If ever there was a year to lose myself in television binge-watching, 2019 was it for me.
The past year has been a never-ending series of stressors - punctuated by the occasional moment of joy, but finally culminating in melancholy and weariness. In the last few months, I've watched both my parents rapidly lose ground, both physically and cognitively. My brother and I spent the entire autumn making repeated trips to our Indiana hometown - to emergency rooms, hospital rooms, nursing homes, caregiver agencies and stores selling wheelchairs and walkers. Just prior to this harried new chapter of life, I went through a troubling cancer scare; following it, I experienced a sudden rash of issues with my car.
In times like these, I need television to be like comfort food. What better comfort is there than allowing oneself to sink into her sofa and devour an entire tv series in one weekend-sized gulp? It sure worked for me.
In times like these, I need television to be like comfort food. What better comfort is there than allowing oneself to sink into her sofa and devour an entire tv series in one weekend-sized gulp? It sure worked for me.
I've ranked these in order from least favorite to most favorite, but honestly, there is no truly bad series on this list. Some near the bottom of the list were a tad disappointing, but I did not consider any of this viewing to be a waste of time.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present for your conisderation, the binge watches of 2019....
11. Catastrophe, Season 4 (Amazon Prime)
This jaundiced view of marriage and parenthood from Shannon Horgan and Rob Delaney has lost a little of its appeal with each successive year. Its final season was marred by the unrelenting nastiness of the fights between the main characters; the bickering no longer felt authentic, just pointless and exhausting. I will give them props for pulling off a brilliantly ambiguous final scene, but its payoff was just barely earned by the five episodes preceding it.
10. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Season 3 (Amazon Prime)
This series is also beginning to lose its way. We're three seasons in, and I've never once really laughed at any of Midge Maisel's stream-of-consciousness comedy riffs. She's entertaining but not nearly as uproarious as she's cracked up to be, and her rise to stardom feels a little far-fetched. Neither her parents' marital woes nor her ex-husband's adventures in opening a new nightclub are particularly fertile dramatic ground, though you'd never know that by the inordinate amount of time spent depicting them. There's a pretty great episode near the mid-point which culminates in an enchanted evening between Midge and Lenny Bruce, and Alex Borstein continues to add welcome layers of nuance, heart and humor to her portrayal of Midge's gruff manager. But the show's meticulous production design is no longer sufficient to distract us from the thinness of the show's overabundant, yet underdeveloped plot lines. Let's hope they find their focus again in season 4 ….provided there is a season 4.
9. Years and Years (HBO)
Feels like a four-part episode of Black Mirror, but with more politics than technology in the dystopian mix. That's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way, and this HBO series paints a fairly convincing and utterly devastating picture of how the next 30 years might go if Trump stays in office and drops a bomb on China. It's the fall and rise of civilization as seen through the eyes of one struggling British family, with terrific performances by Rory Kinnear and Emma Thompson - the latter as a rabid right-wing leader who deploys catchphrases and distracting half-truths with Trumpian aplomb.
8. The Komiskey Method, Season 2 (Netflix)
Chuck Lorre's Netflix series is darker and deeper than his usual mainstream/network sitcom fare (although not without laughs), and showcases terrific performances by Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin as longtime friends battling the indignities of aging. Where the first season was enjoyable but often glib and predictable, the second is more thoughtful, complicated and melancholy. There's a particularly good subplot involving Arkin's attempts to make peace with his recovering addict daughter while building a new relationship after the death of his wife. Douglas' character, a washed-up actor turned teacher, is decidedly less sympathetic and a bit less interesting. But Douglas taps so deeply into the character's self-absorption and emotional cluelessness that it never feels like he's acting at all.
7. Dead to Me (Netflix)
It starts off by satirizing the misguided good intentions of condolence givers and grief support groups, but then quickly goes to unexpected places. The journey skillfully combines a mystery/thriller with a female buddy comedy, and the inevitable shifts in tone along the way are fairly seamless. Cristina Applegate and Linda Cardellini are terrific, both together and separately, and I was happy to see a cliff-hanger ending which means there will surely be more to come. More I will not say here - if you haven't seen it yet, it's best to go in without too much information; let the plot twists and turns take you by surprise.
