Summer. It’s that time of year when most shows are on break. Sure, it’s blockbuster season at the movie theater, but there’s still so much free time left unused. Fortunately, if you’re looking for a series to watch, we have you covered.
Below is our 2017 Summer Watchlist, a collection of streamable series recommended by our staff. With such a wide assortment, you should have not trouble finding a show. Who knows? One might just become your new favorite.
Jane the Virgin (Available on Netflix)
Whether you actively follow the news, or just passively scroll by headlines on your social media feeds, it’s no secret that 2017 has been an exhausting year. Yet, no matter what crazy headlines CNN and MSNBC were throwing our way, television offered one oasis this year, and it could be found on Monday nights at 9 PM. Yes, somehow, The CW’s Jane the Virgin not only made Mondays bearable, but something to look forward to. Having just wrapped its third season, Jane the Virgin remains a consistently great (and hugely underrated) gem of a series that is infectiously lovable and completely addictive. And, with the entire series streaming on Netflix, its huge laughs, sweeping romantic gestures, and shocking twists “straight out of a telenovela” make for perfect binge material.
For those who do not know, Jane the Virgin follows, well, a virgin named Jane, who is accidentally artificially inseminated during a routine checkup, an event which throws her entire life off its carefully planned track. One minute she’s an aspiring author engaged to her loving, detective boyfriend; the next she’s pregnant with the child of a cancer survivor who happens to own an enormously successful hotel – which may be a front for a villainous drug lord. But Jane the Virgin has evolved quite a bit since its premiere and, while it still relies on soap opera-esque cliffhangers, it has truly emerged as one of television’s most well rounded series.
On one level, it’s a compelling family story, with Jane and her now three-year-old son dealing with her crazy family. It’s also home to one of television’s best love triangles, and some moments that will make even the most hard-hearted of viewers swoon. However, what really makes Jane the Virgin worth watching is the game-changing twist that occurs halfway through the third season – without spoiling anything, Jane the Virgin left its viewers in shock (and tears) but, in the process, gave itself a new spark of energy.
But, regardless of whether you’re #TeamMichael or #TeamRafael, the thing that makes Jane the Virgin worthy of your time is its unbridled sense of optimism. This is a truly beautiful show, filled with characters that, while flawed, quickly burrow their way into your heart. In its most recent season, Jane the Virgin hasn’t been afraid of exploring dark territory, and, despite its occasionally fantastical tone, has reminded viewers that life isn’t always like a fairy tale – bad things can and will happen. But that makes the emotional moments all the more satisfying and even therapeutic. There’s no show on television that’s more optimistic than Jane the Virgin, and everyone would benefit from letting this ray of sunshine into their life.
–Matt Taylor
Stephen Fry in America (Available on Netflix, Hulu, and XFINITY)
Stephen Fry in America aired on the BBC in 2008. Since then it pops up on Netflix occasionally. The show is a clueless love letter to the country where Stephen was almost born, but that’s what makes it fascinating. Some facts are wrong. Most states are stereotyped. Stephen’s health (his broken arm magically healing and re-breaking is an obvious continuity error) gives away that this series was clearly shot out of order.
Based on that description, this series sounds like one Americans should run away from quickly. However, Stephen Fry in America is a charming hot mess with good intentions. There’s something appealing about someone intensely loving something he doesn’t fully understand yet thinks he is an expert on. Sure, the series won’t pass muster in a US History class, but your history teacher never made jokes about Las Vegas brothels or how elderly Jewish New Yorkers in a Florida nursing home are “his people.” (Stephen’s Jewish and one gets the sense he doesn’t realize how apropos the comment is.)
In the end, Stephen Fry in America says more about its presenter than the country he visits. For some reason, he hates Florida, didn’t do his research on Washington Crossing the Delaware, and insists on driving around America in a London black cab. So while the travelogue is an inaccurate documentary, it’s a quirky look into one man’s mind and the country where he would have been “a Steve, not a Stephen.” For those reasons, it’s worth a look.
