The best family films to watch in the BT TV Player
Jul 21 | 2 min readIf you've made New Year’s resolutions to get to the gym more, take up a new hobby or spend more time with friends and family, prepare to give them up almost immediately.
2020 looks set to be the busiest year yet for TV. There are massive new series being lined up, seemingly every week, keeping us glued to our remotes and sofas for the next 12 months.
Get ahead and start getting organised with our handy preview guide to the biggest and best new shows to watch this year.
Picard
Amazon Prime Video
Live long, and prosper in 2020. Sir Patrick Stewart is bringing back Jean-Luc Picard and beginning a new chapter in the Star Trek universe.
Isa Briones, Santiago Cabrera, Michelle Hurd, Alison Pill, Harry Treadaway and Evan Evagora will star alongside Stewart in what is likely to be one of the biggest TV events of the year.
Where can I watch it…
Amazon Prime Video from January 24.
The Walking Dead: World Beyond
Amazon Prime Video
The Walking Dead phenomenon continues with a new spinoff series exploring the first generation to grow up in the post-apocalyptic world.
Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever. Grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad.
Where can I watch it….
Amazon Prime Video in the Spring.
Locke & Key
Netflix
Murder, demons and magic
The long awaited TV adaptation of the best-selling comic book series from Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez is a coming of age mystery about love, loss and the unshakable bonds that define family.
Darby Stanchfield (Scandal), Jackson Robert Scott (IT and IT 2), Connor Jessup (American Crime), Emilia Jones (Horrible Histories) amd Bill Heck (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) star as the Locke family.
Where can I watch it…
Netflix from February 7.
We Hunt Together
Alibi/UKTV
Written by Gabby Hull (Cheat) and starring Eve Myles (Broadchurch, Keeping Faith), this is a classic cat and mouse thriller about two star-crossed killers on the loose and two dysfunctional detectives in hot pursuit.
Expect dark romance and psychological thrills.
Where can I watch this?
Alibi in the Spring.
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Life
From Mike ‘Doctor Foster’ Bartlett, Life is a six-part drama series about a Manchester house divided into separate flats, exploring the parallel lives of the families and individuals living there.
Alison Steadman leads the impressive cast alongside Peter Davison, Adrian Lester, Victoria Hamilton, Rachael Stirling and Susannah Fielding.
Where can I watch it?
BBC One.
Four Lives
BBC
Jeff Pope and Neil McKay previously brought us the incredible factual dramas The Moorside and Appropriate Adult and in 2020 they’re teaming up again to tell the story of the victims and families of serial killer Stephen Port.
Sheridan Smith and Jaime Winstone will star in the series and Stephen Merchant will take on the role of Port.
Where can I watch it?
BBC One.
Little Fires Everywhere
Reese Witherspoon + Kerry Washington + Celeste Ng = The most exciting TV adaptation of 2020.
The best-selling novel sparked a bidding war in the US and the end result is being produced by and starring the dream team of Witherspoon and Washington.
Where can I watch it?
A UK home hasn’t been confirmed… yet.
Dracula
BBC
Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss swap Sherlock Holmes for Dracula, bringing in the New Year on BBC One with some gothic chills.
Claes Bang plays the iconic lead character in a series, which won't be for the faint-hearted.
Where can I watch it?
New Year's Day on BBC One.
Normal People
BBC Three
The adaptation of Sally Rooney's international literary phenomenon will star Daisy Edgar-Jones (War of the Worlds) as Marianne and Paul Mescal as Connell.
Honest, smart and intoxicating, Normal People is a compulsive modern love story. It follows a couple who keep crossing over into each other’s lives and explores just how complicated intimacy and young love can be.
Where can I watch it?
BBC Three and BBC One.
Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous
An animated Jurassic World TV series? Sign us up now.
Set after the 2015 Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard movie, the series has the backing of Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow. We’re expecting big things from the Isla Nublar.
Where can I watch it?
Netflix.
Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist
Sick of detective dramas, true crime and gritty bleakness on your TV screen? Then here comes the answer
Jane Levy plays Zoey Clarke, a whip-smart computer coder forging her way in San Francisco, who after an unusual event starts to hear the innermost wants and desires of the people around her through songs.
