From an adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude to the series finale of long-running cop show Blue Bloods, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week
1. Sugarplummed – Saturday, December 7, W Network
Psych’s Maggie Lawson stars in this new Hallmark flick about Emily, a woman obsessed with planning the perfect Christmas to bring her family together. After making a fateful wish one night, a spritely character from a TV holiday movie (Pretty Little Liars alum Janel Parrish) magically steps off the screen to lend a hand.
2. Somebody Somewhere – Sunday, December 8, HBO Canada | Series Finale
Sam and her fellow small-town misfits take a bow after three seasons as heartfelt as they were hilarious. Star Bridget Everett told The Playlist that this may be goodbye, but it doesn’t truly feel like the end: “It’s just a snapshot in time of these people. They’re going to continue to evolve. They’re going to continue to change.”
3. The Real Full Monty – Monday, December 9, Fox
Inspired by the beloved 1997 British comedy, this two-hour special features an array of male celebs showing off their stripping skills. Blackish alum Anthony Anderson has gathered a cast (including himself) that includes Taye Diggs, Chris Jones, Tyler Posey, Bruno Tonioli and James Van Der Beek, and viewers follow their efforts as they train and rehearse for the most revealing performance of their careers, culminating with a big strip-tease dance (choreographed by Emmy-winner Mandy Moore) in which they bare all in front of a live audience. It’s all for a good cause, to encourage men to be screened for testicular and prostate cancer. “Don’t die of embarrassment. Get checked! That’s the message behind The Real Full Monty special,” said Anderson in a statement. “I am honoured to lead the charge of rallying these fearless men to bare it all, in order to provoke, inspire and in this case, beg you to get screened for cancer. That’s our goal . . . so what are you waiting for?”
4. Secret Level – Tuesday, December 10, Prime Video | Series Premiere
Having scored an Emmy for their cartoon sci-fi anthology Love, Death + Robots on Netflix, Deadpool director Tim Miller and his groundbreaking Blur Studio offer up another dose of visually dazzling, thought-provoking animation. This time, however, they’re doing it at Prime Video, and they’re using video games as inspiration.
Secret Level whisks us away via 15 standalone episodes based on such games as Mega Man, Unreal Tournament, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer 40,000 and even the indelible PAC-MAN.
More impressive than the list of games is the list of voice talent, which will include Keanu Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kevin Hart, The Book of Boba Fett’s Temuera Morrison, Barbie’s Ariana Greenblatt and two stars of HBO’s video game hit The Last of Us: Gabriel Luna and Merle Dandridge. Click here to watch trailer.
5. Dream Productions – Wednesday, December 9, Disney+ | Series Premiere
A TV spinoff of Pixar’s wildly popular Inside Out films plunks us back into the mind of young Riley — this time focusing not on the volatile interplay between the girl’s emotions, but the “filmmakers” tasked with creating her dreams. Click here to watch trailer.
6. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Wednesday, December 11, Netflix | Series Premiere
A prolific journalist and author, Colombian Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez is revered among literary aficionados as the godfather of magical realism. Now, the 1967 novel that’s been dubbed his masterpiece comes to TV in a 16-part series, the first half of which premieres on Wednesday.
A story that spans generations starts in the 1820s, as kissing cousins José Arcadio Buendía (Marco González) and Úrsula Iguarán (Susana Morales) get married in defiance of their families and set off with a group of like-minded misfits to found the village of Macondo, where all are free to choose their own destiny. Alas, this utopian dream is plagued by “madness, impossible loves, a bloody and absurd war, and a terrible curse that condemns them, without hope, to 100 years of solitude.” The story then continues all the way to the heroic yet doomed Colonel Aureliano Buendía, played by Claudio Cataño. Speaking to Netflix, the actor teased: “Macondo and its host of characters, who I truly feel as my own blood, are universal, but at the same time so unique — so from Colombia, so beautifully tragic that it is impossible not to be trapped in this world.”
7. No Good Deed – Thursday, December 12, Netflix | Series Premiere
Buying or selling a home is an invigorating, but uniquely stressful proposition. As much as it may symbolize a fresh start for all involved, there are also endless renovations, inspections, the struggle of leaving behind a place that bore witness to the most meaningful moments of your life . . . and, of course, the bidding wars.
Emmy-nominated Dead to Me creator Liz Feldman looks to mine that fertile dramedic territory, returning to Netflix with another dark comedy sporting an A-list cast.
Looking back on the genesis of this idea in an interview with Tudum, Feldman recalls musing to herself, simply enough: “Why hasn’t there been a show about the buying and selling of one house and all of the people that revolve around that one location?”
