ed and orange and yellow and green… well not exactly, there’s white and pink, too, and no restriction like “you’ll only get it if you watch it from the start”. You may not have complete control over your lives, but you can manoeuvre how you watch the stellar series Kaleidoscope on Netflix.

Released in January and inspired by a true story, there are almost 40,320 different perspectives that one can watch the eight episodes from. Based on a $70 billion heist by Hurricane Sandy on Wall Street in 2012, the series has a non-linear arc. Interestingly, this allows the viewers to watch the series in any order they want.

Money Heist may have ended but it has left a puzzling series in its wake that will be equally mesmeric. Netflix allows you complete control over what you watch and when you watch it but this is a step beyond that. It allows you to shape your own perspective of a story; everyone starts watching the series from different points but ends up at the same moment in time; the heist.

About 4 percent of the year has already passed, which means that a platter of new series has been served. The success of these productions depends on the perception of the audience. Only they can determine whether the dish is hot or cold or just another monotonous addition to the ashet.

The viewership trend had altered in the last decade as even sitcoms started addressing personal and societal issues ranging from inequality to the awareness of laws existing for the benefit of the society. An apt example is of the now retired Brooklyn Nine-Nine, its evolution from tackling daily street crime to dealing with a global pandemic and issues of national significance such as the George Floyd case. It remains to be seen if series and movies in 2023 have undertones of reality or are purely fictional.

Everyone remembers How I Met Your Mother, and even if they haven’t watched it, they have definitely heard of it. Hark back to it, because a lot of familiar faces, onstage and offstage, will be reappearing in January 2023.

How I Met Your Father, a spinoff to the original, is back for its second season. That is not all as the director of the series Pamela Fryman has returned to direct not only the spinoff but also the tenth season of another sitcom, Night Court, due to be released on the 17^th of January on NBC, almost three decades after the previous season. The lead? None other than The Big Bang Theory favourite Bernadette.

On the list of sitcoms, it appears that another sequel will be making an appearance almost 20 years later, the teenagers now parents, under a slightly different banner than its ancestor That ‘90s show. Characters from the original That ‘70s Show will be spotted in the Netflix release.

The edge for the upcoming productions will come from apparently minor details dependent on a-cut-above-the-rest acting and plotlines.

In 2023, people are still recovering from the repercussions of Covid-19. Therapy is one way out from depression but what happens when a therapist finds himself face-to-face with grief?

Due to be released on the 27^th on Apple TV+, there is anticipation among the audience as to how this outspoken therapist will be voicing his opinions in front of clients and patients and an inkling of concern pertaining to the breaching of ethical standards that might follow. Shrinking will make it to the screens on the 27^th.

The past few years have seen a mushroom growth of pandemic and apocalyptic-themed movies and series; Maze Runner is an old but avid example. Along the same lines, The Last of Us, a videogame-based drama, follows a post-apocalyptic theme where a smuggler, Joel, and a teenager, Ellie, traverse across the United States. It is going to be the first videogame adaptation as a series on HBO which indicates that plots for movies are diversifying.

Dramas are incomplete without groups of teenagers taking on the world together, trusting no one and setting out to destroy anything and everything that stands in their way of a normal life from animals, werewolves and vampires, to beasts and supernatural forces. January already has two of these teenage friend groups that will appear onscreen in the final week of the first month; Wolf Pack on Paramount+ and Lockwood and Co. on Netflix.

History is an enthralling subject, critical subject, yet a tedious task for a majority but Viking history is enjoyed by a sundry assemblage. Vikings: Valhalla will be returning for Season 2 on the 25^th, to be screened on History.

2022 saw the rise of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story on Netflix. NBC is releasing the first season of Manifesto of a Serial Killer. Though fictional in nature, it will focus on not one but two serial killers. The prosecution is often showcased as the green flag in a case but Accused premiering on Fox is based on the defendant’s side of the story, a pleasant change from regular legal proceedings seen in motion pictures.

It is hard to analyse the approach of writers and directors this early in the year but constantly transposing audience preferences and increased number of online and traditional media viewing platforms, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Peacock, Apple TV+, HBO and Fox to name a few, indicate that theme overlaps and recurring character personalities will be common. The edge for the upcoming productions will come from apparently minor details dependent on a-cut-above-the-rest acting and plotlines. January has a lot of series up its sleeves that are bound to enchant diverse spectators.

The writer is an  undergraduate student of psychology at FC College