My Top Choices for January TV

The new year will be here in just a few days, and lots of programming options are set to air throughout January, including all of the major network dramas returning from their winter breaks, many more made-for-TV movies set to debut, some dramas premiering their new seasons and even some specials.

Out of all those options, I tried to narrow down my choices for the month and those that follow are what rose to the top.

NEW DRAMAS

The Netflix drama Kaleidoscope will debut on January 1. It stars Giancarlo Esposito as a master thief, who along with his crew, attempt an epic and elaborate heist worth $7 billion dollars, but betrayal, greed and other threats undermine their plans.

The Hallmark Channel is debuting a new type of drama, The Way Home, on January 15. Supergirl alum Chyler Leigh and Andie MacDowell, who starred in the former Hallmark Channel drama Cedar Cove, will star as an estranged mother and daughter. The series follows the lives of three generations of women: Kat Landry (Leigh), her 15-year-old daughter Alice (Sadie Laflamme-Snow) and Kat’s mother Del (MacDowell), who are all strong, willful and independent. Kat and her daughter return home after receiving an unexpected letter from Del, and then Alice discovers a way to travel in time to learn about how her mom and grandma became estranged.

The Tenet-like new drama The Lazarus Project will debut on TNT on January 23. The series follows George, the latest recruit to The Lazarus Project – a secret organization that has harnessed the ability to turn back time whenever the world is at the threat of extinction.

With nearly all of the Teen Wolf cast reunited for a movie (more on that further below), the new thriller Wolf Pack [from the showrunner/series creator of Teen Wolf] will debut on Paramount+ on January 26. The series follows a teenage boy and girl whose lives are changed forever when a California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature and drives it to attack a highway traffic jam beneath the burning hills. Buffy fans be aware, the show features the return to the small screen by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Freeform also has their own thriller series, The Watchful Eye, set to debut with back-to-back episodes on January 30. The series follows Elena Santos, a young woman with a complicated past, maneuvering her way into working as a live-in nanny for an affluent family in Manhattan. She quickly learns that everyone in the mysterious building has deadly secrets and ulterior motives. What they don’t know, however, is that Elena has some shocking secrets of her own. My main interest in the show is that Angel and Person of Interest alum Amy Acker and Warren Christie are part of the cast.

FINALES AND PREMIERES

With the holidays soon at an end, the TV schedule will get back to normal in January with the return of the primetime dramas along with the end of a few other shows. The following are those that I am most eage to see:

The winter finale of Yellowstone on Paramount Network on January 1;
The winter premiere of The Rookie (in a crossover event with its spin-off) on ABC on January 3;
The winter premiere of New Amsterdam on January 3, followed not that long off by the series finale on January 17 on NBC;
The third season premiere of Miss Scarlet and the Duke on PBS on January 8;
The buzzed-about crossover event of NCIS, NCIS: Hawai’i and NCIS: Los Angeles on CBS on January 9;
The season finale of Willow on Disney+ on Jaunary 11;
The second and final season of Hunters on Amazon on January 13;
The fourth season premiere of 9-1-1: Lone Star on FOX on January 17;
The second season premiere of Mystic on UPtv on January 19; and,
The season finale of Leverage: Redemption on Freevee on January 25.

MOVIES AND MORE MOVIES

The following are the movies in January that I am most interested in watching:

Hallmark Channel

The second trilogy of The Wedding Veil on January 7, January 14 and January 21, bringing Lacey Chabert and Kevin McGarry, Autumn Reeser and Paolo Bernardini and Alison Sweeney and Victor Webster back for the next set of stories.

Hallmark Movies & Mysteries

On January 8, Janel Parrish and Niall Matter will star in the newest mystery franchise – Family History Mysteries: Buried Past.

Netflix

Rob Lowe, Johnny Berchtold and Kimberly Williams-Paisley will star in Dog Gone, a family friendly movie based on a true story about a young man and his father who embark on an incredible search to find their beloved dog.

Paramount+

It’s been over 5 years since the MTV thriller series Teen Wolf went off the air after 100 episodes; and now nearly all of the original cast will be back together for Teen Wolf: The Movie on January 26.

The full January TV calendar – showing all the dramas returning or premiering, the specials and movies that are set to air – will go live tomorrow.