All Boxsetted Out? These Suggestions Will Get You Through
Apparently the average Brit spends (and I can’t believe this) around 28 hours per week watching telly. Given Love Island only takes up around eight hours, that still gives us around 20 hours to spend on our boxsets. So we’ve been hitting the streaming services this month and here’s what we’ve been watching…
I’ll go first, and I’ve been supplementing my Love Island addiction with a pretty mixed bag, with a bit of true crime (usually Emily’s forté) as well as some old school politics fun.
The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story
I went to watch Cuba Gooding Jr playing sweet talking lawyer Billy Flynn in Chicago the other month, it was good but he was a little… wooden. Which is strange because the last time I saw him in the courtroom was in The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and he was brilliant. Playing ‘The Juice’, Gooding Jr nails it as the could-be murderer that had the entire world transfixed back in the 90s. The trial was box office stuff, and so is this ten part miniseries. John Travolta is unsurprisingly convincing as a creepy lawyer Robert Shapiro while David Schwimmer plays the original Kardashian, Robert. It’s gripping and extremely well made, but it’s also a timely look at American culture, with the young Kardashians a constant reminder of direction of travel for celebrity culture, while America’s complicated relationship with race a constant undertone. Even the bit roles are brilliantly cast, Connie Britton (aka’d as Coach Taylor’s wife) playing an excellent Faye Resnick. For anyone who remembers the trial it’s nostalgic, for anyone else it’s totally fascinating and for everyone it’s a chilling delve into true Americana.
Catch the series on Netflix here…
Yes Minister
Most TV from the 1980s doesn’t stand up thirty-plus years later, even classics like Minder and Bergerac look dated. But Yes Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister could have been written today. The satire is perfectly searing, the acting it absolutely top notch and, depressingly, the issues are nearly identical. How close hapless Minister Jim Hacker, played by The Good Life’s Paul Eddington, is to those ministers currently negotiating Brexit for us is up for debate (but judging by the state of politics I’m guessing he’d do a better job), but civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby, expertly portrayed by Nigel Hawthorne, is almost certainly a carbon copy of the mandarins taking Britain’s case to Brussels – Michel Barnier won’t know what’s hit him. If you want to understand British politics Yes Minister is the place to start.
They’ve taken it off Netflix, so try here for a lower quality YouTube rendition…
Charlotte (Original Charlotte, not New Charlotte) has been getting down with Batman origin story Gotham (so at least we know one character they can’t ever kill off) and the American re-make of Shameless, if only for the sex scenes…
Gotham
Gotham is a beginnings story of Batman, before Batman was Batman. It follows a pre-teen Bruce Wayne dealing with the recent loss of his parents and all the calamities that go along with living in Gotham as Detective James Gordon constantly saves the city from various villains. I’m not a massive fan of any of the Batman films (Batman Forever and Batman & Robin not included in that obviously) but I really enjoy this series. Diehard fans will appreciate the appearance of major characters like a teenage Catwoman (who also plays a vague love interest to Bruce), Penguin and Riddler – the latter two who are my absolute favourites. Gotham is fairly dark, literally and figuratively, in both bleak storylines where people get mauled, kidnapped, poisoned, tortured etc on a weekly basis and also, in a prophetic fallacy, where it rains a lot or is grey and overcast the rest of the time. That being said they manage to slip some humour in there with Riddler turning into quite the joker… but not the actual Joker, who also has a reoccurring role.
Shameless US
I originally got into Shameless when I started streaming it on a not altogether legal site (it was in the dark ages before I had Netflix and times were hard) but as with dodgy streaming sites, the quality was bad and the constant buffing drove me mad so I gave up a couple of seasons in. Imagine my joy a few years later when I saw that 6 seasons were neatly ready to be watched on Netflix – season 7 will be added to the UK Netflix in September. I never really got into the original Shameless but I love the US version; it’s funny, gut-wrenching and heart-warming in equal measure – there’s also a few graphic sex scenes chucked in vicariously if you’re into that sort of thing.
Emily clearly didn’t get the ‘boxsets’ brief because she’s gone off piste with a standup special as well as Champions, a sitcom with such a trick to Google name I’m surprised it was commissioned (so much sports stuff comes up first), but she’s mainly left the paved road because for once she’s chosen two shows that have nothing to do with murder or true crime. Must be the weather….
