The Top Shows to Watch

This excellent drama miniseries starts in the middle of one night when Alex, a 25-year-old, grabs her daughter and flees her home. She is chased by her abusive boyfriend but doesn’t look back. She has 18 dollars to her name. The story is based on a real-life memoir called “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and […]

Have you finished Wild Wild Country and are up for another binge-worthy documentary? If so, 1994 might be a compelling option for you to consider. Released on Netflix for the 25th anniversary of the events in 2019, most of the story would be hard to believe if it wasn’t… you know… based on facts and […]

Patriot is about a secret agent meddling with the Iranian elections to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Ok, so like Homeland? Yes, and also very much no. Its protagonist is not a hardened, larger-than-life secret operative but a singer-songwriter stoner with PTSD. As far as spy dramas go, Patriot certainly takes a lot […]

While the BBC is famous for making some great understated drama series about the dark side of detective work (Luther, Line of Duty, Broadchurch), it has raised the bar with Happy Valley. It’s so good, it successfully breathes new life into the middle-aged but strong-willed small-town police officer trope, taking it to some uncomfortable and […]

Former SNL cast member and comedy legend Bill Hader is the writer and main protagonist of the HBO-produced and three-time Emmy-winning series Barry. Part psychological thriller, part dark comedy – one of many new series in the “dramedy” genre – deals with the unlikely premise of a PTSD-ridden low-rent assassin, who, after travelling to LA […]

Julia Roberts first small-screen role is that of Heidi Bergman, a woman working as a caseworker at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, a facility that helps war veterans return to civilian life. Her boss Colin Belfast, superbly played by Bobby Cannavale, is a busy and eager man with questionable motives. Four years on, Bergman no […]

What would you do if 2% of the world’s population disappeared without any apparent reason? This haunting human catastrophe is the premise of the HBO series The Leftovers. Starting three years after the event (dubbed the “Sudden Departure”), it homes in on small town coming to grips with the ramifications of this question, particularly police […]

If you watched Homeland, you might recall that the central question was whether the main character was good or bad. In The Honourable Woman, the question is whether anybody is good or bad. With Maggie Gyllenhaal in the Golden-Globe-winning leading role, this Netflix/BBC production centers in on Nessa Stein, the heiress to a large arms […]

If you liked Netflix’ Stranger Things gloomy suspense, sit tight because there is a lot more of where that came from in Dark. Here is what they have in common: the aesthetic, great music, and they’re both about the disappearance of a child. Other than that, it is very difficult to compare Dark to anything […]

Ok, two words: Idris Elba. This 11-time Emmy-nominated detective series is his show. He leads the action as DCI John Luther, a Serious Crime Unit detective, who is as smart as he is self-destructive. A committed policeman but frequently in over his head and prone to be consumed by the darkness of the criminals he […]

This British comedy stars Charlotte Ritchie (Feel Good) as a broke young woman who unexpectedly inherits the house of a distant family member. Instead of selling it, she and her boyfriend decide they want to renovate it into a hotel. This doesn’t sit well with the house ghosts, who are already strapped for space. The charming […]

A Swedish production that went global on Netflix, Caliphate is an addictive thriller about two groups of young people in the Scandinavian country: one already radicalized and fighting in Syria, and the other still in high-school and on the path to radicalization. An anti-terrorism officer with a questionable past is put in contact with a […]

Pressured by the feeling that everyone is having sex except him, Otis (Asa Butterfield), like most teenagers, is very uncomfortable with sex, masturbation, and intimacy in general. In addition to the standard-issue teenage awkwardness, to make things worse, he grows up in a sex-positive household under the watchful eyes of his mother Jean, played by […]

This heartwarming comedy-drama is about two best friends in their 20s who are deaf. One of them is a graphic novelist going through a breakup and the other just got engaged but is hiding the news out of fear of making her friend feel bad. The script is sharp and funny, and like any first […]

Based on the 2015 Pulitzer-Prize-winning article “An Unbelievable Story of Rape”, here is one of the best Netflix productions in a while and definitely the best detective-centric show since the first season of True Detective. The eight-part drama examines the case of a 16-year-old from Washington, who claims she has been raped in her bedroom […]