Sean Combs: The Reckoning
Netflix, from Tuesday, December 2nd
Sean Combs – aka Puff Daddy, aka P Diddy – is a music mogul, the head of Bad Boy Entertainment and a pioneering artist who helped bring hip-hop into the musical mainstream, launched the careers of the Notorious BIG, Mary J Blige and others, and had a string of chart-topping hits off his own bat.
But rumbling of dark goings-on in the Combs camp began to surface, and after the R&B singer Casandra Ventura filed a lawsuit against Combs, more allegations came to light. In July he was convicted on two counts of transportation for the purposes of prostitution, and sentenced to serve time in a federal prison. This four-part documentary – executive-produced by Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent – charts Combs’s rise to superstardom and his sordid fall from grace. Its director, Alex Stapleton, says she hopes the documentary will be “a wake-up call for how we idolise people, and to understand that everybody is a human being”.
With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration
Netflix, from Wednesday, December 3rd
Archewell, Harry and Meghan’s production company, signed a new contract with Netflix earlier this year that sees the streamer loosen its ties to the duke and duchess. An earlier deal gave Netflix exclusive rights to Archewell’s content, but though the six-part Harry & Meghan, following the couple’s conscious uncoupling from the British royal family, did the business, other Archewell documentaries didn’t fare so well. Now Netflix can choose whether or not to pick up the company’s “inspirational family programming”. In this inevitable Christmas special, With Love, Meghan – in which the duchess gives tips on keeping an Instagram-perfect home – she’ll show you how to deck the halls of your home for the holidays, and gives tips on making Christmas that bit more magical. She also invites friends to drop by the house in Montecito, California, to join her in creating treats and decorations.
The Abandons
Netflix, from Thursday, December 4th
Get ready for the mother of all showdowns as Lena Headey and Gillian Anderson face off in a deadly duel over land, family and the American dream. Headey and Anderson play widowed rival matriarchs in the lawless frontier Washington Territory in 1854. Anderson is Constance, head of the wealthy, privileged and ruthless Van Ness dynasty, who have become rich from their silver-mining industry; Headey is Fiona Nolan, who is fiercely protective of her found family of orphans and outcasts, and is looking to put down roots. As Constance’s empire expands, she sets her sights on Jasper Hollow, the cattle ranch Fiona has built on silver-rich land, but Fiona is determined not to be driven away from her new home, sparking a battle for control and, ultimately, survival.
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The New Yorker at 100
Netflix, from Friday, December 5th
The New Yorker magazine has been renowned for a century as a beacon of uncompromising journalism, literary fiction and cultural discourse. So you can be sure Donald Trump is not a regular reader. As the eminent publication approaches its 100th birthday, journalism is under attack from Trump’s administration, and this documentary, directed and produced by the Oscar winner Marshall Curry, follows the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, and his staff as they prepare to publish their centenary issue. We’ll meet editors, writers, photographers, artists and fact-checkers, as well as hearing from New Yorker contributors Jesse Eisenberg, Ronny Chieng and Molly Ringwald, among others. The programme is narrated by Julianne Moore.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians
Disney+, from Wednesday, December 10th
The success of Harry Potter spawned many an epic novel series featuring ordinary kids in extraordinarily mythical circumstances, all seeking the golden fleece of megamillion book sales. One of the most successful is Percy Jackson, created by Rick Riordan, in which the teen hero finds himself caught up in a world of Greek gods and demons in the 21st century. Percy is not a wizard but a demigod, and in this second series, based on the book The Sea of Monsters, he’s on a perilous odyssey into the titular sea to find his best friend, Grover, and, with luck, the legendary Golden Fleece that will save Camp Half-Blood from Luke Castellan, who has been possessed by the Titan Kronos.
Man vs Baby
Netflix, from Thursday, December 11th
Rowan Atkinson returns as Trevor Bingley, a man you don’t want as your housesitter. In Man vs Bee, Trevor got a plum job minding a mansion for a megarich couple, but his cushy number was soon disrupted by an annoying bee that just wouldn’t buzz off. The ensuing battle between human and drone left the mansion in ruins. Trevor’s new nemesis has a stink in its tail. Having decided that housesitting is too stressful, Trevor is settling into the quiet life of a school caretaker, but then an offer he can’t refuse comes up: looking after a penthouse in London over the Christmas period. After the school nativity play is over and everyone has gone home, he discovers that no one has come to collect the baby Jesus, so he’s going to have to look after both penthouse and páiste over the festive season.
Taylor Swift: The End of an Era
Disney+, from Friday, December 12th
Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, a juggernaut that flattened all resistance in 51 cities around the world, hoovered up more than $2 billion in ticket sales – the most in pop history. The 149-concert tour also had a big cultural impact. So how did it all come together? This six-episode docuseries offers a look inside the Eras tour and a glimpse at Swift’s life as she bestrode the globe like a sequinned colossus. With luck we’ll get to see what it takes to put on a three-and-a-half hour stadium extravaganza, as well as meeting a host of guest stars, including Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter, Gracie Abrams, Florence Welch and Swift’s boyfriend, the NFL player Travis Kelce. There’s a Christmas bonus for Swifties: a full-length film of the final show, in Vancouver, featuring all the songs from Swift’s album The Tortured Poets Department.
Fallout
Prime Video, from Wednesday, December 17th
Postapocalyptic thrillers based on video games are certainly having a moment. The Last of Us was a big hit with viewers and critics, although the second season kind of lost the plot. Let’s hope Fallout fares better as it returns, once again starring Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Kyle MacLachlan and Walton Goggins as denizens of a desolate wasteland 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse. Purnell is the idealistic Vault dweller Lucy, who is forced to leave her fallout shelter deep underground to rescue her father, and discovers a mad-to-the-max world on the surface. Walton Goggins is the Ghoul, a disfigured bounty hunter prominently lacking a nose. As Macaulay Culkin and Kumail Nanjiani join the cast, Lucy embarks on a journey through the badlands of the Mojave to reach New Vegas, where the main thing you can gamble with is your life.
Emily in Paris
Netflix, from Thursday, December 18th
It seems like ages since Emily Cooper (Lily Collins) moved to Paris to get a dream job in marketing, in the popular series created by Darren Star. Four seasons – and several romances – later, the American girl has conquered the French capital, and now she’s heading to Italy as the head of the marketing agency’s Rome office. So, yes, it’s now Emily in Rome (where she progresses her relationship with Marcello, the Italian stallion played by Eugenio Franceschini). And Venice. But just because she’s moved to Rome, that doesn’t mean Emily won’t be in Paris, Star says, reassuringly. Joining the cast for season five are Bryan Greenberg as an American expat, Jake, and Minnie Driver as the glamorous Princess Jane.
Born to Be Wild
From Friday, December 19th, Apple TV+
How better to spend Christmas evenings than by watching impossibly cute baby animals doing impossibly cute things? Born to Be Wild is a new six-part wildlife series featuring endangered animals that have been orphaned, rescued or born through a conservation programme. The whole family will be going “awwww” as we follow the nurturing of Iberian lynx kittens, cheetah cubs, a ring-tailed lemur pup, African penguin chicks, an elephant calf and a moon-bear cub, before, eventually, they’re returned to the wilds of the animal kingdom.
