![\"Us](\"https:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Us-Has-Thoughts-The-Rise-of-Prestige-Like-TV-004.jpg?w=1000&quality=86&strip=all\")
<\/div>![\"Mila](\"https:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/wake-up-dead-man-craig.jpg?w=400&h=225&crop=1&quality=86&strip=all\")
<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n\t\t\t
\n Related: <\/span>New on Netflix in December 2025 \u2014 The Full List of Movies and TV Shows<\/span><\/a>
\n\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n\t\t\tDecember is a time for building snowmen, avoiding mistletoe and hiding your disappointment when you open a gift from Aunt Gladys. (No, not that Aunt Gladys.) At Netflix, it\u2019s all about streaming the best movies and TV shows around. Throughout the month, the world\u2019s most popular streaming service will roll out some of the most [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Today, we\u2019ve entered mid TV\u2019s second watered-down wave. I think of these shows as Monets; in the parlance of Clueless<\/i><\/a>, they\u2019re OK from far away, but up close, they\u2019re a big old mess. In the language of critical theory, we\u2019re in a simulacrum, where copies of copies get diluted and de-fanged with each iteration. The twists are less surprising. The writing is more on-the-nose. Nuance is gone.<\/span><\/p>\n\n![\"Us](\"https:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Us-Has-Thoughts-The-Rise-of-Prestige-Like-TV-001.jpg?w=1000&quality=76&strip=all\")
<\/div>Apple TV<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nTake Task<\/i>, which had shades of its predecessor Mare of Easttown<\/i><\/a> but lacked the smarts. The climax in Easttown<\/i> was shocking but inevitable. In Task<\/i>, figuring out who the bad guy was felt like a shell game. We knew the general vicinity, but no answer would have surprised us. Even the Delco accents felt forced this time around. When Kate Winslet<\/strong> and Jean Smart<\/strong> introduced us to \u201cwooder\u201d and \u201ccricks\u201d it was groundbreaking; when Tom Pelphrey<\/strong> and Emilia Jones<\/strong> \u2014 both terrific \u2014 did, it was a bit like watching a party trick for the second time.<\/span><\/p>\nBy the end of Lazarus \u2014 <\/i>which would draw anyone in because it\u2019s another adapted Harlen Coben<\/strong><\/a> thriller that stars the very pretty Sam Claflin<\/strong> and the very talented Bill Nighy<\/strong> and also takes place across cozy flats and pubs in London \u2014 I was befuddled but also indifferent. I wasn\u2019t sure whether I was clear on everything that had happened, then realized I didn\u2019t actually care because there were so many other shows waiting to be watched. Not even Claflin\u2019s face could make me want to piece together all the untethered strands of plot and impossibility (e.g. a magical therapist\u2019s office where ghosts of patients past show up and feed information to the protagonist \u2014 or was that our hero having reverberations of a previous nervous breakdown? We\u2019ll never know). Again, I watched the whole thing. It was fun, it was fine. It killed a couple of nights on the couch when the sun sets at 5 p.m. and my other option is bed-rotting.<\/span><\/p>\nAll Her Fault<\/i><\/a>, starring the fantastic Sarah Snook<\/strong><\/a> and Dakota Fanning<\/strong><\/a>, is another series I enjoyed, because who wouldn\u2019t enjoy these women in anything, especially when they drink wine in beautiful houses on the scenic Chicago coast? (Seriously, Snook is probably one of the top 10 best actors working today. Her one-woman performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em><\/a> in London\u2019s West End and then Broadway was astounding, and she deservedly got both the Olivier and the Tony for it.) Only, the themes \u2014 important ones, like that women shoulder most of the labor in domestic relationships \u2014 are drilled into us with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, and the show\u2019s narrative thrust comes from the taking-apart of a straightforward story and putting it back together. It\u2019s like adding music to an otherwise deflated scene to give the illusion of drama. Or holding back information from the viewer so things that aren\u2019t twists feel like they are.<\/span><\/p>\n\n![\"Us](\"https:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Us-Has-Thoughts-The-Rise-of-Prestige-Like-TV-002.jpg?w=1000&quality=86&strip=all\")
