There are only so many hours of doomscrolling social media or watching Lawrence O’Donnell find new ways to call Trump “stupid” in a given week I can handle. When reality’s too much like a “name that form of government” reality show, people find ways to get away: yoga class, hiking, Googling Irish citizenship grandchild requirements.
I love a good streaming-series binge: the only thing that annoys me is trying to remember which channel the show’s on. I have a Fire TV expressly because Alexa runs my life (I can boycott many things, but having Alexa turn lights on and off clapper-style will never be one of them). I’m too old to type into a TV remote search to look things up and Alexa just figures out what channel shows are on, just like the Jetsons intended.
I’m currently enraptured by three shows that all begin with the letter S: Silo, Severance and Shrinking.
Silo’s a dystopian post-apocalyptic drama where residents live in a concrete silo structure and have never been outside unless they express a desire to go outside, where they immediately die after cleaning the window through which everyone inside watches their peril. Main character Juliette, once a mechanic who fixed the furnace that powers the dim lighting (and now the sheriff), is trying to get to the bottom of what happened to the world that necessitates the silo. Tim Robbins is excellent as the Hunger Games-esque knowing governmental leader. The show could be accused of dragging out the finding out of “what’s going on,” but, similar to Severance, gives viewers plenty of episodes to piece together many interesting mysteries and figure out the ultimate puzzle of the silo.
Severance has similarities to Silo in that both have you wondering what’s going on with these people in the freaky futuristic world of Lumon Industries. Severance, which revolves around a procedure that creates separate “innie” and “outie” versions of people for shady workplace purposes, has caught the world more on fire: pop culture references fill my screen every time I open my phone, the Severance Reddit page is lit up with Easter eggs and conspiracy theories, and there’s a real LinkedIn page for Lumon.
Shrinking is unlike the previous two in that it’s neither dystopian nor a psychological thriller, but it’s a great rest from those two. Starring Harrison Ford and an incredible cast, it’s a comedy-drama about a psychotherapy practice. Ford’s fantastic as the lead therapist. You’ll fall in love with his fellow therapists and their families and the relationships they share as they navigate the ups and down of life. It’s not the kind of show I normally like, but I was hooked right off the bat because of the excellent writing and acting, and spoiler alert: if you binge both seasons, you’ll cry in the last episode of season two.
I also binged White Lotus and it changed my view of Jennifer Coolidge—I used to think she was annoying and one-dimensional and now think she has chops. I’m in the middle of season one of Yellowjackets, and don’t spoiler-alert me. It’s really good and exactly the roller-coaster ride I love in a series.