Whether you are looking for reasons to hibernate now the nights have drawn in or you’re anticipating a festive hangover, you’ll be pleased to learn that TV has become seriously gripping again. The summer months were particularly arid in terms of small-screen drama, but it turns out those crafty TV schedulers were hoarding all the good stuff for when the frost returned, and the thought of being cosily couch-bound and square-eyed holds huge appeal. So, pop the kettle on and get yourself settled. Here are our suggestions for what to binge-watch now.

BAME audiences are probably sick of shows being labelled the black Friends, the Asian Seinfeld or the Inuit The Office, so I’m going to turn the trope on its head. High Maintenance is the white Atlanta. Ostensibly a series of New York-set half-hour vignettes that centre around a scruffy bicycle-riding drug dealer known only as The Guy, it’s a comedy in the sense that each episode provides maybe one belly laugh, or at least a guffaw. It is usually fairly surreal and often touchingly sweet. And, given the short run time, you’ll get through all three seasons in the time it takes you to get through a giant bag of frozen peanut M&Ms when you’ve got the munchies. (And look out for season four in early 2020.)

I had the pleasure of meeting one of my two favourite people earlier this year: Mr Stanley Tucci. I use the word “meet” in the loosest sense. He briefly shook my hand as he was quietly leaving a party I happened to be attending and at which he was the guest of honour. He said, “It was nice to meet you,” even though we had not been introduced, because that’s just the sort of affable bloke he is. The other person I have a similar infatuation with is Mr Jeff Goldbum, he of the many and varied camp-collar shirts. My feelings are strictly and unwaveringly platonic (but perhaps I’m still single because no man will ever measure up). It seems Disney is on the same page. So, until I have the good fortune to make his acquaintance or at least shake his hand, I will console myself with The World According To Jeff Goldblum, part of the company’s new streaming service, which appears to consist wholly of Mr Goldblum walking around, looking at things and talking about them. Pure bingeing bliss.

When Mr Philip Pullman’s epic trilogy became popular in the late 1990s, the books consumed my entire household. Armoured bears in Svalbard, expeditions to view the aurora borealis, Gyptians sailing up and down canals, golden monkeys and disappearing children – His Dark Materials paints a world that is dark, rich and enchanting, a delightful place for a whole family to get lost. We even named our dog Lyra after the main character. Two decades later, I am thrilled to see the epic work come to life on the BBC, especially after The Golden Compass movie went down like a tattered Scoresby balloon. What kind of daemon would you have?

I don’t have the attention span or patience to consume serious box sets like everyone else. And, because I have never seen Game Of Thrones, The Sopranos, Mad Men or any of the other quality, ground-breaking, multi-million-dollar-budget shows normal people use to pretend they don’t exist for an hour or two every evening, I have to abstain from roughly 40 per cent of conversations in the workplace, pub and anywhere else humans gather. While spending winter as a social outcast, I will be subsisting solely on the quick-fix, fast-paced, sugary highs of Gogglebox, First Dates and obscure crime documentaries long forgotten by Netflix’s algorithm. This is no life for a man, I admit, but it’s better than reality, or at least complicated narrative arcs.

I know this might not technically count as binge-watching because it won’t cause my Netflix account to judgementally ask “Are you still watching?” after 10 straight hours of Friends (er, just an example), but I cannot get enough of Christmas movies from the 1990s and the early 2000s. The Holiday. Home Alone. Love Actually. They’re all silliness and mush, but I don’t care. I want to watch only the easiest, borderline ridiculous stuff during the holidays. My favourite Christmas movie is The Family Stone, starring Carrie Bradshaw herself, Ms Sarah Jessica Parker. The rest of the cast is stacked (Ms Diane Keaton, Ms Rachel McAdams, Mr Dermot Mulroney, Mr Luke Wilson, Ms Claire Danes) and the storyline makes little to no sense while somehow being fairly relatable. The real star of the film, though, is the house in which the film is set. Oh, what a gorgeous house! I’ll be dreaming of it until next Christmas.

At first, it was hard to imagine Netflix’s most popular period drama without the inimitable Ms Claire Foy and her handsome regent Mr Matt Smith. But then season three’s award-winning and electric cast – Ms Olivia Coleman as the Queen, Ms Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret and Mr Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip – lit up our screens. The action takes place in the late 1960s and 1970s, so we’re talking moon landings, awkward interactions with pop culture and royal scandal, mainly Prince Charles’ courting of Ms Camilla Parker Bowles and Margaret’s eight-year affair with Sir Roddy Llewellyn, which was all kept rather hush-hush. I also enjoy the regular spectacles of stately homes, glittering crown jewels and sumptuous costumes.