Avatar: The Last Airbender and 2 other sci-fi/fantasy shows to watch in February 2024

2024 is off and running. That means new opportunities, new challenges, and new TV shows about wizards and space wars to watch at home.

There are a few exciting sci-fi and fantasy TV shows coming round the bend in the month of February. Let's run through them!

Halo season 2 (February 8, Paramount+)

First up, we have a new season of Halo, based on the video game series of the same name. Halo tells the story of a war between humanity and a collective of alien races called the Covenant. It's military sci-fi, with human commandoes going up against armies of creepy crawlies.

Although the Halo video games have a story, they mostly got famous because it's fun to turn on multiplayer mode and frag your friends in space. The show drills down on the narrative, casting Orange Is the New Black alum Pablo Schreiber in the role of Master Chief, a super-soldier and humanity's best hope for survival. In the games, Master Chief more or less never appears without face-obscuring headgear. In the game, he takes off his helmet (among other things) all the time. That's meant to make it easier for audiences to sympathize with him, but given how iconic Master Chief's helmet is, it's taken some getting used to.

Paramount+ spent a lot of money on the first season of Halo, which looked great. Stiil, reactions among fans were mixed at best. Schreiber is teasing better times ahead. “It's darker, it's more dangerous, all of the stunt and action sequences put you into the battle and inside the fighting,” he told GamesRadar. “To me, it's a much more effective way to deal with the show. I think [new Halo showrunner David Wiener] is just a more gifted writer, to be quite frank. I think his dialogue is better. He puts words in the mouth that feel more appropriate for the character."

If nothing else, I enjoy the drama of Schreiber subtly shading previous showrunner Steven Kane. We'll see if the changes make for a better show early in the month.

Avatar: The Last Airbender (February 22, Netflix)

The biggest genre show coming our way in February is probably Avatar: The Last Airbender, a live-action remake of the Nickelodeon animated series of the same name, which ran back in the mid-2000s. A kid named Aang (Gordon Cormier) is the Avatar, the only person in the world who can control (or "bend," to use the parlance of the show) all four elements: fire, earth, water and air. The tyrannical Fire Nation has been on an expansionist kick for the last 100 years, and it's the Avatar's responsibility to restore peace and balance to the world.

That's a lot to put on a 12-year-old, but Aang will have help along the way from a growing group of friends. It all adds up to a rip-roaring adventure full of danger, humor and — if Netflix has its way — a huge audience. Fans of the animated series are keeping a close eye on the remake. Will it stand up to the beloved original? Could it even be an improvement? Brace for discourse.

Personally, I'm excited for this show. Not only has the story stood the test of time — the original Last Airbender series is always gaining new fans who are just now discovering how good it is — but it's unique. While most fantasy epics have an aesthetic inspired by medieval Europe, Avatar: The Last Airbender takes its cues from East Asian and indigenous cultures, which adds an element of novelty that could help it break through to new audiences.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (February 25, AMC)

For years, Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) was the main character on The Walking Dead, AMC's enormously successful zombie drama. He left the show in 2018, in the season 9 episode "What Comes After," and although the show continued without him for a couple more seasons, it never felt quite the same. But he's coming back in a new show called The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live!

Not only that, but The Ones Who Live will also mark the return of Michonne (Danai Gurira), the katana-wielding zombie slicer who left the original show in 2020. Michonne left to find Rick and it looks like she succeeded. It just took a while.

So far as we know, Rick was taken by an organization called the Civic Republic Military, which has made a few shadowy appearances across the growing Walking Dead universe. We'll find out more about them soon enough.

It's unclear whether The Ones Who Live will be a one-off, six-episode event series or the start of a longer, ongoing TV show. AMC has had success with Walking Dead spinoffs like Dead City and Daryl Dixon, so they would assuredly prefer the latter.

And those are the three biggest sci-fi and fantasy shows coming our way in February. Which are you most excited about?

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