Premieres Wednesday:
Doctor Who: Joy to the World — This year’s holiday segment onboards Nicola Coughlan (Penelope from Bridgerton) as Joy Almondo, a lonely young woman who discovers a nexus point of time and space when she checks into a London hotel at Christmastime. Which is only fair, because the breakfast buffet is pretty much a bust. (Disney+)
NFL Christmas Gameday: Kansas City Chiefs vs. Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans — Now that Netflix has proven its mettle at bringing sporting events to our screens in real time without any technical hiccups whatsoever, the NFL can just sit back and luxuriate in the deal it signed with the streamer to carry its Christmas Day games for the next (gulp) three years. This leadoff event ups the stakes even further with a Beyoncé performance at halftime of the Ravens/Texans showdown. I hear she looks a lot like Left Shark when she’s buffering. (Netflix)
Premieres Thursday:
The Road Trip — An entire series’ worth of self-reflection comes tumbling out of the glove box when a bunch of Europeans carpool it to a wedding, forcing them to confront their interconnected pasts. “I spy with my little eye … that sister of mine you nailed!” (Paramount+)
Squid Game Season 2 — The show that redefined streaming is finally back, catching up with Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) three years after he won the big prize. He’s still determined to bring down the whole rotten house of cards, but recent events have left him with a more realistic view of what will and won’t work. Now off the table: declaring martial law. (Netflix)
Premieres Friday:
Torching 2024: A Roast of the Year — Jeff Ross (who else?) hosts Ms. Pat, Mark Normand and a panel of other put-down artists as they take a verbal axe to the outgoing year. Word has it Tom Brady has already decreed the entire month of November off-limits. (Netflix)
Premieres Tuesday:
Avicii: I’m Tim and Avicii: My Last Show — Learn all about the Swedish DJ/producer via a documentary retrospective of his life and work, then watch a concert film of the 2016 Ibiza performance that was his last before he committed suicide at age 28. Seems a shame to miss out on membership in the 27 Club by just a year, but Europe always screws itself with that metric system. (Netflix)
Horror’s Greatest — The episode themes in Season 2 include great film scores of the genre and the history of movies about dates gone grotesquely bad. (Not everyone knows this, but the ending of Annie Hall was a lot bloodier before the censors got hold of it.) (Shudder)
Michele Buteau: A Buteau-ful Mind at Radio City Music Hall — The comic’s second Netflix special is the very first performance flick a female stand-up has ever filmed in the home of the Rockettes. See? Now that you know that, missing out on a woman president two tries in a row suddenly doesn’t hit so hard. (Netflix)
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This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2024.