Shows you Should be Watching

Howdy! 

Life is very weird and boring right now. You don't need me to tell you that. But something you might need is a show to watch.

I like to think I have pretty good taste, so I hope you'll take my suggestions into consideration.

I'm gonna try to make this a list of shows that aren't your everyday recommendations like The Office, Stranger Things, and whatever the heck Westworld is. (I seriously have no clue. I do recommend the first two though, if you haven't seen them. And yes, I'll give Westworld a try, I guess.)

So, like, there's a fair chance you haven't seen all of these.

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What to watch on:

                              NETFLIX:                           

My top pick: 

Limitless-

 Rating: TV-14 

Premise: Based on the Bradley Cooper movie of the same name, Limitless follows the story of Brian Finch, an ordinary unsuccessful musician whose life is changed when he discovers NZT, a (fictional!) drug that unlocks the full potential of one's mind.

Pros: 

• One season, short enough to binge in a day or two.
• You don't have to have seen the movie to understand it. Though I wouldn't discourage it, because I would never ask one to shy away from Bradley Cooper.
• Compelling story!
• Interesting characters! A male/female duo makes up our leads-- Brian and his FBI handler, Rebecca. A relationship that rocks AND is entirely platonic! WOW!
• Funny, and almost every episode has a unique style to it. I'd almost label it a comedy.
• Bradley Cooper is in it.

Cons:

• Only one season, you'll be depressed when it's over.
• Bradley Cooper isn't in it that much.
• It's about drugs soooo...

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Black Mirror- 

 Rating: TV-MA 

Premise: An anthology series that takes your ordinary dystopian "what-if" show and makes it much more realistic, more plausible, and therefore, more terrifying. Each episode revolves around a situation that is not too far from comprehensible in the near future. Most of them are about pieces of technology we don't yet have, but that don't seem too far out of reach.

And pretty much nothing is as it seems.

The show will make you think, a lot. It will most likely make you paranoid. But dang if it isn't so good.

Since each episode is its own story, you don't have to watch the show in order! You might catch tiny easter eggs if you do, but it isn't important to the plot. In fact, here are the episodes I recommend most (I can't tell you too much about the plots, because the fun of it is watching to figure it out):

• Bandersnatch- a choose your own adventure revolving around a budding video game developer. It's in the 80s! 
• Hated in the Nation- Will make you afraid of hashtags and bugs.
• USS Callister- The Star Trek one. I really can't tell you any more than that.
• Crocodile- A woman struggles to cope with a dark secret of her past.
• Nosedive- The social media one, starring Bryce Dallas Howard.

Each episode ranges from 45-70 minutes (a little longer if you go back and try to get different endings in Bandersnatch.)

Now let's discuss the cons of the show. 

• Rarely will you see happy endings or even closure.
• If you liked an episode and wanted to see the story continued, you're out of luck, because each episode is a new story with new characters.
• Some episodes are just awful. Premises I never wanted to imagine. Premises I'll never unsee. So please do yourself a favor and avoid the pilot episode. And the Anthony Mackie one, too, while you're at it.
• Your curiosity, if anywhere as morbid as my own, will make you ignore my pleas and go watch both of those episodes. You, too, will probably wish you hadn't.

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Person of Interest-

 Rating: TV-14 

Premise: A retired federal agent and a millionaire software engineer team up as vigilantes to detect and stop crimes before they happen. They do this with help from a machine called, get this, The Machine, which uses an algorithm big-brother-is-watching-you-style to predict when a crime is going to happen and who it's going to happen to.

Pros: 

• Reese and Finch, the protagonists, make an excellent duo. Taraji P. Henson's character, a cop who is chasing them down, is also just. So good. I love them. That's all.

Cons: 

• As it goes with all cop shows, they can only do so much before it starts feeling like it's getting repetitive. For this reason, I never finished it. That said, I have nothing better to do, so I think I'm going to revisit it.

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Umbrella Academy-

 Rating: TV-14 

Premise: On October 1st (I forget what year), a whole slew of babies were born around the world. As it goes. Except here's the thing. These babies were never conceived. The mothers were never pregnant they just... had the babies. Out of nowhere. So stuffy-rich-guy Reginald Hargreeves sets out to collect these babies, because why not. He succeeds in getting 7 of them. They all have super powers. He raises them X-Men style and they fight crime on the side. 

As adults, they've all gone on to do their own things, having moved on from each other. But now they have to reunite as they learn of their father's death... oh, and the impending apocalypse.

Pros:

• I know I've probably said this a lot on here, but this show is so unique. For lack of better word, it's quirky.
• Gerard Way wrote the comics it's based on :)

Cons:

• Gerard Way does not make any physical appearances. He has a couple songs in the soundtrack though! :)
• Oh yeah there's also the uh... incest, but anyway,,,, (ok it's not techni-- you know what? No, I'm not getting into this.)

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A Series of Unfortunate Events-

 Rating: TV-PG 

Premise: Based on my favorite book series ever, ASOUE follows the three newly-oprhaned Baudelaire siblings as they move on from guardian to guardian, trying to evade the despicable Count Olaf (a distant relative of theirs who is only interested in one thing: obtaining their family fortune.)

Pros: 

• Neil Patrick Harris gave us the portrayal of Count Olaf we all deserved. (Not that Jim Carrey was bad, but NPH blew him out of the water basically.)
• I also don't think I'll ever be able to read the books without hearing it narrated in Patrick Warburton's voice.
• Speaking of the books, they actually covered ALL of them, unlike the movie.
• A good show for families. Probably the only show on this list I can say that for.

Cons: 

• It's cheesy. As it should be. It's not something to be taken too seriously. 
• It does stray from the source material a bit. But I'm okay with this, because Lemony Snicket himself was on board.

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What to watch on: 

           Amazon Prime Video:            

My top pick: 

Chuck-

 Rating: TV-14 

Premise: Another spy show! But! The funniest one out there (or your money back). 

Chuck revolves around Chuck Bartowski, an employee in the Nerd Herd at Buy More. (Equivalents of the Geek Squad and Best Buy, respectively.) One day, he gets an email from his old college nemesis/roommate. The last thing he expects when clicking the email is for a government database called The Intersect to download itself into his mind. But that's exactly what happens. 

No more spoilers, but if there's any one show on this list I desperately want you to watch, I swear this is the one.

Pros:

• Zachary Levi (Shazam, Tangled, need I say more?)
• This show has so much heart.
• BUT! An equal amount of humor. In fact, this is actually labelled a comedy, I think. I don't know. But it's like 50% serious spy action and 50% nerdiness and stupid coworker antics. If not 50/50, then it's somewhere close like 58/42. 

Cons:

• I can't think of anything bad to say about Chuck, I really can't. I think it was just about the perfect length, if not just a /bit/ too long? 
• Chevy Chase was in it for a few episodes, that was weird.
• That's it. Please watch Chuck or I'll cry.

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Mr. Robot-

 Rating: TV-MA  

Premise: I've only seen the first six episodes, so I can't really say much about it. I shouldn't even be putting it on the list, I just felt like I needed more content under the Prime category.

 It's about a hacker named Elliot (Rami Malek) who... hacks... stuff. Idk. The show is very... I don't even know the word I'm looking for, but it's got an unfiltered kind of feel to it. It doesn't feel like it's ever holding back or cheapening anything. It's daring, I guess. And also sometimes trippy. But I like it.

Pros: 

• Rami Malek is in the starring role.
• He has a dog and a fish.

Cons:

• Elliot is the type of protagonist you root for in a sense of hoping he cleans his life up, rather than directly cheering him on in all his actions. He's a good dude, at heart, but you wanna see him be a better dude, I guess.

• What I'm trying to say is he does drugs. And not the NZT-kind. 
• And like I said, the show is pretty unfiltered. So it's not really for everyone.

Then again, it's been a hot minute since I watched this, so please don't take my word for it. Because like I said, I didn't even finish season 1. So... maybe it gets really boring, or maybe I haven't even touched upon how good it is, I don't know. I've got plenty of material to last me throughout quarantine, though, as you can see.

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Band of Brothers- 

 Rating: TV-MA 

Premise: Man I haven't finished this one either. I'm bad at this.

It's a 10-part miniseries about WWII paratroopers and their encounters during the war. 

Pros: 

• It's so good. I don't hear enough people talking about it, probably because it really isn't the type of thing you'd think to watch unless you're big into war dramas. Which I'm not, not really. It's just an incredible story about incredible people, and it's told and displayed so beautifully. And by beautifully, I mean... raw.

Cons: 

• It's brutal. As it should be, it's... I mean, it's war. But not for the faint of heart.
• Jimmy Fallon was in it unironically for like 45 seconds ???

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Guess what? I'm sick of typing synopses! Can you tell?

What to watch on:

                                hulu:                                    

My top pick: 
Timeless- 
 Rating: TV-14 

Premise: A soldier, a pilot, and a historian team up to go back in time, to different significant parts of history, and stop an evil time traveller who wants to change history I... I just cheapened it a lot, but it's actually really good.

Pros: 

• 2 seasons, so it's short and sweet.
• There's a Bonnie and Clyde episode!!!!!!!!
• There are more pros I'm just tired of thinking.

Cons: 

• It's got a very NBC feel to it, which... I can't explain exactly what that means... It's like in between being very CW and very CBS, if that means anything to you. CW means... bad script, trashy. NBC means, more like... it doesn't feel all that genuine all the time? Kinda predictable I guess? But I did love it and will vouch for it.

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Manifest- 

 Rating: TV-PG 

Premise: A woman, her brother, and her nephew all get onto a plane. For them, everything seems normal, save for some turbulence... But when they land, the passengers learn five years have passed. They now must try to fit back in to a society of people (including loved ones) who have moved on. As they adjust, the passengers also start seeing and hearing things that may be grim visions of what's in store.

Cons: Gotta be honest, this is my current guilty pleasure show. I can't think of anything that stands out that much about it, to justify there being a pros section. It's even more NBC than Timeless is. But I do enjoy it, and maybe you will, too.

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Lost- 

 Rating: TV-14 

Premise: MORE PLANES!! Lost focuses on a group of passengers who crashed on an island. Lots of flashbacks, lots of characters and backstories and things to piece together.

And you see a lot of eye shots like this!!!!

Pros and Cons in the same paragraph, just because:

This is actually a fantastic show.... that dwindles in its later seasons, yes.

I think they dragged it on a bit too long. But it's unrivaled in the sense that it sort of changed the game for television, and set a new bar for me personally. It has a really good level of pop culture, where it's quotable, and its characters and actors are recognizable, and it has fictional companies with logos you can sport, and it's easy to sneak references into conversations... but it was never overhyped or oversold, which I really appreciate.

Also there's a dog! (That's a pro btw).

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Guess that's it. See you in next week's post, where I'll be talking about who knows what.

-Manda

Oh P.S., I'd like to go ahead and apologize for the formatting of this post. I don't understand what's going on, so the text's kinda out of whack.

k bye.