Stranger Things to The Lowdown: The Seven Best Shows to Air This Christmas | TV and radio

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Strange things

The final episodes of the Duffer brothers’ smash-hit sci-fi coming-of-age fest (maybe the secret to the show’s success is how many genres it manages to incorporate?) will be dropping around the holiday season — and they’re huge. Fans will be up and early on Boxing Day for episodes five through seven (the finale airs on New Year’s Day). Will’s new powers take over, posing a major threat to Vecna. But why is Vecna ​​so wary of the cave where Max is hiding? As the end approaches, the past and present fall into place – and the cast, who now look like they’re in their 20s, will be able to move on with their lives.
Netflix, from Boxing Day

Inside information

Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) keeps a lot of the plates turning. He also sees a lot of plates crashing to the ground. His family life is in chaos. His business is a failure. In his role as “historian of truth” (an investigative journalist digging up dirt), he had a knack for upsetting the most dangerous people in Tulsa. This drama by Sterlin Harjo falls somewhere between a crime thriller and a thriller. The story, about racist neo-Nazis and systemic corruption, is dark and conspiratorial, but Hawke’s performance imbues Raybon with a strange charm and adds nuance and heart.
Disney+, from Boxing Day

He falls

For a show with such a horrific premise, Fallout is bursting with new life. It’s just that the life in question is generally hideous, evil, and corrupt. Season 2 of this video game continues beyond its origins, but fans of the original will find themselves on familiar (albeit terrifying) ground as the action heads to New Vegas. Much of it revolves around the love/hate relationship between Lucy, played by Ella Purnell, and the ogre (Walton Goggins) as Lucy searches for her nefarious father. The worldbuilding is immaculate, the writing is witty and never hesitates to get properly bad.
Prime Video, starting Wednesday 17th December

Emily in Paris

The romantic comedy with an increasingly misleading name returns as Emily’s Roman Vacation continues. While the show is still bafflingly bad, it has become more likable for leaning into its own cartoonish silliness. Emily struggles in Rome: Marcello takes her for an afternoon truffle hunting even though she shows up to their date wearing high heels. Professionally, things aren’t great either – but to be fair, Emily has always been terrible at her job with no ill effects on her lifestyle. Moreover, she quips, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Netflix starting Thursday 18th December

Born to be wild

While the BBC’s Natural History Unit will display the animal world in red in tooth and claw, that is not the approach generally taken by Apple. This six-part series, narrated by Hugh Bonneville, leans unabashedly into the gravitas factor. The animals she follows are orphans, raised by humans from an early age but ready to return to the wild. As this parade of interactions between humans and baby elephants, lemurs, lynxes, bears, penguins and cheetahs indicates, some of them have become worryingly (if delightfully and charmingly) attached to their rescuers.
Apple TV starting Friday the 19th December

Stranded

For many people, staying in the snow at a ski resort over Christmas will be a dream come true. But this Italian thriller, from Walter Presents, takes a different tack. Banker Giovanni Lo Bianco is on vacation with his children and soon discovers that one of his fellow guests is a figure from his past who has the power to expose his double life. But things can always go wrong – and when the hotel’s power goes out, the situation becomes life-threatening and the guests can only survive by trusting each other. It’s a big problem. Contrived but fun.
Channel 4 starting Friday the 19th December

Collapse: 1975

The mid-1970s was a difficult time for the United States: the country faced humiliation in Vietnam, the fallout from Nixon’s presidency and a series of social and financial crises. However, as this fascinating documentary shows, at least a lot of great cinema has emerged from these upheavals. Indeed, director Morgan Neville suggests that films like Taxi Driver and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest were, by virtue of their sense of disillusionment, a window into the soul of America. Martin Scorsese and Ellen Burstyn contribute, while Taxi star Jodie Foster narrates the story.
Netflix starting Friday the 19th December