. Was she an innocent hysteric or a consummate manipulator? As with any compelling crime drama, clear-cut answers will surely be few and far between.
New: Black Earth Rising
Breaking the mould slightly is Black Earth Rising, which will see Netflix team up with the BBC for the first time: put simply, the Beeb will broadcast the drama, written and directed by The Honourable Woman scribe Hugo Blick, in the UK while Netflix will take the streaming rights for the rest of the world. Expect a mini-series that’s cinematic in scope: touted as a ‘labyrinthine thriller,’ it deals with the weighty topics of international war crime and the West’s relationship to Africa, as seen through the prism of a black Anglo-American family. One for fans of last year’s The Night Manager and Undercover, we think.
Returning: Love
The teaser trailer for Love’s second season had barely landed before Netflix confirmed that the third round of Judd Apatow’s millennial rom-com would be gracing our screens in 2018 - if that’s not the ultimate seal of approval, we’re not sure what is. A third season surely means more achingly relatable on-and-off, not-quite romance and commitment phobia from Gillian Jacobs’ Mickey and Paul Rust’s Gus (plus more cool-girl style moments from the former). If Netflix stick to their typical time frame, expect to see a spring release, dropping in the first quarter of next year.
New: Sacred Games
It looks like 2018 will be the year in which Netflix goes truly global. The streaming service’s first Indian production is an adaptation of Vikram Chandra’s acclaimed thriller Sacred Games, which delves into the corruption and criminality that underpins India’s re-invention as a modern economic super-power. Epic in its scope and spanning the many strata of Indian society, Chandra’s book earned comparisons with Midnight’s Children upon its release, and certainly sounds deserving of the big-budget Netflix treatment. Shot on location in Mumbai, it’ll be a bilingual series filmed in Hindi and English.
Returning: Orange Is The New Black
It looks like Piper and co's stint at Litchfield Penitentiary isn't quite over yet. Netflix's best-loved original drama was renewed for three further seasons after the fourth premiered last year, meaning that all of our favourite inmates will definitely be back next year. We can probably expect another midsummer release in line with Netflix's usual OITNB scheduling tactics, but after an explosive season five, set over just three days and dealing with the violent aftermath of a prison riot, where the show's producers will take us next is anyone's guess. Tense doesn't cover it...
New: Tidelands
Tidelands marks another Netflix first: their debut Australian original production. Billed as a supernatural crime drama (a tag which, at a push, lands it in the same extended family as last year’s sleeper hit Stranger Things) the show tells the story of a former criminal who returns home to her tiny fishing village, Orphelin Bay. Soon, she becomes drawn into the town’s secrets when the body of a fisherman washes ashore, a discovery which brings her face to face with the Tidelanders, mysterious half-human half-siren hybrids. With production due to start in Queensland next year, we might be waiting a while before this one arrives on our screens.
Returning: Dear White People
Picking up where the hit Sundance film of the same name left off, Dear White People managed to coast through the ridiculous, if sadly predictable, online backlash (which saw trolls claiming that the title was somehow ‘racist to white people,’ using the same eye-rolling logic that’s given rise to the #AllLivesMatter tag) to critical acclaim and a second season. Based at a fictional Ivy League university that’s fraught with bubbling racial tensions, it follows a group of students of colour as they contend with everything from misguided attempts at ‘wokeness’ from their white classmates to more deeply engrained institutional racism. The first series attracted a slate of directors that included Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins, so we’re excited to see what the sophomore season will bring.
READ MORE: Glow: Netflix's 80s Wrestling Drama Is A Surprise Knockout
READ MORE: 34 Things You Never Knew About Orange Is The New Black