What's worth watching on TV this festive season?

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show, the best Christmas TV to watch in 2025, from Amadeus to Amandaland. But first, in the blink of an eye, the year is almost over and that means only one thing. Christmas is upon us once more. alongside all the playing of board games eating of turkey and unwrapping of presents there's one other thing that remains a mainstay in most british festive households the telly nothing quite beats the feeling of sitting in front of the tv sliding into a post feast food coma and drowsily watching the year's collection of festive specials and this year there's plenty to look forward to on tv over christmas from will sharp donning a white wig to walter goggins and ella Purnell reuniting.

1:06After the BBC confirmed its festive line-up for the 2025 holiday period last month, its full schedule has now been unveiled, confirming exactly when each of the programme's specials and films will be airing. Amongst the biggest titles on the schedule for this year are returning BBC One dramas such as Call the Midwife, Beyond Paradise and Death in Paradise, each of which are back for Christmas specials. Joining me now is The Standards' commissioning editor and culture writer Vicky Jessup. Vicky, do you like watching a lot of telly at Christmas? Is that an annual tradition for your family? Probably like most British households, we are a Christmas television family.

1:48I think there's something quite nice about having the TV on during the day, like during Christmas itself and in the evening, you know, once you've kind of settled into your turkey coma, just sitting in front of the television and watching about three hours of Christmas specials with a cheese board. Yeah, so we kind of always grew up watching TV at Christmas. I guess the moments that stand out in my mind are watching the Doctor Who Christmas specials. That was like a massive occasion in our family and one that we kind of tuned into religiously. And then more recently, the Gavin and Stacey Christmas specials, which of course we had the last one of last year, and that was appointment viewing as well.

2:25So yeah, I always look forward to seeing what the BBC has coming out. So what shows are on this year's festive schedule? An interesting mix, I would say, of Christmas TV this year. I guess kicking things off, we have Emily in Paris that's coming out on December the 18th. So a nice kind of lead up to the Christmas week. Of course, she's not in Paris anymore. She's in Rome, but I guess Emily in Rome doesn't sound as good. I don't know. Anyway, so that's one for the romantics. We've got a new Sky adaptation of Amadeus. So that's unpacking the relationship between Mozart and his competitor Salieri with Will Sharp and Paul Bettany.

3:01That looks kind of quite outrageous and fun. Very Marianne Furnette a la Kirsten Dunst. We've got kind of all the usuals, I would say. We've got a ghost story for Christmas, which usually comes out just before Christmas. Mark Gatiss's annual spooky story. We've got Call the Midwife. We've got a very Taskmaster Christmas. starring I think stars of series gone by as well as the most recent winner of this just gone series both Death in Paradises so that's Death in Paradise and Beyond Paradise and the Masked Singer Christmas special as well so these are all coming out around Christmas day so if you really want to you can sit in front of the television and watch all of those.

3:42And what do you think the highlight will be? Yeah I think the highlight maybe is possibly Joanna Lumley appearing in not one but two festive specials this year so she's appearing in A Ghost Story for Christmas, playing a kind of spooky, older widow opposite Tobias Mendes. And then we have her in Amanda Land, which is the spin-off of the hit sitcom Motherland, which kind of features Lucy Punch as the adorable slash obnoxious, ultra posh Amanda, in which she plays Amanda's mum. So that should be fun as well. And is there anything particularly new or unique this year? possibly Amanda Land. I think the exciting thing about that, you know, I mentioned there's Joanna Lumley.

4:27She's actually been joined for this one by Jennifer Saunders, which I think might be their first return to screen like for a role together, possibly since Ab Fab. So that should be fun. She's playing Amanda's aunt. And then we have the Keep Show Christmas special, kind of Peep Show times the Great British Bake Off. So to celebrate 10 years since Peep Show finished, they've got together all of the cast of Harim Robert Webb and put them in the bake-off tent together. So that will be fun. And apparently they're going to be making Peep Show inspired bakes. So I'm fascinated to see how that turns out because if I remember rightly, there was a lot of drugs in Peep Show.

5:02Something which did actually catch my eye is a new David Attenborough documentary. Tell me a bit more about that. Yes, there's Wild London, which should be very wholesome, actually. I love David Attenborough. His voice is like honey in my ears. He's travelled all over the world to his documentaries. These days, he probably can't make it very far, bless him. So this time they're doing a series or an episode, a feature length special set in London where they kind of look at all the wildlife in and around the capital. So we get harvest mice, we get foxes, we get beavers. So that should be very wholesome.

5:35Yeah, like a lovely piece of television to sit in front of the fire and eat cheese too. Let's go to an ad break. Coming up, all the odd things that feature in the With Love Megan Christmas special on Netflix. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

5:57Welcome back. Vicky, are there any glaring omissions in this year's festive TV schedule? The main thing that we're missing out on is Doctor Who. There's no Doctor Who this year. Instead, we're getting the Russell T Davies spin-off, The War Between the Land and the Sea. That's airing this Sunday, so December 7th, and that's a Doctor Who spin-off. There's no Doctor in that, which kind of makes sense when you consider that A, the show isn't on hiatus and B, Shuti Gatua regenerated into Billy Piper at the end of the last series and presumably Billy Piper was like a one appearance kind of thing. So it remains to be seen what's going to happen with Doctor Who.

