Tag Archives: HBO

The Best Shows Streaming Now

Posted on by under art, culture, HBO, netflix, Streaming services, television

If you haven’t noticed how television has evolved and improved over the past decades, you might have been living under a rock. Both cable and streaming services are constantly vying to outdo each other in terms of content quality. This transformation began in the 1990s and early 2000s with groundbreaking shows like The Sopranos (HBO), Six Feet Under (HBO), and the unforgettable Mad Men (AMC). Binge-watching became a common pastime among viewers. I dare say that TV and streaming now produce and distribute better entertainment than traditional theater movies, which tend to focus on Marvel and DC superheroes and Disney animations.

To help you navigate the overwhelming plethora of choices at your disposal, I’ve compiled a short list of personal suggestions for the best recent shows available today.

(The order is not an indication of better or worse)

1. Black Mirror (Season 7):

The writers’ creativity is running amok — and it works. The first episodes are very dark (which I love), but things get funnier and lighter as the season progresses. We even get a follow-up to one of the best episodes from a previous season. Watch out for hidden Easter eggs throughout.

2. Adolescence:

A grim and poignant event strikes a regular family in the north of England, with tragic consequences. Great acting all around. A brutal critique of the current educational system that leaves a lasting impression.

3. The White Lotus (Season 3):

A sharp and ironic social commentary on the idiosyncrasies of the super-rich, backed up by hilarious lines. It’s a lesson in slow-burning storytelling, populated by unforgettable characters. The series’ trademark murder-at-the-end keeps viewers guessing from day one. The most charming (and best-looking) ensemble cast on TV definitely helps boost its appeal.

4. The Last of Us (Season 1):

WTF!! Think The Handmaid’s Tale meets zombie apocalypse. Set 20 years after a horrific pandemic, in a pre-vaccine world, this series balances intense action and violence with surprisingly moving, sensitive passages. Smart dialogue, strong acting, and a politically charged context make it a must-see. And if you find the monsters — infected people from a weird fungal outbreak — a little ridiculous, like something out of Lost in Space (1960s), don’t worry. That shouldn’t ruin it for most viewers. Note: the first chapters of Season 2 are already available.

Have you had a chance to watch any of those shows? What do you think of them? Would you like to add any shows to the list? Feel free to write your suggestions below.

Jorge Sette

Euphoria (HBO): second season (review)

Posted on by under Addiction, art, culture, language, storytelling, tv series, TV shows, TY shows

Now that Zendaya won a Best Actress Emmy for the role of the drug addict Rue in the successful HBO series Euphoria, I’m rewatching the second season. I want to check out her performance and decide if the show is as good as I thought it was when I first saw it.

The series is definitely not for the faint of heart. The story, set in the fictitious town of East Highland in California, is about a group of High School teenagers, most of them still living with their highly dysfunctional middle-class families.

Drugs, sex, and cell phones abound. These characters are portrayed in all their rawness, brutality, and emptiness by an extraordinary cast of young and mature actors.

The highlight of the second season is a play within the show (“Our Lives”), created and directed by one of the students, Lexi, who seems to act as the moral center of the story. The play – stunning in itself for us, the home audience – helps the characters sitting in the school theater see themselves as they really are, with all their flaws and inconsistencies (rather than the fake personas they try to create and project), therefore stirring strong emotions, and leading to a huge unscripted fight on the stage. “Art should be dangerous”, says an assistant to the devastated director to soothe her. But the show must go on.

Most of the relevant current themes are discussed in Euphoria, to some extent: friendship, loyalty, love, the opioid crisis, fluid sexuality, transsexualism, pedophilia, toxic masculinity, feminism, sexual orientation, the breakdown of the traditional family and its values, the difficulty to communicate real feelings or develop an authentic personality.

There’s a lot of physical and verbal violence too. Keeping in mind that the objective of ambitious shows is not only to entertain but also to discuss controversial issues and provoke change, Euphoria is a great show, if you can manage to watch the frequent uncomfortable scenes.

Have you had a chance to watch the show? Please leave your comments in the section below.

Jorge Sette