One Season Shows To Bide The Time
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Not all series are created equal, some are better in long-form like Game of Thrones and others are better as snapshots tied up in one neat season. Longer than a feature film but shorter than the never-ending Supernatural.
Here are some picks that have piqued our interest for your viewing pleasure. Now is definitely the time to snuggle up on the couch turn the tv on and sink into a good show.
Giri/Haji
This package piece about a Japanese detective looking for his Yakuza brother in London is so much more than just a thriller action series. Though the plot may be an age-old crime noir, the story is more wrapped around the strong emotional turmoil in each character surrounding feelings of duty and shame (as the title states). Filled with characters whos actions all tie together in a tumulous dance of London and Tokyo policemen, Yakuza, English gangsters there is a beautiful story about family, trust and shame that is emulated wonderfully by all the actors. The show is stunningly shot, cutting from scenes seamlessly, framing flashbacks in thin impactful lines and even including gorgeous watercolour animations.
Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
IMBD: 7.9
Maniac
Truly a wild ride from start to finish, this show featuring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill is whacky through and through but just like Giri /Haji it has it’s own deep undertones. While waiting for Cary Joji Fukunaga’s James Bond in November try this batty yet meaningful story about dealing with the tough things in life. Stone and Hill’s characters Annie Landsberg and Owen Milgrim live in the futuristic eighties imagined by Fukunaga with hints at overtly capitalistic advertising all around. They join an experimental drug trial meant to cure them of their depression and schizophrenia accordingly. The drug is meant to allow them to deal with their problems inside their minds through various crazed scenarios. Here begins a fantastical journey to find oneself in bright technicolour.
Rotten Tomatoes: 85%
IMBD: 7.8
When They See Us
Heart and gut-wrenching, this is the story of five coloured boys wrongly accused of violently raping a woman in Central Park. Ava DuVernay, who also directed the award-winning Selma, is the one to bring this story to life and she does it well. It’s the kind of series you want to watch early in the day so that you can walk out of the house after because the injustice is just that painful. The Central Park Jogger Case in 1989 was a sad case of misconduct that destroyed more than just the assaulted joggers life. This show lays that out for all to see in all it’s painful glory. Set in dark depressing blues and greens, with stellar performances by the young actors, this is a show that needs to be seen, but it might hurt you in the process.
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
IMBD: 9
The Stranger
Richard Armitage is back to his normal height and back in an English setting with this thriller about a stranger who upends his character’s life in the worst possible way. Adam Price is at his son’s football match when a stranger pulls up next to him at the bar and tells him that his wife Corrine faked her pregnancy. That becomes the tip of the iceberg as it leads to other unsightly secrets come to head in a town that is seemingly peaceful. Watch as Price spirals when his wife goes missing after their argument, he doesn’t know who to trust anymore. Shaun Dooley, Hannah John-Kamen and Stephen Rea give excellent supporting performances. Don’t miss Giles, Anthony Head, from Buffy The Vampire Slayer playing Price Senior as well. No cliffhangers here.
Rotten Tomatoes: 86%
IMBD: 7.4
Howards End
Many may miss Hayley Atwell as the spunky Agent Carter from Captain America, but they can find her again in this beautifully shot adaptation of Howards End the book by famed novelist E. M. Forster. A classic now, this new version of the period-piece has wonderful costumes and beautiful backdrops. The main theme of the show is to portray the changes in the social landscape and questions the class divisions through the interactions of three families. The Wilcox family sits at the top with their mountain of capitalistic wealth and Howard’s End(the house), but their lives are intertwined with the boisterous half-german Schlegel sisters whose cultural pursuits are a bit out of the norm for the time. The sisters aim to help the lower-class Basts family as well as convert the set thinking of the Wilcox’s. Alongside Atwell stands Matthew Macfadyen, Philippa Coulthard, Joseph Quinn, Joe Bannister, Rosalind Eleazar and Alex Lawther.
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
IMBD: 7.3
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