binge-watching

Ok, I promise I’ll stop with all the binge-watching posts….right after this one. I know that everyone is talking about The Handmaid’s Tale and This Is Us, both wonderful shows, but while you’re plotting to overthrow the establishment, and/or crying your eyes out, don’t forget to check out my favorite reasons to turn on Hulu:

Fargo (Drama/Thriller)– I really enjoyed the movie Fargo, so it took me a while to give this TV adaptation a chance. How could they do it better than the Coen Brothers?  Somehow though, the show’s creator, Noah Hawley, did the impossible. There have been three seasons, the first two are available on Hulu, and they each take place in a different time period, with an entirely different set of characters. They’re all similarly darkly hilarious, and full of the stuff that makes good television: interesting story lines, intriguing characters and strange plot twists.

Top of the Lake (NZ Drama/Thriller)– The always amazing Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, The Handmaid’s Tale) stars as detective Robin Griffin in this haunting mystery/thriller. In Season 1, Detective Griffin is visiting home in New Zealand when a pregnant 12 year old girl goes missing. I just finished watching Season 2, and it was just as engrossing as the first.

Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple (British Mystery)– My husband started watching this show and, I’m not going to lie, I made fun of him. However, one night I forced myself to sit through one with him. From then on, I was hooked on this old-fashioned, clever English lady.

Broad City (Comedy)– This series, starring Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, follows the balls to the wall lives of two women living in New York City. You can’t help to laugh, and cringe, at their insane antics.

Arrested Development (Comedy)– This show follows the Bluth family, formerly wealthy and habitually dysfunctional. Jason Bateman leads an all-star cast. He plays Michael Bluth, the son trying to hold his crazy family together. It offers non-stop quirky fun!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Comedy)– This series revolves around Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg), an immature but talented NYPD detective in Brooklyn’s 99th Precinct, who comes into immediate conflict with his new commanding officer, the serious and stern Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher). I have always been a big fan of Andy Samberg’s goofy style of humor and amazing pop culture references, but the entire crazy cast shines in this sometimes smart and sometimes silly comedy.

The Good Place (Comedy)– After she is struck by a collection of runaway shopping carts, pushed into traffic and run over by a truck, Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) is welcomed into the afterlife by Michael (Ted Danson), the facilitator and architect of Eleanor’s new neighborhood in a “perfect utopia” called “The Good Place”. When Michael tells Eleanor she made it into “The Good Place” as reward for her life of selfless devotion to helping others, she realizes she must have been mistaken for someone else. This show is light and really fun.

Now that I’m done, anyone have any shows I NEED to check out? I always love recommendations! Happy watching!

♥ Erin

We’re really in a golden age of television, are we not? There are so many great new shows coming out all the time. It’s actually amazing that we get anything done at all! With that being said, I give you more excuses to not leave your house! Here are my favorite shows available on Amazon Prime:

Bosch (Crime Drama)– I love actor Titus Welliver, (coolest name ever!), who plays the lead character, detective Harry Bosch in this dark, police drama.

Goliath (Crime Drama)– Billy Bob Thornton kind of seems like a creep in real life, but damn, is he a good actor! I love him as a down and out lawyer trying to do right in a very corrupt world. Maria Bello and William Hurt also star.

Poldark (Period Drama)– Set in 1780s Cornwall, Ross Poldark returns from the American War of Independence to find his father dead, his house in ruins and his sweetheart engaged to his cousin. It sounds depressing, but it’s a great story of a man getting his life back. Also, this particular man, played by Aidan Turner, is super hot!

Vikings (Period Drama/Action Adventure)-VIKINGS tells the tale of the raiding and trading of Norsemen in medieval Scandanavia. It may not sound exciting to those not that into medieval history, but the great battles, interesting relationships and really attractive characters make it a great show to watch!

Granchester (Period Crime Drama)– A detective drama set in 1950s England, in a small village of Granchester near Cambridge, sees Anglican priest Sidney Chambers forge an unlikely partnership with the local Detective Inspector Geordie Keating after one of the vicars parishioners dies in suspicious circumstances. The relationship between these two likable characters is the foundation for this charming and earnest series.

The Tunnel (British/French Crime Drama)-Two detectives — one from the U.K., one from France — must work together to track down a killer who is operating in both countries. Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones) and Clemence Poesy (Harry Potter) star as the two detectives who couldn’t be more different, but form an unlikely close pair.

