Euphoria to Half Man: 12 of the best TV shows to watch this April
HBO/ SkyFrom the return of Sydney Sweeney and Zendaya in HBO's provocative drama to the latest show from Baby Reindeer's creator and the comeback of sitcom classic Malcolm in the Middle – these are the best series to watch and stream.
Apple TV+1. Your Friends and Neighbors
Jon Hamm is once again a charming mess in the second season of this engaging series. His character, Andrew Cooper, is still a burglar, stealing from his rich neighbours. Now it's clearer than ever that while the need for money first drove him to theft, it's the thrill and risk that keeps him going. James Marsden has a major role as a new neighbour, the megarich but shady Owen Ashe. As if Coop's existential crisis isn't enough, Ashe entangles him in more legal jeopardy. "You can help me out or you can get arrested," he tells Coop. The strong supporting cast returns, including Amanda Peet as Coop's ex-wife, Lena Hall as his sister, Hoon Lee as his best friend and Olivia Munn as his former lover, who unsuccessfully tried to frame him for murder at the end of the first series, but isn't a social pariah for very long. Really, the enclave they live in is ridiculously forgiving!
Your Friends and Neighbors premieres 3 April on Apple TV internationally
Hulu2. The Testaments
Chase Infiniti follows up her breakout performance in the Oscars best picture winner One Battle After Another with the starring role in this sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. Based on Margaret Atwood's 2019 novel, it follows two strands. In one, Aunt Lydia, the only major returning character – played by Ann Dowd, who was so calmly terrifying in the original series – is writing a memoir about the harrowing past that led to her complicity in patriarchal, authoritarian Gilead. The main plot focuses more narrowly than the novel (leaving room for future seasons) on the school years of Agnes (Infiniti), who is actually Hannah, the daughter June and Luke spent the entirety of The Handmaid's Tale trying to find after Gilead took her. She is now a young woman being groomed as a future wife for a commander. Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a new student at the school, arrives from free Canada determined to destroy Gilead from within and enlists Agnes's help. "The rose-coloured glasses just come flying off," Infiniti has said.
The Testaments premieres 8 April on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK
Netflix3. Big Mistakes
Dan Levy created and stars in this crime comedy, his first series since Schitt's Creek, which he also acted in and co-wrote. He plays Nicky, a pastor in New Jersey, with Taylor Ortega as his sister, Morgan, and Laurie Metcalf as their mother. When Morgan impulsively steals a necklace from a jewellery store as a present for their dying grandmother, the store's mobbed-up manager blackmails the siblings into working for his crime organisation, a task they are spectacularly ill-suited for. "I have a completely unfounded fear of being entrapped by organised crime," Levy told EW about his inspiration for the series. That comment totally reflects his humour – it's drily witty and arch yet somehow also plausible. He also brought in a crime consultant, who taught him that no scheme is too outlandish. "You think this feels insane. No, someone has thought of it." Rachel Sennott, star and writer of the film Bottoms and the series I Love LA, is Levy's co-writer on the show.
Big Mistakes premieres 9 April on Netflix internationally
Peacock4. The Miniature Wife
This comic series puts a contemporary spin on the concept of shrinking people, a staple of movies for decades – The Incredible Shrinking Man, the Incredible Shrinking Woman, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, the list seems endless. Here Matthew Macfadyen is Les, who has just invented a device that can miniaturise matter, and Elizabeth Banks is his more successful wife, Lindy, a prize-winning writer. When he accidentally shrinks her, he has to prove he can reverse the process, and get her back to full size, or the patent for the technology will revert to someone else. At least Lindy has a doll-sized house to walk around in while she's fuming. There's more to the show than visual effects, though. The series is based on a short story by Manuel Gonzales that uses the shrinking concept to explore the power balance in the characters' marriage. Ronny Chieng, Aasif Mandvi, Sian Clifford and O-T Fagbenle are in the impressive supporting cast.
The Miniature Wife premieres 9 April on Peacock in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK
Hulu5. Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair
Undead television just keeps coming. Malcolm continues the trend of shows you thought were gone forever only to have them pick up decades later. Scrubs and The Comeback were both resurrected just weeks ago. Now almost all the original cast comes back to this family sitcom centred around the misfit middle child. Frankie Muniz is Malcolm, who was 12 when the series began in 2000 and ran for six years. Now in his 30s, Malcolm has been ignoring his family for a decade, but is guilted into visiting them for his parents' 40th anniversary, taking his teenage daughter and girlfriend along. The series was Bryan Cranston's pre-Breaking Bad breakthrough role, and he returns as the family's hapless father, Hal, with Jane Kaczmarek as the mother, Lois.
Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair premieres 10 April on Hulu in the US and Disney+ in the UK
HBO/ Sky6. Euphoria
It was against the odds that a third season of this provocative drama would ever happen, given how the careers of Zendaya, Jacob Elordi and Sydney Sweeney have taken off since they played high-school students back when the show premiered in 2019. But despite many delays, they are back four years after season two, with a five-year time jump in the story, and the characters now navigating life in their twenties. Rue (Zendaya) is in Mexico in debt to some nasty drug dealers and Jules (Hunter Schafer) is in art school, with a disreputable side gig. Cassie (Sydney) and Nate (Elordi) are engaged, although he's not happy to find her making sexy internet content. Lexi (Maude Apatow) is an assistant to a Hollywood showrunner, played by Sharon Stone. Other new cast members include Natasha Lyonne and Danielle Deadwyler. Eric Dane, so memorable and chilling as Nate's father, died in February after being diagnosed with ALS, but had already shot his scenes in one day, which should add a poignant note.
