Despite some false starts, of late Netflix hasn’t been doing a half bad job with live-action adaptations of some of the most beloved anime and animesque cartoons out there – and God knows that fandom isn’t shy about making their opinions felt. But can they now rescue one of the most notoriously bad adaptations there’s ever been? February will tell us.
If you’re trying to fill up your watchlist over the coming month, here are the biggest new TV shows of February 2024.
1. The Silent Service | February 9th, 2024
In a world where the lines between film and television are equally blurred – it all comes down the same pipe, after all – The Silent Service represents Amazon throwing up its hands and taking the 2023 Japanese film of the same name as starting point for a TV show. The press release promises ‘three hours of new content’, so the first few episodes will just be the film chopped up.
The Silent Service itself refers to Japan’s submarine corps. In particular, the nation’s first nuclear submarine, whose crew go a bit mad with power and sail off to declare themselves an independent state. Can they reach the UN and gain recognition before another navy stops them? Is that even how this works? The Silent Service promises to address all these questions, and more.
2. The New Look | February 14th, 2024
The New Look addresses that somewhat unheimlich fact that so many of the best-known fashion icons and brands – Hugo Boss, Coco Chanel, and, front and centre here, Christian Dior – worked proudly alongside the forces of the Third Reich. For the fashion-conscious it has always been a bit of a sticking point that the Nazis could be snappy dressers and genocidal maniacs.
This has Ben Mendelsohn as Christian Dior, alongside Maisie Williams, John Malkovich, Emily Mortimer, Claes Bang, Glenn Close, and sure enough, Juliette Binoche as Coco Chanel. While it might be too blithe in spirit for any kind of serious drama, the idea of an all-star cast all playing big fashion names of the day and being catty sounds like a lot of fun.
3. Constellation | February 21st, 2024
Astronauts have described the process of being up in outer space as, in essence, being a series of things you need to do otherwise you will die. So you’d think if you made it back from a space-disaster, that’d at least be the end of it. Not so for Noomi Rapace’s hapless survivor, who returns to terra firma only to find ‘key pieces of her life seem to be missing’.
Even with Jonathan Banks there to explain things in the firm, measured way for which he has become famous, any missing memories of one’s own child are bound to be a little upsetting. The trailer tips its hand a little too far that this isn’t merely Rapace’s stress-response to a very unpleasant experience, but rather the result of some kind of horrible outer-space MacGuffin that is Bank’s personal white whale. We can still ponder as to exactly what it is, though.
4. Avatar: The Last Airbender | February 22nd, 2024
Oh yes. Netflix’s roll-call of live-action adaptations of cartoons hasn’t been too dreadful in recent years, but Avatar: The Last Airbender comes with the awkwardness of having already had a live-action adaptation, one which came at the nadir of M. Night Shymalan’s run of absolute stinkers, and brought home fully five Golden Raspberry awards (including ‘Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3D’).
Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, the creators of the original show, have already stepped away from this due to ‘creative differences’ – make of this what you will. Still, the CGI looks better than last time (not a huge challenge), and the original is beloved enough that even a shot for shot remake done halfway competently could expect a warm reception in some quarters.
The cast includes Gordon Cormier, Daniel Dae Kim, Utkarsh Ambudkar, George Takei, Danny Pudi, A Martinez, Ken Leung, Amber Midthunder, and Arden Cho. Fans can probably have a decent stab at drawing out who’s playing who on this alone.
5. Shogun | February 27th, 2024
Something of an antidote to last year’s acclaimed Blue Eye Samurai, Shogun sees a European wash up on the shores of isolationist-era Japan and, implausible as it might sound, not be the most evil person imaginable. Nor is it one of those where they then take over the country and remake it in their image by virtue of enjoying cheese, instead they are just a stranger in a strange land.
Based on the 1975 novel, whose 1980 TV adaptation won a string of awards, the story ultimately stems from on the real life and times of William Adams, an English navigator who did come to the then-closed Japanese society and did against all odds end up a senior advisor to the shogun, being declared a samurai and given the Japanese name Anjin Miura.
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