<\/div>Peter Kramer\/HBO<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAnd The Beast in Me<\/i>, a Robert Durst\u2013tinged mystery that shot to No. 1 on Netflix right after its Nov. 13 release and which I gobbled up in two days, is autumny and sexy and stars two of the finest actors around, Claire Danes<\/strong><\/a> and Matthew Rhys<\/strong><\/a>. (Plus Dierdre O\u2019Connell<\/strong>! And Bill Irwin<\/strong>! And Natalie Morales<\/strong>! And Brittany Snow<\/strong><\/a>! And Jonathan Banks!) But no amount of trembly-chin crying could make it riveting in the way only true prestige TV can be. It was just a bit too on the nose.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n![\"Felicity](\"https:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/oh-what-fun.jpg?w=400&h=225&crop=1&quality=40&strip=all\")
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\n Related: <\/span>New on Prime Video in December 2025 \u2014 The Full List of Movies and TV Shows<\/span><\/a>
\n\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n\t\t\tPrime Video saved the best for last this holiday season. The streamer just unveiled its December 2025 programming schedule, and it\u2019s packed full of hits from the past and present, plus new originals featuring one of Watch With Us\u2018 favorite stars. That\u2019s Michelle Pfeiffer, who headlines the Christmas comedy, Oh. What. Fun, from director Michael [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
As a comparison: In 2020\u2019s The Undoing<\/i>, when we find out that the guy most likely to be the bad guy is<\/i> actually the bad guy, it\u2019s a revelation that makes us look inward. Why had we resisted it? What did it say about us that we had looked for every possible outcome other than the most obvious one in order to absolve a charming man played by Hugh Grant<\/strong><\/a>? In Beast<\/i>, though there are moments when you wonder whether the sociopathic, carnivorous Rhys could really be as bloodlusty as he seems or is just a red herring, mostly you know the whole time that of course he killed his wife. (But also, if it turned out that he didn\u2019t, the script had hedged enough that we\u2019d buy that too. It was all pretty anticlimactic. Which I guess makes it more mid than Monet? I don\u2019t know. Who cares. Let\u2019s move on!)<\/span><\/p>\nFor me the biggest indicator of a Monet, and the most frustrating part, is the lack of trust in the viewers. Sometimes things are so spelled out they are literally said \u2014 in expositional dialogue, from the characters \u2014 and some of that is by design to cater to second-screen viewing habits. But those moments make me want to shout, \u201cJust trust us, we\u2019ll get there! Show more, say less! And if we don\u2019t, one of our friends will tell us and we\u2019ll be gobsmacked!\u201d I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s easy to create work like that. I literally jumped out of my chair when Keyser S\u00f6ze was finally revealed in 1995\u2019s The Usual Suspects<\/i>, and I\u2019ve been searching for that feeling ever since.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBut sometimes that lack of trust can feel like arrogance, or worse, contempt, and in those moments, it\u2019s not that things are spelled out too much but not at all \u2014 because they can\u2019t be. They don\u2019t make sense, and nobody could possibly explain them. In those cases, I don\u2019t want the shows to say more or less but say better<\/i>; to go back and take another stab at revising the draft, to make it as complex as it\u2019s pretending to be.<\/span><\/p>\nOr to admit to itself that it\u2019s not complex at all and stop trying to look like it is \u2014 to lean into its schlockiness instead of taking itself so seriously. This is what separates Monets from shows that know exactly what they are and don\u2019t pretend otherwise, like the widely panned but already-renewed-for-season-2 All\u2019s Fair<\/i><\/a>, which is pure Ryan Murphy<\/strong><\/a> camp and knows it. The biggest tell there is Kim Kardashian<\/strong><\/a>, and I don\u2019t mean that negatively. No amount of Sarah Paulson<\/strong><\/a>, Glenn Close<\/strong><\/a>, Niecy Nash-Betts<\/strong><\/a> and Naomi Watts<\/strong><\/a> could counter the Kim Kardashian of it all. Her presence tells you right away that you are not watching prestige television or anything vaguely like it. And even if you hate it, at least it knows what it is.<\/span><\/p>\n\n![\"Us](\"https:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Us-Has-Thoughts-The-Rise-of-Prestige-Like-TV-003.jpg?w=1000&quality=86&strip=all\")