On that note, sitcom legends Lisa Kudrow and Ray Romano play Lydia and Paul Morgan. She’s a high-strung former musician, he’s a struggling contractor — and now that they’re not only empty-nesting but running low on cash, they’ve reluctantly decided to sell their picturesque suburban home in Los Feliz, Los Angeles. It’s a hot property, to say the least, which attracts myriad eclectic buyers — each highly motivated to close the deal. They include Luke Wilson as an out-of-work soap opera star; Hacks’ Poppy Liu and Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson as a young couple, one of whom has long coveted this particular piece of real estate; Teyonah Parris (They Cloned Tyrone) as an architect/expectant mother looking for a place to start a family with her struggling-writer husband (Presumed Innocent’s O-T Fagbenle); and finally, Feldman’s Dead to Me star Linda Cardellini as a “perfectly coiffed status seeker” eager to flip the house and level up both her professional and romantic lives.
Yet as the battle to secure the deed ratchets up, dark secrets will emerge from buyers and sellers alike.
8. Carry-On – Friday, December 13, Netflix
He’s given acclaimed performances in Elton John biopic Rocketman and Emmy-winning true crime drama Black Bird, but Taron Egerton got his start in the blockbuster Kingsman franchise. Now, he returns to those action-packed roots with a Netflix original flick from veteran genre director Jaume Collet-Serra (Non-Stop, The Shallows).
Here, he plays Ethan, a young TSA agent who works at the airport alongside his pregnant girlfriend Nora (Descendants breakout Sofia Carlson). As we open, it’s Christmas Eve, which turns LAX into even more of a zoo than usual. But that inherent holiday chaos takes a turn for the nightmarish when Ethan is contacted by a mystery man (Jason Bateman, back on Netflix after four Emmy-winning seasons of Ozark), who tells our bewildered protagonist that he needs to let a dangerous package slip through security or else Nora will be killed.
What ensues is a pulse-pounding chess match, as Ethan tries to save his true love without sacrificing the lives he’s duty-bound to protect — while facing a cunning adversary who seems to know his every move before he makes it.
Discussing the project with Tudum, Egerton said: “When Jaume first approached me about the role, I told him I didn’t want to do something that felt like an archetypal action hero. Luckily, neither of us thought that’s what was exciting or interesting about Ethan. What we kept our eyes on was making sure that we made him feel as relatable and as normal as possible . . . whatever normal is in the extraordinary situation he’s in.”
Added the director: “Contained environments force us to get to know the movie’s characters very quickly and personally — we’re immediately in the thick of the story with them, which creates a genuine investment in what’s happening onscreen.”
9. Blue Bloods – Friday, December 13, CTV & CBS | Series Finale
Despite a push by star Tom Selleck to save it, the gritty family cop drama will end its run tonight, after 293 episodes. In the finale, the Reagans must keep New York from descending into anarchy when the city’s gangs unite to demand certain drastic criminal justice reforms. Edward James Olmos guest-stars.
10. Elton John: Never Too Late – Friday, December 13, Disney+
The life story of Elton John has been thoroughly detailed in his 2019 memoir, Me, and on film in the big-screen biopic Rocketman. Yet there’s more story to tell that’s unfolded in the years since then, as the legendary singer, songwriter and pianist embarked on his globe-spanning, multi-continent Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which spanned from 2018 until concluding last year.
Co-directed by acclaimed documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler and John’s husband, David Furnish, Elton John: Never Too Late finds Sir Elton reflecting on the past as he prepares for his final North American concert at Dodger Stadium. “Elton takes us back in time and recounts the extraordinary highs and heartbreaking lows of his early years and how he overcame adversity, abuse and addiction to become the icon he is today,” declares the synopsis.
Never Too Late also explores the first five years of his career, from 1970 to 1975, an extraordinarily fruitful period in which he released 13 albums, seven of which hit No. 1.
As a bonus, the film features a new original song, along with never-before-seen concert footage of John Lennon joining him onstage for three songs during a 1974 show at Madison Square Garden in New York City — which turned out to be Lennon’s final appearance on a stage.
Also included in the film are John’s handwritten diaries and the audio recordings from his landmark 1976 interview with Rolling Stone, in which he opened up about his sexuality for the first time.
“Most of the footage from the ’70s Elton hasn’t seen before at all,” Furnish told Deadline. “It was really fun to finally be able to unearth all these gems and have a really good comb through everything that we’ve been accumulating for such a long time.” Click here to watch trailer.