I imagine that a lot of us binged our way through a small mountain of TV back during the holidays
and perhaps some of you are left searching for new things to watch.
So, we thought it might be fun to do a "TV You Might Not Have Tried."
[♪ Opening Music ♪]
Like the "Games You Might Not Have Tried" episodes,
these recommendations are meant to be more on the obscure side,
so there probably aren't going to be a lot of fan-favourites on this list.
And, also like usual, many of these entries may be flawed works,
but there is still something about them that is mind-bending, interesting, or just different.
So, let's jump right in.
Fortitude.
Fortitude is Twin Peaks without the whimsy.
Or rather, it's Twin Peaks meets X-Files on an arctic island off of Norway without the whimsy.
And, while Twin Peaks without the whimsy might sound like it's taking away one of the key pieces
that makes Twin Peaks work, this show runs with it.
If you're looking for a good mystery that doesn't hover around the same
"guy gets shot in a locked room" premise that we have seen a thousand times,
this might be what you're looking for.
3%.
Now, this show is newer than the other ones on this list
so, with some luck, it will have become popular before this episode gets through our production pipeline.
It's sort of like a Brazilian Hunger Games but taken way more seriously.
It does not pull as many punches or feel quite as formulaic as The Hunger Games films sometimes did.
And it is made all the more powerful by being presented through the lens of Brazilian culture.
James used to do a lot of work in Brazil and he feels that this type of narrative
carried so much more of a punch when combined with just a hint of that strange
romanticisation and trepidation that surrounds the favelas and favela culture.
Whether or not you enjoyed The Hunger Games, if the premise struck you as interesting,
3% might be worth a look.
Skins.
Specifically the BBC version.
Magical realism meets teen drama.
It is so good.
I wish this sort of thing was attempted more often.
Admittedly, it's not attempted more often because it is incredibly hard to pull off.
You've gotta have an amazing writing room that gets what it means to be young,
coupled with an executive staff that trusts their audience to be mature enough to embrace
and understand the elements of magical realism.
It's a big ask, but for a brief moment on the BBC, it all came together.
Not every episode and not every season is perfect,
but when they nail it, it rips your heart out the way only something with the stakes of being in your teens can.
And the moment when they get to the cat Stevens?
Oh my goodness.
Oh, and somewhere in there they deal with everything
from addiction to sexuality to eating disorders and mental health in a way that
I have rarely seen American TV aimed at teens do.
Just two things to know going in:
get past the first episode.
Clearly somebody in charge told them that the pilot had to masquerade as a normal teen drama
to get people in. It sucks, just try to muscle through it.
And second, for the love of mercy, do NOT watch the MTV remake.
They took everything that is magical about this series and just wrung it through the corporate mill.
It's really, really sad to watch. Just don't.
"See that? It's gonna kill everyone."
You, Me and the Apocalypse.
A comedy about the world ending in a horrific comet impact?
That is bound to either be really interesting or really terrible and, luckily, this one is the former.
The acting is stellar, the writing is sharp and the comedy is there to make the poignance of the end of the world
that much more moving.
It's got an amazing framing device, which I am not gonna spoil here,
and some biting social commentary underneath that humour.
So, naturally, it was cancelled after a single season.
Don't worry, though.
As much as I would like to have seen this show continue,
the cliffhanger they end on actually works pretty well.
It feels almost like it could be an ending.
Most of the questions and mysteries the show introduced are wrapped up
and you're left with an interesting plot thread to speculate about.
It's good. Just watch it anyway.
Jeremiah.
Speaking of apocalypses: post-apocalyptia.
Let's talk Jeremiah,
a wasteland created by the same mind that created Babylon 5 and Sense8.
It's set in a world where the entire adult population was wiped out by a plague,
leaving children, who weren't affected by the disease, to fend for themselves and rebuild the world.
Interestingly, the show doesn't take place right after the plague, but rather 15 years later
when all of the children have grown up.
And we get to see the world that they've wrought.
Now, while it does feel a little bit early 2000s,
the characters are really compelling and they present a really solid post-apocalypse world.
It's the wasteland adventure series that I would have loved to be able to turn to
whenever I wanted a dose of post-apocalyptia.
So, naturally, it was cancelled after a single season.
Well, OK, that's not exactly true,
it was cancelled partway through the second season,
when Showtime decided to veer away from sci-fi,
which actually turns out to be a lot worse because the show just ends resolving practically nothing.
It's really disappointing, but don't let that deter you from this trip through the waste.
Mawaru Penguindrum.
I am sure that we could easily do an "Anime You Might Not Have Tried" episode.
There's just so much of it.
Maybe someday.
But, for now, I don't know how to even BEGIN describing Penguindrum.
I am not sure I have ever seen a show so layered in visual metaphor
with plot and commentary going on on every level.
Yet also just as enjoyable as a story in and of itself.
It's one of those rare anime that doesn't shy away from magical and sci-fi elements,
and yet somehow manages to focus on very human themes
like loss and family and isolation.
There ARE also penguins, though.
Adorable, adorable penguins.
And finally:
The Prisoner.
This is one of those show so seminal that everybody's probably heard of it, but,
because it's not on one of the major streaming services,
too few people have actually gotten to see it.
And if you love genre television, you really should see it.
It's a show that taught us that TV could be weird.
It's referenced in The Matrix, Twin Peaks, basically anything by Alan Moore, The Invisibles,
and things ranging from the new Battlestar Galactica to Fringe to Hercules.
Just make sure that you get the 1960s version, not the... not the remake.
I know we don't usually do TV things, but I hope you all enjoyed that.
Be seeing you.
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