Which of these 11 epic fantasy/sci-fi shows will emerge triumphant in 2024?

1. Avatar: The Last Airbender (February 22, Netflix)

The first big contender of the year is Avatar: The Last Airbender, a live-action remake of the beloved Nickelodeon animated series originally aired in the 2000s. Avatar follows a young man named Aang, the titular last airbender, who has the responsibility of bringing balance to a world at war. He'll meet friends and enemies along his adventure, learn how to control his abilities, and travel to the far corners of a world inspired by the cultures of East Asia.

The original Avatar: The Last Airbender remains popular all these years later because it's fantastic. The characters are memorable, the story expertly paced and the setting novel even to this day. If Netflix can find a way to translate what worked about the original show to a live-action format without feeling like a pointless retread or a baffling bastardization, this new series could be spectacular.

But that is a narrow needle to thread. There are positive signs; the cast, for example, looks far more carefully chosen than in 2010, when M. Night Shyamalan released his famously bad Last Airbender movie. But ultimately we'll have to wait until February to see if Netflix can move this mountain.

Avatar: The Last Airbender could be a triumph or a bomb. I'm hoping for the best.

2. 3 Body Problem (March 21, Netflix)

In March, Netflix will debut 3 Body Problem, based on the sci-fi trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past by author Liu Cixin. The books are a challenging, hard sci-fi story about Earth's first contact with a hostile alien race. The story spans generations, gets as specific as possible about quantum psychics without alienating every person without a PhD, and digs into some ugly eras of human history. I admire anyone willing to tackle this material, but will the resulting show be sensitive and intelligence enough to do it justice?

That's up to showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who before this were the showrunners on HBO's Game of Thrones. If 3 Body Problem lives up to its potential, they could rehabilitate their image as internet pariahs cast out after the ending of Game of Thrones left so many fans disappointed. Or they could confirm what many have already decided about them.

The stakes are high, the source material excellent and the ambition admirable. Settle in, it's gonna be a show.