114 Best TV Shows Similar to Stranger Things (Page 6)
Star Trek: Discovery
SimilarALF, Battle of the Planets, Ben 10, Farscape,
Roswell Stargate SG-1 The Journey of Allen Strange, The Transformers, Valvrave the Liberator,
StarringAnthony Rapp, Blu del Barrio, David Ajala, Doug Jones, Mary Wiseman, Sonequa Martin-Green, Wilson Cruz,
The bones of “Terra Firma Pt. II'' are good. The core of the episode pays off Emperor Georgiou’s (Michelle Yeoh) return engagement with the Mirror Universe with conviction. She chooses to keep Mirror Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) alive, attempting to break her daughter toward the Emperor’s new way of thinking rather than dispose of her. She decides to save Saru (Doug Jones) and shares the truth about the Vahar’ai with him rather than letting him die. She moves, slowly but firmly, toward peace and diplomatic solutions in lieu of total and merciless domination. Continue Reading →
Feel Good
Netflix breathes new life into the tired stand-up comedian sitcom genre.
The stand-up comedy dramedy is dead. It was tired after Seinfeld, and the only person that got it right since turned out to be a monster. Every other offer in the genre has either struggled with a relationship with the world outside of comedy, or an obsession with the inside world of comedy, which is not that interesting. I am sorry to say, but I do not care about anyone’s struggles to impress a booker.
The thing that Feel Good, Netflix’s new British comedy centered on the life of queer comedian Mae Martin, gets right is that stand up is still work. It doesn’t matter if your work is talking in front of other people, or working in an office. Most of the time it’s not that interesting. Our current society is so obsessed with work that the obsession tends to bleed into our media. Feel Good isn’t a show about a stand-up comedian. It's about a person who happens to be a stand-up comedian.
Mae as a character has more important things to think about than comedy. The show navigates through its first six episodes mostly focused on Mae’s relationships with George (Charlotte Ritchie), a teacher who’s never had any queer experiences, her mother, Linda (Lisa Kudrow), and her sobriety. Martin proves themself a capable actor, painting a well-made version of a person who doesn’t just love cocaine but loves getting high on any sort of obsessive behavior. Feel Good isn’t about drugs or about being queer. It's about the day to day struggle to fight our worst aspects. Continue Reading →
72 Dangerous Animals: Asia
FX's true crime documentary examines one man's obsessive search for the truth about his birth father.
Is there more to belonging than being told you belong? Is there truly a feeling that we are out of place, out of sync, out of favor with those who surround us? Or is it a lie that gets repeated so often it becomes true? For Gary Stewart of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, these questions are what drive him beyond a simple desire to know and to belong. FX’s new four-part documentary miniseries, The Most Dangerous Animal of All, explores Stewart’s quest for understanding and the fallout of his obsession.
Told in a quiet, confessional style, Stewart stares directly into the camera, his voice occasionally choking with emotion. Abandoned as a baby, Stewart’s trust issues are understandably deep-rooted—and they’re as much a part of his identity as the color of his eyes. Despite being adopted at three months old into a loving family who raised him with strong values, he struggled with the feelings of being unloved, of not belonging anywhere and to anyone. He even has a string of broken marriages to prove it.
One thing that series creators Ross M. Dinerstein and Kief Davidson make clear from the beginning is that identity is a slippery concept. Do our genetics determine who we are or does our environment? Would Gary Stewart have been a more stable adult if he’d never discovered that his birth parents were once a sensational news story, or would the wound of not knowing where he comes from continue to fester? Continue Reading →
I Am Not Okay with This
Netflix’s latest sci-fi/drama/comedy/thriller features realistic characters, but lifts heavily from “Stranger Things,” “Carrie,” & just about everything else in the same genre.
