There’s one soft spot left in the television cycle, and we are in it. In December, most of the shows you’re watching go on hiatus, the streaming services hold back their hottest releases, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir suddenly materializes onscreen like the ghost of Christmases past.

The schedule isn’t completely bare, though. On Sunday nights, “Berlin Station” and “Counterpart,” two of the smarter, more handsomely produced and more entertaining genre dramas on TV, recently started new seasons. If you asked Santa for spies, you’re in luck.

In addition to their December slots, the shows share an appropriately wintry setting: Berlin, the classic border-town home of the espionage thriller, all gray on the outside and vividly debauched behind doors. But they make very different use of the city.

“Berlin Station,” in its third season on Epix, is a fast, sleek, conventionally structured action thriller, and its Berlin is insistently Instagrammable. Scenes take place in front of buildings that are not only identifiable but also sometimes self-captioned, like the Messe Berlin exhibition hall or the Volksbühne theater. (For Season 3, the production moved its base from Berlin to Budapest, but there are still plenty of Berlin locations.)