The days are getting shorter, the trees turning orange, the blazing sun of summer but a memory as the colder, darker nights draw in. But never mind all that – because as any true TV viewer knows, the true meaning of autumn isn’t crunching through piles of leaves, sipping on pumpkin-spiced beverages, Halloween, Bonfire Night or really, maybe, thinking about turning on the heating for the first time in months.
No, autumn is when TV finally gets good again after those sparse, empty summer months when the schedulers all apparently agree we’d be too busy off having water fights to enjoy watching any top-shelf dramas.
And that shelf is looking particularly stacked this autumn, with the return of the best British and Irish dramas – the likes of Slow Horses, Black Doves, Mobland, This City is Ours, Blue Lights and Time – rubbing shoulders with all-new shows across every channel and streamer. Some might be adaptations of old favourites, like Pride and Prejudice, Treasure Island and Carrie, while others might be all-new stories from your favourite writers and actors like the Michelle Keegan thriller The Blame, glossy divorce drama War or dashing spy drama Honey.
In fact, there’s so much to look forward to that we’ve had to rope in the writers and editors of Radio Times to pick the very best for you. Check out the full list below of 33 dramas you won’t want to miss, prepare to draw the curtains, lock the door and settle in for the season of the sofa. Who needs sunshine anyway?
1. MobLand season 2
Nothing can keep the Harrigans down, not even Pierce Brosnan’s Irish accent. The London-based crime family are back for more bloody and brutal gang warfare, as the A-list cast led by Tom Hardy and Helen Mirren reassemble.
Where to watch MobLand season 2: Paramount+ (18 September)
2. Treasure Island
Yo-ho-ho! Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure from 1883 is another classic receiving a revamp. When teenager Jim Hawkins (Tom Sweet) finds a treasure map leading to buried gold, he sets sail on the Hispaniola, but who out of the crew can he trust when riches await? David Oyelowo plays Long John Silver and Hayley Atwell is Jim’s mother Bess across six swash-buckling episodes.
Where to watch Treasure Island: Paramount+
3. Slow Horses season 6
The washed-up spies of Slough House are used to being punished, but even Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb draws the line at having them killed off. So when a team of assassins targets the Horses, all bets are off. Expect thrilling shoot-outs, deadly poisons and shocking(ish) resurrections.
4. War
What happens when a tech entrepreneur and film star divorce? The basis of Lupin creator George Kay’s latest drama, Dominic West and Sienna Miller lead as the headline-grabbing couple in question. With bold twists, War isn’t about boring settlements – it’s more concerned with the ruthless law firms on either side.
Where to watch War: Sky & NOW (2 October)
5. Blue Lights season 3
The new recruits we were rooting for in season 1 of this unmissable show are now in their third year as response officers within the Police Service of Northern Ireland, tackling difficult, often politically charged crimes.
Where to watch Blue Lights season 3: BBC One
6. The Party
Luke Evans and Tom Cullen co-star in this adaptation of Elizabeth Day’s novel, which sees Martin and Ben, school friends with very different adult lives, reunite for some glittering 40th birthday celebrations, with terrible results.
Where to watch The Party: ITV
7. Time season 3
Following stints in men and women’s prisons, Jimmy McGovern’s anthology series returns in a young offender’s institution. David Tennant joins Siobhan Finneran, Time’s returning chaplain who’s now experiencing a crisis in faith, as the focus shifts to two new inmates.
Where to watch Time season 3: BBC One
8. The Witch Farm
Inspired by real events in South Wales in 1989 and as detailed in Danny Robins’s podcast series (available on iPlayer), The Witch Farm tells the story of Bill and Liz Rich, a London couple who swap the Big Smoke for a rural idyll and soon wish they hadn’t.
Ahead of filming, Michael Socha, who plays artist Bill, told : "For research, I met the real Liz and I saw my character’s real art. I didn’t want to touch the paintings and was very conscious I didn’t. I don’t believe in ghosts – but I am terrified of them."
Where to watch The Witch Farm: BBC One
9. Marble Hall Murders season 3
The final instalment of Anthony Horowitz’s mystery-within-mystery trilogy finds Lesley Manville’s publisher Susan Ryeland investigating the death of a young author who threatened to reveal a past killer. Events shift between decades and locations from London to Corfu, but fictional sleuth Atticus Pund is, as ever, not far away.