The Kettering Incident (NZ Drama/Thriller)– When two girls disappear 15 years apart under identical circumstances, Dr Anna Macy (Elizabeth Debicki) discovers she is linked to both cases. To clear her name, Anna must delve into her past, face truths about herself and uncover the mysterious nature of the Tasmanian wilds. This series is strange and a bit haunting, but unforgettable.

Tin Star (British/Canadian Crime Drama)– Set in the majestic Canadian Rockies, Tin Star tells the story of Jim Worth (Tim Roth), a former British detective now small town police chief, who brings his family to the tiny town of Little Big Bear for a better life. When a vast new oil refinery opens nearby, Jim has to work hard to protect his family and the town from organized crime. Tin Star is an exhilaratingly smart, breathlessly suspenseful thrill ride of a show as deceit, guilt, love, and all-consuming rage lead inexorably to a gut-wrenching finale.

The Man in the High Castle (Drama/Sci Fi)-This show depicts an alternate version of life in the U.S. in the 1960s — if Nazi Germany and Japan had won WWII. It’s based on the novel by Phillip K. Dick, and it’s unlike anything else on television. I couldn’t stop watching it!

The Missing (British Drama/Thriller)-The Missing is a gripping dramatic thriller that goes inside the mind of a father, Tony Hughes, desperate to locate his lost son. With help from local police detective, Julien Baptiste, Tony embarks on an obsessive quest to find his son and those responsible for his disappearance. A gripping puzzle with twists and turns at every stage, Tony’s exhaustive search fractures his relationship with his wife, Emily, and threatens to destroy his life.

Mr. Robot (Thriller)– A computer programmer working for a cyber-security firm is recruited by a shadowy organization dedicated to the destruction of corporate America. This is another very unique and suspenseful show, and it marks the triumphant return to television of my high school crush, Christian Slater. Hubba, hubba!

The Americans (Spy Thriller)– Two KGB spies pose as an American married couple living in 1980s Washington, D.C. The spies are played by real-life couple Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, both great actors with fabulous chemistry on-screen. Though the show is already in its fifth season, it’s never gotten the ratings it deserves.

Catastrophe (Comedy)– Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan write and star in this comedy about a one-week stand between a Boston ad exec and a London schoolteacher that leads to an accidental pregnancy. When Rob moves to the UK to help figure things out, cultures clash and hormones flare as these two realize they don’t know the first thing about each other. One of the funniest and most realistic shows on modern relationships.

Hope you enjoy the new recommendations. Happy TV Watching!

♥ Erin

Halloween is over and we’re settling into November. In the Sorkin house, fewer hours of daylight and colder weather means it’s a great time to binge watch some new shows! Who’s with me?

Have you already finished Season 2 of Stranger Things? Are you tired of bawling your eyes out only five minutes into every damn episode of This is Us? Me too! Check out my list below of the shows that I personally recommend. There are so many that they may even get you through until the final season of Game of Thrones comes out next summer.

