The creator of what is widely held up as the greatest show of all time has returned with a new series this month, writes Streaming columnist NICK OVERALL.

Vince Gilligan is famous for masterminding Breaking Bad, the story about a high school teacher turned meth kingpin that took out 16 Emmys and broke a world record for highest critical praise for a TV show ever.

Then Gilligan doubled down with Better Call Saul, a spin-off to Breaking Bad that many fans argued was even better than its predecessor.

Not a bad CV at all and doesn’t Apple TV Plus know it.

Gilligan’s previous work has been the main marketing drive for his new show Pluribus, which has just hit Apple’s streaming platform.

It’s not a gritty crime thriller this time though, but instead a sci-fi series.

Many of the plot details have been kept a mystery, but what is known is that Rhea Seehorn (also from Better Call Saul) stars as Carol, “the most miserable woman in the world who must save the world from happiness”.

Carol seems to be the only person on Earth immune to a strange virus that makes people insufferably optimistic.

Is she the bad guy here or is there something more sinister to this brave new world?

Like Breaking Bad, Pluribus is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city that Gilligan put on the international stage with his creation.

There’s a surreal nature to the city, a haunting quality to the desert that also makes it seem fitting for this new series.

Gilligan himself is no stranger to sci-fi. He earned his writing chops through working on some popular episodes of The X-Files back in the day. In some ways it will be a homecoming for him.

Of course, when you’ve created the most widely lauded show of all time there is more than a little hype about the follow up.

No pressure.

ONE of pop culture’s favourite clowns is back this month and it’s not one that provides laughs.

Welcome to Derry, based on Stephen King’s horror masterpiece, has hit screens on HBO Max and is already delighting fans around the world.

Pennywise, the killer clown who stalks the storm drains of small town America, has returned for this new series which is a spin-off to the two “It” films released in 2017 and 2019 that proved box-office blockbusters.

The new show winds the clock back to 1962 and follows a new group of teenagers haunted by the monster.

Like in the movies, the plot kicks off when the youth of Derry begin disappearing, triggering these teens to investigate.

What they discover will give new insight into what Pennywise is and where “It” actually comes from.

There are big plans in the works for this spin-off. Three seasons are in the pipeline, each going back even further in time to another era of the clown’s terror.

But with two movies already down, on top of the 1980s miniseries adaptation of It, how much staying power does this story have?

Will audiences still be hooked three seasons down the track?

How long can this deadly joke stay running?

THE writer of Netflix’s hit mini-series Adolescence has turned his talents to a compelling new show called The Hack.

It follows Guardian journalist Nick Davies (David Tennant), who exposed the News International phone-tapping scheme that became one of the biggest scandals of the century.

But this plot also splits its identity. Every second episode follows Detective Dave Cook (Robert Carlyle) and his inquiries into the murder of a private investigator who worked for a firm that dug up leads for News of the World, one of the outlets caught right in the middle of the controversy.

How these two stories interweave forms the plot of this seven-part series streaming on Stan. Jumping between both storylines can be a little abrasive to start with. It can almost feel like watching two different shows at the same time but when all the threads come together it makes for fascinating viewing with a great payoff.