My Favorite Shows of 2019 - So Far
It’s hard to believe there are only two months left in 2019. In the last 10 months there has been a lot of TV. Whether that be streaming or network television. It was a lot. And unless you are paid TV/streaming critic it can be hard to keep up with - or even want to. I felt like I spent the majority of this year catching up on all the stuff I didn’t watch last year lol. But there have been some highlights for me from 2019. Compiling this list was interesting. Because I certainly watched more things than I included here. But the criteria for making the list was if these were shows/series/documentaries that stayed with me long after watching them. Shows that I still ponder over or that I still rave about. Under that criteria the list is actually relatively short.
Fleabag
I wasn’t going to rank these at first, but then I realized that Fleabag had to be number one and thought - eh might as well rank the rest of them. I watched Fleabag on a whim on a rainy early spring Saturday. And because I was late to the party I had the wonderful luxury of watching both seasons 1 and 2 back to back. This show is a gut punch. It sets up a character that I was thoroughly ready to hate and made her someone who I adored and felt protective of and who I wanted to sort herself out. Fleabag (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge who also wrote the entire series) is written in such a way within the first season that there is a huge bait and switch revelation at the end that throws you for a loop and makes you question everything you think you know about her. Season 2 starts off with the cards on the table - and you root for her even more. She is not a traditionally sympathetic character. But she is so amazingly flawed and human. You know people like her. You have friends like her. Or you are her. And I want to give a specific shout out to my girl crush Phoebe Waller-Bridge whose talents as a writer are insane - she wrote the first season of Killing Eve AND the script for the new Bond film if you want examples of just how versatile her talents are.
2. Unbelievable
I mentioned this Netflix series in my September favorites and the fact that I am ranking it #2 on my list I think sums up how much I loved this series. If I would recommend ANY series right now in this moment to you to watch - it would be this one. For two important reasons: 1. How honest and real the series is in how it handles the topic of sexual assault. I have never seen a series deal with the subject in such a responsible and human way. There is nothing salacious in how it’s talked about and how it’s filmed And 2. The performances. Specifically Kaitlyn Dever and Merrit Weaver. Merrit Weaver brings such heart to this series and Kaitlyn Dever’s portrayal of Marie Adler is amazing. She conveys every nuance with such authenticity. Please watch it. It is an intense subject matter - especially for women. And it can be very triggering. But it is also such an well done and important show.
3. The Dropout
If there was one story that captured my imagination and held it and still holds it is the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. I have listened to the podcasts, watched the series and I STILL can’t get over the way Holmes was able to fool people for so long. And not just “any” people. The Waltons (the heirs to the Walmart fortune), Rupert Murdoch, the DeVos family (yes THAT DeVos family as in Betsy) and even members of a South African diamond dynasty lost upwards of 600 MILLION dollars in Holmes’ company, Theranos.
If you don’t know the story of Theranos….you need to watch this and learn the story about Theranos. It will BLOW your mind.
4. Russian Doll
Do you like smarty, trippy, existential comedies? Then Russian Doll is the one for you. This show can be very hard to sum up so I will go with the traditional synopsis: a woman dies on her birthday. And then wakes up the next day. On the same day. And dies again. And keeps dying. Think Groundhog Day but darker and more twisted. Natasha Lyonne helped write and produce Russian Doll and is the star. The show has the magical ability to go from weird, to funny, to poignant, to trippy and back again. It’s a wild ride. But it’s definitely a ride worth taking.
5. The OA
This show is divisive. People either loved it or hated it. I was actually pretty indifferent to the first season. It was good but didn’t blow me away. But I liked it enough to watch the second season and WOW. The second season starts off so weirdly that I actually paused it to make sure I was watching the right show. The first episode is a slog. It is slow-paced and makes zero sense. But keep watching. By the second episode you KINDA know what’s going on. But not really. This show is a marathon - not a sprint. But when you get to the middle - whoa. And then get to the end. Even bigger - WHOA. Netflix recently canceled the OA which is a major bummer because the ending of Season 2 was so revelatory and insane that it begs for an explanation. I don’t know if we will ever get one - we probably wouldn’t have gotten one in the third season either. This show was never big on explanations. If you set aside your desire to know the why about everything and truly immerse yourself in what’s going on it is an amazing living breathing story. Ever changing always surprising you.
6. Fyre
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably heard about the festival that never was, Fyre. If perchance, this is your first day out from the rock allow me to give you a brief snynopsis: young white dude bro and Ja Rule (yes THAT Ja Rule) decide to throw a major festival on an island with no experience, and no real financial backing. Hijinks ensue. And by hijanks I mean scamming. On a massive level. Not Threanos level…but pretty big. This documentary tells the story of what happened and boy is it a doozy. Two Fyre festival docs came out within days of each other - this one, which was released on Netflix. And another one from Hulu…which also made this list.
7. A Black Lady Sketch Show
I have to confess that I have never watched this show in it;’s traditional format on HBO. I watch it on YouTube after it airs. BUT - it’s still one of my favorite shows of 2019 - so far. An all black female comedy show with cameos by the likes of Angela Bassett, Kelly Rowland and LaVerne Cox? Yes, please. This show is funny and smart and modern with sketches that are both timely and classic. A personal fave of mine was the 227 sitcom skit. Black women are often overlooked in the sketch comedy arena and it’s satisfying to see these talented women prove that not only can black women do sketch comedy - but they can kill it.
8. The Inventor
“Another docu series about Elizabeth Holmes”, you ask? Yes. And this one is just as good as the other one.
10. Mindhunter
Season 1 of this show was a dark and showy spectacle as a lot of David Fincher projects can be. And I mean that in a good way. I loved the first season. And while the second season expands, it also feel smaller. More intimate. More human. And I think the main reason for that is that a bulk of the story centers around the disappearances and murders of young black boys by a serial killer in Atlanta Georgia in the late 1970’s. All of Mindhunter’s cases are based on true events and I was shocked and a bit embarrassed that I had never heard of this serial killer. And then I remembered how differently the disappearance of black women and children are treated in the media and then I got angry. Of course I had never heard of this case. No one talks about it. The second season of Mindhunter still has the cerebral true crime feeling to it. But it also has some emotional weight and focuses more on the victims than the killers. And it’s an effective pivot. It also deals with the topic of what being black in 70’s Georgia was like. And the politics involved in the case overseen by Atlanta’s first black mayor. The killer was caught. But the story does not have a satisfying ending. It didn’t in real life and it doesn’t on the show.
11. Fyre Fraud
I know, I know. But I warned you. This Hulu doc has the benefit of having the young white dude bro is question as an interview subject though. And it lends an extra special…whoa to the whole thing. And it also touches on something that got largely ignored when this whole thing blew up. The financial toll this scam took on the residents of the small island it was hosted on.
So what have we learned from this list? That I have a thing about scam stories. Which I honestly do - they fascinate me. Mainly because of not only the brazenness of the scammer but in certain cases the utter guilelessness of the scammed.
What have been some of your favorite shows so far in 2019? Let me know in the comments.