–Allison Lips
Erased (Available on Hulu and Crunchyroll)
I know not everyone is an anime fan, but you know, not everyone is all about live-action TV either. Maybe you fall into the latter category, maybe you’re looking to expand your horizons, or maybe you didn’t even think about it until this moment. Regardless, I have an amazing show for you and now is a good time to binge it because this winter Netflix will stream a live-action web-drama adaptation. The name of the show you should watch is Erased.
Erased is the story of Satoru Fujinuma, a struggling (but paid) manga artist and part-time deliveryman. Satoru has an ability which he calls “Revival.” This ability allows him to travel back in time to prevent an incident where he or someone else could die. He’s usually only able to travel back a couple minutes. Until someone murders his mother, that is. Murdered because she realized the identity of the person responsible for the death of three children when Satoru was in grade school. This triggers Satoru’s Revival to send him back 18 years. The only way to save his mom is to prevent the tragic death of his classmate, Kayo Hinazuki and also figure out who the killer is.
–Rachel Freeman
The Leftovers (Available on HBO GO)
The Leftovers can be a hard sell. 2% of the world’s population vanishes into thin air, and those “lucky” enough to get left behind have to live their lives never knowing why it happened. That’s the very basic plot; it only describes the tip of the iceberg that is the show. This is a show that includes but is not limited to: escaping lions, hijacked nuclear subs, international assassins, inter-dimensional travel, and the aforementioned disappearance of a lot of people. Yet, when you boil the show down to its essence, what rises to the surface is, to me at least, a story about grief and all the crazy things we do and tell ourselves in order to deal with it. Grief can be a bitter pill to swallow and this show doesn’t dance around that. The Leftovers isn’t designed to give easy answers or be easily digested. It’s why it was such a rewarding journey to go on.
Throughout its short but sweet run of 28 episodes, The Leftovers creates a beautiful and vast tapestry of characters and the emotional journeys they go on. Starting in upstate New York and ending in Australia, of all places, the three seasons of the show cover a lot of ground while still remaining an intimate examination of the characters. Each deals with the pain of losing their loved ones in different ways. The chief of police in a small town fights to keep his family together after his wife leaves them and joins a cult. A government agent copes with losing her whole family in “the Departure” while they were sitting at the breakfast table. A reverend tries to discredit those that vanished in order to try and prove that the Departure was not the Rapture. Each one of these journeys, and those of the other characters, are memorable and uniquely human. These are incredibly flawed people in search of answers that may not exist. Trying to put meaning to the random, indifferent nature of our lives is a struggle we can all relate to.
The Leftovers can be a tough nut to crack, but in the end I felt it was worth the effort. This isn’t a show that you binge in a weekend. It doesn’t fit the Netflix formula. This is a show you savor and engage in. There is so much to unpack. Everything from the imagery, to the music choices, to the breathtaking intro the show has, it’s all worth an examination. I may not have always understood the show intellectually, but I always understood it emotionally. I believe that’s why the show resonated with me so much. I didn’t always need to know what it all meant, like I did with some shows in the past. This was one of those rare times where I was happy to just let the mystery be.
–Taylor Bowne
Orphan Black (Available on Amazon Prime and VOD)
If you’re looking for a great sci-fi thriller to binge watch this summer, you’ve found the perfect series. There are currently four seasons of Orphan Black available to you via streaming. Meanwhile, the fifth season is airing on BBC America. You could maybe even get caught up to see the finale live.
I will recap the first episode to give you a feel for the show. We follow Sarah Manning who is a very street-wise grifter. She notices a woman that looks exactly like her. Yes, I must stress the resemblance here. This woman is taking her shoes off by a train platform and acting a little strange. As Sarah approaches so does a train. The woman takes a leap, and is dead on impact. Sarah sees this as an opportunity to start over. She immediately snatches up the mystery lady’s items and takes on her identity. Sarah discovers her twin was a cop working on uncovering something insane. It doesn’t take long for Sarah to discover a possible triplet. So, if you like strong women, sci-fi mystery, thrillers, and crazy reveals, this is the show for you.
–Sheena Fisher
Cowboy Bebop (Available on Hulu and Crunchyroll)
Looking for something totally unlike anything else currently on television, something truly unique, something you’ve never seen anywhere else? Look no further than Cowboy Bebop, which originally aired in 1998-1999 and is currently streaming on Hulu and Crunchyroll. What sets this classic anime apart from the other animated shows out there? One word: style.
