HASso, yes, the situation is rather confusing at the platform level: bye-bye Lionsgate+, hello Paramount+ and Universal+, what of the future of OCS acquired by Canal+ or even what of Salto in the medium term…? Not easy to see clearly at the moment. But in terms of proposals in good series, there, everything is much more obvious: in December, there will be plenty to choose from. Atlanta rappers with dreamlike accents, (more or less) idealistic lawyers immersed in Trumpian America, a very oldschool struggling with the modern world, a shrink sequestered by a serial killer or a policeman lost in the sordid underworld of Belle Époque Paris: they are all there to prevent you from succumbing to the sirens of sentimental Christmas TV movies!
Atlanta (OCS), season 4
The farewell of the month is to Atlanta to do them, we hope with great fanfare, because this series, one of the most ingenious, delirious and disconcerting of recent years, fully deserves it. Starting from a rather classic baseline, that of an entertainer struggling to adjust to sudden fame, actor, screenwriter and rapper Danny Glover (aka Childish Gambino behind a microphone) dramedy genius has able to deploy an entire universe of adventures at the limit of the poetic and sometimes frankly both feet in the absurd. In the end, it’s impossible to know who, from Paper Boi, his somewhat loser friends or the spectator, is the most lost, the most tossed about in surreal situations in moments of suspended grace, in an indefinite space between the extraordinary and the everyday.
We could have expected a bitter comedy about today’s America, its social and racial divide, its daily class struggles, and we got it. But we also had so much more: at the same time crazy, subtle and poignant, Atlanta spent four seasons blurring codes, maps and limits, a bit like what a black David Lynch would have done, rapper, socially conscious, but still just as attached to the dreamlike and psychic matter of his universe. Atlantait’s simple: you have never seen this before, and you will probably never see it again.
On OCS from Friday, December 2.
The Good Fightseason 6
The other great series to bow out this month, probably even the best current series that we don’t talk about enough, is The Good Fight. Born out of the success of The Good Wife, Robert and Michelle King’s series however very quickly took its mark and asserted itself as radically on the fringes of traditional legal series, from which it nonetheless adopted most of the habits, starting with the locations (law firms and courts) and the main characters. Inventive, sometimes even reckless when it comes to shaking up the habits of spectators, The Good Fight is saturated with social commentary and overtly political pronouncements, just as the United States was going through the Trump presidency – to pass To the White House and Aaron Sorkin for dangerous right-handers…
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This sixth and final season, as hilarious, intelligent and shrewd as the previous ones, benefits more from the contribution of the brilliant Andre Braugher (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Homicide) as a colorful lawyer as well as the charisma of John Slattery (madmen).
On Téva from Sunday 4 September.
Tulsa King
The event of the month of December is perhaps after all the birth of a new streaming service in France: Paramount+. Available for an entry price of €7.99 per month on internet browsers, smart TVs, Android and iOS applications, as well as on TV boxes via Canal+, the giant Paramount service offers for its launch a fairly limited catalog, mainly composed great cinema successes of the group, as well as very classic series. We can thus discover or rediscover the 11 seasons of the immense (but a little outdated) sitcom Cheers.
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Headlining however, is Tulsa King which is asserting itself, thanks to two major assets: the promise of a mafia-drama written and directed by top names in the genre, Taylor Sheridan (creator of the US phenomenon Yellowstone) and Terence Winter (The Sopranosbut also Boardwalk Empire), but above all the presence in the main role of… Sylvester Stallone, for his first participation in a TV series. The first two episodes are however half-hearted, the good idea of departure (a mafia “boomer” who finds himself totally out of place in a world of “millennials” who have advanced very quickly and without him) being a little spoiled by a lot facilities and clichés. Note a real strong point: Stallone is perfectly imperial, and enough to make you want to watch the sequel.
On Paramount+ from Thursday 1er december.
The Patient
Have fun scaring yourself with stories, true or imaginary, of serial killer seems to have become the main activity of series viewers… And when the demand is there, the supply follows, of course, until exhaustion. In this context of gender saturation, The Patient is rather a good surprise, in particular because it revolves around a duel of particularly talented actors. Steve Carell, a shrink taken hostage by a serial criminal patient played by Domhnall Gleeson, makes Michael Scott in particular completely forgotten (The Office US) and his great comic roles of the 2000s and, perhaps even more so than in The Morning Show, proves that he can play just about anything. It is still helped in this by the well-directed plot of this fairly classic psychological thriller, but also rather cruel, awkward just enough to get you attached to it until the end. In short, in the realm of serial killer series, The Patient is a good vintage that amateurs really should not underestimate.
On Disney+ from Wednesday, December 14.
And also…
Finally, rather than recommending the two “Christmas series”, both cuddly series and not necessarily assumable, which are, each in their own way, Jack Ryan (on Amazon Prime) and Emily in Paris (on Netflix), both available on December 21, right for your week off under the blanket, we have decided to give a little spotlight to two French series on which we are betting a lot around here.
The first, darkest and most ambitious, is Paris Police 1905, from Monday 12 December on Canal+. This immediate sequel to Paris Police 1900, a rather successful historical thriller, notably through its uncompromising depiction of the political and ideological underworld of the Belle Époque, this time plunges its heroes into a particularly sordid investigation into the world of prostitution, between the dark undergrowth of the Bois de Boulogne and social evenings of All-Paris. Still with Fabien Nury in pen, and despite the news from the Chained Duck who, at the start of the year, had revealed that Vincent Bolloré had requested rewrites of elements of the screenplay touching “religion or homosexuality”, this new adventure by Inspector Antoine Jouin promises to be just as deliciously unhealthy how captivating.
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The second French series not to be missed this month is much lighter. 36 15 Monica, on OCS from Thursday 15 December, tells the story of three young people who, in the heroic times of the beginnings of the Minitel, that is to say in the middle of the 80s, found the right vein: inventing the pink Minitel in launching their own service, “36 15 Monique”. There is no reason for this second season to be less fine, smiling and evocative than the previous one. The board feel good of the month, then!