<\/div>Hilary Bronwyn Gayle \/ \u00a9Netflix\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHunting Wives<\/i><\/a> falls into this group too. When I started it, I rolled my eyes because it wasn\u2019t what I was expecting, but that was my fault: I\u2019d made assumptions about it, but it actually never pretended to be prestige. From minute one, it knows what it is \u2014 Duck Dynasty<\/i> plus Dallas <\/em>plus lesbians \u2014 and once we do too, it\u2019s just fun.<\/span><\/p>\nI asked Us<\/em> staffers which shows they think fit the bill for a Monet. Music editor Eliza Thompson<\/strong><\/a> picked the candy-coated all-star dazzler Palm Royale<\/em><\/a>: \u201cThe jokes don\u2019t land, it\u2019s not enough drama to be a drama and it wants to be campy but doesn\u2019t lean in hard enough.\u201d Associate editor Molly McGuigan<\/strong><\/a> named 2024\u2019s The Perfect Couple<\/em><\/a> with its \u201cwinding, melodramatic plot, way too many characters and unsatisfying ending.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n
<\/div>Take Task<\/i>, which had shades of its predecessor Mare of Easttown<\/i><\/a> but lacked the smarts. The climax in Easttown<\/i> was shocking but inevitable. In Task<\/i>, figuring out who the bad guy was felt like a shell game. We knew the general vicinity, but no answer would have surprised us. Even the Delco accents felt forced this time around. When Kate Winslet<\/strong> and Jean Smart<\/strong> introduced us to \u201cwooder\u201d and \u201ccricks\u201d it was groundbreaking; when Tom Pelphrey<\/strong> and Emilia Jones<\/strong> \u2014 both terrific \u2014 did, it was a bit like watching a party trick for the second time.<\/span><\/p>\n By the end of Lazarus \u2014 <\/i>which would draw anyone in because it\u2019s another adapted Harlen Coben<\/strong><\/a> thriller that stars the very pretty Sam Claflin<\/strong> and the very talented Bill Nighy<\/strong> and also takes place across cozy flats and pubs in London \u2014 I was befuddled but also indifferent. I wasn\u2019t sure whether I was clear on everything that had happened, then realized I didn\u2019t actually care because there were so many other shows waiting to be watched. Not even Claflin\u2019s face could make me want to piece together all the untethered strands of plot and impossibility (e.g. a magical therapist\u2019s office where ghosts of patients past show up and feed information to the protagonist \u2014 or was that our hero having reverberations of a previous nervous breakdown? We\u2019ll never know). Again, I watched the whole thing. It was fun, it was fine. It killed a couple of nights on the couch when the sun sets at 5 p.m. and my other option is bed-rotting.<\/span><\/p>\n All Her Fault<\/i><\/a>, starring the fantastic Sarah Snook<\/strong><\/a> and Dakota Fanning<\/strong><\/a>, is another series I enjoyed, because who wouldn\u2019t enjoy these women in anything, especially when they drink wine in beautiful houses on the scenic Chicago coast? (Seriously, Snook is probably one of the top 10 best actors working today. Her one-woman performance in The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em><\/a> in London\u2019s West End and then Broadway was astounding, and she deservedly got both the Olivier and the Tony for it.) Only, the themes \u2014 important ones, like that women shoulder most of the labor in domestic relationships \u2014 are drilled into us with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, and the show\u2019s narrative thrust comes from the taking-apart of a straightforward story and putting it back together. It\u2019s like adding music to an otherwise deflated scene to give the illusion of drama. Or holding back information from the viewer so things that aren\u2019t twists feel like they are.<\/span><\/p>\n And The Beast in Me<\/i>, a Robert Durst\u2013tinged mystery that shot to No. 1 on Netflix right after its Nov. 13 release and which I gobbled up in two days, is autumny and sexy and stars two of the finest actors around, Claire Danes<\/strong><\/a> and Matthew Rhys<\/strong><\/a>. (Plus Dierdre O\u2019Connell<\/strong>! And Bill Irwin<\/strong>! And Natalie Morales<\/strong>! And Brittany Snow<\/strong><\/a>! And Jonathan Banks!) But no amount of trembly-chin crying could make it riveting in the way only true prestige TV can be. It was just a bit too on the nose.