9 of the best TV shows to watch this November

From Sylvester Stallone’s first TV series, to the new season of The Crown and an Addams Family spin-off, Caryn James picks out the month’s biggest small-screen offerings.1 SAS: Rogue Heroes The creator of Peaky Blinders, Steven Knight, offers another version of mischief in the World War Two action series SAS: Rogue Heroes. Based on Ben MacIntyre’s non-fiction book, the show is a fictional version of how Britain’s elite special forces unit, the Special Air Service, was formed. The full-on war action, complete with many explosions and much desert sand, begins in Egypt in 1941, where posh Lieutenant David Stirling (Connor Swindells), appalled by military sluggishness and failure, creates a company of misfits to go behind enemy lines. His cohorts include the scrappy Paddy Mayne, played by Jack O’Connell, and smug Jock Lewes (Alfie Allen), with Dominic West as a senior military officer. There seems to be a lot of lads drinking whisky and being brave. SAS: Rogue Heroes is available now on BBC iPlayer in the UK, and continues on BBC One on Sundays. Titled Rogue Heroes, it premieres on 13 November on Epix in the US2 Dangerous Liaisons The 18th-Century novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a deliciously wicked story of sexual intrigue, as Marquise de Merteuil and her former lover, Valmont, ruthlessly conspire to corrupt an innocent young woman for their own amusement. The story is so enduring it has spawned a Christopher Hampton play, several movie versions – with Annette Bening, Glenn Close and Jeanne Moreau as Merteuil ­– and 1999’s contemporary update, Cruel Intentions. This new, sumptuously produced series is a prequel looking back to 1783 Paris (powdered wigs abound) when Merteuil and Valmont were young lovers, impoverished and not exactly innocent even then. Alice Englert stars as Camille, not yet Merteuil, and Nicholas Denton is Valmont, while Lesley Manville plays the Marquise de Merteuil of that time, who teaches Camille how to harden her heart. “It’s love or war,” Camille tells Valmont, although for them, both things can co-exist. Dangerous Liaisons premieres on 6 November on Starz in the US and Lionsgate+ in the UK3 The Crown Netflix put a descriptive phrase beneath the trailer for the new season, stating the obvious – the series is “a fictional dramatisation” of the life of Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family. Such is the power of Judi Dench, who called for a disclaimer and accused the series of “crude sensationalism”. That sideshow highlights how this new instalment couldn’t land at a more sensitive time or with a touchier, if well-trod subject. The season is set in the 1990s, when Charles and Diana’s marriage begins to crumble in public. Imelda Staunton takes over from Olivia Colman as the Queen, Jonathan Pryce is Prince Philip, Dominic West plays the man formerly known as Prince Charles, Olivia Williams is Camilla Parker-Bowles (as she was), and Elizabeth Debecki is Diana herself. There may be a jolt in seeing Staunton as Elizabeth so soon after the real Queen’s death, but after her passing, Peter Morgan, the series’ creator and writer, released a statement that accurately reflects what we’ve seen over the previous four seasons. “The Crown is a love letter to her,” he said. The Crown season 5 premieres on 9 November on Netflix(Credit: Amazon/ Diego Lopez Calvin)4 The English The revisionist Western is a familiar genre, but now it has been taken on by the actor Emily Blunt and Hugo Blick, creator of the smart series The Honourable Woman and Black Earth Rising. Blunt plays Lady Cornelia Locke, who looks like a delicate flower but is tougher than she seems. She arrives in the US bound for revenge on the man responsible for her son’s death. Chaske Spencer plays Eli Whipp, a Pawnee and former member of the US cavalry, who wants to claim the land he is owed as a veteran. This odd-couple pair of outsiders naturally team up, riding across the threatening landscape toward Wyoming. Blick gives the show the wide, epic look of old Westerns, adding plenty of anger, blood and violent confrontations, with cameos from Ciarán Hinds, Stephen Rea, Rafe Spall and Toby Jones. The English premieres on 10 November on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer in the UK and Amazon Prime Video internationally5 Tulsa King Sylvester Stallone stays true to his tough-guy characters in his first TV series. He stars as Dwight Manfredi, nicknamed The General, a onetime New York mobster released from prison after serving 25 loyally