13 TV shows to get excited for in 2016 from Game of Thrones to Peaky Blinders

Sofa sessions galore, guaranteed

Mulder and Scully are returning for a limited reboot of The X-Files

Just because Christmas is over for another year, it doesn't mean there isn't lots more great TV to look forward to in 2016. Quite the opposite in fact, particularly if period dramas, sci-fi thrillers and adaptations of great books are your bag. Then of course, there's season six of Game of Thrones, season four of House of Cards and the long-awaited revival of The X-Files.

Have a browse through our pick of the shows you really shouldn't miss:

Peaky Blinders (Season 3)

Cillian Murphy (left) and Tom Hardy in 'Peaky Blinders' (BBC)

Series three opens on Tommy’s wedding day, but will he be tying the knot with Grace or May? The Peaky Blinders are officially going international, with Paddy Considine joining as a fresh force to be reckoned with and Tom Hardy returning as Alfie. Time to count down the days until we hear that awesome ‘Red Right Hand’ theme tune again…

Love, Nina

Time for some comedy with this BBC adaptation of Nina Stibbe’s hit 2013 book about life as a North London nanny in the Eighties. Nick Hornby of About a Boy and High Fidelity success is penning the script and Helena Bonham-Carter will play Joe and Max’s beautiful, outspoken mother Georgia.

War and Peace

Lily James in the BBC's upcoming adaptation of War and Peace (BBC)

Lily James, James Norton, Gillian Anderson and Jim Broadbent are just a handful of the stars leading this six-part BBC adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s classic. Screenwriter Andrew Davies, the man behind *that* Pride and Prejudice, has sexed up the story and left out some of the less enticing “history and philosophy”. Puritans beware, but it sounds highly appealing to us.

Vinyl

Surely teaming Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and The Sopranos writer Terence Winter can only equal awesome? This HBO drama about the 1970s music industry is set in New York, starring Olivia Wilde, Bobby Canavale and Juno Temple. Set to air on Sky Atlantic in mid-February.

Game of Thrones (Season 6)

Kit Harington as Jon Snow in the Game of Thrones season 5 finale (HBO)

Jon Snow is back from the dead, somehow. Find out the story behind last year's biggest TV shocker in May, enough said.

Luke Cage

Next up from Marvel after the success of Jessica Jones is Luke Cage, starring Mike Colter as the superhero with otherworldly strength and skin no weapon can break. That promised Defenders series can’t come soon enough. Catch this one on Netflix.

The X-Files

This long-awaited mini-series reboot airs on Channel 5 sometime in 2016, almost fourteen years after Mulder and Scully bid our living rooms farewell. Both David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are returning for more supernatural mystery solving antics.

Stranger Things

You might have heard about this under its working title Montauk. Winona Ryder plays a single mum whose young son unexpectedly goes missing, sparking an investigation that throws up all sorts of creepy secrets. Coming to Netflix in 2016.

House of Cards (Season 4)

Frank Underwood hijacked the Republican debate earlier this month to announce the hit political drama’s return. “America, I’m only getting started,” he told the nation ominously, before ‘FU 2016’ appeared on the screen. Netflix has confirmed that 23 new episodes will go live on 4 March.

Broad City (Season 3)

Illana and Abbi will be back in February for a third run of this American sitcom about two twenty-something pals living in the Big Apple. Amy Poehler is an executive producer, so expect lots of laughs.

Better Call Saul (Season 2)

Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman in AMC original series Better Call Saul (Netflix)

Critics Choice winner Bob Odenkirk reprises his lead role as Saul Goodman in this Breaking Bad spin-off, with season two hitting Netflix on 15 February. Showrunner Peter Gould promises it will be “totally unpredictable”.

Taboo

Steven Knight’s upcoming eight-part miniseries will follow an adventurer who returns to Britain from Africa with 14 stolen diamonds, looking to seek vengeance after his father’s death. Tom Hardy plays the lead after co-writing the story with his own father Chips.

Westworld

HBO’s new sci-fi thriller is based on the 1973 movie and described as a “dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin”. It tells the story of a futuristic theme park and Star Wars director JJ Abrams is an executive producer.