Euphoria premieres 12 April on HBO Max in the US and 13 April on HBO Max in the UK
AMC7. The Audacity
This absurdist comic drama is likely to confirm your worst suspicions about Silicon Valley billionaires. Billy Magnussen stars as Duncan Park, the CEO of a data-mining company, who spirals out of control when a proposed acquisition falls apart. His unethically leaking information had something to do with that. Park is the kind of guy who takes the phrase "Tech lives matter" unironically when someone says it in a meeting. Sarah Goldberg (Barry) plays his therapist, who also treats another egocentric tech bro played by Zach Galifianakis. She calls her patients "billionaire man-children" and "horrible people who have no boundaries," but crosses some boundaries herself. Already renewed for a second season, the show was created by Jonathan Glatzer, who has been a writer on Succession and so has experience writing cutthroat characters.
The Audacity premieres 12 April on AMC and AMC+ in the US
Apple TV+8. Margo's Got Money Troubles
Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer and Nick Offerman are at their very best in this warm-hearted, sex-fuelled comedy. Fanning plays Margo, who has an affair with her married literature professor, gets pregnant, and struggles to make ends meet as a single mother. She can't afford daycare, but discovers she can work from home on OnlyFans. Pfeiffer is her mother, Shyanne, a former Hooters waitress. It's Pfeiffer's second stunning performance in as many months, following her very different dramatic role in The Madison. Offerman plays Margo's father, a former pro-wrestler and recovering addict named Jinx, who was barely there during Margo's childhood but now becomes a live-in babysitter for her infant son. When the show premiered at the South by Southwest festival, The Hollywood Reporter's rave called it "a thoughtful and endearing dramedy". It's the work of major writer/producer, and Pfeiffer's husband, David E Kelley (Big Little Lies among many other series), and based on a best-selling 2024 novel by Rufi Thorpe.
Margo's Got Money Troubles premieres 15 April on Apple TV internationally
Netflix9. Beef
This acclaimed, conflict-themed anthology series ramps up the star power in season two, with Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan in the leading roles. It won the Emmy for best limited or anthology series for its first instalment, starring Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as strangers whose road rage incident sets off a plot full of family dynamics and violence. In the new season, Isaac plays Joshua, the manager of a country club, who is married to Lindsay (Mulligan). Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny are also a couple, both Joshua's employees, who witness the boss and his wife have an explosive argument. Youn Yuh-jung, Oscar-winner for her role as the grandmother in Minari, plays the club's owner and Song Kang-ho, the father in Parasite, plays her husband. "We wanted the feeling of this season's beef to be a bit more passive-aggressive," Lee has said. "It's more about the internal repression of rage that you see in the workplace." But as the trailer reveals, there are still plenty of fireworks.
Beef premieres 16 April on Netflix internationally
BBC/ HBO10. Half Man
After his gritty, autobiographical Baby Reindeer became a surprise phenomenon in 2024, much discussed because of its focus on toxic behaviours, whatever Richard Gadd did next was sure to be among the most anticipated shows of the year. Half Man, which he created and stars in, was actually in the works under the title Lions before Baby Reindeer even premiered. Gadd plays the fierce, angry Ruben and Jamie Bell is the meek Niall, men who were as close as brothers when they were adolescents but have since had a falling out. When Ruben unexpectedly turns up at Niall's wedding, a violent encounter leads to flashbacks that tell their story from the 1980s to the present. Gadd told GQ about the series: "I felt it was interesting to explore dysfunctional manhood, where it comes from and how it kind of evolves over time." And he weighed in on why Baby Reindeer hit a nerve with viewers. "I think people really recognised themselves [more] than they'd ever care to admit."
Half Man premieres 23 April on HBO and HBO Max in the US and 24 April on BBC iPlayer in the UK
Apple TV+11. Widow's Bay
Matthew Rhys (The Americans, The Beast in Me) reveals his deft comic timing in this witty horror spoof, playing Tom Loftis, the mayor of Widow's Bay, a town on a small New England island. He is hoping to make the community, which has cutesy locations like a restaurant called The Salty Whale, a tourist destination even though the locals are convinced the place is haunted by everything from fog to a lethal creature called the Sea Hag. The show includes nods to classic horror including The Shining. And like the seaside mayor in Jaws, Tom is ready to overlook some dangerous omens so as not to spook the tourists. Katie Dippold, who wrote the very funny film The Heat, starring Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock, created the series and has said, "I think it captures the feeling of going to a haunted house on the boardwalk in the summertime." The sharp direction comes from some experts, including Hiro Murai (Atlanta) and Ti West (the X trilogy of films).
Widow's Bay premieres 29 April on Apple TV internationally
Netflix12. Man on Fire
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II proved how well he can carry a series as the title character in the recent, sharp-witted Marvel entry Wonder Man, playing an aspiring actor who is also a superhero. He shifts to drama in this action thriller as John Creasy, a mercenary and former special forces soldier in the US Army, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan now battling PTSD. He becomes the protector of a young girl named Poe, who was the sole surviving witness to a tragic incident in Brazil. Alice Braga plays a driver Creasy hires, who becomes his partner in trying to protect the girl and track down the terrorists threatening her. The show is based on the 1980 novel of the same name by AJ Quinnell, which was also the basis for a 2004 film starring Denzel Washington, so it seems there is something about that role that attracts the best.
Man on Fire premieres 30 April on Netflix internationally
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