TV series both new and old for 2015

‘Bet­ter Call Saul': an­tic­i­pated se­quel to ‘Break­ing Bad'

This is per­haps the se­ries around which there is most ex­pec­ta­tion, con­sid­er­ing it is a spin-off of the uni­ver­sally pop­u­lar Break­ing Bad, also on AMC. The new se­ries, for which Mo­vis­tar has gained ex­clu­sive rights in Spain, is about Saul Good­man, the dodgy lawyer from Break­ing Bad, played by Bob Odenkirk. The story takes place in 2002, six years be­fore Good­man runs into Wal­ter White, who takes the lawyer on to help him in his trans­for­ma­tion from a hum­ble chem­istry teacher into a drug lord. This ini­tial se­ries will have 10 episodes, which will begin air­ing at the end of Feb­ru­ary. The suc­cess of the new pro­ject could well de­pend on its re­cep­tion among Break­ing Bad's army of fa­nat­i­cal fans.

BBC adap­ta­tion of hit his­tor­i­cal novel ‘Wolf Hall'

The BBC and his­tor­i­cal cos­tume drama are vir­tu­ally syn­ony­mous. The UK's pub­lic broad­caster has a new pro­ject, co-pro­duced with the US PBS chan­nel, which sees Damien Lewis (Home­land) in­ter­pret the role of Henry VIII. The se­ries is an adap­ta­tion of the hugely suc­cess­ful, prize-win­ning se­ries of nov­els by Hi­lary Man­tel. Di­rected by Peter Kos­min­sky, this lat­est BBC adap­ta­tion of top his­tor­i­cal fic­tion fol­lows in the foot­steps of se­ries such as The White Queen (2013) and be­gins some time in Jan­u­ary.

Mar­tin Luther King, the biopic, from cre­ator of ‘The Wire'

David Simon, the cre­ator of the ac­claimed se­ries, The Wire, has a new pro­ject about the life of civil rights leader, Mar­tin Luther King. The six-hour mini-se­ries on HBO is based on the tril­ogy of books by Tay­lor Branch, Amer­ica in the King Years. Chat show giant, Oprah Win­frey is one of the show's pro­duc­ers.

Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll from Scors­ese and Jag­ger

HBO has given the green light for Mar­tin Scors­ese and Mick Jag­ger to pro­duce a new se­ries about rock-and-roll in the 1970s, star­ring Bobby Can­navale (Board­walk Em­pire) and Olivia Wilde (House). The se­ries will ex­plore the sex-fu­elled music busi­ness of punk and disco.

The Lynch­esque se­ries tak­ing France by storm

The se­ries that “David Lynch would have made if he'd been French”, P'tit Quin­quin is a French mini-se­ries from the ARTE chan­nel that fea­tures Bruno Du­mont's first in­cur­sion into tele­vi­sion, in a story that lies some­where be­tween Twin Peaks and Bi­en­v­enue chez les Ch'tis.

Fan­tas­ti­cal com­pe­ti­tion for HBO's Game of Thrones

Orig­i­nally re­jected by HBO, but now taken up by the Starz chan­nel, is the adap­ta­tion of the Neil Gaiman novel, Amer­i­can Gods. With it fan­tas­ti­cal theme, it is a clear com­peti­tor to Game of Thrones. The pro­ject is in the hands of Bryan Fuller (Push­ing Daisies).