In a sardine-packed spring season, March 26 might be the most crowded release date of them all. That Sunday night, the scheming, snivelling, showboating Roy family returns to HBO for a fourth—and final—season of “Succession.” Will Kendall seal his Oedipal victory at last? Will Tom pack up his merino turtlenecks and leave Shiv for good? Will Cousin Greg ruin an entire evening owing to sheer incompetence? All will be revealed—likely with the help of elegant yet brutal monologues that leave you both wincing and wanting more.
On that same Sunday, on Showtime, the twisty “Yellowjackets” returns for a second season of mayhem and teen-age hormones in a remote Canadian forest. The show, which follows two story lines—the ghastly saga of a nineteen-nineties high-school girls’ soccer team that may or may not turn into a cannibalistic cult after its plane crashes, and the present-day adventures of several crash survivors—last left viewers on a nerve-fraying cliffhanger. With new cast members including Lauren Ambrose and Elijah Wood, this season will surely provide a bucket of fresh blood.
There’s more! March 26 also brings “Great Expectations,” a splashy adaptation, from FX on Hulu, of Dickens’s epic about an orphan named Pip and the characters he meets in Victorian London when he comes into unexpected wealth. Olivia Colman, perhaps channelling her barmy performance in “The Favourite,” plays Miss Havisham, a mad spinster who won’t remove her tattered wedding dress. And, on Paramount+, Kiefer Sutherland returns to television in “Rabbit Hole,” a corporate-spy thriller with echoes of both “24” and “Michael Clayton.”
Elsewhere on the calendar, not only is there something for everyone but there’s an excessive amount of it. A fan of musicals? There are three! “Up Here,” on Hulu (March 24), follows two young New Yorkers, in 1999, as they perform original songs written by the team behind “Frozen.” On April 6, Paramount+ débuts “Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies,” a singing and dancing confetti cannon of poodle skirts and muscle cars, and on April 7 the comedy “Schmigadoon” is back, on Apple TV+, this time with tunes inspired by Broadway hits of the sixties and seventies (“Chicago” and “Cabaret” jokes abound). Want a period piece? PBS has you covered with “Tom Jones” (April 30), a high-polished take on Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel, or you can turn to Netflix for “Queen Charlotte” (May 4), a frothy “Bridgerton” prequel.
If tense drama is what you’re after, you can find it—nearly everywhere. On Amazon Prime, there’s “Dead Ringers” (April 21), a remake of David Cronenberg’s 1988 thriller about psychotic twin gynecologists (Rachel Weisz plays both siblings). On April 6, on Netflix, things get ugly in “Beef,” a dramedy about two strangers (Ali Wong and Steven Yeun) who become mutually obsessed after a road-rage incident. On March 17, Amazon Prime premières “Swarm,” a potboiler about a woman (Dominique Fishback) who is dangerously infatuated with a pop star, and HBO Max premières “Love & Death” (April 27), in which Elizabeth Olsen plays a housewife accused of axe murder. In “City on Fire” (May 12), Apple TV+’s big glossy bet of the season, a 2003 Central Park shooting kicks off a multi-borough mystery involving arson, rock stars, and real estate. ♦