Tomorrow's Cancellations: George Clooney, 'Neuromancer,' Yvonne Strahovski, 'The X-Files'

People keep saying that, post-strike, peak TV is over. Interesting, because there sure have been a lot of new series announcements of late. Granted, most will be canceled after their first seasons, but we can at least be excited about it for the moment.

For instance, this is not new, but it’s only been at a low simmer. The X-Files is getting a reboot, and before anyone starts naysaying, it comes from Ryan Coogler, the Black Panther and Creed director. There’s not a lot known about the reboot yet, except that it has original creator Chris Carter’s blessing. ” “I’m not supposed to be talking about it, according to Disney. But I’ll tell you, yes. I’ve had a conversation with him. Yes, he likes to go with a diverse cast. And he’s got some good ideas.”

As long as we are in the realm of sci-fi, Apple TV+ is adapting William Gibson’s Neuromancer into a ten-episode series. It is coming from Graham Rolan (Jack Ryan) and JD Dillard (Sleight) and, for those unfamiliar with the book, it’s about “a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high-stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets.”

Elsewhere, Showtime/Paramount+ has been teasing reboots, revivals, remakes, and spin-offs of many of its properties, and the first of that Paramount+ with Showtime era is on: The Donovans will be a spin-off of Ray Donovan without the best thing about Ray Donovan, which was Liev Schreiber’s Ray Donovan. Guy Ritchie will direct the pilot from creator Ronan Bennett. It is set in Europe and will be about the Donovan family, the most elite London fixers in the business.

I like a lot of names in this line-up: Yvonne Strahovski will topline a new series on Peacock from James Wan called Teacup, inspired by a Robert McCammon novel called Stinger. The series will center on a group of people in rural Georgia who must come together in the face of a mysterious threat in order to survive. That’a all we know. It comes from Yellowstone writer Ian McCulloch.

I don’t know anything about the NCIS franchise, but I get the feeling that within that community, this is a big deal: Michael Weatherly and Cote de Pablo are reuniting for a European set NCIS spin-off. It comes from John McNamara (The Magicians) and will air on Paramount+.

Our old friend Garrett Dillahunt will be joining Julie Bowen, Anna Camp, and Bruce Campbell(!) in Hysteria!, Peacock’s coming-of-age Satanic Panic thriller series. With that cast and that subject material, I cannot tell if this will be a drama or a comedy. The synopsis doesn’t help: “When a beloved varsity quarterback disappears during the ‘Satanic Panic’ of the late 1980s, a struggling high school heavy metal band of outcasts realize they can capitalize on the town’s sudden interest in the occult by building a reputation as a Satanic metal band, until a bizarre series of murders, kidnappings, and reported ‘supernatural activity’ triggers a leather-studded witch hunt that leads directly back to them.” Sounds very Stranger Things-y. It comes from Matthew Scott Kane (Stitchers) and David Goodman (The Orville).

George Clooney is show-running a new Showtime series based on the French spy show The Bureau, and Michael Fassbender is in talks to star. It’ll be called The Department. The French series was a huge hit. That series follows “a member of a clandestine branch of the French Secret Services (DGSE) who returns to his home base after a six-year mission in Damascus. As he struggles to let go of his false identity and illicit affair with a Syrian woman, he finds himself playing a double game between the DGSE and the CIA.”

Paramount+ has ordered a British thriller called The Curfew. It stars Mandip Gill, Mitchell Robertson, and singer Alexandra Burke, and I love the premise: “Set in a society where all men live under ‘The Women’s Safety Act’, meaning they are bound by a strict curfew from 7PM to 7AM every night, with their movements tracked by an ankle tag 24 hours a day. When a woman’s body is discovered, brutally murdered during curfew hours and left on the steps of the Women’s Safety Centre, veteran Police officer Pamela Green believes that a man is responsible. But in a world where men are bound by the curfew system, her theory is rejected.” Intriguing.