What to watch on streaming in December: Highlights on Netflix, Disney, Binge, Stan, Prime and more

SQUID GAME S2

It’s been more than three years since Squid Game made obsessives out of everyone with its combination of deadly stakes, a hyper-coloured world that belied its threat and its scathing social commentary on wealth and debt.

The series returns on Boxing Day and so does Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), also known as Player 456. Despite his winnings, Player 456 is psychologically locked in the world of Squid Game, unable to escape and move forward from the traumas he experienced at the hands of game masters. So, he returns to the place that both broke and made him, set to play a new set of games.

Watch it: Netflix on the 26th

LAID

After 20 years of dating, Ruby has had her share of exes, but the number is weirdly diminishing after six of them die in quick succession. Convinced the deaths aren’t random, she and her bestie, the true crime-obsessed AJ, set out to warn her previous paramours that they might be in danger.

The comedy has a fun premise but it’s also a star vehicle for Stephanie Hsu, pocket rocket actor who played Joy, the multi-dimensional (in more ways than one) daughter in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Hsu is wildly charismatic and is the perfect casting for this curious project.

Watch it: Binge on the 19th

BLACK DOVES

With a triumvirate of top-tier British onscreen talent — Keira Knightley, Ben Whishaw and Happy Valley’s Sarah Lancaster — Black Doves, no matter what the genre or story, would be a must-sample. Luckily, it also happens to be great.

The twisty spy thriller features the trio as members of a mysterious black ops organisation that has no loyalty to king or country, only whoever is paying the highest fee. The series kicks off when three people are murdered, and one of them happens to be a civil servant Helen (Knightley) is having an affair with. Intrigue, fisticuffs and gunfire ensue.

Watch it: Netflix on the 5th

STAR WARS: SKELETON CREW

Described by itself as “What if The Goonies but Star Wars?”, Skeleton Crew leans into the vibe of 1980s-style kids adventures. Here, it’s four children on an isolated planet in the galaxy who come across an abandoned airship in the woods and, pressing a few buttons, accidentally blast off into space.

Trying to make their way home is complicated by the fact that everyone they come across believes their home to be a myth. Along the way, they meet a malfunctioning droid and a mysterious stranger named Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law), who has the power of the Force.

Watch it: Disney+ on the 3rd

THE STICKY

The Sticky has the farcical comedic crime vibes of Fargo, except it’s based on a wacky crime that actually happened — in 2011, a gang of criminals stole 3000 tons of maple syrup valued at 20 million Canadian dollars. Who knew there was so much money in breakfast condiments?

The series is not a like-for-like dramatisation of the crime but it uses it as a jumping off point. Led by Margo Martindale as a syrup producer fed up with the corruption and politics of the association that governs them, she teams up with a hapless security guard and a small-time enforcer of a Boston mob.

Watch it: Prime on the 6th

DOUGLAS IS CANCELLED

Created by Steven Moffat (Sherlock), the four-part BBC satirical comedy stars Hugh Bonneville as Douglas Bellowes, a presenter for the news program Live at Six who is overheard telling a sexist joke at a family wedding.

Someone tweets about it, and then it’s amplified by his co-host Madeline (Karen Gillan). Now, it’s properly a thing, and as his newspaper editor wife Sheila (Alex Kingston), reminds him, “Outrage is exciting, nuance is work, Douglas is cancelled”.

A sharp examination of cancel culture, the series takes shot at everyone — the indignant, the quick-to-judge, the in-denial and the voracious tabloids.

Watch it: ABC iView, now

TERRIERS

Among TV obsessives who adheres to the philosophy that the more obscure a show is, the better it is, there is deep, almost smug, love, for Terriers, a cancelled-too-soon 2010 series that defies genre boxes, taking from noir, drama, crime and dark comedy.

At its most basic level, it’s a detective show about two partners — one a former cop, one a former criminal — who operate an unlicensed private eye business in San Diego. But it’s so much more than that with its examination of two characters who seem irretrievably broken while looking into a seedy corporation and poisoned land.

Terriers starred Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James, and it’s still talked about in near-reverent tones. If you identified as a Terriers fan, it’s as if you were in a special club.

Watch it: 7plus on the 23rd

UNIVERSAL BASIC GUYS

You’ve heard of a universal basic income, right? The idea is that every citizen, regardless of means or needs, receives a government-issued income that is enough to live on. There have been some small-scale pilot programs and is often touted as a utopic ideal of social welfare.

In the animated series Universal Basic Guys, the concept is put to the test with a story about two brothers whose jobs at a hot dog factory were replaced by robots and now subsist on a monthly $3000 with which they can do anything and nothing. With no structure to their days, they spend all their time getting into trouble.