6. Catherine the Great (HBO)
This might well be the sexiest historical epic ever made. There's a remarkably electric and erotic chemistry between Helen Mirren's empress and Jason Clarke's Grigory Potemkin, and the series is about five parts love story to one part history lesson. It's gorgeous to look at too, with ravishingly beautiful sets and costumes, and some of the most gorgeous cinematography on television. Mirren's Catherine is portrayed as a great reformer, but also a conniving, power-hungry monarch; she's a complex, not especially sympathetic character, except when seen though Potemkin's adoring eyes.
5. Veep, Season 7
The final season was the meanest and darkest yet, and that's really saying something. It's pretty tough to stay one satirical step ahead of our actual political climate these days - showrunner David Mandel and his formidable cast achieved all that... and then some, delivering as many gasps as laughs. More proof, if proof is required, that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a comedic goddess. And it has one of the most satisfying final episodes in recent memory.
4. The Act (Hulu)
I stumbled on to this series on Hulu and found it positively addictive, in the way that particularly lurid or outrageous true crime stories can be when done well. There's something creepy about the closeness of DeeDee Blanchard and her invalid daughter, Gypsy Rose, right from the get go; the series parcels out tantalizing clues to truth of their situation through its first few episodes, then expertly escalates the tension though the final, terrible chapter. Patricia Arquette finds sympathetic depths in a mostly monstrous character, and Joey King brings unexpected complexity to a role that could all too easily have been a caricature. Once you start watching this one, you can't not binge it.
3. The Crown, Season 3
Oh screw it, what am I going to say here that Crown watchers don't already know? Did anyone honestly think Olivia Colman wouldn't seamlessly slip into the role of middle-aged Queen Elizabeth? That Helena Bonham-Carter wouldn't be an absolute hoot as Princess Margaret (even if she never actually challenged LBJ to a dirty limerick contest in real life)? There are no surprises in this season, and I mean that in the best possible way: The Crown remains as classy, thoughtful and perfectly acted as ever. Ok, I lied - there are two surprises this season: the performances of Erin Doherty and Josh O'Connor as, respectively, a devilishly saucy Princess Anne and a deeply sensitive, very sympathetic Prince Charles. Until I saw Doherty in action, I didn't know I even wanted Anne to be a character in this series - now I look forward to her every appearance. And O'Connor captures Charles down to the smallest gesture and vocal inflection, but his performance transcends mere impersonation. He's quickly becoming the underdog to cheer for.
2. Fleabag, Season 2
This was a nice surprise. 'Cause I'll be honest here - I really did not care for Season One at all. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her relentless, fourth-wall-breaking smirks and asides to the camera were too clever by half, and by the time she got around to revealing the genuine anguish behind her character's behavior, I had ceased to care. But Season Two? It's a masterpiece - and I am most assuredly not exaggerating when I say that. From the opening shot in which a bloodied Waller-Bridge catches our eye in a ladies room mirror and informs us "This is a love story" through the emotionally devastating final episode, the season is a brilliant, brittle comedy of love and loss, anxiety, redemption, and the myriad ways that family ties both chafe and secure us. "Fleabag" - as the lead character is billed (she is never called by name) - reforms her life, faces her demons, and falls in love, unfortunately with a man sworn to celibacy (Andrew Scott's "Hot Priest" as he is billed in the credits. For those of us Catholic women, familiar with the phrase "Father What-a-Waste," Scott's portrayal is the very definition of it.) Along the way, she finally allows herself to be vulnerable, seen, loved in return. Fleabag is briskly funny and ironic in the way of smart British comedies, but it wears its heart perilously close to its skin. Also - the scene in the final episode between Fleabag's sister and brother-in-law (which culminates in her sister dropping to her knees and begging her husband to leave her) is the single best-written, best-acted, most scintillating 5 minutes of television I saw anywhere, all year.
1. Chernobyl (HBO)
Probably the closest thing to a water cooler show we've had in 20 years - it was the talk of my office for weeks, and probably yours as well. Riveting and harrowing, yet compulsively watchable, it turned the worst nuclear accident in history into an expertly made thriller with great performances and no shortage of edge-of-your-seat moments. Was some dramatic license taken along the way? Of course. A rather large number of real-life scientists were combined into one composite character played by Emily Watson. The timing of some revelations was altered to heighten the drama, and (apparently) the disfigurement of the those exposed to the radiation was exaggerated for maximum horrific effect. But the catastrophic impact of the incident - which very nearly took out half of Europe - would be impossible to truly overstate. And the series brought a chilling sense of realistic urgency to every one of its breathlessly deployed plot twists.
