The holiday season is in full swing, which means you might be winding down from work or school right now and prepping for much-deserved time off. Once you’re done baking cookies and wrapping presents, it’s a great time to sit back and relax with some of the best Christmas movies to stream or simply a good TV show.
You may have blown through every episode of your favorite show’s just-released new season and you’re now spending what seems like ages scrolling endlessly through streaming service menus trying to find something else. We’re here to help. If you’re looking for something exciting and new that you might not have already had on your radar, check out these three hidden December streaming TV shows that are all worth watching.
South Korean series are gaining steam in North America. Moving, for instance, became the most-watched Korean original on Disney+ after being available for just one week. Now, it’s also streaming on Hulu. The series, based on the webtoon by Kang Full, is about three teenagers who have superpowers. When their parents discover this, however, they must use their own superpowers to try and protect their kids.
With parallel storylines involving both the kids and the parents — some critics even say the parents’ storylines are what truly make this show shine — Moving will become your next superhero favorite. Called the “best superhero series on TV right now” by Rolling Stone, critics say it’s everything from stunningly original to heartfelt.
Stream Moving on Hulu or Disney+.
Based on Rick Riordan’s popular book series, this fantasy series features the title character, the 12-year-old son of Poseidon, who must thwart an attack from Zeus. The Greek god is convinced that Percy, played by Walker Scobell, stole his thunderbolt and he will stop at nothing to get it back.
With Riordan himself counted among the co-creators and executive producers of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the series will appeal to anyone who loves the novels. A good one for parents to watch with their kids (it’s rated PG, but has some dark themes), there are eight episodes in the first season, which premiere weekly through the end of January 2024.
Stream Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney+.
Even if you didn’t watch the first season of Dr. Death, you can still check out season 2 of one of the new shows coming to Peacock in December. It’s centered around a completely different story. Season 1 starred Joshua Jackson as Christopher Duntsch, a neurosurgeon who was convicted after mutilating patients and killing two of them. Season 2 portrays the story of suave, charming Swiss-Italian thoracic surgeon and medical research Paolo Macchiarini (Edgar Ramirez). Over many years, he convinced patients, medical professionals, and the media that he had developed a ground-breaking method of replacing human tracheas with windpipes made of plastic infused with stem cells. The reality of his so-called innovation, however, is that it was anything but a success. His personal life, meanwhile, was also filled with controversy and wild stories, from claims that he was the Pope’s personal doctor to suggestions he secretly worked for the CIA.
Check out Bad Surgeon: Love Under the Knife on Netflix before you watch. It’s a three-part docuseries about Macchiarini that’s anchored by interviews with his former co-workers and fiancé Benita Alexander, played by Mandy Moore in the series. It will provide context if you’re not already familiar with the story and add another level of appreciation for Ramirez’s performance as the narcissistic alleged con man.
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?