6:31And why do we love Christmas TV so much? I think the reason we love Christmas TV so much is that it's a return, you know, beloved TV shows come back and do specials. So last year was Gavin and Stacey and I think that maybe put our expectations up too high for what we should expect. All the usuals are there. But there isn't really a standout must-watch show this year unless you're a massive fan of Amanda Land. But fortunately, we do have The Stranger Things Part 2 coming out on the 26th in the UK. So if you can hold on just one more day, you will get to watch some cracking Boxing Day TV. Tell me a bit more about Stranger Things.

7:06Yeah, so as is the way of things these days, Netflix has dropped its last series of Stranger things that series five but to kind of milk it for maximum publicity they've split the series into three so series five part one came out a few weeks ago part two which is the next three episodes i believe will be coming out on boxing day and then the final episode will be coming out so it'll be coming out new year's eve in america and new year's day in the uk be about 1am new year's day so if you are bored of partying you can always tune in to watch strange things that That would have been the first thing you do in 2026.

7:41So have you watched it already? Not part two. No, I am on tenterhooks because for those who have watched part one, ended on a massive cliffhanger. So I am fascinated to see what happens next. And what did you make of part one? Is it worth a watch? Oh, part one was great. So it's a lot more adult than the previous seasons, which kind of makes sense because all of the characters have now grown up. We have 21 year olds now looking like, or 21-year-olds being expected to play, I think, roughly 16, 17-year-old kids. So that stretches credulity somewhat. And the cast is absolutely massive at this point.

8:15We have maybe like 11 or 12 main cast members. But the thing is, we know them all so well at this point that it's just a joy to watch them being silly on screen. And, you know, maybe the plot doesn't quite hang together, but the action is great. There are some great plot twists. It's just a really funny, fun, silly camp and very gory time. So, yeah, I really would recommend watching it if you haven't already. looking ahead what shows are on offer in the new year yeah so new year's i would say is when it gets a bit more exciting so there's the stranger things finale obviously coming out but then we also have a couple more bbc specials we've got traitors so the first episode of series four drops at 8 p.m and it's not celebrity traitors very sadly it is just regular joe public traitors but that will be i think one of the big ones to watch especially because you know the celebrities were all very nice to each other but I think Joe Public seeing as they have 100k at stake that they could possibly win for themselves are probably going to be a lot meaner so that'll be fun and then we also have the Night Manager season two that's dropping on January the 1st as well it's been a long time since the first one maybe like almost a decade and we're getting to see Tom Hiddleston with a slightly thinner hairline return for this season of espionage, guns, sex with beautiful women presumably so james bond light essentially and then we also have the annual harlan coban thriller adaption that's this one's called runaway and it stars ruth jones john pointing among other people and that always does super well it's just a netflix show but it's fun and frothy and silly and the thriller so yeah all those things to get stuck into we're sport for choice and there's also currently a christmas special of with love megan on netflix have you seen it?

9:56So I haven't seen it, but I have it on good authority. So my lovely colleague India watched it yesterday and I have it on good authority that it is the most silly piece of television to come out in a while. If you've watched With Love, Megan, which is, I guess, the show that this is the Christmas special of, you kind of know what you're letting yourself in for. It's a lot of her, I guess, providing the vision equivalent of white noise, I would say. So, you know, showing us how to like wrap presents the right way, making these kind of horrendous looking like healthy Californian food wreaths with asparagus and broccolini and a tahini dip, wearing monogrammed pajamas, saying really bland and boring things.

10:36I guess the most amusing thing is that we see her dog, Guy, in the background of this, which makes it interesting. I'll be interested to know when this was filmed because a guy famously died early this year so they must have filmed both series and the Christmas special like back to back at some point in 2024 so I don't know if we're getting another series after this I'll be very surprised so maybe tune in to watch some very gentle television and maybe raise a glass to the show that's probably not going to come back for a third season Prince Harry's rolled out at some point and we find out that he hates black olives and beetroot, which I find very tragic.

11:19And Megan wears a massive ball gown and they all clink champagne together. And, you know, if you like Megan, then this is probably going to be fine. If you don't like her, it will probably reinforce the views you already have about her. So I don't know, watch to confirm your bias, I suppose. Finally, is there anything else to add, Vicky? I mean, there's a fair amount coming out in the run-up to Christmas. I mentioned Amadeus, there's Taylor Swift the era's tour so it's the documentary behind the scenes documentary of the era's tour again whether or not you'll enjoy that kind of will depend on whether or not you are a big fan of Taylor Swift personally I have had too much Taylor Swift shoved into my eyeballs the past 48 months or whatever it's not something I will be tuning in for but yeah I guess again it's like a nice frothy thing and the best thing is you don't have to pay a ticket to go and see it in the cinema because it's already on Disney+.

12:08So if you want to save money or maybe, you know, not give any more to the Taylor Swift Grugganaut, then this is the perfect combination.

12:20And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. If you'd like to get in touch, please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here on Monday morning. We'll see you then. You