Winter TV Watch List: Michelle Yeoh's Big Year Continues, Noah Baumbach Tackles the Unfilmable

Cozy up over the holidays with a Witcher spinoff, heartbreaking animal documentary or a Matilda musical No images? [Click here]( ID=167008;size=700x180;setID=556351;uid={EMAIL}7192949;click=watch-list; [TheWrap - SUMMER TV WATCH LIST] Week of December 24 – 30 Ho-ho-ho! Christmas is finally here and with it, hopefully, some time off. But what to fill these snuggly wintertime days with? How about a lot of great television? Because this week we’ve got Michelle Yeoh in a “Witcher” spin-off, a new Noah Baumbach movie, a heartbreaking documentary and plenty for the kids – from a live “Encanto” special to a musical version of “Matilda” to a brand-new Walt Disney Animation Studios film! Everybody in the house will be happy this holiday! On with the television! [Premiere of the week] “The Witcher: Blood Origin”Sunday, December 25, Netflix [The Witcher Blood Origin] Photo: Netflix Michelle Yeoh’s very big year concludes with an appearance in this, the brand-new spin-off of Netflix’s “The Witcher.” “The Witcher: Blood Origin” is set 1,200 years before the events of the mainline television show, exploring an ancient Elven community before it went extinct. Yeoh plays one member of a band of merry warriors in the lead-up to the creation of the very first Witcher (Sophia Brown and Laurence O’Fuarain are some of the other warriors). Chances are if you’re a fan of “The Witcher,” then this four-part miniseries will be edifying. And since it’s a prequel series, if you’ve never seen watched “The Witcher,” this could be a good start. At the very least, the trailer promises epic battles, otherworldly creatures, mystical vortexes and Minnie Driver. Sounds like a witchy good time! [[TRAILER](] ID=167008;size=300x250;setID=492280;uid={EMAIL}7192949;click=watch-list; [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “Ziwe”Sunday, December 25 at 11 p.m., Showtime Photo: Showtime Somehow it makes perfect sense that “Ziwe’s” season two finale is airing on Christmas night and its theme is “Juneteenth.” It’s unclear if Ziwe Fumudoh’s cutting edge, button-pushing talk show will be back for a third season. If it doesn’t, we have no doubt that it’ll go out on a high note. [[TRAILER](] [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “White Noise”Friday, December 30, Netflix [White Noise] Photo: Netflix For his first adaptation, filmmaker Noah Baumbach chose a whopper – Don DeLillo’s supposedly unfilmable 1985 novel “White Noise.” Adam Driver plays a professor at a leafy New England college (he teaches Hitler Studies) whose wife (Baumbach’s partner Greta Gerwig) he suspects of popping pills and whose boisterous family, mostly cobbled together from the children of their previous marriages, is a tornado of endless crosstalk and jibber jabber. Baumbach would probably be happy to just stay in their cloistered, dysfunctional enclave, but there are bigger issues here – primarily a train wreck that has unleashed a noxious cloud (classified as an “airborne toxic event”) that threatens their small town and allows for Baumbach to indulge in bigger action sequences that border on the Spielbergian. You can feel, while watching it, Baumbach using the endless runway afforded him after the success of his brilliant, Oscar-winning “Marriage Story,” to make something truly exceptional and definitely sprawling. And the movie’s very end, [an elaborate dance sequence]( set to a killer new LCD Soundsystem song, serves as the perfect postmodern punctuation. What a ride. [[TRAILER](] [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “Wildcat”Friday, December 30, Prime Video [Wildcat] Photo: Prime Video This looks like it’ll rip your heart out. From the studio that recently made you fall in love with a couple of Mars rovers (in the excellent documentary “Good Night Oppy”), get ready for the adorable and we are assuming tragic relationship between a veteran and a wildcat, deep in the South American jungle. According to the official synopsis, a young British soldier recovering from his time in Afghanistan travels to South America where he “meets a young female scientist running a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center, and his life finds new meaning as he is entrusted with the life of an orphaned baby ocelot. What was meant to be an attempt to escape from life turns out to be an unexpected journey of love, discovery, and healing.” Get ready to get choked up. [[TRAILER](] ID=167008;size=300x250;setID=492280;uid={EMAIL}7192949;click=watch-list; [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”HBO Max [christmas-vacation] Photo: Warner Bros. Judging by how many times it’s played on television this time of year and how lovingly its