Welcome to Now See This, THR chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg’s weekly viewer guide newsletter dedicated to cutting through the daunting clutter of the broadcast, cable and streaming TV landscape! Comments and suggestions welcome at daniel.fienberg@thr.com.

Your Mistletoe-Do List

Regular newsletter readers will know that there are three Christmas movies that are important to me and it's an annual adventure to see which of those movies will and won't be available when December 25 rolls around. Once again, Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang isn't streaming anywhere, though you can always rent the mystery/Hollywood satire. Also absent from easy streaming this year is a little film called Die Hard, though Die Hard 2 and Die Hard With a Vengeance are on Hulu, Live Free or Die Hard is on Max and, for the 10th year in a row, A Good Day to Die Hard doesn't exist. Thankfully, Gremlins  is on Max, if all you want for Christmas is Phoebe Cates explaining why she doesn't enjoy Christmas. That, fortunately, is what I really want.

The Quality of 'Percy' Is Not Strain'd

When Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson book series debuted, it was politely, if slightly dismissively, called Harry Potter and the Repository of Greek Mythology. It seemed like a smart bet when Christopher Columbus signed on to direct the first feature, only to turn in the disappointingly misguided Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. With Riordan as co-creator , Disney+ is taking another shot at telling Percy Jackson's heroic tale and the result is a series that is very devoted to the spirit of the books without having much inspiration of its own, ironically a bit like what Christopher Columbus did successfully on the first two Harry Potter films. I liked the young Percy Jackson and the Olympians cast well enough and thought some of the veteran actors — Glynn Turman, Virginia Kull, etc. — brought a lot of value, but man the special effects are not-so-special. If you want a franchise, you've gotta pay for a franchise, Disney!

Who Dat?

I truly wish that I were more of a general Doctor Who enthusiast, because Ncuti Gatwa was tremendous on Sex Education and he makes a lot of sense to me as the new Doctor, who gets his first Christmas special with Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road, premiering Monday. Speaking of Doctors, I was persistent enough to land a ticket to see David Tennant in Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse in London. He and Cush Jumbo, as Lady Macbeth, were quite excellent in a production made notable by its use of "binaural technology" (audience members listen to the show on headphones). And speaking of London theater — or "theatre" — here were my thoughts on  Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel to the Netflix smash newly launched on the stage. Bottom Line there? The only Stranger Things prequel the real fans want involves BARB.

Noah's Lark

A good standup special is either the best or worst thing to serve as a holiday week distraction. Fortunately, if that's your thing, you have options this Christmas. If you liked Trevor Noah's brand of cheery liberalism on The Daily Show, his new Netflix special, Where I Was is a lot of that. It isn't hard-hitting, but it's fully of easygoing incredulity about 21st century American life — he suggests the USA might be on the verge of its final season — refracted through the prism of his recent global travels. I didn't laugh a lot at Where I Was  — the freshest bit was a stretch on national anthems, with a Star Wars detour — but the bits flowed in a satisfying way. I was more impressed with how Leo Reich: Literally Who Cares?!? comes together first as an amusing deconstruction of the standup format — a pretty standard structure these days — and then as a surprisingly potent musical memoir from the Gen-Z comic. It's on Max now. I haven't watched 'em, but there are also new specials from Gary Gulman (Max) and Ricky Gervais (Netflix).

10 Bests, Redux

As I promised last week, I'm gonna be linking to my Top 10 list and Angie Han's Top 10 list a few times as we get toward the end of the year, because not everybody has had the chance to watch everything and not everybody thinks a Ricky Gervais special is the best path to domestic tranquility. But if you've already watched the 17-ish shows in our Top 10s… There's more! Angie and I compiled lists of 10 Great Performances and 10 Great Episodes, all culled from shows that didn't make our respective Top 10s. And if you've watched all of that? Ummm… There's a second season of Dr. Death! It's a reminder that in the United States, there are some places in which a mere undergraduate degree isn't enough to qualify you to be a serial killer anymore.

Bernstein Bares

After a well-regarded fall festival run and a brief theatrical stint, Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein biography Maestro hits Netflix. Our David Rooney called Maestro "transfixing" and raved that Carey Mulligan "has never been better." Generating less critical enthusiasm, but likely to generate more online grumbling about critics, is Zack Snyder's cumbersomely titled  Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire, a Star Wars -esque sci-fi thriller that Rooney noted brings Snyder "back to indulging his worst tendency for self-serious bombast." But if, like, that's what you LOVE about Snyder, RMPOACOF is on Netflix as well.