What is the Christmas break for, if not to binge-watch shows of dubious quality but total entertainment value?
Here are five of our favourite shows that may not be winners come awards season, but hold a dear place in our streaming queues.
Jack Ryan
Cementing himself as action hero over ‘Jim from the Office’, John Krasinski plays CIA analyst Jack Ryan in a fantastic and breathtaking series in the vein of classics like ’24’.
Shot around the world in beautiful locales and filled with intrigue, gunplay and plenty of military jargon to look up on Google, Jack Ryan is a blockbuster of a show, managing to brilliantly transfer the twist and turns of a page-turner to the screen when you have to watch just. one. more. episode.
Two seasons in and thoroughly entertaining.
Watch now on Amazon Prime Video
The Boys
Despite already being overshadowed by HBO’s fantastic reimagining of Watchmen, Amazon’s The Boys took the well-worn premise of ‘superheroes gone bad’ to dizzy heights back in July.
An adaptation of the Garth Ennis comic book series, this show pulled no punches in showing the more graphic side-effects of morally dubious enhanced humans, all the way from being equally celebrated and commoditised to the consequences of acting without fear of impunity.
Visually arresting, constantly subverting expectations and thrilling from beginning to end, the show has already been commissioned for a second season in 2020.
Watch now on Amazon Prime Video
Daybreak
Another comic book adaptation, Daybreak takes the premise of teens making the post-apocalypse their playground with entertaining and amusing direction – fast cuts, smash angles and a strong soundtrack bring the story to life.
With a high-school dropout meeting all manner of weirdos, cannibals and monsters whilst searching for his lost love, it is likely to be the closest to a movie adaptation of Sunset Overdrive we’ll get to see!
Undone
Already cited as my #1 reason to get Prime Video, Undone defies explanation and redefines TV in the same breath.
It’s a live-action (yet animated) father-slash-daughter murder mystery (but her father is already dead, so he’s helping investigate his own murder) that revels in the mundanity of modern life yet takes the viewer on an incredible and visually mesmerizing journey to comprehend the non-linearity of space/time…but is also a parable about mental illness and explores familial and sexual relationships in a refreshing, heartbreakingly honest way.
Just watch it on Amazon Prime Video and be forever changed.
Riverdale
The guiltiest of guilty pleasures, Riverdale takes the traditional teen drama full of symmetrical kids and views it through a neon-lit, self-referential, David Lynch-inspired, often hilarious and unabashedly fun lens.
At its best when trying to play plots like illegal underground boxing tournaments, possessed demon babies or absurd love triangles entirely straight, Riverdale is one of the most special things ever to end up in my streaming queue.
Do these kids even go to school?
