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broodings from the burrow

September 4, 2018


top ten tuesday: bingeworthy tv shows/amazing movies
posted by soe 1:29 am

This week That Artsy Reader’s Top Ten Tuesday topic focuses on the tv shows and movies we’re watching when we aren’t reading.

Since many of the shows I watch seem to have been canceled in the last year, much of this list draws from Netflix or dvds:

  1. Leverage: I am a sucker for a found family kind of story and a huge fan of heist capers, so this series falls squarely in my wheelhouse.
  2. Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries: This Australian historical fiction deals with a self-described lady detective in 1920s Melbourne who always finds her bad guy to collar, her downtrodden victim to uplift, her hot guy to bed, and her chief inspector to infuriate and intrigue.
  3. Sherlock and Elementary: The casting in these two modern-day Sherlock Holmes series is top notch. In the former, we have Benedict Cumberbatch as our enigmatic consulting detective, with a retired army doctor portrayed by Martin Freeman as the personable partner in crime-fighting. In the latter, set in New York City, instead of London, the title role is portrayed by Johnny Lee Miller, with Lucy Liu playing the partner detective cum former sober companion cum ex-surgeon, Joan Watson. The recurring secondary characters in both shows are equally well cast. That said, for taking place in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, Sherlock is very white, and Elementary is only a little better.
  4. The Librarians: First a series of movies featuring Noah Wylie and then a spin-off series of tv shows about a group of rogue librarians who must fight otherworldly evil-doers through their innate talents and their ability to do book research.
  5. The Good Witch: I think this was also a series of made-for-tv movies first before it became a series about a widow who runs a b&b and her high school-aged daughter, both of whom have an other-worldly ability (but that they use for good, rather than evil), her grown step-children, her witchy, trickster cousin, and the love interest, a nationally renowned, divorced doctor who gives up the fast-paced city life to become a small-town GP because he wants to give his teenaged son a better quality of life.
  6. Father Brown: Set in the 1950s, a liberal and kindly nosy village priest (portrayed by Mr. Weasley) saves his congregation’s souls and solves their murders.
  7. One Day at a Time: This contemporary remake focuses on a multi-generational Cuban-American family. Penelope is a former army nurse/single mom with two kids and a mother, played by the amazing Rita Moreno, living in a small apartment owned by the inept Canadian Schneider, who also serves as a sounding board for Penelope and a fill-in father figure for the kids, whose own father is still serving overseas.
  8. Agents of SHIELD: Operating in the same universe as the Marvel superhero movies, this tv series focuses on the law-enforcement agents. It’s a multi-racial, multi-national set of characters (although they’re mostly Americans), each of whom has their strengths, such as hacking, fighting, disguise, or science. Another found family kind of show, but one that’s high-stress and full of aliens and alien tech. Features the best car on television, Lola.
  9. The Princess Bride: I’m not sure what millennials and Gen Y/Z kids quote, but this is solidly the most quotable film of the Gen X’ers.
  10. and, finally, the Harry Potter movies: Because obviously.

Apparently my tv/movie watching skews bookish, because only One Day at a Time and The Good Witch have nothing really to do with books (although they do feature characters who like to read). The others either came from books or comic books, have spun a trilogy of books off from the show (Leverage), or feature a magical library.

What are your favorite shows or films to binge on?

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