Joanna Lumley Joins Main Cast of 'Amandaland'

Sharon Horgan's Bad Sisters is one of the closest things Apple TV+ has to a hit comedy since Ted Lasso ended. However, it's far from Horgan's first show or her first to cross the pond to America. Horgan moved into producing in 2014, and by 2016, she had the short-lived Sarah Jessica Parker series Divorce on HBO, and the BBC hit Motherland, which aired on Sundance. Note that it's "aired;" 2016 was still a period where linear TV was still considered a better deal than streaming. However, it meant that when Horgan made a second series in 2019, there was no streaming service for Motherland to stream on. When the third and final one arrived in 2022, it disappeared into the niche offerings of AMC.

Starring Anna Maxwell Martin (Until I Kill You) as Julie, Motherland was an ensemble slapstick comedy series about raising children in London's middle class. The series begins with Julei's mother deciding she is no longer free to babysit, forcing her daughter to juggle her PR job and her kids without help from her perpetually absent husband. Meanwhile, she becomes friends with other stay-at-home parents (Diane Morgan and Paul Ready); the three become the badly behaved members of the local mother's group run by grownup mean girl Amanda (Lucy Punch). For the record, all three seasons of Motherland are on AMC+ and Sundance Now.

However, it will be interesting to see if Horgan continues that AMC Networks deal with the forthcoming spinoff of the series, Amandaland. Initially announced in the spring of 2024, the new series puts the neighborhood's queen bee front and center now that her divorce is finalized and her children have hit secondary school. Punch returns as the titular Amanda, with her minion, the perennially pregnant Anne (Phillipa Dunne). The new series will also co-star Amanda's mother, Felicity, introduced in Season 3 and played by the legendary Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous).