Five TV shows worth your time
If I could plot a histogram for number of hours I spent watching TV shows over the past years, 2018 would look pretty steep. Thanks to the innumerable streaming services my ability to devour TV content — old and new has found new heights. Here are five television shows I discovered this year which I believe are well worth your time, in no particular order.
Seinfeld (1989–1998)
For a very long time I held a belief that F.R.I.E.N.D.S was the epitome of the sitcom format, that it couldn’t be outdone by any other show. How could any sitcom get better than Friends? As I started watching Seinfeld it carefully shattered that belief into a million wet pieces. I’ve been obsessed with this show ever since. Seinfeld is a cultural phenomenon which stopped airing 20 years ago but it’s legacy has remained unfazed. The absurd, bizarre and intricately whacked out plots and jokes make me laugh even when I’m not watching it. The vocabulary of Seinfeld is remarkable, no other show has used language so well into it’s writing. Most shows need a higher order story or an emotive plot to keep the viewer interested. Seinfeld realizes that it doesn’t need all that fluff and melodrama hence it bravely discards anything beyond the ordinary life. There are no character arcs, no closures and no hugs. The four neurotic characters remain the same throughout the show buried in their own self-interest and their inability to deal with the world. Notwithstanding these many fallacies, Seinfeld is incredibly brilliant with it’s comedy. You’ll grow to love the characters because they’re just so quirky and funny you wish they existed in your life. Don’t let it’s old age fool you into believing that it might not be interesting in 2018. This show has stood the test of time and it always will. Easily the greatest TV show I’ve ever come across.
Spaced (1999–2001)
Made at the brink of the millennium Spaced is an unusual show. Firstly, it’s British — that already pushes it way up my list. Spaced is also a paradox of sorts, it was intended to be an in-moment show at the start of the millennium but has stayed afresh even after 18 years.
Two North Londoners pretending to be married to find affordable housing-nothing new in there yet it’s clever, inventive, funny and always surprising. This is the birth of the trio — Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who went on to make cult classics like Shaun Of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. You can already see Edgar Wright’s magic at play. His scene transitions are a treat to your senses. This show has a multitude of in-movie references, it’s love for sci-fi and comics hooked me right from the first episode. Simon Pegg has an unusually good comic sense and Jessica Hynes (now Stevenson) is gorgeous — an unpopular opinion and I could listen to her pure British accent all day. I don’t really belong to the generation of the characters on this show but I really wish I was. They portray a perfect amalgam of the people of my generation and theirs — a little ambitious and wanting to succeed but too dammed lazy to do anything about it.
All the other characters are deliciously strange. The kind that you don’t see in modern TV. Spaced will always remain a special show for me. It is British comedy at it’s best.
Bojack Horseman (2014 — )
A disclosure here : This tiny post of mine cannot do enough justice in describing a show like Bojack Horseman and the impact it can have on the viewer.
Bojack Horseman is anti-therapy. Watching this show will taint the depths of your heart with a dollop of uneasiness and utter disdain for yourself. That is how powerful this show is. Under the veneer of colorful characters set in Hollywoo(d) Bojack Horseman is a brutally honest commentary about the meaninglessness of our lives, the hopelessness that comes when you take your mind off all the distractions around you, warts and all. Touching broad strokes around Existential Nihilism this show wades deep into the human psyche. I’ve never been on heroin but I’ve heard the horror stories about it’s withdrawal. I believe watching this show isn’t any different. I’ll refrain myself from writing more about it because this is show that needs to be experienced and internalized, without too much talking. Nevertheless, Bojack Horseman is an extremely brilliant show, the kind that’s never been made. Other shows which address mental health like 13 Reasons Why feel like Sunday morning cartoons when compared to the mental desolation that Bojack Horseman is.
Queer Eye (2018 — )
It’s funny how Queer Eye is an absolute contrast to Bojack Horseman. Queer Eye represents everything good about the human condition. I’m not really into structured reality television but Queer Eye was a fresh breath of air. This show reshaped my understand of the LGBT community and deconstructed my earlier notions of what it means to be a man.
Primarily a makeover show, Queer Eye does a whole lot more than that. Most of the makeover shows are usually about the person who is getting treated. Here, however, the lead characters grow beyond that and start having an impact on the viewer as well. At the end of my binge I was absolutely in love with the Fab Five. It entailed a lot of learning and self reflection and some genuinely good fashion advice. A lot of self help content out there tries to dictate a perspective that doesn’t belong to you. Queer Eye strives for acceptance no matter how bizarre or muddled up your condition is, now that is a good place to start working on yourself. Each one of the Fab Five is terrific and extremely good at what they do and they work closely with each other. I’ve realized that gender and sexuality are very fluid constructs and not these concreted blocks that I grew up believing.
The Expanse (2015 — )
I was born too late to experience the phenomenon that Star Trek was. That show which inspired a generation and rattled the space nerd in everyone. Well, The Expanse is close to becoming my Star Trek except that it’s a whole lot better and I can’t help but giggle at the oldies who swear and live by Captain Kirk and warp drives. Set 200 years into the future The Expanse presents a fully colonized Solar System. This show honors the science behind space exploration. There are no warp drives, no “it just exists” technology. Everything neatly ties into our current understanding of space. It’s also interesting so see the various dimensions the story is told in. This isn’t just a space opera. It’s a good space fantasy laden with inter-planetary politics pointing that humans will still be squabbling like kids even in the future.
There are some badass spaceships and exceptionally well made battle sequences. The characters feel real and you can’t help but root for them. The CGI is impressive in its detail. The Expanse is everything a good space opera should be.
