Every month, great TV shows are released, including new seasons of popular ones. But there are also hidden gems you might not have heard of but would totally love. This month, two of the three hidden December streaming TV shows you don’t want to fly under your radar are adult animated series. One is a superhero series, and the other features stories based on popular video games and video game franchises.
The third is set in the Great White North of Canada and is a surprisingly good story about a woman willing to do whatever it takes to protect her business. These three hidden gems are worth checking out as you close yet another year and look toward 2025.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new shows to stream this week, as well as the best shows on Netflix, the best shows on Hulu, the best shows on Amazon Prime Video, the best shows on Max, and the best shows on Disney+.
If you’re a fan of the DC Comics universe, you won’t want to miss Creature Commandos. This adult animated series marks the first series in the DCU and centers around a black ops team made up of monsters. Written and created by James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1-3, The Suicide Squad), the story takes place after the events in The Suicide Squad as well as those in the first season of Peacemaker. General Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo) assembles this team to fight back against evil.
The talented voice cast includes Indira Varma, Sean Gunn, Alan Tudyk, Zoë Chao, and David Harbour, alongside Grillo. The recurring and guest cast list is just as impressive, including a diverse list from Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) to Viola Davis and Linda Cardellini.
Stream Creature Commandos on Max.
Margo Martindale is a consummate professional who often finds herself in memorable supporting roles. She has appeared in everything from Dexter to Sneaky Pete, Mrs. America, and Mrs. Davis. Martindale consistently hits it out of the park, and it’s no different in The Sticky, in which she gets a well-earned starring role. In the delightful new dark comedy, she stars as Ruth Landry, a maple syrup farmer in Canada who finds her business under threat. To save herself and her livelihood, she plans a massive maple syrup heist. She’ll steal millions in the sticky stuff to get back at those who want to take her down.
The Sticky proves that dark themes, revenge, and corporate greed can exist in any industry, even the world of the sweet and delicious sap that’s enjoyed by millions. With a supporting cast of mostly Canadian actors including Chris Diamantopoulos (Silicon Valley), Jamie Lee Curtis also has a standout role. Quite simply, The Sticky is worth indulging in.
Stream The Sticky on Amazon Prime Video.
With an impressive voice cast, every episode of Secret Level features a compartmentalized story inspired by a video game or video game franchise. Within the unique adult animated anthology series, fans will recognize stories from Dungeons & Dragons, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Spelunky, and more, with characters voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Kevin Hart, Laura Bailey, Keanu Reeves, Gabriel Luna, and more.
Receiving decent reviews ahead of its official release, Secret Level is great because you can pick and choose the episodes you want to watch or watch in any order and not feel tied to a multi-episode arc. Archi Sengupta of LeisureByte.com calls the series “fantastic,” noting that while not every episode is top-notch, “it’s thoroughly engaging, regardless.” Sounds good to us.
Stream Secret Level on Amazon Prime Video.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?