[imagesource: HBO]
There are two things in my life that, annoyingly, tend to grow longer.
My to-do list – usually a case of one thing off and two more added – and the ‘My List’ section of Netflix.
I legitimately just opened Netflix to make sure that’s what it’s called and added two more shows.
On the off chance that you’re on top of things, we thought we’d take a peruse through the BBC’s list of the 10 best TV shows of 2022 so far and pick out a few options.
Stranger Things season four is on there, and you don’t need reminding of that release, as is Inventing Anna.
We’ll avoid those and start with Search Party:
Few shows have made quite as extraordinary narrative leaps as this HBO comedy-drama has done over the course of its five seasons. What initially started out as a kind of Girls-meets-Raymond-Chandler alt-detective drama, with a New York hipster, Dory, on the hunt for a missing acquaintance, cycled through various genres, including courtroom drama and Misery-style toxic fan thriller – before in this year’s final series, centring on a cult and finally veering into post-apocalyptic zombie horror.
Underscoring all this, though, was a pitch-perfect satire of a certain privileged millennial mindset, as, in their fickleness, self-involvement and essential purposelessness…
One for the Millennials and Millennial-bashers. Everyone’s happy.
This one airs on HBO Max in the US.
Next up, a series that has really flown under the radar – Somebody Somewhere:
This new vehicle for the US stand-up Bridget Everett occupies an increasingly popular sub-genre: the comedian-authored semi-autobiographical comedy-drama (see everything from Aziz Ansari’s Master of None to Mae Martin’s Feel Good). Yet this is one of the very best of these efforts.
Charming and bittersweet, it finds a beautiful specificity in telling the story of Everett’s Sam, a woman who has returned to her Kansas hometown following the death of her sister, where, struggling to move on and stuck in a dead-end job, she finds solace in a renegade local choir group, which allows her to put her full-throated singing abilities to use, among other things.
This is also available on HBO Max in the US.
I can’t add the above to my Netflix list but I’ve made a note.
What else do we have? Severance, from Apple TV+ gets a mention, as do Top Boy (Netflix) and Derry Girls (coming to Netflix internationally later in the year).
But we’ll go with This is Going to Hurt:
A harrowing, deeply important and, most of all, funny portrait of the British healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS), This is Going to Hurt is based on the memoir of the same name by former doctor Adam Kay.
Having been a junior doctor in a busy London hospital’s obstetrics and gynaecology ward, Kay paints a nuanced portrait of the working conditions he and many others endured, and the serious toll that long hours and intense pressure takes on your life..
It’s not a rosy portrait of the realities of life in British hospitals, and there are some truly devastating moments throughout, but the show steadfastly keeps going with humanity and gallows humour, despite the horrors: just as healthcare professionals do every day.
Remember when everyone would bang pots and pans and clap each evening during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Feels like a lifetime ago.
Ah yes, the trailer:
The series is available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and AMC in the US.
Three more series added to your list.
Good luck finding the time to watch them.
[source:bbc]
