Our picks for the top 10 shows to help chase away the winter chill.
• “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” FX, Wednesdays
Ricky Martin. Penelope Cruz. Another ’90s-era, true crime drama involving celebrity tragedy. There’s no downside here. The FX drama explores the 1997 murder of designer Gianni Versace by serial killer Andrew Cunanan. It’s the second installment of Ryan Murphy’s “American Crime Story” anthology, a series that kicked off with 2016’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson.” Like that award-winning drama, this nine-part series looks at the role culture and class played in the rise of Versace and explores how discriminatory attitudes toward the gay community hindered the investigation. Based on Maureen Orth’s book “Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U. S. History,” it promises to be another high-end, celebrity-studded addition to the true crime genre.
• “The Alienist” TNT, Jan. 22
This series combines two of the most enduring genres on television — the period piece and the serial killer drama. First published nearly a quarter century ago, Caleb Carr’s bestselling novel, set in grimy, turn-of-the-last-century New York City and rich in gore as well as historical detail, has languished in development hell ever since. During that time, numerous big-name Hollywood producers and screenwriters tried — and failed — to adapt it as a feature film. Now re-imagined as a 10-part miniseries with a reported price tag of $5 million an episode, “The Alienist” represents an ambitious swing from a network formerly known for lightweight procedurals. It stars Daniel Bruhl as a pioneering alienist — a.k.a. psychiatrist — Dakota Fanning as a feisty police secretary and Luke Evans as a newspaper illustrator on the trail of a murderer preying on boy prostitutes.
• “Waco” Paramount Network, Jan. 24
True stories have provided no shortage of gripping moments for television. “Waco’s” subject matter is enough to intrigue on its own. But knowing Michael Shannon stars as an FBI agent is a sure-fire way to make people search their cable providers for the Paramount Network. The six-part miniseries revolves around the true story of the 1993 siege between federal law enforcement agents and Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh in Waco, Texas, that ended with a fatal shootout and fire that consumed the sect’s compound. More than 70 Branch Davidian members, including 17 children under age 10, died. “Friday Night Lights” alum Taylor Kitsch plays Koresh, while Shannon plays FBI negotiator Gary Noesner. The project is based on two biographies, “A Place Called Waco” by David Thibodeau, one of the sect’s members who survived the fire, and “Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator,” written by Noesner. “Waco” is one of the projects spearheading the launch of the Paramount Network, a rebranding of Viacom’s Spike channel.
• “Altered Carbon” Neflix, Feb. 2
Based on Richard Morgan’s 2002 hard-boiled sci-fi detective novel, this 10-episode series is set in a far future San Francisco — the city of Sam Spade — in a time when personality is stored in removable gizmos that can be traded from body to body, enabling people with means to live forever. Joel Kinnaman stars as a re-animated interstellar warrior hired by formerly dead rich guy James Purefoy to discover who might have killed him. The series, which features flying cars and shape-shifting exotic dancers, should go some way to satisfying those longing for a second “Blade Runner” sequel, but best of all is the return of the lanky, laconic Kinnaman — Holder on “The Killing” — to detective work. I have missed that flip, weary voice.