Binge-r #143: The Best New Shows of 2019 (so far...)
Age of Innocence: Aunjanue Ellis (Sharonne) and Ethan Herisse (Yusef) in When They See Us
THE BEST NEW SHOWS OF 2019 (SO FAR)
1) RUSSIAN DOLL (Netflix)
“[A] downtown New York journey through a loopy night, the show is a low-key thriller, a comic philosophical quandary, and a romantic comedy satire – every genre that it alights upon it twists into an ingenious but still recognisable form.– BINGE-R #124 [full review here]
2) THIS TIME WITH ALAN PARTRIDGE (ABC iView)
“An impeccable comic creation: skilfully written, perfectly played, and hilariously timely. It has sequences that build, with inexorable dread for the looming setback, through clockwork precision, so that aside after aside culminates in a heinous assumption of an undeserved spotlight.” – BINGE-R #134 [full review here]
3) WHEN THEY SEE US (Netflix)
“[DuVernay] captures recriminations with family members who failed the accused and a community’s struggle, and there is always a human element to the harshest moments that makes this four-part series tragic, and compelling, and hugely relevant.” – BINGE-R #141 [full review here]
4) PEN15 (Stan)
“Even though the duo’s performances have the awkward physicality, hormonal whiplash, and rash judgments of adolescence, you think there’s a safe distance to what will transpire. That lasts all of a few minutes into the first episode.” – BINGE-R #129 [full review here]
5) TUCA & BERTIE (Netflix)
“A vividly animated [avian] paean to friendship’s all-encompassing reach, Tuca & Bertie is exceptionally good at capturing the idiosyncratic ways we relate to those closest to us and how it’s both a joyous release and a means of reassurance.” – BINGE-R #137 [full review here]
Kitchen Confidential: Linda Cardellini (Judy) and Christina Applegate (Jen) in Dead to Me
6) I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE WTH TIM ROBINSON (Netflix)
“Not so much hit and miss as demented mindbender and miss, this American sketch comedy series has some of the most bizarrely brilliant concepts – taken up to and then beyond their limits with absurdist dedication.” – BINGE-R #137 [full review here]
7) DEAD TO ME (Netflix)
“This Netflix series has a glossy surface and a mordant undertow. It also has a way with twists that doesn’t just push the episodes forward, it peels back layers from the central characters so that they come into sardonic focus.” – BINGE-R #138 [full review here]
8) BONDING (Netflix)
“The tone is tart and the sexual situations frank but it’s also intrigued by the characters and reveals who they are in unexpected ways. The episodes aren’t even 20 minutes long, but they have whip crack comic rhythms and a sweetly salacious outlook.” – BINGE-R #136 [full review here]
9) I AM THE NIGHT (Stan)
“Set in 1965 [Los Angeles] – with the odd occult orgy flashback – it’s blunt about the flashpoints of race and corruption, but the underlying menace and individual will for the truth creates an obsessive energy that lifts the slow burn plotting upwards.” – BINGE-R #125 [full review here]
10) SEX EDUCATION (Netflix)
“Creator Laurie Nunn has made something consistently surprising and idiosyncratic: it has a sex-positive outlook, with dissatisfaction and embarrassment as the threat instead of sexual trauma, and is often witty, updating the high school comedy while nodding to the genre’s past.” – BINGE-R #122 [full review here]
Honourable Mentions: Black Summer (Netflix); Bloom (Stan); Catch-22 (Stan); Dirty John (Netflix); Good Omens (Amazon Prime); Now Apocalypse (Stan); Special (Netflix)
Flashback: Need another list to provide good streaming shows? Here’s the same format – the best new shows of the year to date – from June 2018. [full list here]
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>> Check the complete BINGE-R archive: 173 series reviewed here, 124 movies reviewed here, and 28 lists compiled here.