Say what you will about Netflix’s baffling business model, particularly when it comes to its practice of releasing hundreds of original programs and promoting perhaps 10% of them. It understands winning formulas, however, none so much as teenagers + supernatural powers=a guaranteed fan base. Filling the gap between seasons of Stranger Things and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (though season three of the latter only just premiered last month) is I Am Not Okay With This, yet another comedy/drama/thriller/etc. in which a teenage girl struggles with both burgeoning mystical powers, and the slings and arrows of growing up. Based on Charles Forsman’s graphic novel, it brings absolutely nothing new to the table (other than a “Dear Diary” narrative device), but features a believable, complicated, often realistically frustrating protagonist.
Sophia Lillis, late of Gretel & Hansel and the IT movies, is Sydney “Syd” Novak, a lonely high school student given to outbursts of anger ever since her father committed suicide. On top of grieving, a strained relationship with her mother, new responsibilities at home, and acne in unfortunate places, Syd harbors a terrible crush on her best friend, Dina (Sofia Bryant), who is blissfully unaware of her feelings. Much to Syd’s dismay, Dina begins dating not just any jock douchebag, but the biggest douchebag of them all, football player Brad Lewis (Richard Ellis), who can’t get through a class on the reproductive system without making a snide joke.
Insincerity all but oozes from Brad’s pores, but Dina is inexplicably over the moon for him, calling him “babe” and wearing his letterman’s jacket. A heartbroken Syd stares at Brad with hate in her eyes, and it’s only when Brad’s nose spontaneously starts to bleed that she realizes she possesses some sort of telekinetic power beyond her understanding. This power only seems to exhibit itself when Syd is angry, which is unfortunate, because she’s angry just about all the time. Syd is propelled by anger, stomping around her drab little Pennsylvania town and scowling at anyone who isn’t Dina or her younger brother, Liam (Aidan Wojtak-Hissong). She’s a prickly heroine, which is the lifeline I Am Not Okay With This clings to to keep from drowning in cliches. Continue Reading →
Hunters
Al Pacino leads a team of Nazi hunters in a brassy Amazon series stuffed with Holocaust pathos and comic-book sleaze.
(Editor's note: this review is based on the first five episodes of the show, which is what was provided to critics prior to the show's premiere.)
Amazon’s Hunters is a lot. That’s not bad, by any means, but it is a heads up. It’s funny and heartbreaking and stressful, a love letter to exploitation films, comic books, and revenge fantasies, and it is a lot. It’s also very much something that people need to see right now. Created and written by David Weil and produced by Jordan Peele, Hunters was inspired by his grandmother’s stories about World War II and the Holocaust, stories that Weil saw as a battle between good and evil (much like the comics that the show references and draws visual inspiration from). Nothing is as simple as good versus evil, of course, but Hunters does an excellent job of addressing the battles head-on.
Set in 1977, the show revels in its primary NYC setting, full of grit and cigarettes and flickering subway car lights, and the visits to other locales are given equal ‘70s glory by production designer Curt Beech and set decorator Cathy T. Marshall, with loud wallpaper and lights shaped like grapes and so much carpeting. The most real and lived-in location is the modest house where 19-year old Jonah Heidelbaum (Logan Lerman) lives with his grandmother Ruth (Jeannie Berlin). After Ruth is murdered and the police handwave her death as a burglary, Jonah is approached by Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino), who knew Ruth from their time in a concentration camp and who, Jonah comes to learn, is the financier and now leader (in Ruth’s absence) of a group of Nazi hunters. While the Hunters are working from a list of Nazis who were active during the war and are now living in the United States, it becomes clear that there is a wider network at play and larger stakes than even the Hunters had suspected. Continue Reading →
Nickname Pine Leaf
Ralph’s stubbornness becomes a liability, and Jack finds a sympathetic ear in a disappointingly below par episode.
Warning: don’t read until you’ve seen the episode!
At what point does folding one’s arms and refusing to give in start to become actively harmful? Ralph’s noble pursuit of truth and logic despite the increasing weirdness of the Peterson case is now hindering the investigation, while Glory’s refusal to pull up stakes and leave town is causing her needless pain. Both of them are unwittingly setting up a veritable banquet for the The Grief Eater in “In the Pines, In the Pines,” a shorter than normal episode written by mystery author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) that feels a bit like filler.
