With the festive season here, many people will be looking for fun ways to spend their free time. Some will travel, others will party and many will spend time with family.

However, there are those who would love to spend their Christmas binge-watching all the best TV series they missed throughout the year and this list provides some of the must watch TV series which were released this year.

Gen V

Many people did not expect the spinoff series from the Boys to be this good. However Gen V, developed by Craig Rosenberg, Evan Goldberg and Eric exceeded all expectations. 

Fans of The Boys will love and be excited by Gen V as it offers a new take on the universe developed from Prime Video’s hit series.

Just like the Boys, All the key characters in Gen V are interesting, complex characters that have been well written.

The series takes place at the Vaught-owned Godolkin University, following the lives of the first generation of super powered individuals to know that their powers were not God-given but rather through compound V injected into them when they were children.

These aspiring heroes aim to impress Vaught with their acts of heroism so they can become real superheroes.  They, however, learn that ambition comes with sacrifice and the difference between right and wrong can sometimes be blurred.

One Piece

One Piece is one of Netflix’s few successful attempts at adapting a Japanese manga and anime series to live action.

Set in a world filled with myths and monsters, 1 Piece is able to recapture everything that makes the anime special, bringing it all  to live action without feeling out of place.

One Piece was developed by Matt Owens and Steve Maeda and adapted from  a  Manga series by  Eiichiro Oda who served as a major creative consultant for the show.  

Bloodhounds

Blood Hounds is an 8 episode South Korean streaming television series which was released on Netflix on June 9, 2023.

It was written and directed by Kim Joo-Hwan and is starring Woo Do-Hwan, Lee Sang-Yi and Park Sung-Woong.

The boxing-packed crime series follows Gun-Woo and Wong-Hoo-Jin two young amateur boxers who meet in the ring and afterwards become friends teaming up to take on devious loan sharks who swindle people into taking bad loans.

Riveting fight scenes, tasty moral dilemmas, and genuine emotional moments pushes the series to the next level which ensured it was a hit with fans.

The Last of Us

Not many video games can be successfully adapted into TV shows. Many have tried and failed. However HBO’s “The Last of Us” is one of the exceptions.

The post-apocalyptic drama created for HBO by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann and starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey is everything fans of the gaming franchise hoped it would be. The series raises the bar not just for video game adaptations but also for the horror genre.

The show explores our heroes journeying across a post-apocalyptic America as humanity’s last hope of survival.

Loki Season 2

Marvel releases have been underwhelming in recent times with 2023 releases like The Marvels and Secret Invasion being mediocre.

However, the second season of Loki, directed by a team led by Eric Martin, was a minor saving grace for the Marvel Cinematic Universe this year.

The season starts slow and picks up midway, held together entirely by the great performance of Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson.

Jonathan Majors is still impressive in his role, playing different variants of Kang.  

The plot sees Loki’s journey in the MCU, which has taken over 12 years to go full circle come to a satisfying conclusion.  Loki went from villain to the anti-hero before dying a hero’s death in Avengers Infinity War and then we got to see him do it all over again in this TV series. 

Giving a befitting farewell to one of the best characters in the MCU.

Yellow Jackets Season 2

Despite the flaws, the second season of Showtime’s Yellow Jackets is still highly entertaining. Yes, it is still very gruesome, however, the storytelling is still good.

The show created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson combines different genres, leaving viewers anxious and intrigued throughout.

Yellow Jackets is about a group of women struggling to overcome the psychological effects of suffering a plane crash in their teenage years, which left them stranded in the Canadian wilderness 25 years ago. Their time in the wilderness saw them go to the extreme for survival.

Eventually, the show will have to have a payoff . The mystery can’t continue to go on forever. However, so far so good. 

Yellow Jackets stars an impressive cast, which includes Sophie Nelisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Sophie Thatcher.

Silo

Silo, based on the novel, Wool, by Hugh Howley, tells a story of an underground city housing what may be the last of humanity protecting its citizens from the earth which has become unfit to live in.

The series is a thought-provoking sci-fi thriller, starring Rebecca Ferguson.

The series that airs on Apple TV+ is one of the best sci-fi tales in recent memory.

The captivating Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette, an engineer who seeks answers about a loved one’s murder which leads to a mystery that goes far deeper than she could ever have imagined. 

Invincible Season 2

Amazon Prime Video's animated series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s Invincible is a superhero story told in a way you have never seen before.

The brutal and gory alternate Superman-like story was a global hit in its first season.

Season 2 picks up where the first season left off. However there are unexpected plot twists this season.

Will Omni-Man have a redemptive arc, or will he remain a monster?

Character development is at a peak.

Just like season 1, the second season keeps viewers at the edge of their seats and also has a dramatic conclusion.

A Small Light

Starring Bel Powley and Liev Schreiber, a small light tells the story of Miep Gies, who played a crucial role in hiding Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation in Amsterdam.

The 8 episode mini-series created by Joan Rater and Tony Phelan for National Geographic is a moving tale of admirable courage in the face of death.

Reacher Season 2

The second season of Prime Video’s Reacher series which was created by novelist Lee Child, is an improvement on the first.

Reacher played by Alan Ritchson, is a normadic hero with no fixed job or home who uses the skills he learnt in the U.S army’s military police to help others.

The script is basic, however there is a lot of fun to be had with this outrageously entertaining and well put together series with a lot of cool action sequences.