Watch it: Stan on the 9th

HOW TO MAKE GRAVY

Drawing on Paul Kelly’s quintessential Australian Christmas song, How to Make Gravy takes his narrative-driven anthem and expands on the story of a man named Joe writing to Dan from prison about his grief at not spending the holiday with his family.

The Joe in the movie is a father (Daniel Henshall) who is locked up for assaulting his prick of a brother-in-law the previous year. He misses his family, who miss him back, especially his son, Angus, and also has to navigate the threats of prison.

The family drama also stars Hugo Weaving, Damon Herriman, Kate Mulvaney and French actor Agathe Rousselle (who was spectacular in Palme d’Or winner Titane) and features original songs by Meg Washington.

Watch it: Binge, now

DADDY ISSUES

Gemma (Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood) is a party girl with few responsibilities and a commitment to having a good time.

But life likes to offer a few surprises, especially to people who aren’t fond of plans – a hook-up on a flight back from Portugal results in a pregnancy and with little choice, Gemma ends up in a flat-share with her recently divorced and emotionally wrecked dad (David Morrissey). It’s been billed as the ultimate odd-couple arrangement.

Watch it: SBS On Demand on the 19th

CREATURE COMMANDOS

If you want to be technical about it, Creature Commandos is the first project under James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Comics’ relaunched screen slate. There was an existing Gunn series, Peacemaker, that survived the jump from the old guard to the new, but Creature Commandos marks the real start of what is supposed to be a disciplined approach to DC superheroes.

This series is an animation about a monsters blacks ops team with loose ethics. The voice cast includes Steve Agee, Maria Bakalova, Zoe Chao, Frank Grillo, David Harbour and Andy Tudyk.

Watch it: Binge on the 5th

NO GOOD DEED

When it comes to the marriage of 90s sitcom stars, Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano must be high on the list of “keen to see that” pairings.

The show comes from Liz Feldman, the creator of Dead to Me, and is centred on a couple that is trying to sell their house in a hot LA neighbourhood. Real estate is a vicious game, especially when you have competitive buyers (Luke Wilson, Linda Cardellini Teyonah Parris, Poppy Liu and more) and a house and sellers with many secrets.

Watch it: Netflix on the 12th

DEXTER: ORIGINAL SIN

One of everyone’s favourite serial killers (yes, it’s a little cooked we have more than one) is back, this time as a young twenty-something who gets his first taste of blood.

The series takes us back to Dexter Morgan’s (Patrick Gibson) first days as a forensic guy in the Miami police department, under the tutelage of his dad, Harry (Christian Slater), teaching him the code he would live by – satiate his dark passenger by only killing bad guys. Michael C. Hall, the OG Dexter, will voice the character’s inner thoughts and Sarah Michelle Gellar is slated as a special guest star.

Watch it: Paramount+ on the 13th

BOOKIE S2

It’s tough being a hustler in the illegal gambling business when the government threatens to legalise your business. Shock horror! Bookie is a real throwback, bro-y comedy in the vein of Entourage or Ballers.

It stars Sebastian Maniscalo alongside Omar. J. Dorsey, Jorge Garcia and Rob Corddry. Fun fact, Bookie was created by TV veteran Chuck Lorre (Big Bang Theory) and Nick Bakay, who you may know as the voice of Salem the cat on the Melissa Joan Hart version of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Watch it: Binge on the 13th

BUMP S5

After five seasons of laughs, tears and every emotion in between, Bump is wrapping up. It started with the unexpected pregnancy of A-type, over-achieving teenager Oly and will end with Bump’s families contending with Oly’s second pregnancy and Angie’s cancer diagnosis.

Set in Sydney’s inner suburbs, the series has been recent favourite of many fans who have followed along the journey of the Chalmers-Davises. It stars Nathalie Morris, Carlos Sanson Jr, Claudia Karvan and Angus Sampson.

Watch it: Stan on the 26th

GAVIN & STACEY: THE FINALE

Long before James Corden became persona-non-grata to anyone who could no longer forgive the stories of his public rudeness, the over-the-top performativity of his talk-show hosting and THAT Cats role, he was a co-creator of Gavin and Stacey, a beloved-by-many British sitcom.

The show has grown to legendary status for its three seasons centred on the exploits of four friends/lovers, and went from a little-seen cult show to one which drew 18 million viewers in the UK for its 2019 Christmas special. This 90-minute special is meant to be the very, very final chapter of that story.

Watch it: Binge on the 26th