On Our Streaming Radar: Stranger Things, Landman, Florida Man, and WondLa Lead

As the calendar edges toward the end of the year, the streaming landscape is doing the exact opposite of slowing down. New seasons are dropping, fresh originals are landing across multiple platforms, and a handful of long-awaited projects are finally arriving in viewers’ queues. The end of the year used to be a quiet period — a time for networks to burn off leftover episodes or quietly release smaller projects.

But in the streaming era, November and December have become some of the busiest months of the year, packed with finales, holiday counter-programming, and the kind of buzzy releases aimed at capturing viewers before the new year resets the cultural conversation.

This week’s lineup brings together a genre-mixing group of heavy hitters — from supernatural nostalgia to gritty Texas drama, pulpy crime, and imaginative sci-fi. Whether you’re in the mood to revisit the ’80s, explore the oil fields, chase sun-soaked conspiracies, or dive into a futuristic animated adventure, there’s something on the menu. And each of these shows represents something unique about the moment we’re in: the power of global fandom, the rise of regional prestige drama, the return of the breezy binge, and the resurgence of ambitious animation.

Below, we break down the biggest new offerings hitting your screen this week.

Stranger Things

Few shows of the past decade have left as deep an imprint on pop culture as Stranger Things. When it debuted in 2016, the series was a nostalgia-laced mystery anchored by unknown child actors and a genre blend that felt like equal parts Spielberg, Stephen King, and Amblin-era wonder. Fast forward to 2025, and the show’s cast members are household names, its monsters are merchandising empires, and its storylines have become the subject of international fan theories, Reddit dissections, and Halloween costumes for nearly a decade.

Now, the Hawkins kids who once rode around on BMX bikes solving supernatural mysteries are stepping into their final battle, and the stakes have never been higher. This season marks the official beginning of the end — and Netflix is promising a cinematic-scale finale that leans into everything fans have loved: the nostalgia, the horror, the humor, the friendship, and the monster-sized spectacle. Early footage and cast interviews tease a story that feels more epic and more emotionally grounded than anything the show has tackled before, leaning into the characters’ transition into adulthood and the increasing ruthlessness of the Upside Down.

Expect the emotional beats to hit hard. The story has matured right alongside its cast, and the series is embracing that evolution, weaving themes of grief, sacrifice, family, identity, and destiny into its biggest mythology push yet. For longtime viewers, this is appointment streaming — the kind worth turning off your phone and avoiding spoilers for. It’s also the rare cultural farewell that feels like an event, a moment where millions of viewers will come together to say goodbye to a show that defined an era of streaming.

The fifth and final season delivered in three parts begins Wednesday, November 26 on Netflix.

Landman

If there’s one thing Taylor Sheridan knows how to do, it’s build a world. With Landman, he shifts his focus from ranches and lawmen to the highly charged world of West Texas oil — a place where fortunes are made overnight, lives are upended in an instant, and the American dream burns as hot as a flare stack. Sheridan has long been fascinated by the individuals living in the margins of American mythology: cowboys, sheriffs, soldiers, ranchers. With Landman he adds a new archetype — the oil worker, the roughneck, the driller chasing one good strike that could change everything.

The series blends big business drama with blue-collar authenticity, capturing both the high-stakes decisions happening in boardrooms and the sweat-soaked labor unfolding on the rigs. It’s part character study, part industrial epic, and part social commentary, digging into the collision of ambition, family pressure, environmental reality, and the human cost of chasing prosperity in a landscape known for giving and taking in equal measure. Few other shows depict the contradictions of Texas quite like this — the wealth, the danger, the opportunity, the exploitation, and the deep cultural pride that threads through it all.

Landman also stands out for its sense of place. Sheridan’s Texas-set shows tend to treat geography as a character, and this one is no exception — the isolated stretches of land, the small-town bars where rumors travel faster than oil, the work camps that become temporary homes, the wide-open skies that make every scene feel expansive. It feels lived in, rugged, and real, like a story carved directly out of the state’s dirt and dust.

As the second season arrives, the series broadens its canvas even more, introducing new power players, shifting alliances, and escalating tensions between those who drill, those who regulate, and those who profit. Sheridan thrives when exploring how systems shape people — and this world of boom-and-bust adrenaline gives him more than enough story to mine.

Landman appears on Paramount Plus.

It’s Florida, Man

If you’re looking for something lighter (though still weird), you’re going to want to check out It’s Florida, Man. The show is a late-night, off-kilter anthology series that brings to life unbelievable—but true—tales from Florida. The twist: a rotating cast of actors and comedians reenact these real stories, submitted by Floridians themselves. The result is part documentary, part comedy sketch, part cultural oddity — and entirely rooted in the maxim that life in the Sunshine State is often stranger than fiction. 

Created by Mark Herwick and Jeff Tomsic and executive produced by Danny McBride and Jody Hill’s Rough House Pictures, the series premiered in October 2024 on HBO and was renewed for a second season slated for late 2025.

The format is simple yet effective: real Floridians tell their insane stories, then the show reenacts those stories with actors you recognize in twisted, comedic, compelling recreations. Stories vary from the outlandish to the surreal — a man consenting to have his toes cut off and eaten (yes, you read that right), a gator attack survivor, a marshland witch and a feral rabbit invasion. 

What makes It’s Florida, Man work is its tone: it’s embracing of absurdity without being nihilistic. It winks at the viewer, but still gives the people whose stories are told a platform and a payoff. It also taps into the deep cultural fascination around Florida — the state that seems to exist on its own axis of weird, wild, and whimsical. Some of that is stereotype, sure, but the show leans into the truth behind the memes, and finds humor without being dismissive.

In short: if you want something wild, unpredictable, and uniquely Florida-flavored, this is a binge you don’t have to feel guilty about.

It’s Florida, Man streams on HBO.

WondLa

Amid the gritty dramas and creature-filled finales, Apple TV offers something different: an animated sci-fi epic that feels both timeless and refreshingly new. WondLa, adapted from the beloved book series by Tony DiTerlizzi, tells the story of Eva, a girl raised underground who emerges into a transformed world filled with strange species, floating cities, lost civilizations and mysteries tied to humanity’s survival.

From its first frames, WondLa impresses with its world-building — bright, bold, and richly layered, with a sense of wonder baked into its design. It feels like a spiritual cousin to classics like The Last Airbender or Treasure Planet, mixing imaginative visuals with character-driven storytelling. But beneath the sweeping landscapes and futuristic tech is a grounded story about identity, belonging, courage, and the painful, beautiful process of stepping into the unknown.

This season marks the final installment of the animated saga, bringing Eva’s journey to a close in a way that aims to satisfy young viewers while offering deeper resonance for adults. In an era where animation is often pigeonholed, shows like WondLa remind us that the medium can carry big themes — hope, survival, legacy — while still delivering something magical. It’s the rare family-friendly show that also rewards viewers hungry for original sci-fi.

WondLa is streaming on Apple TV.

The post On Our Streaming Radar: <i>Stranger Things, Landman, Florida Man,</i> and <i>WondLa Lead</i> appeared first on Houston Press.