Everything British Worth Streaming in December 2024

December is upon us, and if you weren't ready for 2024 to be over, well, I can't help you; heck, I can't even get my stuff together, as evidenced by the fact that this post is going up five days after the first of the month. To be fair, it's not totally my fault; some of the delays were due to (A) the holidays and (B) the inability of specific networks (who shall remain nameless) to set all their release dates for the holiday season before they all went on vacation. But finally, everyone's ducks are in a row (well, mostly), and we can run down everything streaming for December 2024, the holidays, and the end of the year.

The "Festive Special" (which is the politically correct term the Brits landed on in the early aughts and are now stuck using) is a British tradition in the best sense of the word; the true "TV replaces staring at the fire" in action, as families gather in the living room and instead of staring at flames and reaming, they stare at all the characters they spend the year with, checking in to see how the holidays are going at their place. Americans have the Lifetime/Hallmark Christmas Movies, of course, and network shows here sometimes still air holiday-timed episodes in conjunction with the season. But with scripted series taking less real estate on our televisions, it's now becoming a borrowed tradition on these shores as those of us on this side of the pond tune into the Christmas episodes coming over from the U.K.

It's not wall-to-wall "festive" offerings; some regular programming is mixed in for the scrooges who would like to be excused from the holiday narrative. Let's run down everything on offer, including a couple that debuted in the first few days of the month.