From a new live-action Star Wars series to an action-packed British spy drama — as well as a caper that takes place in our neighbor to the north — next week will bring plenty of exciting new TV shows to enjoy from several of the major streaming services.
Below, we’ve collected a handful of some of the biggest and best shows worth checking out next week (Dec. 1-7), from streamers including Disney+, Netflix, and Prime Video. It’s a somewhat quiet streaming week to start off the final month of the year, but there are nonetheless a few gems to consider adding to your watchlist over the next seven days — four of which we’ll take a closer look at here.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (Dec. 2, Disney+)
With the disastrous Acolyte still fresh in the minds of many Star Wars fans, here’s hoping that the next Star Wars TV show focuses more on telling an actually enjoyable story from the galaxy far, far away that fans want to see — as opposed to rewriting everything according to the whims of creators who clearly have belly-flopped into the wrong franchise.
The fact that director Jon Watts (who also helmed the Apple movie Wolfs, which I enjoyed) was behind the camera for Skeleton Crew gives me hope. The new series stars Jude Law as a Jedi who meets four kids lost in the galaxy trying to make their way home. It’s been described as a “galactic version of classic Amblin coming-of-age adventure films of the ’80s.”
Churchill at War (Dec. 4, Netflix)
In this four-part Netflix docuseries from showrunner Sara Enright and executive producers Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Sara Bernstein, and Justin Wilkes, viewers will get a deep dive into British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s pivotal role in World War II. Using Churchill’s own words — and brought to life in vivid color — the series will explore his wartime strategies, his legacy that followed during the peacetime years, and why he was an ideal leader for the UK during this era.
Black Doves (Dec. 5, Netflix)
From epic series like Mr. & Mrs. Smith to The Sympathizer, there’s been no shortage of top-tier spy-themed TV shows to enjoy this year. Netflix is about to add another, starring Keira Knightley as you’ve never seen her before — playing a feral professional spy who’s brutally efficient with a gun. The show takes place in London during Christmas, and Knightley is a wife and mother named Helen Webb. She’s also a spy who, for 10 years, has passed the secrets of her politician husband to the shadowy organization she works for. Eventually, bad guys show up, the killing starts, Helen is caught in the middle, and she goes on the run. The stuff, in other words, that great spy dramas are made of.
The Sticky (Dec. 6, Prime Video)
By way of rounding out our preview of next week’s TV shows, let us remind ourselves that some pairings were made for each other. Like peanut butter and jelly. Barbecue on the Fourth of July. And Margo Martindale in, basically, anything on the small screen.
In Prime Video’s The Sticky, the three-time Emmy winner plays Ruth Landry — a no-nonsense maple syrup farmer who resorts to crime when bureaucrats threaten to take away everything she loves. Teaming up with a hot-tempered mobster from Boston, as well as a meek French-Canadian security guard, they plan a multi-million-dollar heist of Quebec’s maple syrup surplus. And, obviously, the puns about getting themselves into a sticky situation write themselves.