Cowboy Bebop follows the escapades of the bounty hunters aboard the spaceship Bebop as they travel across the solar system searching for outlaws, getting tangled up in the criminal underworld, and engaging in zany antics. The show expertly toes the line between moody and goofy and deftly juggles moments of levity, tragedy, and excitement. Space Western may not be as much of a niche genre today thanks to the popularity of the cult classic Firefly and games like Borderlands, but Cowboy Bebop holds a special place in the genre because it fuses sci-fi and Western elements with a neo-noir tone. Even viewers not typically drawn to anime should be able to appreciate the ambitious, often outlandish design and tone of the show; as a master class in genre bending, the series manages to bring action, comedy, and drama together like a perfectly conducted orchestra, a feat which should appeal to audiences regardless of their feelings about Japanese cartoons.
Consisting of 26 episodes that each run just under half an hour and generally feature self-contained stories (with a few overarching plotlines), Cowboy Bebop is perfect for binge watching. The show is full of incredibly nuanced characters, engaging storylines, stirring themes, and amazing music, all of which complement one another seamlessly and make it astoundingly easy to burn through one episode after another. Honestly, the soundtrack itself is so spectacular that I could recommend the series on the music’s merits alone; containing a brilliant mix of jazz, blues, and other genres, the soundtrack (created by Yoko Kanno and the band Seatbelts) is both a perfect reflection of the show as a whole and a masterpiece on its own.
Unless you are positively allergic to animated shows, Cowboy Bebop is well worth your viewing time this summer. You’ve likely seen nothing like it and may never see anything like it again. And with any luck, this show may just make a space cowboy out of you.
–Josh Sarnecky
Smallville (Available on Hulu)
Despite being off-air for six years, this WB/CW show, created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, has had a lasting impact on superhero television since its pilot episode back in 2001 (Arrow can thank Smallville for paving the way). Lasting for 10 full seasons and 218 episodes, Smallville takes the iconic DC Comics character, Superman, and provides its own teenager-esque spin to the classic mythology – incorporating younger versions of the characters of Lex Luthor, Lana Lang, Lois Lane, Pete Ross, and, of course, Jonathan and Martha Kent. While we all think of Superman and his famous costume, this show focuses on the younger version of Clark Kent going through his teenage years and beyond while growing up in the modest farm town fittingly named Smallville.
The strength of this show is definitely in the first four seasons, but Smallville is still entertaining even in the rough seasons (one of which was due to a writers’ strike). It has a lighthearted tone, yet is not afraid of going to weird, darker, and strange places. Going off of that, another great aspect to the show is the characters and their characterization. If you are one of those people unhappy with the DCEU version of Lex Luthor, then you might want to seek your redemption with Smallville. Alexander Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) is absolutely the best character on the show and a fan favorite as well – not to forget Lex’s father, Lionel Luthor (John Glover).
Tom Welling, portraying Kal-El/Clark Kent, embodies the complexities of being an alien while undergoing the process of puberty quite well (Welling is also my favorite actor). The only character to join Clark Kent in all 10 seasons of Smallville is Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack), a high school journalist and best friend to Kent. She does such a great job of embodying female empowerment despite not having special abilities. The heart of the show is what drives Smallville forward.
If you can forgive the show for spending much of the first few seasons on “freak-of-the-week” episodes and surviving the entire series on a very low budget (which means not so great special effects), than I think you will find enjoyment with this show. The many special cameos and references (including Christopher Reeve and Dean Cain) add to the show’s fun. Plus, many popular actors got their start on Smallville, such as Amy Adams (Arrival), Jensen Ackles (Supernatural), Justin Hartley (This Is Us), Kristin Kreuk (The CW’s Beauty and the Beast), the Salvatore brothers from The Vampire Diaries: Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, Alan Ritchson (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), and Sam Witwer (Star Wars: Rebels). Smallville has drama, humor, romance, adventure, intensity, and heart. The cherry on top: the nostalgia and charm from Smallville will never go away.
