Five of the best TV shows from 2018 you can now watch for free in Australia.

If you’re planning to spend the holiday season in front of the TV (and under the air conditioner) then you’ll be in need of some gripping new shows to become obsessed with, while you ignore your family and friends.

Luckily for all the TV fiends out there, there’s a whole treasure trove of brilliant new shows just waiting to be uncovered, and you can watch them all for free on SBS On Demand.

The streaming service is free to use (you just have to set up an account using your email address) and then you can happily pour through the box-sets, acclaimed dramas, movies and original Australian TV shows to your heart’s content.

Here are five of the best shows you can watch on SBS On Demand for free right now.

The Handmaid’s Tale, Season Two

If you were too time poor to watch season two of The Handmaid’s Tale in 2018 (or you heard it was too traumatising this time around, so you opted out) now is the perfect time to catch up on one of the best dramas of the year.

Based on the best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in what used to be part of the United States.

The second season of the award-winning drama series is shaped by Offred’s (Elizabeth Moss) ongoing fight to free her future child from the dystopian horrors of Gilead.

Season two of the groundbreaking show takes the story in a very different direction from season one, o don’t look away from it.

Greyzone

Greyzone is the perfect, heart-thumping thriller you’ll want to spend a whole day binge-watching.

This high-octane drama follows the events leading up to a terror-attack in Scandinavia.

Birgitte Hjort Sørensen stars as Victoria, a brilliant drone engineer who is taken hostage by terrorists in her own home, while the Secret Services in Denmark and Sweden are fighting against the clock to prevent an attack.

Safe Harbour

The very best TV shows are the ones that continue to turn over and over in your head, with the storylines still taking up space in your mind long after the screen has faded to black.

Safe Harbour is one such show.

The story kicks off with five Australians enjoying themselves on a sailing holiday aboard a yacht to Indonesia, when they come across a fishing boat with a broken motor packed full of hungry, ill and desperate asylum seekers.

After a tense discussion between the group of friends, they decide to tow the nearly-sinking boat to the safety of Australian shores. But in the middle of the night, the boat mysteriously disappears.

The Orville

If you're looking for slightly lighter fare to become obsessed with over the holidays , you should try new comedy series The Orville.

The science fiction series was created by, and also stars, Seth MacFarlane, the comedy powerhouse behind Family Guy. 

The adventure series is set 400 years in the future and follows The U.S.S. Orville, a mid-level exploratory spaceship. Its crew, both human and alien, face the wonders and dangers of outer space, while also dealing with the mundane problems of everyday life.

The fan-favourite series is the perfect show to keep you chuckling over the holidays.

The Bridge

The Bridge is a critically acclaimed if a little gruesome, drama that will have you hooked from the start.

A woman is found murdered in the middle of the Øresund Bridge - right on the border between Sweden and Denmark. What looks at first to be one murder, however, turns out to be two.

The body has been cut off at the waist and joined together - half of it belongs to a Swedish politician and the other half to a Danish prostitute. A team of inspectors from Sweden and Denmark join together in a desperate search for the killer.

As an added bonus, all four seasons of The Bridge are now available to watch on SBS On Demand. 

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