I'm Always Watching
tv shows that nobody ever talks about that make me want to scream from the rooftops
I love TV. When our appleTV broke a few months ago, Boyfriend immediately ran to the store and bought a new one before I could even ask. I need my shows. Blame it on all the rest required of disability, a love of storytelling, whatever. I watch a lot of fucking tv! And some of it is so good, but nobody ever talks about it. So, I’m gonna show you some of my favorite hidden gems.
Let’s get into it.
Servant. M. Night Shyamalan contributed this horror masterpiece to AppleTV 6 years ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. The story opens on a couple with an infant, but it’s soon revealed that the baby is a doll being used as a grieving tool for the mother. She thinks it’s alive and treats it as such, going so far as to hire a full-time nanny. That’s a creepy enough hook, they got me in the door. But it goes so much further. I don’t wanna give anything away. Spoiling this show would be a travesty. It’s fantastic, equal parts terrifying and heartbreaking. Lauren Ambrose is a fucking revelation as our unhinged, grieving mother. She’s giving the performance of a lifetime. Rupert Grint lightens the mood as her lovable fuckboy brother. This show… I wept. I screamed. It’s a masterpiece. Also, the set design and wardrobe for these characters was so thoughtful, felt so true to them, and was also luxe as hell, making this show even more stunning to watch.
The Wilds is an Amazon Prime survival show about a group of teenage girls on a deserted island. The twists are unreal. It’s a satisfying mix of Lost and Yellowjackets. This show is great, each of our characters goes on her own internal journey, a bit like the single character origin episodes of Lost. Do you think maybe this group isn’t stranded by accident? *maniacal laughter* This show took big swings. I think they had some really cool things cooking. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled on the edge of a mind-boggling cliffhanger, but I’m so glad I was along for the ride. The sudden cancellation doesn’t ruin the show for me. The creativity of it still holds. If you’re like me and in it for the love of the story, for good characters, for creative twists, you’ll like this. If you’re someone who needs closure, this show will make you want to punch me in the face. The cancellation is a bummer because that last episode is a “get up off the couch and shriek” type of deal. So, maybe if you all go watch it and get them numbers up, they’ll make more episodes? A girl can dream.
Corporate is a Comedy Central show about office life, but it’s absolutely nothing like The Office. It is so dark, so hilarious. It features a truly gleeful performance from the late, great Lance Reddick as the poisonous corporation’s megalomaniacal CEO. Anne Dubek is absolutely sensational as a high-strung business executive. She always made me laugh with her cutting comments as a housewife on Mad Men, and in this show she’s really bringing it. I love this woman. I love this show. It always zigs when you think it’s gonna zag. It’s a difficult undertaking, trying to reinvigorate the half-hour workplace comedy, but these guys put their own dark-as-hell spin on it and it rips.
Class Of ‘07 is another Amazon joint from Australia. It’s about a group of women who are at their all-girls 10 year high school reunion. There’s some long lost drama simmering, old friends reuniting, and then at some point during the party, they look out the window and realize that the world has flooded while they were bickering and now they’re completely stranded. It’s a funny show, but this group of women also really get down to the business of surviving. They’re charging batteries with stationary bikes; they’re trying to figure out how the fuck radios and the plumbing work. It goes in some interesting directions.
PEN15. I’m not typically one to laugh out loud during television shows. I just have never been a big laugher. That being said, this show brings me to my knees in front of the television set, hyperventilating and crying with laughter, on every single rewatch. I can understand why people couldn’t see past the perceived “gimmick.” The stars/writers/creators are 2 women in their 30’s and they play their teenage selves. But wow, they committed! They nailed the body language, the greasy hair, the messy lipgloss, and soon you just think of them as gawky tweens. They even have that weird middle-school patchy peach fuzz leg hair. There’s an entire episode dedicated to the the insane tension that builds when you’re sitting next to your bff at the family computer and chatting with a boy on AIM! I’ll admit, this show will probably only be hilarious to Millennials. The references, wardrobe, and everything else were custom tuned to a very specific time and place. It’s the perfect cringe comedy because it’s exactly spot-on.
That’s it from me for now because Man Seeking Woman (another absolute banger of a television show) just finished downloading. I really battled the substack length limit on this one. Cuts were made, a new word doc was created… so this might become a regular thing. I’d like to include more horror, plus some Irish and British tv as well. Happy watching.