1. Bloodline (Family Drama)– Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights) has aways been the glue that holds his family together, but after his older brother (amazingly played by Ben Mendelsohn) comes back into town and his father passes away, family secrets are revealed and things start to unravel. Sissy Spacek and Sam Sheppard also star.
2. Mindhunter (Crime Drama)– For me this show started slow, but, by the second episode, I was hooked. Set in the 1970’s the show stars Jonathan Groff (Whom I’m sure most of you know as Christof in Frozen) as FBI agent, Holden Ford. With a new wave of stranger killings, he is convinced that the FBI needs to begin to study the psychology behind why people become killers. He thinks the best way to do this is to interview incarcerated killers, but this idea doesn’t go over well with those in the FBI concerned with maintaining the status quo. This show is creepy and fascinating!
3. Ozark (Drama/Thriller)-Predictably, Jason Bateman plays the the family guy that gets more than he bargained for in his dodgy dealings with a Mexican drugs cartel, with Laura Linney as his cheating wife. Sometimes funny and always brooding, this series will fill the Walter White shaped void in all our lives.
4. The Killing (Mystery/ Crime Thriller)– I fell in love with this show when we still had cable and it was on AMC. The characters are so well-developed and raw that it feels like you’re a fly on the wall, watching their actual lives unravel.
5. Rectify (Family Drama)– This is another wonderfully acted, raw show with amazing character development. After being wrongfully convicted of murdering his high school girlfriend, and spending 19 years on death row, Daniel Holden has been released from prison. He goes back home to live with his mother and sister who never stopped fighting to prove his innocence. However, as you can imagine, his reintroduction into “normal” life is very difficult and not everyone is happy to see him out of prison.
6. The Five (British Mystery/Drama)– A 5 year old boy, Jesse, goes missing and then 18 years later his DNA is found at the scene of a brutal murder. The boy’s teenage brother, now in his thirties, along with three of his closest friends, has always felt responsible for the boy’s disappearance, and they work together to get to the bottom of what really happened to Jesse, all those years ago.
7. Jack Taylor (Irish Crime Drama)– This series, set in Galway, is based on the books of Ken Bruen. Iain Glen (Game of Thrones) plays the eponymous role of Jack Taylor, a former officer with the Garda Síochána (national police) who becomes a “finder” (private investigator) after leaving the service. The cases are really interesting and the accents are sexy as hell.
8. Paranoid (British Crime Drama)– I love the strong female lead in this show, Indira Varma (also from Game of Thrones). She is tough, smart, but still very human. The entire season is focused on solving one grisly, mysterious murder. So far there is only one season, but I’ve heard another one is in the works.
9. Scott and Bailey (British Crime Drama)– Another show with strong female leads, this one focuses on detectives Scott and Bailey as they rise up through the ranks of the department, solve cases and destroy their personal lives. Solid stuff!
10. True Crime (Australian Crime Drama/True Stories)– I love that this show is based on actual cases. At 90 minutes an episode, they’re a little long and drawn out, but well-developed and very detailed.
11. Father Brown (British Mystery/Crime)– Mark Williams, (Mr. Weasley from Harry Potter) stars as a catholic priest who is really good at solving mysteries. It’s not entirely believable, but very watchable and I love the characters in his small English village.
12. London Spy (British Thriller/Mystery)– This show is creepy and weird, but kind of addictive. I wish there was more than one season out right now! It tells the story of club kid, Danny (amazingly acted by Ben Whishaw), who meets the very buttoned up Alex on the street one morning. Danny is immediately infatuated with Alex who seems like such an innocent. However, he soon finds out that Alex might not be who he seems. Charlotte Rampling is so wonderfully frightening as Alex’s intense, controlling mother, and the super-talented Jim Broadbent also stars as Danny’s close friend and mentor.
13. Luther (British Thriller/Mystery)– Idris Elba. Enough said. Seriously though, this crime drama is full of passion and obsession, and just enough danger.
14. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage (Marvel)– I’m not usually into the whole Marvel Universe thing, but these shows are great. Jessica and Luke are two separate shows that are all tangled up together, and they’re both full of dark characters. My favorite was David Tennant (Dr. Who) as Jessica’s ex with deadly powers. It was so fun to watch him be so bad.
15. Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (Australian Mystery/Comedy)– I love this show set in 1920’s Sydney. Miss Phryne Fisher plays an independent woman, way ahead of her time. She is a private investigator with very close ties to the local police and together they solve crimes. Her humor and wit make her different than anyone else on TV.
16. Master of None (Comedy)-Aziz Ansari writes and stars in this comedy, creating a humorous and sometimes painfully honest look into modern life. He is so sweet, self-aware and self-deprecating, and my favorite guy on TV right now.
17. Love Sick (British Comedy)– After finding out he has an STD, Dylan must get back in touch with every girl he has ever had sex with to let them know the bad news. The premise makes this show sound like a buddy comedy, but it’s actually a really sweet romantic comedy about finding love and the importance of friendship, plus the lead, Johnny Flynn, is freakin’ adorable.
18. Happy Endings (Comedy)– This is a show about six friends living and loving together in Chicago. Sound familiar? I know, I know; It’s been done. However the obscure, but hilarious pop culture references and modern spin make this show really fun to watch. DVD only
19. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Comedy)-This is a raucous and lighthearted comedy about a woman who escapes a doomsday cult, after living 15 years underground. Ellie Kemper manages to be both adorable and hilarious, but it’s her best buddy and roommate, played by Titus Burgess, who steals the show with his over the top antics. Be careful though, the theme song is so catchy that it will be stuck in your head, on a loop, for years, dammit!
20. The Great British Baking Show (Cooking Competition)–The Great British Baking Show is all about people being nice to each other as they attempt various baking challenges to win the title of Britain’s best amateur baker.  With the help of charming lead hosts Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins and thoughtful judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, there’s plenty of humor and a surprising level of intensity as you anxiously hope the contestants’ baked goods can come to fruition.

I left out some choices that I thought were too obvious, a la Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead, and tried to include titles that I loved, but that don’t get as much press. Hope you find something great to watch tonight!

(I originally intended to include show from all the streaming services we watch, but there are just so many good things to watch right now! Be on the lookout for Part 2: Amazon and Part 3: Hulu)

♥ Erin