12 Upcoming New HBO Series To Be Excited About

Armando Iannucci’s Veep is one of the decade’s great comedies, taking inspiration from its UK predecessor The Thick Of It and running in new directions. The Scottish satirist now returns to HBO with Avenue 5, perhaps his most ambitious work. A space-based sci fi sitcom, this has all the ingredients and the pedigree to be something truly great.

Iannucci is among the finest minds working in comedy, and he brings with him much of his usual crew of collaborators (essentially the people who’ve written most of your favourite funny stuff for the past 15 years), but it’s the cast that excites the most here.

Avenue 5 is stacked with talent, from frequent Iannucci collaborators Rebecca Front and Zach Woods to Josh Gad and (admittedly less excitingly) Himesh Patel from Yesterday. The headline act, though, is Hugh Laurie as the captain of the titular spaceship. The trailer sees Laurie seamlessly slipping back into the overconfident buffoonish kind of character he made his name playing.

There’s not too much to go on beyond a teaser but Avenue 5 appears to be relatively plot driven, with space-based peril and derring do on the menu. Sci fi and comedy are seldom found sharing the same space, but with the wealth of experience and talent involved, this looks like it could be something memorable. January is looking to be a good month for the network.