Netflix & Chill!
This year has definitely had its lows, but if there is one positive to take from 2020 is the amazing TV shows we have been treated to. And with binge-watching higher than ever due to the pandemic, streaming services have not disappointed with delivering amazing shows.
Social Distance
Netflix
Social Distance is an American streaming television anthology series created by Hilary Weisman Graham and Orange Is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan that premiered on October 15, 2020 on Netflix. The series was “conceived, cast and executed entirely remotely during quarantine”. The eight-part series, set during the beginning months of the COVID-19 pandemic, focuses on how families, friends, and couples were forced to cope with the effects of quarantine as well as the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd. Each episode tells a different story and shows “the power of the human spirit in the face of uncertainty and isolation,” and how technology was used to stay connected during quarantine.
Star Trek: Discovery
CBS All Access
The third season of the much-lauded Star Trek epic follows the crew of the USS Discovery as they travel to the future, over 900 years after the events of the original Star Trek series. Sonequa Martin-Green once again stars as Michael Burnham, along with the returning Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, and Wilson Cruz. With the second season-ending on a time travel note, the series is now free from the existing Star Trek continuity, allowing them to explore a new time period for the franchise.
Marvel’s Helstrom
Hulu
While Marvel’s Runaways may have wrapped up, Hulu’s got another superpowered show from the comic book giant coming down the pipeline. Daimon and Ana Helstrom are the son and daughter of a mysterious and powerful serial killer. The siblings have a complicated dynamic as they track down the terrorizing worst of humanity, each with their attitude and skills. If you are suffering from a lack of big Marvel movies this year then this will surely scratch that itch.
The Mandalorian
Disney+
The series that currently is the sole reason to have a Disney+ account, returns after an incredibly successful and critically acclaimed first season. Everyone’s favorite bounty hunter returns to continue his quest of delivering Baby Yoda back to its people. With the last few Star Wars movies floundering quite badly, the fate of the Star Wars universe firmly rests upon the legendary armor of the Mandalorian.
Truth Seekers
Amazon Prime
Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz collaborators Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are at it again for another horror-comedy. Truth Seekers is a supernatural comedy series about a team of part-time paranormal investigators who team up to uncover and film ghost sightings across the UK, sharing their adventures on an online channel for all to see. However, as they stake out haunted churches, underground bunkers, and abandoned hospitals with their array of homemade ghost-detecting gizmos, their supernatural experiences grow more frequent, more terrifying, and even deadly, as they begin to uncover a conspiracy that could bring about Armageddon for the entire human race.
Roadkill
PBS
Roadkill is about Peter Laurence (Hugh Laurie), a self-made forceful and charismatic politician. Peter’s public and private life seems to be falling apart or rather is being picked apart by his enemies. As the personal revelations spiral, he is shamelessly untroubled by guilt or remorse, expertly walking a high wire between glory and catastrophe as he seeks to further his own agenda while others plot to bring him down. However, events show just how hard it is, for both an individual and a country, to leave the past behind. With enemies so close to home, can Peter Laurence ever out-run his own secrets to win the ultimate prize?
Moonbase 8
Showtime
Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker and John C. Reilly star in this new comedy series as three astronauts stationed at NASA’s Moon Base Simulator in a remote part of the Arizona desert. While working vigorously to qualify for their first lunar mission, they encounter many obstacles including loneliness, self-doubt and their own incompetence. In spite of it all, they remain determined to prove they have the right stuff to reach the moon. With a cast of comedy legends, Moonbase 8 is a brilliantly funny look at the lives of these three bumbling wannabe astronauts.
Industry
HBO
Industry follows a group of hungry, young graduates competing for a limited number of permanent positions at Pierpoint & Co., a leading bank in London, while being thrown head-first into the exhilarating world of international finance. From first-time creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, the drama series gives an insider’s view of the high-stakes financial realm through the eyes of an outsider, Harper Stern (Myha’la Herrold), a talented young woman from upstate New York who finds herself and her fellow young grads fueled by raw ambition, youth, romance, and drugs as they aim to impress their mentors and bosses. Examining issues of gender, race, class, and privilege in the workplace, Industry shows how these impressionable young minds begin to forge their identities within the pressure-cooker environment and sensory blitz of Pierpoint & Co’s trading floor, where meritocracy is promised but hierarchy is king.
The South Westerlies
Acorn TV
When a small coastal town in the south-west of Ireland is earmarked for a Norwegian-owned wind farm, it’s not just the spectacular scenery that’s under pressure. Based in Dublin, Kate Ryan (Orla Brady) is working as an Environmental Compliance consultant for Norwegian energy giant Noreg Oil, she’s on the verge of a lucrative promotion and transfer to HQ in Oslo. But there’s a caveat; a final assignment for NorskVentus (Noreg Oil’s new wind-power subsidiary). For single working mother Kate, tasked with going undercover to bring the wind farm project home, her eco-battle is compounded by the return of a crinkly-eyed surfer (Steve Wall) from her past.
A Teacher
FX on Hulu
This drama series examines the complexities and consequences of an illicit sexual affair between a young teacher and her student. Claire is a new teacher at Westerbrook High School in Texas. Dissatisfied in her marriage to her college sweetheart, Claire’s life changes when Eric, a personable teenager in her English class, takes an interest in her. Popular and outgoing, Eric is the captain of the soccer team and nearly inseparable from his best friends. Claire and Eric discover an undeniable connection that allows them to escape their lives, but their relationship accelerates faster than either could anticipate. The permanent damage left in the wake of their illicit affair becomes impossible for them, and their friends and family, to ignore.
The Crown
Netflix
The Crown traces the life of Queen Elizabeth II from her wedding in 1947 through to the present day. The fourth season introduces Lady Diana Spencer and is set during Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, and will introduce Prince William and Prince Harry. Events depicted include the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, their 1983 tour of Australia and New Zealand, the Falklands War, Michael Fagan’s break-in at Buckingham Palace, Lord Mountbatten’s funeral, the Princess of Wales’s appearance at the Barnardo’s Champion Children Awards and her 1989 flight on Concorde.
Big Sky
ABC
From Big Little Lies showrunner David E. Kelley comes a new adaptation of C.J. Box’s crime novels. Private detectives Cassie Dewell and Cody Hoyt join forces with his estranged wife, ex-cop Jenny Hoyt, to search for two sisters who have been kidnapped by a truck driver on a remote highway in Montana. But when they discover that these are not the only girls who have disappeared in the area, they must race against the clock to stop the killer before another woman is taken.
No Man’s Land
Hulu
No Man’s Land dives into the depths of the Syrian civil war through the eyes of Antoine, a young French man, in search for his estranged, presumed to be dead sister. While unraveling the mystery, piece by piece, Antoine ends up joining forces with a unit of Kurdish female fighters, fierce women and ISIS’ biggest nightmare and travels with them into ISIS-occupied territory. Antoine’s journey crosses paths with adventurers and anarchists, spies and innocent victims, and provides a unique look on the tragic events in Syria, and the way they affect the entire world.
Black Narcissus
FX
Black Narcissus is based on the best-selling novel by Rumer Godden. Set in Mopu, Himalayas, in 1934 at a remote clifftop palace once known as the ‘House of Women’, the location holds many dark secrets. When the young nuns of St. Faith attempt to establish a mission there, its haunting mysteries awaken forbidden desires that seem destined to repeat a terrible tragedy.