What to Watch in January: 16 Notable TV Shows & Streaming Movies

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – December 31, 2021

The month ahead will bring a series spinoff from The Suicide Squad, a new Apple TV+ comedic murder mystery, a successor to Downton Abbey, the return of Resident Alien, and more. In the gallery on this page, our editors have selected the most interesting TV and movie titles debuting at home in the next month, listed in order by premiere date.

5 of 18 photo by Netflix

81 Cheer (2020): Season 2

Season 2 debuts January 12 on Netflix

Coming from the creators of Last Chance U, Netflix's unscripted competitive cheerleading series following students and coaches at Texas's Navarro College was a hit with viewers and TV critics when it debuted two full years ago. The positive response led Netflix to immediately greenlight a second season of Cheer, which began filming almost immediately after the show debuted, only to run into several difficulties. The first, of course, was the arrival of the pandemic. And the second was the arrest of one of season 1's breakout stars, Jerry Harris, on federal child pornography charges. But Harris' arrest will be addressed directly in this just-announced nine-episode second season, which again follows Navarro's team—as well as that of rival Trinity Valley Community College—throughout 2020 and into the spring of 2021.

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