Staff
- Aug 4, 2017

The Netflix Weekend Watchlist

Matt Linton

1. Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later – Back in May of this year I recommended the film that precedes this series. This picks up (as the title states) ten years after the end of that movie, and follows the prequel series from 2015. This time the action moves from the early 80s to the early 90s, and follows the gang as they return to Camp Firewood. I have no time to watch anything, and yet I know I’ll watch this before the end of the weekend.

2. Castlevania – I’ve never been a hardcore gamer, but Castlevania is one of a handful of video games I dove into back in the day. I remember nothing much about it beyond it being a side-scroller where you whip vampires to death. The reason I plan to check this out is the involvement of comic book writer Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Planetary), who wrote the 4-episode first season.

3. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (Season 2) – I’m going to be real with you. This is not a good show. The writing and acting are regularly in competition with each other for which can be more hacky. It takes actors that have been fantastic in other roles (Arthur Darvill, Victor Garber) and, at best, wastes them. The one thing that salvages the show for me is this – when I was 12, I would have loved every moment of it. It teams up various DC superheroes from different eras and has them time-traveling together and fighting bad guys. There’s no way I could NOT watch this.

Shelby Cadwell

1. BoJack Horseman - This Netflix original focuses on a has-been actor from a 90's sitcom called Horsin' Around. The slightly odd part - he's a horse. In the world of this show, humans and anthropomorphic animals coexist, although the show generally doesn't focus on that. Although each season has great writing and acting, Season 3 really stands out for me as the point where this already-dark show fully leans in to what it is - a nihilistic exploration of the life of someone searching for meaning and failing, over and over again, to find it.

2. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Another Netflix Original series with a slightly bizarre premise, this show follows the titular character's life after she is rescued from a bunker where she was held prisoner by a religious fanatic for 15 years. Kimmy's post-bunker life is an exploration of trauma and anxiety that somehow still manages to be absolutely hilarious. Like BoJack, every season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is great in its own way, but Season 3 is particularly fantastic; the last episode ties things together perfectly, yet still leaves you wanting more.

3. F is for Family - The third Netflix Original series I'm recommending is a bit of a slow burn, and definitely hasn't gotten the positive press of my other two choices. However, F is for Family is just as funny, and as heartbreaking, as anything else on t.v. right now. Following a working class family in suburban American during the 1970s, the show somehow manages to make me nostalgic for a childhood I never had (having grown up in rural Michigan in the 1990s). Although the show has its dark moments, the titular "family" genuinely do love and take care of each other, making this one of Netflix's most cautiously optimistic series.