We’re only a few weeks away at this point from the same-night finale of two massive HBO shows (Succession and Barry), which means I’ll soon need to find a new series to binge once my current addiction — Jesse Armstrong’s masterful series Succession — takes its final bow. Luckily, though, HBO has a pretty strong lineup of content teed up for the rest of this year and into 2024 to keep us glued to our screens and also transfixed by the caliber of storytelling we’ve come to expect from the network.
These are upcoming HBO shows, by the way, which are distinct from HBO Max shows — a name, by the way, that’s also getting tweaked come May 23 by chopping off the “HBO,” so that the network’s streamer is just named Max going forward. It’s needlessly confusing and de-prioritizes the brand that happens to be the only reason so many of us signed up for the soon-to-be-just-Max, but that’s another story.
For now, here are some of the most exciting upcoming HBO shows that I’m looking forward to the most and which definitely deserve a spot on your watch lists.
The Idol
Release date: June 4
What it’s about: Of all the upcoming HBO shows I can think of, this drama, whose co-creators include The Weeknd and Euphoria’s Sam Levinson, is probably the buzziest right now. In The Idol, Lily-Rose Depp plays a fame-obsessed popstar wannabe named Jocelyn, who seems to be an answer to the question that one character asks in the show’s teaser — about when the music industry last featured a “truly f**king nasty, nasty pop girl.” The Weeknd, meanwhile, plays a sex-mad cult leader named Tedros, and Jocelyn’s proximity to him takes her career and her profile to the next level.
(Like The Sympathizer below, The Idol also comes from A24, the company behind just about everything that’s worth watching right now).
True Detective: Night Country
Release date: TBD, but sometime this year
What it’s about: The logline for the fourth go-around of HBO’s True Detective franchise is as follows. “When the long winter night falls in Ennis, Alaska, the eight men who operate the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace. To solve the case, Detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) will have to confront the darkness they carry in themselves, and dig into the haunted truths that lie buried under the eternal ice.”
The Sympathizer
Release date: TBD, in 2024
What it’s about: Based on the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen, A24’s The Sympathizer tells the story of a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy during the last days of the Vietnam War who goes on to live in exile in the US. The cast includes Hoa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le, Ky Duyen, and Sandra Oh, while executive producer Robert Downey Jr. is also part of the cast and plays multiple roles here.
The Regime
Release date: 2024
What it’s about: From this HBO show’s official logline, The Regime tells the story of one year within the walls of the palace of a modern European regime as it begins to fall apart. The cast includes Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Guillaume Gallienne, Andrea Riseborough, Martha Plimpton, and Hugh Grant.
