‘Squid Game’ for Real, Christmas Cheer with Hannah Waddingham, Melissa McCarthy’s ‘Genie,’ Back to ‘Good Burger’

Series Premiere

In design and execution—though not really execution—this looks and feels exactly like the South Korean hit thriller that gripped the world in 2021. The difference: This reality show is to dye, not die, for. When 456 players (all English speaking) arrive to vie for a potential payday of $4.56 million—each fallen player represents $10,000—they marvel at the recreation of the Squid Game sets, from bunk-bed dormitory to Escher-style staircases to sinister playgrounds where the herd is quickly culled. It opens, like the original series, with “Red Light, Green Light,” where players are “eliminated” when a giant singing doll turns its head and targets anyone seen moving. Instead of blood, dye packs inside their T-shirts explode, and the unlucky ones fall over to play dead. The Challenge also features mind games testing character: “How you play is who you are,” they’re told. The stakes are high, the toll is brutal, the manipulation relentless, the cliffhangers so diabolical you can’t help but binge.

Special

“Welcome to my festive extravaganza,” beckons a glamorous Hannah Waddingham, best known to TV audiences as Ted Lasso’s team owner Rebecca, but before that she was a regular on London’s musical theater stages. She belts, dances and clowns (often with her Ted Lasso chums) in a classic music-variety holiday special from the cavernous London Coliseum, where her mom once performed in the chorus of the English National Opera. That chorus backs her up one “O Holy Night,” and the London Gay Men’s Chorus performs similar duties. Special guests include Hamilton’s Leslie Odom Jr., Luke Evans, Eurovision finalist Sam Ryder and Lasso’s Phil Dunster showing his own song-and-dance chops. When Waddingham sings, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” after her third costume change, it’s hard to argue. Go, diva!

Not to be confused with Barbara Eden’s I Dream of Jeannie, Melissa McCarthy’s take on a magical being is much funkier when a genie named Flora is unleashed by the very needy Bernard (Paapa Essiedu) in a comedy film from Richard Curtis (Love Actually). Bernard could use Flora’s help—as she puts it, “Real genie, unlimited wishes”—after losing his job and the support of his wife (Denée Benton) and young daughter (Jordyn McIntosh), whose birthday he forgot just before Christmas. Can Flora help him get his family back? What do you think?

Movie Premiere

It’s only taken 25 years for Saturday Night Live’s Kenan Thompson and his pal Kel Mitchell to reprise their characters of fast-food workers Dexter and Ed from the All That sketch-comedy series that inspired a cult 1997 movie comedy. In the sequel, struggling inventor Dex returns to Good Burger, where Ed remains a cheerful cashier. Some things never change, including the buddies’ ongoing quest to save the beloved burger joint after Dex’s scheme to get back on his feet backfires. Familiar faces from Good Burger return, along with surprise celebrity cameos and Get Out’s Lil Rel Howery as a guest star.

Because of the holiday weekend, the streamer is presenting new episodes of the sci-fi drama and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters ahead of their usual Friday timetable. On Mankind, defector-to-Russia Margo (Wrenn Schmidt) is trapped between factions during a coup against Gorbachev, while up on Mars, beleaguered repairman Miles (Toby Kebbell) finds a devious new way to supplant his paycheck. After leaving NASA and hitting a brick wall pitching their robotics project to Helios Corp., Aleida (Coral Peña) and Kelly (Cynthy Wu) take a big swing to find a new investor.

INSIDE WEDNESDAY TV:

• The Naughty Nine (8/7c, Disney Channel): You’d better watch out. In this family flick, scheming fifth-grader Andy (Winslow Fegley) ends up on the naughty list and is not happy to come up empty come Christmas morning. So he assembles a squad of other naughty listers to bust into Santa’s workshop and get the presents they think they’re owed. Time for a life lesson?
• Countdown to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (8/7c, NBC): Twas the night before the big parade, and as prelude, go behind the scenes when the iconic giant balloons are inflated and get the skinny on their background as well as the floats and bands preparing for their big moment. Followed by A Saturday Night Live Thanksgiving Special (9/8c), with highlights of holiday sketches from the past 47 seasons of the late-night hit.
• Survivor (8/7c, CBS): A three-part challenge decides who gets immunity. Followed by The Amazing Race (9:30/8:30c), still in Slovenia, where it’s time to go spelunking in a cave.
• A Season for Family (8/7c, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries): In this holiday heartwarmer, young Wesley (Benjamin Jacobson) and Cody (Azriel Dalman) are brothers who were adopted into different families, and when they unexpectedly meet, it could become a Parent Trap for their respective mom and dad (Stacey Farber and Brendan Penny).
• Lee and Liza’s Family Tree (9/8c, PBS): In an episode of Nova that sounds more like Finding Your Roots, filmmaker Byron Hurt uses scientific and genealogic tools to trace his African-American family’s past, heretofore obscured by their history with American slavery. Followed by Secrets of the Dead (10/9c), which delves into the mystery of the long-presumed-murdered nephew princes of England’s infamous Richard III.
• The Velveteen Rabbit (streaming on Apple TV+): A family special inspired by Margery Williams’s beloved children’s book stars Phoenix Laroche as 7-year-old William, whose Christmas gift of a toy rabbit evolves into a magical friendship.
• High on the Hog: How African-American Cuisine Transformed America (streaming on Netflix): Season 2 of the culinary travelogue focuses on the renaissance in African-American food following emancipation, with host Stephen Satterfield visiting eateries in Louisiana, Chicago, New York City, Atlanta and Los Angeles to sample food with the flavor of history.