–Daryn Kirscht
Rectify (Available on Netflix)
Rectify is the summer in a program. It’s summer in that the first episode finds its main character getting out of prison. Like the end of a long, awful school year. It’s summer for the green we see all around us, whether on dinner plates or behind baseball fences. It’s summer for the hot way people act, picking on each other for supposed crimes, for what these actors bring to the characters, the warmth they channel through their drama.
This show is the South as it probably is, not as it is perceived to be. While it doesn’t pull punches about the backwards way some people are, they are also progressive beyond what you might expect. Rectify is the sadness behind those who commit physical and emotional harm because they want anyone, even if they aren’t the right person, to pay for what happened to them. It’s the battle between dusty old values and new insights, the fear behind people who see someone who seems different and say, “You are worse than you are because you are different than I am.”
You’ve probably heard of this show. You’ve probably passed by it on your queue and thought, “Sundance? Bleh,” or, if you pay attention to sites like this one, you might have gotten wind of this great human drama that seems like it might not be on your package. It’s on your Netflix queue. You can watch it. And since the seasons are British in length (the longest has a scant 10 episodes), you have more than enough summer for it. You could watch The Sopranos or forgive yourself with the residents of Paulie, Georgia, as they come to terms with each other and themselves.
–Matthew Haviland
Death Note (Available on Netflix and Hulu)
I don’t have a particular affinity for anime, nor do I have a disdain for it. I’m open to watching a piece of entertainment regardless of its country of origin. What appeals to me when it comes to Death Note is that it’s a thriller, which is my favorite genre. It being Japanese and animated are just circumstantial.
Death Note tells the story of a Japanese student named Light Yagami, who happens upon a supernatural notebook that allows the user to kill anyone, as long as they know that person’s name and face. When Light decides to use the Death Note to mercilessly kill criminals and establish a new world order, the police enlist the help of the world greatest detective, known simply as L. And from there it’s a chess game to see who will outwit whom. That’s really all you need to know.
As I said before, I don’t dislike anime. I like some anime-inspired media and I have a soft spot for the cartoons of my youth. But whereas other anime focus on who is the strongest, which is often determined by training and drawn out storylines, Death Note focuses on intellect. Light and L are evenly matched, so it’s never quite certain who is going to win in the end. The protagonist, Light, is also definitely more villain than hero, though there are a few shades of gray.
If you’d like to watch it, you’re in luck, as it’s only 37 episodes. You can find it on Netflix and other places, in both English and Japanese. Netflix is also adapting it later this year. While I’d rather see a director like David Fincher or Christopher Nolan helm an adaptation, I’ll reserve my judgment.
–Aaron Sarnecky
Hannibal (Available on Amazon Prime)
Did you love American Gods?
If you did, and now that its inaugural season is over — you need to dive into Hannibal.
Gods mastermind Bryan Fuller was also the creative and visionary genius behind one of the most brilliant, most criminally underrated, and most overlooked dramas in the modern era of television.
Fuller’s take on Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) and Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and their work, world, and bizarre relationship is a macabre ballet of dizzying visuals, breathtaking performances, and audacious plot twists (usually spiked artistic violence). Honestly, this show was so violent that I don’t understand how it was even allowed on NBC. It’s the blueprint that American Gods employed to make it one of the freshest series of the 2016-2017 television season. Everything you saw Fuller do with Storm and company was first implemented, on network television, in Hannibal.
The performances are second to none. Mikkelsen turns down the volume on Lecter, and takes him from a scene chewing beast (a la Hopkins) into a quiet, menace…like a great white shark hunting its prey at sea, waiting for the first smell of blood (or in Hannibal’s case, weakness). Dancy is equally impressive as the always sweaty, always-on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown Will. Laurence Fishburne destroys it as Jack Crawford. Guest stars like Eddie Izzard, Joe Anderson, Michael Pitt, Cynthia Nixon, Dan Fogler, and Zachary Quinto add to the excellnce. However, it’s Richard Armitage and Gillian Anderson in the third and final season that almost steal the series from the leads.
This series is about 39 episodes long. Does it start a little slow? Yes. Does it take a minute to adjust to the insanity of it all? Well, if you are watching Twin Peaks, or finished American Gods, it won’t. But get into it and you’ll experience something so great you’ll plow through the series in no time.
As a heads up, the Season 2 and Season 3 finales are two of the best episodes of the series.
