TV
Ten must-watch television series coming up in 2024
These are Jewish and Jew-ish gems coming out this year
January 15, 2024 15:22
By, Elisa Bray
5 min read
These are Jewish and Jew-ish gems coming out this year
January 15, 2024 15:22ByElisa Bray, Elisa Bray
Picking out our “don’t miss” TV series of 2024 was always going to be tricky when the competition is a fight between the likes of Larry David, Harvey Keitel and Steven Spielberg.
The Lady in the Lake, in which Natalie Portman plays Jewish housewife turned journalist in 1960s Baltimore who becomes obsessed with solving murders looks set to be an obvious gem. Directed by Israeli Academy Award nominee Alma Har’el, we think it has all the ingredients to become the most talked-about and loved series of the year.
In more bittersweet news, this year will bring the final instalment of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David’s iconic Emmy and Golden Globe-winning comedy series that began all the way back in 2000. Addicts, you’ve been warned.
And while we know it’s January, things are gloomy and you don’t necessarily want to go to bed thinking about a death camp, the Tattooist of Auschwitz has a star cast and is going to be a major TV event. We’re sure you’ll want to give it a try – even if only to see whether it lives up to the extreme hype (both negative and positive) around the 2018 book.
Anyway, enough backchat. Here’s our list:
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
Heather Morris’s 2018 bestselling novel has been adapted into a six-part television series telling the true story of Lale Sokolov, a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz who’s given the job of tattooing ID numbers onto fellow prisoners – and falls in love with one. Starring Oscar-nominated Harvey Keitel (The Irishman), Jonah Hauer-King (The Little Mermaid) and Melanie Lynskey (The Last of Us), and scored by Hans Zimmer.
Released in early 2024 on Sky Atlantic
Masters of the Air
The dream production team behind Band of Brothers and The Pacific – Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman – bring us this new series about the brave men of the US Eighth Air Force who helped defeat Nazi Germany.
It follows those in the 100th Bomb Group (known as the “Bloody 100th” for the number of soldiers lost during the war), including some of the Jewish members – Major Robert Rosenthal and Lt David Friedkin – as they carry out raids on the enemy from 25,000ft up – and portrays the psychological impact. The show is based on Donald L Miller’s book, with the script by John Orloff.
Released on 26 January on Apple TV+
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Season 12 is the final instalment of Larry David’s iconic Emmy and Golden Globe-winning comedy series that began back in 2000.
Running into ten episodes, expect David upsetting and bickering with the usual characters played by Jeff Garlin, Susie Essman, Cheryl Hines, Richard Lewis, Ted Danson, Tracey Ullman, as well as a few more guest stars. Think Schitt's Creek’s Dan Levy, Sean Hayes and Vince Vaughn.
On the show’s closure, David said: “As Curb comes to an end, I will now have the opportunity to finally shed this ‘Larry David’ persona and become the person God intended me to be – the thoughtful, kind, caring, considerate human being I was until I got derailed by portraying this malignant character. And so ‘Larry David’, I bid you farewell. Your misanthropy will not be missed.”
Released on 5 February on Sky Comedy
Fire Dance
For fans of Shtisel, this gripping coming-of-age love story new to the Jewish streaming platform Chaiflicks is the first television show from acclaimed New York-born Israeli filmmaker Rama Burshtein-Shai (The Wedding Plan, Fill The Void) – and has won her three Israeli TV Academy Awards.
Over seven parts, we get a window into the life of a young woman in an insular strictly-Orthodox community. Having grown up in a broken home, the troubled Faigie falls in love with Nathan, the married son of the community’s leader.
Fire Dance premiered at the prestigious Series Mania Festival in 2022, where lead actor Yehuda Levy was named Best Actor.
Released on 14 March on Chaiflicks
Trust No One
For anyone who loved espionage thriller Tehran, Trust No One is a similarly high-tension thriller about how information is power but can bring pain. In this drama series the youngest-ever director of the most powerful intelligence agency in Israel, Itamar – played by Yehuda Levi – is facing a cyber security leak that’s exposing the top agents one by one. First to be revealed is Shuruk (Luna Mansour), the daughter of a Hamas leader who Itamar recruited to spy on her own father and, when on a high-risk rescue mission, he realises that the mole can only be someone in his inner circle.
Release date TBC on Netflix
We Were The Lucky Ones
Georgia Hunter’s bestselling novel We Were The Lucky Ones was inspired by a family reunion in 2000 that revealed the wartime stories of her grandfather and his family. A tale of Holocaust survival, the television adaptation is based on the author’s Polish-Jewish family’s separation at the start of the Second World War and their determination to reunite.
Starring Joey King, Logan Lerman, Amit Rahav (Unorthodox), Israeli film star Lior Ashkenazi, Hadas Yaron and her Shtisel co-star Michael Aloni.
Release date TBC on Disney Plus
The Lady in the Lake
Natalie Portman is the star of this new detective series addressing racism, sexism and classism. She plays a Jewish housewife and mother turned investigative reporter in 1960s Baltimore who becomes obsessed with solving the murders of a local bartender and a young girl.
It is directed by Israeli Academy Award nominee Alma Har’el (Honey Boy) and based on a novel by American Laura Lippman, which was inspired by two killings which took place in the author’s youth. Also starring The Queen’s Gambit’s Moses Ingram and Lupita Nyong’o.
Release date TBC on Apple TV+
“Bros”
Intended to premiere on Netflix in November, this original Israeli series was delayed after the show’s sound engineer Lior Waitzman was killed in Sderot in the October 7 terrorist attacks.
Known in Israel as Through Fire and Water, the Hebrew-language dramedy – written, directed and starring Israeli creatives Guy Amir and Hanan Savyon – is a story of inseparable childhood friends.
In the eight-episode series, Pini and Nisso (Savyon and Amir) are now co-owners of a Jerusalem bar and fellow Beitar Jerusalem soccer fans whose friendship is tested when their drinking hole faces closure and their team is on the precipice of playing its most important match yet. Filmed in Israel, Poland, the Ukraine and Georgia.
Release date TBC on Netflix
Somebody Feed Phil
Last year, American-Jewish TV host Phil Rosenthal came to the UK for a sell-out Somebody Feed Phil tour, including two nights at London’s Hackney Empire. His hugely popular food travelogue on Netflix, which followed his 2015 series I’ll Have What Phil’s Having, took off during lockdown when travel was off-limits.
The likeable Jewish gourmand is back on Netflix this year with his seventh season.
Release date TBC on Netflix
Untitled
In this as-yet-untitled new comedy series, Adam Brody (famous for The OC and Fleishman Is in Trouble), plays “unconventional rabbi” Noah opposite Kristen Bell as “outspoken, agnostic” Joanne, and we watch their unlikely relationship unfurl. Described as “a charming rabbi who is stuck in his ways and used to playing things safe”, Noah begins to falter when he meets the brutally honest and provocative Joanne, and his safe life plan is upended. Created by Erin Foster (Barely Famous).
Release date TBC on Netflix