Where to watch Marble Hall Murders season 3: BBC One
10. Rivals season 2, part two
Showrunner Dominic Treadwell Collins’s plans to expand the world of Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire novels into a cinematic universe - and employ all of British Equity - continue apace with Rachael Stirling (The Detectorists), Rupert Evans (Gone) and Santiago Cabrera (Star Trek: Picard) joining the cast as, respectively, vampish Araminta Pemberton, headmaster David Hawkley and Argentinian polo player Alejandro Mendoza.
Where to watch Rivals season 2, part 2: Disney+ (November)
11. Carrie
Stephen King’s debut novel receives an eight-episode series treatment from showrunner Mike Flanagan, who has previously adapted Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game and The Life of Chuck. Summer Howell was cast after more than 1,000 actors auditioned for the titular role of sheltered and bullied teen Carrie White. Prom night, here we come…
Where to watch Carrie: Prime Video (7 October)
12. Hunting Alice Bell
Alice Bell was the hated accomplice to a serial killer, now living with a new identity. But when innocent Fran (Alex Roach) is accused of being Alice, her life turns upside down. Thrills, chills and the real Alice lurk in this new drama from the pens of (surprisingly enough) comedian David Baddiel and film critic Peter Bradshaw.
Where to watch Hunting Alice Bell: Channel 4
13. I Am Helen season 4
Created, written and directed by Dominic Savage, this BAFTA-winning female-led anthology series is always developed in collaboration with its main actress, previously including Vicky McClure, Suranne Jones and Kate Winslet. This standalone story stars Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan and Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole for a powerful examination of toxic masculinity.
Where to watch I Am Helen season 4: Channel 4
14. Black Doves season 2
"More champagne, more explosions, more morally questionable lifestyle decisions," is how Black Doves creator and writer Joe Barton teases the return of his high-end spy drama starring Keira Knightley, Ben Whishaw and Sarah Lancashire, adding "Helen Webb is the Prime Minister’s wife now!"
"If you’ve ever wanted to see Keira Knightley and Ambika Mod have a fist fight through a contemporary art exhibition in Somerset House, there is literally no other show to watch this year. Downing Street will never be the same again."
Where to watch Black Doves season 2: Netflix
15. Only Murders in the Building season 6
Steve Martin, Selena Gomez and Martin Short swap New York for London, solving a new crime while surrounded by British acting icons…including not one, not two, but three Doctor Who-s in guest stars David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker and Peter Capaldi. Talk about a Who-dunnit…
Where to watch Only Murders in the Building season 6: Disney + (8 December)
16. The
This younger, noisier, livelier spin-off of The Split, Abi Morgan’s tender but forensic exploration of family life and family law relocates the action from a gleaming London to a shiny Manchester where the British South Asian clan the Kishans have succeeded the Defoes. Sanjeev Bhaskar and Ritu Arya lead the cast as patriarch Dhruv and his impatient heir apparent Aria.
Where to watch The Split Up: BBC One
17. Careless
When a hot young Scottish backpacker becomes the carer of an Australian rock star suffering from MS, which means living with him as well as his healthy younger wife, what could possibly go wrong? House of the Dragon’s Solly McLeod plays mysterious Robbie in what Channel 4 calls "a provocative thriller".
Where to watch Careless: Channel 4
18. Outlander: Blood of my Blood season 2
Outlander’s prequel series has been gleefully welcomed by its devoted fanbase, leading to another instalment delving deeper into the lives of Jamie and Claire’s parents. The time-travelling drama picks up as the Jacobite Rising kicks off in the 18th century.
Where to watch Outlander: Blood of my Blood season 2: MGM+ / Prime Video (19 September)
19. The Blame
A gripping new thriller starring Michelle Keegan (Fool Me Once) and Douglas Booth (The Sandman, The Dirt). The duo play detectives investigating the shocking murder of a 16-year-old skater who was with a police officer when she died – raising some troubling questions.
Where to watch The Blame: ITV
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20. Honey
If Deutschland ’83 whetted your appetite for 1980s Berlin, you’ll enjoy this Cold War spy thriller set there one year earlier. From the makers of Killing Eve, Honey follows Marta (Ann Skelly), an MI6 agent, as she works with her (dashing) CIA counterpart and avoids detection by an (equally dashing) Stasi chief.
Where to watch Honey: BBC One
21. All Creatures Great and Small season 7
The hit rural reboot returns to Darrowby in May 1945 for its seventh series, with peacetime offering the chance for renewal, but also new challenges. While James Heriot juggles his vet’s practice with family life, the Farnon brothers must work to reconnect with one another.