Champions
In between Love Island and simultaneously complaining and loving the heatwave, I’ve had very little time for boxset watching, which is why Champions has been my go to, it’s an easy ten episodes and they’re only twenty minutes each making it easily binge-able. And for once, it’s not a murder mystery, that will no doubt start back up in autumn when the weather is more fitting. Instead, Champions is a light-hearted, sassy comedy about Michael, the fiercest fifteen -year- old around. His mum played by Mindy Kaling (who also happens to be one of the executive producers) had Michael (played by J.J Totah) as a teenager with Vince, her high-school jock boyfriend, who never grew up and now owns New York’s fifth largest gym with his equally jock brother and his motley crew of unlikely trainers. When Michael’s accommodation at the school falls through, he’s sent off to live with Vince who is still anything but ready to have a son. Especially one that has no interest in gyms. Of course, what ensues is a predictable but sweet story about a father and son learning from each other. Already dropped by NBC, whether Champions will be back for a second series is unsure, but you should watch the first series, even if just for J.J Totah stealing every scene.
Nanette
This isn’t a boxset, this is a comedy standup special on Netflix. Is it a comedy though? What starts as a comedy show, with comedian Hannah Gadsby making self-deprecating jokes suddenly changes as Gadsby makes an announcement. She needs to quit comedy. Why? Because of those self-deprecating jokes. Because of the humiliation that comedy brings. Addressing homophobia, sexism and her own experiences of abuse, Gadsby takes the audience on a tense, necessarily uncomfortable and rightfully angry journey. There’s nervous laughter, there’s relief when Gadsby does break the tension and there’s a lot to think about. She’s done hiding and she’s done making jokes at the expense of herself – because jokes aren’t stories, they have a set up and punch line, what’s missing is the middle, what’s missing in Gadsby’s own story and now she is ready to tell it. Without any self-deprecation.
Charlotte (New Charlotte, not Original Charlotte) has been left to fly the flag, being the only person here to only watch British shows, albeit going down the dark-and-gritty path of Keeping Faith and Safe (spoiler alert, they sound like basically the same programme!)…
Keeping Faith
The other day in the office we had the old “anyone watching anything good at the moment?” chat, which was accompanied by a series of suggestions, and the throwing around of adjectives and nouns. Keeping Faith caught my attention, probably because the title reminded me of my own predicament; trying to keep some faith that I’d eventually find a good series having exhausted Netflix.
The BBC hit is set in Wales, which already lured me in as it’s a place I find we often forget (sorry Wales, forgive us!) To put it simply, it’s a drama that sees female protagonist Faith (Eye Myles) on-screen and in-real-life hubby (Bradley Freegard) go missing unexpectedly. Portrayed at the start as quite the content couple with Freegard helping Faith put on her dress and carrying her to the aptly named “drunk bunk” after she staggers in post night-out, there is the appearance of a unscathed and happy home. Working as lawyers and living in a fancy, modern house with their kids it’s quite the stereotypical family scene, Faith fumbling about baby in one arm, kettle in the other, and kisses and glances shared by the “happy” couple paint them in a functioning-family light.
The drama draws you in from the start, with Eye Myles’ infectious personality and the poignancy of watching her happy-go-lucky-self attempt to juggle the consequences of her husband leaving. Surrounding the mystery disappearance are fake passports, debt, family lies, murder court cases and moustaches, making it incredibly hard to decipher what the heck is going on…but that’s what makes it so great.
Safe
Safe: The Netflix series that has seen me cutting short drinks with friends to rush back to my TV Screen to get my hit of this bourgeois gated community. Basically, in this community everyone is up to no good, with secrets and dodgy dealings a’ plenty. The series centres around a drug-fuelled, parents-are-away, party where everything seems to go wrong… funny that! The next thing you know there’s a murder, a missing girl and Michael C Hall, who plays lead character Tom, whirling about looking for his daughter accompanied by his very questionable British accent.
Set in a kind of English suburbia, the moreish whodunit sees Hall, renowned for playing Florida serial killer Dexter, transform into a panicked dad running about with his best mate looking for his daughter, accompanied by flashbacks of his recent wife who died of an illness. The neighbourhood is filled with crooks galore, from a frisky red-headed French teacher to a banter-loving millionaire whose cocky ways lead him awry, to two female detectives trying to tie up the many, many lose ends. There’s never a dull moment in Safe, with everyone harbouring a secret or five. It’s thrilling, it’s poignant and it’s filled with ambiguous quotes like “people are entitled to their secrets”, making it quite the captivator.
