I also watched a lot of The Simpsons Christmas specials in and around Christmas and Boxing Day, from the first season to the 28th, and though they vary in quality, they are all cleverly written, well illustrated, and superbly acted.
The Bones of St Nicholas, the Inside No. 9 Christmas special and the first in the eighth series. It's a brilliantly written and acted piece of television, drawing heavily on [spoiler]Don't Look Now [/spoiler], which I have seen it three times and it seems to improve every time. I can't write for the second episode in the series.
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a really sweet and endearing animated film. It's a short and quite minimalist story, though one with some very powerful bits of dialogue and great voice acting from Tom Hollander, interest older, Gabriel Byrne, and Jude Coward-Nicoll. I didn't know it was based on a book, but it was pleasing to see that the author, Charlie Mackesy, co-wrote and co-directed it.
The Christmas special of The Cleaner – A Clean Christmas – was as good as I hoped with Greg Davies again showing there is much more to him than being an exaggerated version of himself on Taskmaster.
Talking of 'as good as I hoped', I thought Count Magnus, this year's Ghost Story for Christmas, lived up to expectations, is another fine piece of work by Mark Gatiss, and is something I want to revisit before the year is out.
Before the Christmas period, I watched the first four seasons of American Horror Story: Murder House, Asylum, Coven, and Freak Show. I had only seen them once before and really enjoyed watching them again.
I am now watching the 10th season of The Walking Dead and will probably go straight onto the 11th season. I finished watching it earlier in November and thought the final episode was a perfect way to end the series.
Other series I've watched and recommend include: Tokyo Vice and The English on IPlayer, and Three Pines if you have Prime Video.
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