Where to watch All Creatures Great and Small season 7: 5
22. Winter
Richard Armitage is the eponymous forensic pathologist, whose genius reasoning complements the more orthodox crime-solving of DI Lauren Bell (Annabel Scholey). Behind their official duties, it transpires Winter has his own personal mission, the loss of someone close to him whose murder still haunts him and must be solved.
Where to watch Winter: ITV
23. Adultery
Two teenagers fall intensely for each other, but they’re not the problem; it’s the parents, with Dominic Cooper and Romola Garai co-starring in this tale of intense but forbidden love. Writer Danny Brocklehurst (Brassic, Missing You) charts the explosive fall-out.
Where to watch Adultery: ITV
24. Shetland season 11
We’re not yet in Taggart territory, but season 11 will mark the end of an era, with DI Alison "Tosh" McIntosh (Alison McDonnell) set to hand in her badge. But first she and Ashley Jensen’s DI Calder must continue to strike at the astonishing crime rate on this most deceptively serene of islands.
Where to watch Shetland season 11: BBC One
25. Pierre
David Harewood helms this legal drama as a suave yet flawed duty solicitor. When his young Black client is murdered, Pierre uncovers institutional corruption and risks everything to find the truth.
Where to watch Pierre: Channel 4
26. Kill Jackie
A big-budget globetrotting thriller in which the majestic Catherine Zeta Jones stars as Jackie Price, an irrepressibly glamorous art dealer with an obligatory secret past and a dazzling array of beautiful headscarves, who discovers she’s the target of a gang of assassins. Proving the adage that a moving target is harder to hit, Jackie takes the fight to her would-be killers and begins a process that we could euphemistically describe as taking out the trash.
Where to watch Kill Jackie: Prime Video (2 October)
27. This City is Ours season 2
The death of crime boss Ronnie Phelan (Sean Bean) sparked a civil war within the family business, waged by his ex-fixer Michael and wayward son Jamie. Now, they may have bigger fish to fry – sharks, even – in the form of Endeavour’s Shaun Evans and Money Heist’s Álvaro Morte, both seeking payback for past sins.
Where to watch This City is Ours season 2: BBC One
28. Tall Tales & Murder
Based on Caimh McDonnell’s bestselling and somewhat misnamed Dublin Trilogy (eight books have been released), this new co-production from the BBC and Irish broadcaster RTÉ follows a mismatched group who stumble on various crimes and conspiracies. Aidan Gillen, Philippa Dunne and Ella Lily Hyland star, with season two already on the way.
Where to watch Tall Tales & Murder: BBC One
29.
When her son Lucas brings a friend home, Anna Friel’s Ellen frets he may be a bad influence. But when Lucas falls more under the spell of the reckless Kieran, her desperation to help leads to a tragedy. If you think this sounds like just another 5 original, think again – it’s based on the bestselling Louise Candlish novel.
Where to watch The Heights: 5
30. The Assassin season 2
Keeley Hawes and Freddie Highmore are back as dysfunctional mother and son, Julie and Edward, in this second run of the offbeat thriller. Edward is still perturbed by Julie’s secret life as an assassin, but the estranged duo must reunite to take on Spain’s corrupt underworld.
Where to watch The Assassin season 2: Prime Video
31. Sweetpea season 2
It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for, as Ella Purnell’s (Fallout) unsuspecting killer Rhiannon Lewis proves. When the first season of this darkly comic thriller concluded, it seemed Rhiannon was putting an end to her murderous tendencies, as she began dating co-worker AJ. But then she killed him, too. Now, someone new takes her eye, she’s had a promotion and a copycat killer threatens to expose her. Tamsin Greig joins as AJ’s mother.
Where to watch Sweetpea season 2: Sky Atlantic & NOW
32. Pride and Prejudice
A starry cast including Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennet, Olivia Colman and Rufus Sewell as her parents, and Jack Lowden as Mr Darcy, lead this sumptuous retelling of the Jane Austen tale from author and screenwriter Dolly Alderton. Expect plenty of yearning – and a whole new audience becoming obsessed with the timeless love story.
Where to watch Pride and Prejudice: Netflix
33. The Only Suspect
It’s a good season for Louise Candlish, with book adaptations on two channels. In this one, Kevin McKidd (Grey’s Anatomy) stars as a man with a secret – thirty years earlier, he buried a body behind his house. But now, a planned redevelopment means it’s about to be dug up…
Where to watch The Only Suspect: ITV
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