Things to look forward to in 2026

Happy Boxing Day! Which is often a reasonably good time to blog, so here goes. There are quite a few projects cultural-consumption-wise that I'm at least moderately excited about, so I'll stick with a roundup of films/TV/the occasional book I'm looking forward to rather than a wish list of what I would like to happen (those are always a bit trickier to write anyway). As in 2025, I'm not expecting to get too carried away and develop a new villain crush or anything, but you never know.

Seven Dials Mystery: Agatha Christie adaptations are a mixed bag, but this one, premiering on Netflix early this year, could be a fun one. The book it's based on is a romp, with some tongue-in-cheek references to the world of P.G. Wodehouse (though you don't have to pick up on them to enjoy it), and an almost guaranteed mood-lifter. The only thing I'm not too keen on in the book is a certain snobbishness – the heroine Lady Eileen aka Bundle is part of the aristocracy, and sometimes a faint contempt for New Money shines through. But Bundle is mostly likeable, unlike her ghastly dad.

I'm relying on Netflix to prune the snobbishness, but I'm a bit nervous about what else they'll change. Bundle seems well-cast, though.

A Tale of Two Cities: Apparently, BBC in collaboration with MGM+ is working on a new adaptation, and it has been a while since the last one. Two Cities isn't one of my favourite Dickens novels (Barsad is fun, but otherwise it's lacking in the male villain department). However, I do like it, and a French Revolution setting is always interesting. 

Moreover, this will give a good indication of whether the Beeb can still do Dickens or if they are too mired in cultural politics to get a classic adaptation right (I could only make it through two episodes of the latest "gritty" Great Expectations). Kit Harington aka Jon Snow in Game of Thrones plays Sydney Carton – no objections from me – but another actor plays his accidental double Charles Darnay. Well, OK then.

One Piece season two: I haven't blogged about this hard-to-define Netflix show – fantasy and pirate adventure mashup is how I'd describe the genre – but I had a great time with the first season of this live-action adaptation of an anime. The fictional world is quite insane, and the premise more than a little strange. The charismatic young protagonist Monkey D. Luffy is dead set from an early age on finding a fabled pirate treasure (the One Piece of the title) and becoming "King of the Pirates". His wild ambition becomes increasingly likely as he gathers a motley crew of talented misfits, acquires a ship and finds (well, steals) a rare map.

What makes the premise strange is that Luffy doesn't actually want to rob anyone, and doesn't seem to realise that this is what pirates do most of the time, rather than just hunt for treasure and go on adventures. Also, no-one points this out to him (his pal Koby, who ends up with the Marines, has a try, but is told that "there are good and bad pirates"). Encountering increasingly sinister pirate captains in the forms of a short-tempered female pirate with a skull-crushing club; a psychotic clown; a creepy con man masquerading as a butler; and finally a fishman with an anti-human bias does not serve as a wake-up call to Luffy. However, the sheer charm of the progatonists and lots of exciting derring-do carry the series through all absurdities (which are entertaining in themselves), so here's hoping they keep it up in the next season.

The Mandalorian and Grogu: As someone who enjoyed all seasons of The Mandalorian, even the third one, I have to include this on my list, though I'm not sure where next Din Djarin's and Grogu's story could go. But I like to spend time in this part of the Star Wars universe, so I'm happy to catch this at the cinema. Let's hope that, if Thrawn makes an appearance, he'll be more impressive than in Ahsoka, and that they don't waste too much time on Grogu-being-cute scenes.

Dark Reading Matter by Jasper Fforde: Finally, a Thursday Next novel! It's apparently the last one, but I understand that; it might be time to wrap up Thursday's story.  

I wasn't as fond of the latest Thursday Next novel, The Woman Who Died A Lot, as the other ones in the series, and I did not care for the last instalment of Fforde's The Last Dragonslayer series (which was never a great favourite of mine) or the stand-alone novel Early Riser. Consequently, I've been a bit worried about Fforde's fictional output lately. What with that obvious immigrants-as-rabbits allegory he wrote (to be fair, I haven't read it, but honestly – I hate this trope), I was afraid that he was suffering from the modern ailment of politicitis which has had a baleful influence on cultural output. But I was pleasantly surprised by the follow-up to Shades of Grey, Red Side Story, which though by no means unpolitical had the old Ffordian verve and inventiveness. So I'm cautiously optimistic. If I like Dark Reading Matter, it might be time for another full-length Jasper Fforde post.

Avengers: Doomsday: It's make-or-break-time for the MCU, and I will be there cheering the Avengers on, or possibly Doctor Doom. And Loki will definitely be in it!

