Netflix Spills Release Dates For New “Gilmore Girls”, “Black Mirror”; Stays Cagey On More “Stranger Things”, “Arrested Development”

Netflix, knowing full well we’ve already devoured the latest season of Bojack Horseman and their ‘80s throwback Stranger Things, is ready to pour more content into our gaping maw.

At the Television Critics Association’s press tour, Netflix finally revealed the premiere date for their upcoming Gilmore Girls revival and the latest season of Black Mirror (previously a BBC production), as well as a bunch of other shows they’ve got on the horizon.

But first, the biggies:

Lorelai and Rory Gilmore will be back on the small screen in Gilmore Girls: A Day in the Life, which will be broken down into four 90-minute chapters. As is Netflix’s way, they’ll drop all the movies (basically) at once on November 25.

A newly-released teaser, complete with some gentle acoustic strumming, should assuage any fears that the Gilmores have run out of topics to talk speedily about. (This time around: Amy Schumer.) Yes, you will need coffee to keep up.

Black Mirror returns even earlier, on October 21. (Although, technically, Black Mirror seemed to return in early 2016 and continues today as a special live-action season that we are all collectively existing within.)

The technological-twist on The Twilight Zone will include a new episode written by Rashida Jones and Parks and Recreation’s Mike Schur. That could turn out one of two ways, but even if it ends up being a big swing and a miss, there are at least six eps in this new season, as opposed to the previous standard of three. We await them all impatiently.

Of slightly less concern is the second part of The Ranch’s first season (debuting October 7), Chef’s Table: France (September 2) and Lovesick, aka Scrotal Recall, which has been retitled for reasons that should be obvious (November 17).

Returning in 2017 will be Chelsea, Real Rob and Lady Dynamite (the excellent Maria Bamford series from Arrested Development’s Mitch Hurwitz).

Speaking of AD, Hurwitz has also said filming on a fifth season could begin in 2017, but in the meantime, you may see a newly-recut version of Season 4 that, this time, will comprise of 22-minute instalments featuring all the characters in every episode. Some (certainly not this writer) didn’t appreciate the audacious way in which S4 expanded its reach after making the move to Netflix. His re-edit, with new Ron Howard narration, undoes that.

There are a couple of new shows to keep your eye on too: docu-series Captive, all about hostage-taking, will aim to be this year’s Making a Murderer; Easy, from Joe Swanberg, will be an anthology series featuring Orlando Bloom, Mark Maron, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Aya Cash, Hannibal Burress and Emily Ratajkowski; and One Day at a Time, a Latino remake of Norman Lear’s classic sitcom of the same name.

(Reminder: Baz Luhrmann’s new series The Get Down debuts August 12. It is reportedly one of the most expensive TV productions in history, but would you expect anything less?)

Unfortunately, Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos declined to officially announce a second season of everyone’s favourite new nostalgia-fest, Stranger Things.

“We want to let it breathe a little bit,” he said, totally ignoring our culture’s current insatiable appetite for Barb.

Nonetheless, it seems show creators Matt and Ross Duffer have plans for Stranger Things beyond the first season.

“We want [season one] to feel like a big movie, but there’s a bigger mythology, and there’s a lot of dangling threads at the end,” Matt said.

“We could explore it if Netflix wanted to continue.”

Given that Sarandos has already committed to raising Netflix’s budget for content from $US6 billion, we’re pretty sure they’ll get the green light soon enough.

Photo: Netflix.