spoken about today, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is a bona-fide Christmas classic. And it should be! The whip smart script by John Hughes rivals his other Christmas comedy favorite “Home Alone” and Chevy Chase, as Clark the leader of the bumbling Griswold family, actually has some depth and dimension as a dad wanting to give his family the greatest holiday ever. (Beverly D’Angelo deserves just as much applause as his long-suffering wife.) There are so many memorable set pieces in this movie, from the family chopping down the Christmas tree to Clark’s attempts at putting on an epic light display. And Randy Quaid’s performance as Uncle Eddie is superb. It’s also notable for featuring work from two geniuses who we lost earlier this year – Ralph Eggelston, who would contribute pioneering work to Pixar, was responsible for “Christmas Vacation’s” animated title sequence; and composer Angelo Badalamenti, who gave the movie its lush, occasionally sinister, score. Watch “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” again for them. And for you. [[WATCH](] [- - -] [Premiere of the week] “Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical”Sunday, December 25, NetflixSee if you can follow this: this is a feature adaptation of a Broadway and West End musical that was based in part on the Roald Dahl novel “Matilda” that also serves as a remake to the live-action movie that starred Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. (Got all that?) This latest iteration has a truly insane cast (Emma Thompson, Lashana Lynch, Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough) and people seemed to enjoy the stage version well enough. This could be the perfect thing to watch with the family this Christmas break (along with a couple of other chestnuts elsewhere on this list). [[TRAILER](] “Treason”Monday, December 26, NetflixFrom the co-writer of Steven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies” Matt Chapman, “Treason” looks like a twisty turny British spy thriller about the fallout after the head of the British intelligence agency MI-6 (Ciarán Hinds) is taken out of commission by an attempted assassination. Charlie Cox is the young, potentially compromised agent who steps up to the top job and attempts to untangle the mystery; Olga Kurylenko is a femme fatale. We’re in. [[TRAILER](] “Encanto at the Hollywood Bowl”Wednesday, December 28, Disney+Everybody loves “Encanto.” This is just a fact. And a few weeks ago at the Hollywood Bowl, Disney put on an incredible live show that united the original, very adorable cast for a state production/watch-along that was really unlike anything we’ve ever seen (we were there). Thankfully, they filmed it for the rest of the world and this should be a total delight. Watch as the iconic architecture of the Bowl is transformed into the Casa Madrigal via projection mapping and other magic only Disney could conjure. And yes, they do talk about Bruno. [[TRAILER](] “This Place Rules”Friday, December 30 at 11 p.m., HBOA feature-length documentary from gonzo Internet journalist Andrew Callaghan, “This Place Rules” charts the rise in extremism in the runup to the January 6 insurrection. Produced by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim and featuring a sequence where Callaghan drinks whiskey and lifts weights with Alex Jones, this is probably the closest we’ll get to a third “Borat” movie, at least for a while. [[TRAILER](] “Strange World”Disney+“Strange World” is Disney’s latest animated feature, a rip-roaring adventure fantasy that was all but lost when it opened earlier this year. Thankfully, Disney quickly shuffled the movie onto Disney+ (it quietly debuted there last week). And it really is worth your time. [It’s the story]( of a family of explorers who travel deep into the earth to try and uncover the mystery behind their dying energy source, it’s full of wacky creatures, grand action set pieces and lovable characters (our favorite is Legend, the family’s adorable three-legged dog named after actual Disney Legend Burny Mattinson). With some time off, it’s an excellent opportunity to explore this “Strange World.” [[TRAILER](] [- - -] That does it for this week’s edition of The Wrap’s Winter TV Watch List. If you aren’t a subscriber, you can fix that by [signing up here](. Any suggestions for an upcoming premiere, finale or re-watch? [Drop us a line!](mailto:inquiries@thewrap.com) [- - -] [Update your profile]( | [View our privacy policy]( | [Unsubscribe]( Sent from: TheWrap | 1808 Stanford Street | Santa Monica, CA, 90404 | attn: Email Coordinator [TheWrap]( ID=167008;size=700x180;setID=556352;uid={EMAIL}7192949;click=watch-list; This email was sent to {EMAIL}. 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