It’s the morning after Holly’s disastrous presentation, and no one really knows what to do next. Though Ralph (Ben Mendelsohn) told Yunis (Yul Vazquez) that he was going to return to “real police shit” in the ongoing investigation, he mostly just wanders around his house in a troubled fog. Jeannie (Mare Winningham) is so shaken by the discovery that her nighttime visitor was real that she’s gotten rid of the chair it was sitting in, to which Ralph reacts to his with his usual, slightly condescending harrumphing. It’s unclear at this point if Ralph is troubled because he thinks there might be some truth to what Holly’s saying, or because the only person left on his side is Howard (Bill Camp), who, being the Maitland Family’s attorney, is technically his adversary. Continue Reading →
High Fidelity
Hulu's gender flipped, more diverse take on Nick Hornby's modern classic about entitled men-children has charm & heart.
Nick Hornby has made a career out of the unlikeable protagonist, from the philandering Doctor Katie in How to Be Good to the selfish, womanizer Will in About A Boy. By far his most popular--and most adapted--role, however, is record store owner and emotional masochist Rob in High Fidelity. Rob is a self-professed asshole who is fun to watch because we’ve all known that guy. Some of us have been that guy. In Stephen Frears’ 2000 adaptation of Hornby’s novel, Rob is portrayed by John Cusack with a kind of self-deprecating air of vagrancy that some find irresistible.
Twenty years later, though, the world looks a little different. There has been a culture shift with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. It isn’t quite as appealing to watch a character like Rob Gordon continuing to fail upwards as it was 20 years ago. Audiences don’t have as much patience for the sort of nostalgia-driven entitlement that Rob and other male characters like him seem to thrive on. Labeling a woman as awful for talking a lot, forcing an ex to admit that she was “not quite” assaulted, or even thinking for a second that any of these women owe Rob an explanation is no longer quite so cute.
With that in mind, why make a newer, updated version of High Fidelity? There is a grimy sort of magic to people who really, really love music and who fall in and out of love because of (or maybe in spite of) music. Hulu’s ten-episode series asks, “Why the hell not?” While Veronica West and Sarah Kucserka’s take on High Fidelity is new and fresh—at times a painful delight—it isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel. With its expert pacing, fourth wall monologuing and a protagonist covering real emotional pain with sharp observational humor and self-depreciation, it’s hard not to compare it to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s breakout hit Fleabag. Continue Reading →
Locke & Key
Netflix's adaptation of the Joe Hill comic series takes a while to get going, but hits a dark-fantasy stride by the end.
For better and worse (but mostly better), Locke & Key imports the tone and feel of its comic book inspiration almost entirely to its TV adaptation. Show creator Carlton Cuse has proven increasingly adept at helming smart, faithful adaptations for television from books (The Strain) and comics.
For those unfamiliar with the source material by writer Joe Hill and artist Gabriel Rodriguez, Locke & Key concerns the titular Locke family, who, after a personal tragedy back in Seattle, move east to a small Massachusetts town. There waits a large manor home, Key House, one that deceased patriarch Rendell Locke (Bill Heck) hated so much he left in the rearview and never spoke of to his family. His brother Duncan (Aaron Ashmore) has been left caretaker, but largely avoids the property even though he remembers very little of his childhood. The Lockes, though, are in need of a change, and Key House seems to be the easiest place to start. Unfortunately, they quickly find that the home offers much less refuge (and much more danger) than they ever expected.
Part of Locke & Key’s charm is how closely it hews to the comics on which it’s based. It diverges here and there, but never in ways that existing fans will resent. In fact, they may appreciate how it gives the narrative a few surprises while maintaining what made the series so popular in the first place. It’s the rare adaptation that manages the feat of feeling like its source material while not simply being a retread. Continue Reading →