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t<\/a><\/p>\n \n\t\t\tPrime Video saved the best for last this holiday season. The streamer just unveiled its December 2025 programming schedule, and it\u2019s packed full of hits from the past and present, plus new originals featuring one of Watch With Us\u2018 favorite stars. That\u2019s Michelle Pfeiffer, who headlines the Christmas comedy, Oh. What. Fun, from director Michael [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As a comparison: In 2020\u2019s The Undoing<\/i>, when we find out that the guy most likely to be the bad guy is<\/i> actually the bad guy, it\u2019s a revelation that makes us look inward. Why had we resisted it? What did it say about us that we had looked for every possible outcome other than the most obvious one in order to absolve a charming man played by Hugh Grant<\/strong><\/a>? In Beast<\/i>, though there are moments when you wonder whether the sociopathic, carnivorous Rhys could really be as bloodlusty as he seems or is just a red herring, mostly you know the whole time that of course he killed his wife. (But also, if it turned out that he didn\u2019t, the script had hedged enough that we\u2019d buy that too. It was all pretty anticlimactic. Which I guess makes it more mid than Monet? I don\u2019t know. Who cares. Let\u2019s move on!)<\/span><\/p>\n For me the biggest indicator of a Monet, and the most frustrating part, is the lack of trust in the viewers. Sometimes things are so spelled out they are literally said \u2014 in expositional dialogue, from the characters \u2014 and some of that is by design to cater to second-screen viewing habits. But those moments make me want to shout, \u201cJust trust us, we\u2019ll get there! Show more, say less! And if we don\u2019t, one of our friends will tell us and we\u2019ll be gobsmacked!\u201d I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s easy to create work like that. I literally jumped out of my chair when Keyser S\u00f6ze was finally revealed in 1995\u2019s The Usual Suspects<\/i>, and I\u2019ve been searching for that feeling ever since.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But sometimes that lack of trust can feel like arrogance, or worse, contempt, and in those moments, it\u2019s not that things are spelled out too much but not at all \u2014 because they can\u2019t be. They don\u2019t make sense, and nobody could possibly explain them. In those cases, I don\u2019t want the shows to say more or less but say better<\/i>; to go back and take another stab at revising the draft, to make it as complex as it\u2019s pretending to be.<\/span><\/p>\n Or to admit to itself that it\u2019s not complex at all and stop trying to look like it is \u2014 to lean into its schlockiness instead of taking itself so seriously. This is what separates Monets from shows that know exactly what they are and don\u2019t pretend otherwise, like the widely panned but already-renewed-for-season-2 All\u2019s Fair<\/i><\/a>, which is pure Ryan Murphy<\/strong><\/a> camp and knows it. The biggest tell there is Kim Kardashian<\/strong><\/a>, and I don\u2019t mean that negatively. No amount of Sarah Paulson<\/strong><\/a>, Glenn Close<\/strong><\/a>, Niecy Nash-Betts<\/strong><\/a> and Naomi Watts<\/strong><\/a> could counter the Kim Kardashian of it all. Her presence tells you right away that you are not watching prestige television or anything vaguely like it. And even if you hate it, at least it knows what it is.<\/span><\/p>\n Hunting Wives<\/i><\/a> falls into this group too. When I started it, I rolled my eyes because it wasn\u2019t what I was expecting, but that was my fault: I\u2019d made assumptions about it, but it actually never pretended to be prestige. From minute one, it knows what it is \u2014 Duck Dynasty<\/i> plus Dallas <\/em>plus lesbians \u2014 and once we do too, it\u2019s just fun.<\/span><\/p>\n I asked Us<\/em> staffers which shows they think fit the bill for a Monet. Music editor Eliza Thompson<\/strong><\/a> picked the candy-coated all-star dazzler Palm Royale<\/em><\/a>: \u201cThe jokes don\u2019t land, it\u2019s not enough drama to be a drama and it wants to be campy but doesn\u2019t lean in hard enough.\u201d Associate editor Molly McGuigan<\/strong><\/a> named 2024\u2019s The Perfect Couple<\/em><\/a> with its \u201cwinding, melodramatic plot, way too many characters and unsatisfying ending.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n\t\t\t
\n Related: <\/span>New on Prime Video in December 2025 \u2014 The Full List of Movies and TV Shows<\/span><\/a>
\n\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>