tight-lipped years, only to have his ungrateful bosses exile him to Tulsa, Oklahoma, not exactly the hot centre of Mafia action. There, he’s a fish-out-of-water who decides to form his own crew. The grey-haired Stallone is decades past Rocky, but still throws plenty of punches. The series showrunner is Terence Winter, a writer on the great mob sagas The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. And it was created by Taylor Sheridan, expanding his television empire, which includes Yellowstone, the hit Kevin Costner series about a ranching dynasty, and the upcoming 1923, with Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford. Tulsa King premieres on 13 November on Paramount+6 1899 It’s unclear just what this big, splashy, supernatural-horror-immigrant story is – that ploy is one way to preserve the suspense. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, creators of the German time-travel mystery Dark, are also behind this show, in which a ship loaded with European migrants heads from London to the US, crossing paths with a missing vessel in the Atlantic. Something weirder than sea-sickness happens on board, but the details are under wraps. The trailer has the feel of The Terror, and The Hollywood Reporter says it “looks like a steampunk take on Bridgerton with a touch of Night of the Living Dead thrown in.” Emily Beecham (Little Joe) heads the international cast. Maybe she knows what it is. 1899 premieres on 17 November on Netflix7 Welcome to Chippendales There’s a touch of Magic Mike and a lot more true crime in this drama based on the real-life story of the rise and criminal end of Somen ‘Steve’ Banerjee, who in 1979 founded Chippendales, the hugely successful male strip clubs for women. Kumail Nanjiani plays Banerjee, who starts out working at a gas station but manoeuvres his way to success, teaming up with some shady partners along the way. Dan Stevens plays one of them. Murray Bartlett (Armond on White Lotus season 1) plays Nick De Noia, a choreographer who tries to bring some Broadway polish to Banerjee’s strippers’ cheesy early routines. The show loads on the 80s disco glitz, but it’s all leading to a murderous end for someone. The series creator, Robert Siegel, was also behind Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, another tale of pop-culture, sleaze and sex.  Welcome to Chippendales premieres on 22 November on Hulu in the US and on 11 January on Disney+ in the UK8 Wednesday If Hogwarts seems too goody-goody, you can follow Wednesday Addams – now the teenaged daughter of the spookiest, funniest family ever to wear all black – to Nevermore. That’s the academy of misfits where she attends high school in this series from executive producer and director Tim Burton, whose best films (Edward Scissorhands) are also spooky-funny. Jenna Ortega plays Wednesday, with Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia, Luis Guzmán as the ever-devoted Gomez, Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester and Christina Ricci (the original Wednesday in the 1991 film) as a Nevermore teacher. Burton has said, “The Addams family are very symbolic of how I think about families. I think all families are strange.” Okay. Relatable isn’t the first word that comes to mind when you think of the Addamses, but Burton says he is going for ”heightened reality – school, therapy, your parents”. The plotline seems to be: Wednesday Addams plays psychic detective, solving local murders from a quarter of a century earlier. Wednesday premieres on 23 November on Netflix(Credit: Disney/ Lucas Films)9 Willow Playing on nostalgia and also aiming to reach a younger generation, Willow brings back Warwick Davis as the Nelwyn sorcerer hero of the beloved 1988 fantasy film. In a story set 30 years after the original, Kit (Ruby Cruz), the daughter of Sorsha – a warrior in the movie, now queen, and played once more by Joanne Whalley – seeks out Willow and asks him to find her kidnapped twin brother. Willow recruits a motley band (is there any other kind?) and they head off on another adventure into fantastic realms. Kevin Pollak and Rick Overton repeat their roles as Brownies, with Christian Slater playing an undisclosed new character. Jonathan Kasdan, writer of Solo: A Star Wars Story, is the showrunner. There will be fairies, knights, special effects, and presumably the conquering of evil. In the teaser trailer, Kit sets the tone when she tells Willow, “The world needs you again. It needs your magic.” Willow premieres on 30 November on Disney+ Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.