How are you spending your quarantine? Baking bread, you say?
Here’s another option – why not use this forced vacation to binge-watch some of the greatest TV shows of all time. Below, I put together a list of all the shows that you should binge-watch during this quarantine when you’re avoiding either work, avoiding the news, or avoiding your family. Make it through this watch list and you’ll come out more knowledgeable about our industry – and have something to talk about other than the dystopian state of the world.
Each of these shows is a pioneer in its own way. Each of these shows is a great example of using TV as an artform to change people’s awareness and minds.
1) Black Mirror (Netflix)
If you haven’t seen Black Mirror, stop whatever you’re doing and go watch it right now. Each episode is standalone, meaning that the episodes don’t follow an arc over the course of a season. This makes it spectacularly easy to pick up – watch any episode, anytime, when you have a spare hour. Black Mirror is a Twilight Zone-style anthology series that explores the potential “side effects” and implications of technological innovation. The show touches on issues about our current and future relationships with media, devices, content. Some topics include: social media platforms, robots, AI, clones, and surveillance. In the style of old Star Trek TNG, each episode poses a moral question for the audience to wrestle with and contemplate. Black Mirror originally aired on UK’s Channel 4, then was purchased by Netflix. Netflix co-produced season 3 onwards and called the show a Netflix original, even though it had technically been running for two seasons prior in the UK.
2) Homeland (Showtime)
The iconic HBO show broke boundaries by pushing far past what anyone expected the show to be in a short period of time. What most shows do over a season, Homeland does in an episode. The plot follows CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes), who believes that a Congressman and former POW (Damian Brody) is a terrorist. The plot is action-packed, with storylines about terrorists, spies, government conspiracies, wars, and more. The show won a Peabody award in 2012 for portraying and exploring post-9/11 fears and issues in America. In addition, the show is one of the most expensive shows on this list, with a budget of $3 million per episode, or $36 million per season.
3) Dexter (Showtime)
Dexter was groundbreaking because it portrays a sociopathic killer as a hero. The audience follows and sympathizes with Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a serial killer who only kills criminals who have gotten away with a crime. By day, Dexter is a blood-spatter pattern analyst in the forensics lab of the Miami Police Department. By night, he is an intensely meticulous, methodical serial killer. The show is set up as a procedural, like a Law & Order, where, in each episode, we see a different crime committed by one of Dexter’s victims. This show pushed audience’s boundaries by making the audience sympathetic to Dexter, a serial killer.
4&5) Last Week Tonight (HBO) & Patriot Act (Netflix)
I’m categorizing these shows together they are both great examples of satirical news series that are timeless and can be watched well past their airdate. Both shows delve into one issue, in depth, over the course of a 30-minute episode. Unlike other news satires, such as The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight and Patriot Act don’t cover all the news in a given week or day – they instead take a deep dive into one topic per week, which makes the entire series eminently bingeable, as well as relevant years later. Both shows provide an in-depth, nuanced take in which viewers get to hear and understand all sides of each hot-button issue. Episode topics include: Psychics, The Mueller Report, Boris Johnson (Last Week Tonight); Video Games, The News Industry, Mental Health, Sudan (Patriot Act); and more.
6) 13 Reasons Why
The series 13 Reasons Why is about a high school student who commits suicide. After her death, members of the community find tapes that she recorded before her death about why she was going to commit suicide. The current season centers around mental health, anxiety, and stress. Previous seasons have explored a broad range of topics, including misogyny, date rape, drug use, terminal illness, alcoholism, and school shootings. The first season of 13 Reasons Why broke boundaries because it delves into heavy and dark topics that are prevalent among today’s youth – topics that many consider taboo. The series overall remains controversial. A number of outlets believe that it glamorizes suicide, citing a spike in calls to suicide hotlines and increased Google searches on how to commit suicide among teens. Others commend its anti-bullying message and its willingness to tackle deep, dark issues among teenagers. Regardless of your point of view, the series is the first of its kind to cover teen suicide and other meaningful issues in such depth and detail.
7) Made in Heaven (Amazon)
This show, on the surface, is a fun show about planning weddings in India. However, the storylines actually go far deeper in order to explore important issues in today’s Indian society. In what feels like a cross between Crazy Rich Asians and The Wedding Planner, the series follows two wedding planners in India. Each episode features a different type of wedding – Christian, Muslim, Hindu, North Indian, South Indian, rural, etc. Behind all the wedding clothing, fireworks, jewelry, dancing, and music are well-written storylines exploring deep and controversial topics, such as dowry, patriarchy, homophobia, and more.
8) Twenties (BET)
On a lighter note, Twenties on BET (created by Master of None actress Lena Waithe) is a fun, engaging comedy to binge-watch. Lena Waithe, the creator and co-showrunner, created the series about her own experience breaking into the entertainment industry. The series’ lead character Hattie is the first queer Black female lead of a TV show – ever. The series follows Hattie’s character and her friends as they try to “make it” as minorities in Hollywood. Twenties uses music from Oscar-nominated composers to elevate the cinematic feel. Twenties is both relevant and authentic, with Waithe stating that BET network gave her “no notes” and fully let her explore her own vision for the show (Variety, Aug. 2019).
9) The Baker and The Beauty (ABC)
The Baker and The Beauty is an American spinoff of a popular Israeli series called The Beauty and The Baker. The Israeli version of the show follows the unlikely love story between a humble baker and an international supermodel. The original series is one of the highest-rated scripted series to ever air in Israel. The American version, The Baker and The Beauty, is a spinoff that is set in Miami. The American spinoff, which is set in Miami’s Little Havana, features an all-Latin cast, with authentic Cuban characters. The show’s authenticity and realistic portrayal of Cuban American culture make it enough to put on your binge-watch list.
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