If you're anything like me -- and you better pray to Krampus you're not -- then you usually take some time off around Festivus and Boxing Day each year to spend time with kith and kin. In the age of streaming television, I use my time off to binge on TV shows that I don't otherwise have time to watch. After all, it's cold outside, and what the hell else am I going to do?
We are living in a golden age of television. The problem is that there are just so damn many good TV shows, but you don't have all the time in the world. You have less than a week off. Unless you're going on some sort of egg nog and coke-fueled bender, you probably won't have time to watch all of Game Of Thrones, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, or The Wire, so I'm not going to suggest that you do.
Instead, I am going to give you my recommendation for eleven shows that have 30 or fewer episodes, so you may actually have a shot at binge-watching them over the holidays. These are only TV shows that I have actually seen. Some of them require paid subscriptions, such as Amazon, Netflix, or HBO. Others are on cable networks, so you may be able to stream them or see them on demand. Regardless, here they are in alphabetical order:
1. American Horror Story (FX; 7 seasons; 84 episodes)
Right out of the bat, it appears I've broken my main rule, but alas, fair reader, I have not. American Horror Story has had seven seasons, but each of them are completely independent of one another and have entirely different story lines. Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, and Evan Peters are series regulars, with other actors and actresses playing roles in multiple seasons. I have watched every season except the second (Asylum, which I've heard is good) and the fourth (Freak Show). In order, here are my four favorite:
-Season 1 (Murder House): Dylan McDermott and Connie Britton move from Boston to LA, and their new house is quite literally a house of horrors.
-Season 7 (Cult): After the election of Donald Trump, a twentysomething cult leader (played masterfully by AHS regular Evan Peters) terrorizes his small Michigan town, converting some of its residents and killing others, in support of his own political aspirations.
-Season 6 (Roanoke): This season was made as a show inside a show. For the first half of the season, we watch a fictional documentary show called My Roanoke Nightmare about an interracial couple who moves into a giant haunted house in rural North Carolina. After the escape and the documentary series does well, the producers of the documentary series convince the couple and the actors from the documentary series to spend three nights in the house as part of a reality special, Return to Roanoke: Three Days in Hell. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that things don't go well.
-Season 3 (Coven): A all-girls boarding school of witches living in modern day New Orleans deal with the stigma of being supernatural beings, while also battling local voodoo practitioners and a centuries-old serial killer played by Kathy Bates.
2. Crashing (HBO; 1 season; 8 episodes)
Crashing is a hard-luck comedy series about an aspiring stand-up comic, Pete Holmes (played by Pete Holmes) who lives on Long Island. After finding out his wife is cheating on him, he moves out and tries to make it as a stand-up in NYC, sleeping in his car and relying on other stand-up comics and acquaintances to lend him a couch to sleep on (hence the title, which is also a double entendre for Pete's less-than-stellar comedy career). Various famous comics appear in the show as themselves as well, including Artie Lange, Sarah Silverman, Dave Attell, and T.J. Miller.
3. The Man In The High Castle (Amazon; 2 seasons; 20 episodes)
What would life in America had been like if the Axis won World War II? Based on the dystopian Phillip Dick novel of the same name, The Man In The High Castle explores that frightening alternate reality, in which FDR was assassinated long before WWII, followed by a succession of weak presidents. After the Axis won the war, Japan took control of the portion of the U.S. west of the Rockies and the Nazis took control of everything east of the Rockies. In the middle is a lawless uncontrolled territory. Every episode is full of tension, as the characters try to cope with living in authoritarian regimes where everyone is watching and no one can be trusted.
4. Master of None (Netflix; 2 seasons; 20 episodes)
Admittedly, I have only seen a few episodes of this one, but what I have seen so far has been hilarious. It stars Aziz Ansari, which is pretty much all you need to know.
5. Mindhunter (Netflix; 1 season; 10 episodes)
I have always been fascinated with serial killers, and Mindhunter allows me to vicariously appease my fascination. It is loosely based on the two FBI agents in the '70s and a Boston College professor who invented the term "serial killer" and brought forensic psychology and criminal profiling to the mainstream criminal justice world, in large part by interviewing convicted serial killers and using those interviews to profile common attributes, behaviors, and family histories of serial killers. In the show, some of the serial killer characters are fictional and based on real life killers, while others are portrayals of actual killers (BTK, Richard Speck). It's part procedural, part thriller, and all interesting. David Fincher and Charlize Theron are two of the producers, and Fincher directed four of the episodes in the first season.
6. Peaky Blinders (Netflix/BBC; 4 seasons; 30 episodes)
This is probably my favorite show on this list, and the impending release of the fourth season in the U.S. this Thursday is what prompted me to come up with the list. Set in post-World War I Birmingham, England, the series focuses on a local family gang, named the Peaky Blinders for their penchant for slicing opponents' eyes with razor blades attached to their pancake hats. The unwitting patriarch of the family, Thomas Shelby (played by Cillian Murphy), is a WWI vet who returns to Birmingham and has grand plans for his "family business." Each season is set a few years after the prior one, and they have all been great, so I'm excited to binge on Season 4 while I'm home next week.
7. Sherlock (BBC/PBS; 4 seasons; 15 episodes)
I have only seen a little more than a season of this one, but it is really good. Each episode is basically a movie (some clocking in at 90+ minutes long), following our modern day Sherlock Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (played by Martin Freeman) as they solve crimes using their cunning and sometimes nothing else.
8. Stranger Things (Netflix; 2 seasons; 20 episodes)
This is obviously a popular one. If you haven't yet seen it, I highly recommend it, even if you're not typically a sci-fi person (I am not either). Just in case you don't know what it's about, it's set in a small town in Indiana in the early '80s. A preteen boy disappears on a bike ride home after hanging out with some friends, and his mom (played by Winona Ryder), the local sheriff (played by David Harbour), and the boy's friends all try to figure out what happened to him. I'm a little more than halfway through the second season. Ryder is great, Harbour is great, all of the kids are great, and the demogorgons are out of this world.
9. Taboo (FX; 1 season; 8 episodes)
Set in the 1810s, Tom Hardy plays a somewhat insane and seemingly unbreakable Londoner named James Delaney, who has just returned home after spending several years in Africa. He is at once at war with the Dutch East India Company, American spies, and his own demons.
10. True Detective (HBO; 2 seasons; 16 episodes)
This is another series where each season is totally different. The first season starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, and is about as good a crime drama series as I've ever seen. The second season starred Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, and Rachel McAdams. A lot of people didn't like the second season, but I thought it was pretty good (although nothing compared to the first).
11. The Young Pope (HBO; 10 episodes)
After watching the entire first season of The Young Pope, I am still not sure if I like it or not. It's certainly an intriguing concept -- a 40-something hardline Catholic, possibly miracle-producing, American archbishop is elected pope. Jude Law is said pope, and his character, Lenny (aka Pope Pius XII) is great. Diane Keaton is a nun who raised Lenny in an orphanage after his parents abandoned there him when he was a young boy, and James Cromwell plays Lenny's mentor. The show does a good job of showing the tension between the way things have been done at the Vatican and Lenny's way of doing things (and more conservative Catholic stances).
Now that you've read my list, I welcome any recommendations you might have. Happy binging!
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