Oh the joy of binge-watching! Everyone has been talking about a show that you’ve promised yourself you’d “get to,” but somehow you never have the time when the episodes are actually aired. But the appeal of the shows and your friends’ enthusiastic reviews are making you anxious to see what it’s all about. It’s time to binge-watch!
The Killing
If you’re up for a crime drama that has had people praising it for its gritty, dark, and captivating storyline, you might try The Killing—both the original Danish one, Forbrydelsen, as well as the American version.
Forbysdelsen is the show that began our obsession with Nordic noir. Sofie Gråbøl is excellent playing Detective Inspector Sarah Lund, who works doggedly and tenaciously to find the killer of a young woman. Her life revolves around her obsession with finding the killer, while her relationships with her mother, boyfriend, and child fall by the wayside.
Her American counterpart in The Killing, Mireille Enos as Detective Sarah Linden, is also superb as she single-mindedly pursues the killer of 17-year-old Rosie Larsen. Linden also loses positive relationships in her life in her dogged pursuit of justice. Both versions are dark dramas that take place in a world where it seems to be constantly cold and rainy, but that only adds to the atmosphere of fear and tension.
Watch Seasons 1-4 of The Killing on Netflix!
Peaky Blinders
If Brit drama, Brummie accents and all, is to your liking, then the Netflix Original Peaky Blinders—a gangland-style group of thugs set in Birmingham, England, in the 1920s—is for you.
I was turned onto this series by a friend who lives in Leicester. She explained that the title refers to the flat caps worn by the characters. They were so called because of the hidden razor blades concealed in the bills that turned the headgear into weapons.
Cillian Murphy stars as crime boss Tommy Shelby, a racketeer in post-WWI. As a cruel man in this post-wartime period, he is mesmerizing. He and his gang are more than equal to the characters and brutality evidenced in the movie Gangs of New York.
Watch the entire series on Netflix!
Sons of Anarchy
The American-based show Sons of Anarchy is patterned after, of all things, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, so you can bet it’s going to have elements of revenge and pathos in the stories. This series follows an outlaw biker gang as they run drugs and guns while riding roughshod over other gangs. It is The Godfather on steroids. Topics such as government corruption, vigilantism, and racism are well written.
This outlaw motorcycle club is an analogy for the transformation of the human soul. Starring Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Ron Perlman, and Drea de Matteo, it will capture your attention by the end of the first episode, and the binge-watch will commence.
Watch the entire series on Netflix!
There are many excellent shows to binge-watch. A few recommendations besides the ones already mentioned above are the following: Dexter, House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Sherlock, and Homeland. Break out the popcorn and get started!
Check out our rewatch of Season 1 of Breaking Bad!
Kristen Houghton’s new novel, Unrepentant: Pray for Us Sinners, book 3 in her best-selling series A Cate Harlow Private Investigation, is available at all book venues.
She is the author of nine top-selling novels and is hard at work on a new series that features a paranormal investigator with distinct powers of her own. Houghton is also the author of two non-fiction books and numerous short stories which appear in popular horror anthologies.
My favorite TV series of youth, as it is a pity that now they don’t take so interesting series, everything went into commerce and mainstream.