Academy Award-winner J.K. Simmons is on his way back to the small screen as star of the crazy crime thriller Counterpart, which will debut on Starz in the not-too-distant future. The project was first announced with Simmons as lead a couple of years ago, so it's been in the works for a while. Now we finally have some in-depth footage of what's to come when Counterpart premieres, and Simmons looks pretty fabulous. Check the trailer out!
Well, color me intrigued! Counterpart seems to be delivering not one but two killer performances from J.K. Simmons. Howard certainly looks like a very different character from his counterpart, whose expression is rather chilling throughout the two minutes of the trailer. Where Howard seems to be a cog in a bureaucratic machine, his counterpart is something bolder and scarier.
As a whole, Counterpart will examine the existence of a mysterious world concealed just behind the veneer of everyday life, and Howard holds a relatively dull position in a United Nations spy agency based out of Berlin. Howard will discover that the secret hidden by his agency is the opportunity to cross into a dimension parallel and incredibly similar to his own. While a lot of things are the same between the worlds, there are some dangerous differences, and Howard will have no choice but to rely on his counterpart from the other dimension.
Joining J.K. Simmons in Counterpart are Olivia Williams as Emily Burton Silk, Harry Lloyd as Peter Quayle, Nicholas Pinnock as Ian Show, Nazanin Boniadi as Clare, Sara Serraiocco as Baldwin, and Ulrich Thomsen as Aldrich. The cast is filled with dramatic heavy-hitters, and it should be interesting to see how they work as an ensemble. The basic plot has some similarities to other shows like Fringe and Stranger Things, but the cast could really set it apart from all series that came before.
Counterpart got a series order two 10-episode seasons back in 2015, with production on the first beginning in 2016 Los Angeles. Production later moved to Berlin, and filming there concluded earlier in 2017. The project was created, written, and executive produced by Justin Marks of The Jungle Book. Starz obviously has a great deal of faith in the series to order two seasons right off the bat in 2015. We'll have to see if that faith results in as great a show as the trailer indicates.
Season 1 of Counterpart is slated to premiere on Sunday, January 21 at 8 p.m. ET on Starz. If you're in the market for shows to watch between now and the end of January, check out our fall TV guide and our 2017 Netflix guide. For some of what's to come, take a look at our breakdown of upcoming reboots and revivals. You can catch J.K. Simmons on the big screen as James Gordon when Justice League premieres on November 17, 2017.