The yearly crop of Netflix Christmas films

'Tis the season for not too demanding blog posts. Last year, I admitted to the guilty pleasure of watching Christmas romcoms on Netflix; this year, I've indulged even more heavily, and might as well give a few tips to those who share my taste for this particular kind of brain rot. Always remembering that we're not talking The Seventh Seal here (fortunately).

The ones to watch while you're wrapping presents (or not at all): The award for the most plotless Christmas rom-coms available on Netflix this year (at least as watched by me) goes to Haul out the Holly and Haul out the Holly: Lit Up. Their main attraction is Lacey Chabert, of Mean Girls and Hot Frosty fame. Emily, a stressed-out woman with Christmas-mad parents, returns home to her small town (of course) after a bad breakup. Only, her parents are disappearing to Florida and the duty of keeping up the over-the-top decorating and Christmas jollities now falls, at least partly, to her. She only wants to have a nice, quiet Christmas but is somehow won over by the collective hysteria. 

In the follow-up, Emily and the other townsfolk feel threatened by a family of influencers (gasp!) who want to take over the festivities completely. I actually somewhat preferred Haul out the Holly: Lit Up to the first film – the dialogue is a bit sharper, and the quirky neighbours have their moments – but there's no denying both films are very thin indeed; Chabert, pro though she is, has her work cut out. Also, the message is confusing. At some point, I'd have liked someone to remind the small-town busybodies that Christmas isn't about the tallness of your nutcracker (that's not a euphemism: this is a thing). Nevertheless, you won't miss much while struggling to wrap up that cosy sweater, which is a plus.      

The stilted ones: Sometimes you just want a Christmas romance that actually is a bit stiff and unconvincing, simply to get into the right frivolous spirit. Paris Christmas Waltz and A Cinderella Christmas Ball are good alternatives for watching while present-wrapping, if you can't face the Haul out the Holly films. The romantic leads struggle to produce any chemistry, the romantic entanglements feel cut and pasted from other Christmas romances, and there's a certain air of cutting corners when it comes to costs. But the surroundings are nice, and there are some surprisingly good performances from side characters. In Paris Christmas Waltz, Paul Freeman nails the wise mentor role (even the Frenchness), and A Cinderella Christmas Ball has a solid supporting cast all round. I especially appreciated the surly guard, the crusty butler and the disgraced Duke who spouted none-too-brilliant words of wisdom with full-on sincerity.

The actually quite good ones: If I'm not mistaken, all the films I've mentioned so far are imported fare, shown but not produced by Netflix. The homegrown crop this year is a cut above: it feels like Netflix is getting the hang of this. True, the best Netflix romcom I've watched this year was not a Christmas one (The Wrong Paris – yep, I'm as surprised as you are). But Champagne Problems isn't half bad either. 

If you opt for only one Christmas romcom set in Paris, please let it be this one and not Paris Christmas Waltz. In Champagne Problems, glamorous business woman Sydney goes to Paris to win a bidding war for a French winery on behalf of her company. She accidentally falls for the owner's estranged son, and complications ensue as she ends up spending the weekend at the vineyard with an assortment of national stereotypes while trying to show her mettle.

Call me easily pleased, but having the French characters talk to each other in actual, correct French, and the German pronounce each obscure German Christmas phenomenon impeccably (because the actors actually are French/German, duh) already gives the project a certain classiness for me. To add to this, the dialogue is pretty fizzy, and the hero, instead of only hanging around gazing longingly at the heroine, actually has his own drama to resolve. Pas mal du tout.

A Merry Little X-Mas was also good fun. Personally, I found the environmentalist female lead character (a yummy mummy played by Alicia Silverstone – man, I'm old) hard to take, but the rival love interests (a toy-boy himbo and an English model really trying not to lose it) of the couple supposedly breaking up kind of stole the show, and there were some solid chuckles along the way. If you need small-town American cosiness, this is better than Haul out the Holly.

The absolutely bonkers one: I had to find one with a premise almost as out there as Hot Frosty, and My Secret Santa fits the bill. Get this: a single mother, who's lost her uninspiring job because of cut-backs, is desperate to find money to send her daughter to... snow-boarding school. A nearby resort offers a 50% discount on the school fees, but their only opening is for an inhouse Santa. So our intrepid heroine disguises herself as a jovial old man and lands the job, while falling for the resort owner's son.

Really, one suspects that someone came up with the idea while drunk. But you have to give Netflix credit: once committed to it, they do their best to make it work, and I had a good time. Not the worst Christmas film Netflix has to offer, but (among the newcomers) undoubtedly the craziest.