5 Binges To Kick Start Your New Year!
Between holidays, catching up on PTO, and facing time in quarantine thanks to Omicron, I think we are all finding ourselves with some extra time on our hands. I have personally utilized this time to catch up on various Netflix, HBOMax, Disney+, and Hulu series that I might have missed throughout the year. No one likes that awkward conversation of bringing up a series they really like to you and you’re just left to shrug and act like you watched it because you don’t want to disappoint them. Now is the time to call back on those conversations, try to remember what they said, and actually watch that show! Can’t remember? Well, here’s a list of some recent ones I have watched, enjoyed, and have commonly been brought up in conversation for me. We got this!
From Hulu’s PEN15
The New Yorker just did a piece on the behind-the-scenes process for this series. Video essays of it have swept the internet. PEN15 has been a huge word in the entertainment industry’s mouth since it’s the initial release and for good reason. The show is a depiction of the middle school experience in Y2K focused on two 30-year-old women playing preteens surrounded by actual preteens. It’s a huge step in film and television taking bold choices outside of hyperrealism and to great effect. It was no easy feat. The show’s creators have talked about how they were lucky to be picked up by Hulu, being surpassed in different ways by almost every other streaming service. Even in doing so, they received a very small budget but were able to find a way to make it work for them!
The idea of miscasting isn’t new. We see it commonly in the theater, even this specific trope seen in the recent Steppenwolf Theatre piece Dance Nation. However, as film and television have developed, it’s dipped itself into hyper-realism as we found ourselves running to the cinema for ease in relatability. We love seeing ourselves on screen. I’d be willing to argue now however that we are going to be entering a new renaissance on screen where we take bigger leaps and bounds outside of realism and dip back into the abstract. A large reason I believe this is due to the pandemic— we’ve been facing harsh, nearly unimaginable realities right in front of our very eyes. The theater, the screen, and even music are going to find themselves reaching for more escapism instead of realism. It’s a very exciting time and I think that this show is one of the few from this year at the forefront of this notion. It’s a great laugh, a great nostalgic comedy, and an especially great watch with other people in your age groups to start conversations about cringe-worthy fun middle school stories.
From Hulu’s Reservation Dogs
Yes, I am a huge Taika Watiti fan, but when I say this man OWNS television right now - he OWNS television. I grew up on his work thanks to Flight of the Concords. His newest pieces are not only incredible, but I keep learning that more and more people in my life love his new series as well. What We Do in the Shadows is of course what comes to mind first, especially with its phenomenal new season. And while I highly recommend that show, I think Taika’s talent truly shined in Reservation Dogs.
Reservation Dogs depicts four Indigenous teens doing whatever it takes to get the money they need to leave their Oklahoma reservation and go to California. This show reveals so many truths within American Indigenous culture today that I have never seen anywhere else. It is written in a way that’s primarily for other Indigenous folks, but can also be enjoyed, spread awareness, and teach non-Indigenous audience members as well.
Taika fuels this show with his flawless humor and specificially utilizes a lot of great situational and physical comedy. The soundtrack, as always, is carefully selected and it feels almost like an even more emotionally driven story when you take lyrics into account. This show overall is a major win in a lot of different regards, but I think that a lot of people in television are and should taking notes from Reservation Dogs.
From Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building
3. Only Murders in the Building
In 2019, Rian Johnson released Knives Out. This movie became an instant success, leaving confused critics to figure out why, besides its clean writing, star-studded cast, and flawless execution. A whodunit type of series or movie isn’t the first thing to come to mind when considering genres that audiences run toward in the past few years. If anything, it’s one of the last categories I would vote on. Yet, in the comedy revolution we’re seeing in television and in cinema right now, whodunits that work outside the box will, as always, quickly pull audiences in.
The shows I see people talk about the most are often the ones that have an air of mystery to them. If a show can leave you on cliffhangers every single week it’s released, it’s bound to keep you coming back. I think that several streaming services have picked up on this and have been quick to draw when pitched new shows with that element. I think that’s a reason why Marvel and Star Wars as franchises have constant success, they take a page out of mystery novels’ legacies utilizing cliffhangers as much as they do.
