If you often find yourself mindlessly scrolling through Netflix or your TV guide, looking for something to watch that isn’t a Friends repeat, then this list is for you. Here are my top five must-see shows that often slip under the radar.
1. Sweetbitter
Based on the novel by Stephanie Danler, the Starz show follows Tess (Ella Purnell), a 22-year-old who spontaneously moves to New York City, alone and without a plan. Set in 2006, the young English major gets a trial based job as a back-waitress at a prestigious Manhattan restaurant.
Filled with enticing visuals of food and authentic representations of the messy relationships that go on behind the scenes of restaurant, this show is much more than booze, sex, and drugs… although there’s plenty of that too.
2. Killing Eve
Written by Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge, this BBC America series follows MI5 spy Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and a glamorous, skilled, and dangerously psychopathic assassin called Villanelle (Jodie Comer). These two women soon become entwined in a breath-taking game of cat-and-mouse taking them on adventures around the world to London, Paris, Tuscany, Berlin, and Moscow – just to name a few.
Dubbed as a ‘feminist thriller’, this enthralling show is tense, seductive, and surprising, all the while subverting expectations of the serial-killer canon. Most notably, it’s fresh and visually stunning cinematography is definitely worth your time. Oh, and it’s also really, really funny.
3. Sense8
The first season of this Netflix sci-fi drama introduces eight strangers from different parts of the world who suddenly become ‘sensates’. They are subsequently linked to the seven other members of their ‘cluster’, with whom they share emotions and experiences, and can ‘visit’ by mentally transporting to each others’ locations. For example, a Chicago police officer can ‘visit’ a matatu driver in Nairobi, without moving an inch.
Throughout it’s two season run the show’s eight protagonists explore identity, sexuality, politics, gender, and religion whilst fighting an organisation dedicated to hunting and neutralising their kind. Please Netflix, bring the show back for a third season.
4. Animal Kingdom
Based on the eponymous 2010 Australian film by David Michôd, the TNT series follows J (Finn Cole), a 17-year-old boy who, after the death of his mother, moves in with the his felonious family, governed by his grandmother and matriarch, Smurf (Ellen Barkin).
As he tries to cope with school and his girlfriend, J must adapt to a life of crime with his ruthless uncles, partaking in their thievery as initiation into the family. Currently, this gritty crime drama is in it’s third season.
5. Imposters
Bravo’s dark comedy follows newly married Ezra Bloom (Rob Heaps) who works successfully in his family’s business until his life falls apart when new wife Ava (Inbar Lavi) reveals herself to be a con artist and disappears with his money. He soon meets Richard (Parker Young) and Jules (Marianne Rendon) who also fell victim to her con, and together they team up to track her down.
Finishing with it’s second season, the neo-noir show meshes comedy, drama, and unexpected twists as Ezra, Richard, and Jules try to take back control of their lives, and find new versions of themselves along the way.
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