The cast includes Skylar Astin, Peter Gallagher and Lauren Graham and it promises to be a extraordinary and joyous slice that will make you laugh, cry and sing, sing, sing.
Where can I watch it?
E4.
Lord of the Rings
Yes, that Lord of the Rings.
It’s not confirmed whether the series will be finished and released this year or 2021, but the Amazon Prime Video series will go into production and that’s more than enough to get us excited.
Filmed in New Zealand like the Peter Jackson movies, the Tolkien adaptation could fill a Game of Thrones-shaped hole in our lives,
Where can I watch it…
Amazon Prime Video.
Belgravia
ITV
Since Downton Abbey took a bow, lavish period dramas have come and gone, but none have quite had the same impact as the Julian Fellowes series.
ITV have turned back to Fellowes in the hope he can recreate the magic with this dive into the 19th century and a world of secrets an dishonour in the upper echelon of London society.
Tamsin Greig, Philip Glenister and Harriet Walters will be strapping on their best costumes.
Where can I watch it?
ITV.
Quiz
ITV
The story of Charles and Diana Ingram and their audacious attempt to cheat on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with the help of Tecwen Whittock was a national sensation in 2001, making headlines around the world.
The couple stood trial for conspiring by coughing during the recording to signify the correct answers to the multiple choice questions posed to the Major by host, Chris Tarrant.
Directed by Stephen Frears (A Very English Scandal, Florence Foster Jenkins, Philomena, The Queen) and written by playwright James Graham (Brexit: An Uncivil War), the jaw-dropping cast includes Matthew Macfadyen stars as Major Charles Ingram, Michael Sheen as Chris Tarrant, Sian Clifford as Diana Ingram, Mark Bonnar as Celador Television Chairman, Paul Smith, Helen McCrory as Sonia Woodley QC, Michael Jibson as Tecwen Whittock and Aisling Bea as ITV Entertainment Commissioner, Claudia Rosencrantz.
Where can I watch this?
ITV.
All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur
Amazon Prime Video
The All or Nothing series first dabble in Premier League football followed the glories and success story of Manchester City. It was fascinating to watch an elite sports team at the very pinnacle of their game at close quarters, but if there was one problem it was that things all ran a little bit too smoothly for Pep Guardiola’s team.
Amazon announced that they were following Spurs in 2019-2020 and fortunately for viewers (but probably not Spurs fans) things have been far more eventful and problematic for the North London team.
Player turmoil, a sacked manager and the arrival of Jose Mourinho should make this blockbuster television, no matter how the season eventually turns out.
Where can I watch it
Amazon Prime Video in the autumn.
All Creatures Great and Small
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the James Herriot books, the iconic cosy television series that aired in the ‘70s and ‘80s is being reprised with a six-part series and Christmas special in 2020.
Newcomer Nicholas Ralph takes on the role of vet James Herriot and will be joined by Samuel West, Anna Madeley, Dame Diana Rigg, Matthew Lewis, and Nigel Havers down on the farm.
Where can I watch it?
Channel 5.
Deadwater Fell
Channel 4
David Tennant, Matthew McNulty and Cush Jumbo star in this tantalising drama series about a heinous crime in a small community.
If that sounds like worryingly like a Broadchurch repeat, don’t worry there is one major difference. In this series, David Tennant plays the mysterious central figure suspected of murdering his own family.
Where can I watch it?
Channel 4 from Friday, January 10.
Elephant Man
Stranger Things star Charlie Heaton is cast as Joseph Merrick in two 90-minute episodes about the mysteries and myths surrounding his life.
Following him from birth to death, the films will focus on the true events of Merrick’s personal odyssey, his extreme courage, determination and human dignity despite challenges arising from his disability
Where can I watch it?
BBC One.
Hunters
Amazon Prime Video
Hunters follows a diverse band of Nazi hunters living in 1977 New York City. The Hunters, as they’re known, have discovered that hundreds of high-ranking Nazi officials are living among us and conspiring to create a Fourth Reich in the U.S. The eclectic team of Hunters will set out on a bloody quest to bring the Nazis to justice and thwart their new genocidal plans
From Academy Award-winner Jordan Peele (Get Out) and starring the legendary Al Pacino, you won’t want to miss this.
Where can I watch it?
Amazon Prime Video.