Only Murders in the Building stars one of the most dynamic trios I’ve seen on screen— Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. Steve Martin and Martin Short’s chemistry is all too familiar of course, and Selena brings a modern breath of fresh air to the couple’s legendary comedy. Her role in Only Murders not only brings the unexpected to it, but she plays the perfect grounded character with a sense of dry humor that Selena’s always been good at.
The show is hilarious, of course, and blends mystery tropes with today’s growing true-crime podcast audience. The show presents a parody of them and their viewership that is incredibly self-aware, showing both the positive and negative sides to the content’s creation and viewership. It also has quite an interesting take on disability representation, presenting a few different three-dimensional characters with disabilities that get involved in the crime story. I have rarely witnessed this in writing effectively, only a few pieces come to mind before this one that technically do so in a way that I, as a disabled person, see properly done (Good Times, Breaking Bad, and oddly enough Edward Scissorhands come to mind).
It’s a great piece that everyone can enjoy. It’s super fun and lighthearted considering its murder mystery premise. I watched it with my parents and we adored it! I’ve watched it with my roommates and we adored it! It’s a great group binge!
From Disney+’s Hawkeye
Okay, it’s Marvel catch-up time folks! Now, Hawkeye provided a shocking surprise here at the end of the year. I personally wasn’t expecting much— especially because Hawkeye’s most effective comic is about his disability. And yet, there have been no signs of interest previously shown by the actors and the creators of Marvel in exploring it. . . but they did it! This show broke a lot of different ground for Marvel that I can’t get into for spoiler’s sake, but I can say that it was incredibly satisfying to watch.
I was expecting it to be a Hawkeye-centric show considering the title name, but it was quite far from it. Hailee Steinfeld steals the show as Kate Bishop, a character I am so excited to see on screen, finally. Jeremy Renner acts more as a mentor to her, while he faces the consequences of his previous actions at the same time. There are quite a few more characters introduced throughout the show that I was in no way expecting. It allowed for a lot more perspectives to be brought to the story! Above all else, it’s a great family watch and pairs super well with Spider-Man: No Way Home.
From HBO Max’s Insecure
I got to go to a live taping of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert back in October and the main guest was Issa Rae. Issa swept the stage with such grace and talked with such poise that you could imagine my shock when I went to watch Insecure. This show is a genuine, honest perspective based off of Issa’s experiences through life. It was so hilarious but also insightful. There’s a form of awkward humor to it that pairs well to that of PEN15, but for completely different reasons. Based less out of the awkwardness of middle school, Insecure embraces the daily awkwardness of adulthood we all have come to face. Issa brings her perspective of being a woman of color to the show as a primary theme, illuminating topics that include searching for acceptance within the communities you are already a part of, versus ones you are rejected from.
This show just wrapped up its final season so there’s no need to worry about dreaded season-ending cliffhangers. It’s a great watch with roommates or your partner, in my opinion. There’s a lot of conversation starters throughout it that can be something to really reflect on while watching with others!
BONUS!
Here’s an extra “catch up” section with a list of shows you’ve most likely already started that have just released new seasons or are about to! A great place to jump off of if you’ve seen a lot of the above and/or you are needing reminders of what in this recent release splurge you might have missed:
Bridgerton (Season 2 is coming out 3/25)
Euphoria (Season 2 is out in January)
The Witcher (Season 2 just released)
Sex Education (Season 3 recently was released)
Ted Lasso (Season 2 coming out summer 2022)
Atlanta (Season 3 comes out in early 2022)
Marvelous Ms. Maisel (Season 4 is out 2/14)
Killing Eve (Season 4 on 2/27)
Stranger Things (Summer 2022)
And, if you are a Last of Us fan, the new HBO series is about to come out so if you want to catch up on the games before seeing it, now is the time! Later in the year, we are going to see some other releases with lots of big league predecessors including: Obi-Wan, Andor, Lord of the Rings, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Assassin’s Creed, The Crown, House of the Dragon(a GoT prequel), Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk.
There is a LOT of new watches coming our way here in the New Year so only one question remains: Where to start?
