Binge-r #81: Ten Netflix Shows to Long Weekend Binge
Weird Science: Brit Marling (Prairie Johnson) in Netflix’s The OA
NETFLIX LONG WEEKEND BINGES
If you like loopy animation, an equine star, studies of depression…
BOJACK HORSEMAN (four seasons)
Getting fiercer, funnier, and closer to its true subject of living with depression as the season unfolds, Bojack Horseman is an anthropomorphic animation about a faded Hollywood equine sitcom star (voiced by the masterful Will Arnett) trying to make sense of his derailed life and career. It goes to tender, telling places – often after dusting off reality.
If you like time travel, German angst, or mind-bending paranoia…
DARK (one season)
“It is serious about its grimness, but at the same time it is consumed with bizarre events and conspiratorial science-fiction… If you’re susceptible to high concept loopiness the show is undeniably gripping.” [full review in BINGE-R #72]
If you like spaceships, hard sci-fi, or heroic crew members…
THE EXPANSE (two seasons)
“Gritty compromise is the daily reality in this promising science-fiction mystery, which repeatedly reduces a multi-planetary plot to the simple quest for survival in fragile environments where air is scarce, water is rationed, or militancy is on the rise.” [full review in BINGE-R #1]
If you like teenage ennui, future stars, coming of age crises…
FREAKS AND GEEKS (one season)
Bittersweet and beautifully observed, this series about the travails of two groups of suburban Michigan high school students in 1980 is nuanced, truthful and a touch nostalgic. Made for American network television in 1999, with a cast that included Seth Rogen, James Franco, Linda Cardellini, and Jason Segel, it was dumped after a single season. A lost classic.
If you like female empowerment, 1980s hair, wrestling…
GLOW (one season)
“A busy, sometimes offbeat, comic-drama with a clandestine agenda and faith in its characters; it’s not always consistent, but when it works it’s sharply funny and genuine in its intent. The setting, naturally, is fake: a women’s wrestling league devised for television in 1985 Los Angeles.” [full review in BINGE-R #55]
Horse Whisperer: Jack O’Connell (Roy Goode) in Netflix’s Godless
If you like reformed gunslingers, hardy homesteaders, or frontier lesbians…
GODLESS (one season)
“In this bloody and compelling take on the western the frontier is not just a physical location marked by red dust and lawlessness, but an unsettling state of mind and a sense that you might just outrun your past. ‘This here’s the paradise of the locust,’ declares Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels), who runs a murderous posse.” [full review in BINGE-R #70]
If you like humanism, Parks and Recreation, or Ted Danson…
THE GOOD PLACE (two seasons)
A subversively giddy sitcom – every episode is 22 delightful minutes – about the afterlife, with Kristen Bell as a dirtbag who has mistakenly arrived at eternal happiness and is being tortured for it, The Good Place is an ode to our best instincts outlasting our worst, complete with philosophy jokes and hilarious world-building.
If you like true crime mysteries, institutional conspiracies, or grandmothers investigating…
THE KEEPERS (one season)
“Methodical in detail and vast in scope, as much the indictment of corrupted institutional power as the dogged investigation of a murder that took place almost 50 years ago. The narratives don’t always tie together easily, but the threads of the mystery and the bravery of those who survived its destructive realm makes for gripping viewing.” [full review in BINGE-R #49]
If you like metaphysical mysteries, desire dreams, or interpretative dance…
THE OA (one season)
“The revelations lodged in The OA feel organically connected to Prairie, no matter how out there – and some of them are really out there – they are. Quantified by Batmanglij’s attentive direction, the everyday and the extraordinary are held uncomfortably close together here.” [full review in BINGE-R #3]
If you like silliness, celebrity casts, or knowing humour…
WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER: FIRST DAY OF CAMP and WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER: TEN YEARS LATER (two seasons)
“An unexpected prequel to the 2001 cult film set at a Maine summer camp, David Wain and Michael Showalter’s series is a blast of earnestly bright-eyed humour that plays weirder the straighter it comes across… Does it make sense? Not always. Is it often funny? Yes.” [full review in BINGE-R #68]
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