Hello, lovelies! I haven’t done my typical books, movies, music blog posts since March, so I’ve been playing catch up to talk about the things that have kept me entertained during quarantine. Today, I am going to talk about fifteen shows I binged during quarantine. “Binged” is probably the wrong word to use for some of them, but hyperbolic titles are more interesting. Quarantine may also be the wrong word since Georgia hasn’t been on lockdown since April, but whatever. I’ve been quarantining since March and have watched more shows in the last six months than I have in the last six years. Movies and shows have been a huge solace for me, so today, I’m going to talk about the ones I watched from April to August. I hope you enjoy!
Related – Books I’ve Read During Quarantine | April – August 2020
1.//This is Us
I watched the most recent three seasons of this show in April. I broke my rule of never starting a show during the school year rule after the weirdness that was March. I slowly got through the first season in March, but obsessively watched the rest of the show once April hit. In between online classes and the typical heavy load of assignments in the last month of the semester, I was watching this. I’d watch like 2-4 episodes per day, which is a good chunk of time. I’m surprised I managed to get any work done, but I made sure not to spend the entire day watching T.V.
This is Us is about a family, and we get to see their lives, past present, and future consecutively. It’s very well done and the acting is phenomenal. You fall in love with every single character. We see the parents fall in love, their lives raising babies, kids, and teenagers. We see their kids go live their lives as adults and the trials they go through. It’s really good. It will make you laugh and make you cry. I’m excited to watch Season 5 in October.
2. // The Witcher
High fantasy shows aren’t really my thing, but I enjoyed this one. I was confused at times because the time jumps aren’t very clear, but it was fun Netflix partying this with my friend. I really don’t know how to describe the show. There really is no description for it that will make any semblance of sense, so here’s the trailer.
The song Toss A Coin To Your Witcher has been stuck in my head since April.
3.//Station 19
I didn’t have any interest in watching this show when it first came out, but started watching bits and pieces of season 3 when it crossed over with Grey’s Anatomy. I watched a bunch of clips from the earlier seasons and became interested in the show but couldn’t find it anywhere. I ended up buying the first season on YouTube (something I never do) in May and don’t regret it at all. It was fun to watch and it was a distraction from what would’ve been my graduation weekend.
The show is about a fire station in Seattle. The main character Andi is the daughter of her station’s captain and the first season is about her trying to become the next captain after her father retires. Typical Shondaland drama ensues. The other characters also have interesting backstories and storylines, but those are delved into until season 2.
Unlike Grey’s Anatomy, the relationships on the show don’t last more than eight episodes, while the ones on Grey’s go on for multiple seasons before things like marriage even come up. That’s really my only “complaint” about it. It’s not as good as Grey’s, but it’s entertaining. I’m excited about the next season because I’m sure it’s going to address the California wildfires spreading up to Washington the same way Grey’s Anatomy is going to address the coronavirus pandemic.
4.//Anne With An E
My friend Kat and I watched all three seasons of this after watching The Witcher. I’ve talked about Anne With An E many times before since it’s one of my favorite shows. It’s the newest adaptation of the Anne of Green Gables series with some modern twists. Anne is an orphan who is adopted by a brother and sister on accident. They wanted to adopt a boy to help with the farm but decided to keep her when she arrives. The show goes into her life at Green Gables, making friends, going to school for the first time, her trauma from previous homes she has lived in, etc.
I’m quite upset that it wasn’t renewed for another season because it was about to go into the plot of my favorite book in the series (the third book). It’s alright though. Kat loved the show as I predicted she would and even started reading the book series.
5.//Trinkets
After watching Anne With An E, Kat chose this show for us to watch. I’m realizing now that at least half the shows in this post are from when we used Netflix Party almost every day at the beginning of quarantine, though I shouldn’t be surprised. When we started this in March, we didn’t think it would last this long, but we’re still watching shows together months later.
Trinkets is about three teenage kleptomaniacs who meet at Shoplifters Anonymous. The three of them become friends and hijinks ensue. I enjoyed the show a lot, and we’re watching the second season right now.
6.//Sweet Magnolias
I binged this show in less than a day. I watched all ten episodes in a row in one night, and I don’t even know why. This isn’t a plot heavy show at all, nor is it overdramatic. I just saw Cheyenne from Reba on the poster and clicked the first episode. The show is about a woman named Maddie, whose husband cheats on her and gets another woman pregnant. After getting divorced, she decides to start a business with her two best friends. The show follows her, both her friends, her kids, the other woman, the ex husband, and many other characters as they live their lives in this small town. It’s a sweet show.
7.//Avatar: The Last Airbender
The Avatar fandom has reawakened since it came on Netflix and I am all for it. I’ve talked about Avatar so many times this past year because I started watching it with my friend Stellah last August. It’s been my favorite show since I was a child and I recommended it to her and all of my friends for 10 years and she finally agreed to watch it.
Of course, she fell in love with it, but we had to stop watching it together in March. She has been very loyal and hasn’t finished the show without me, but she’s very upset that two of our other friends who hadn’t watched the show were able to finish it before her during quarantine. “It’s not fair!” We are almost done with it. We’ve already met up three times to watch it together social distanced on her balcony. We’ll definitely finish it by the beginning of October. (Her reactions are still priceless because season 3 is the best season).
Anyway, I wasn’t in any rush to watch it in May when it came out. A bunch of my friends and I used Netflix Party the first day it came to Netflix to watch the first three episodes, but I watched the rest of the show very slowly with my brother. We’d watch an episode almost every day, so we didn’t finish it till late July. We own the DVDs, so we’ve watched it fairly regularly and we watched it on our road trip to Canada in January. That’s why we weren’t in any rush.
Either way, I have been living for all the ATLA YouTube videos, fanfiction, fanart, and TikTiks everywhere. Especially since all of my close friends have watched it now. It’s been great. Welcome to the fandom newbies!
8.//Crashing
This is a very weird show. I specifically chose it because I wanted to watch Phoebe Waller Bridge’s shows after hearing so much about her. This one happened to be on Netflix, so I was able to watch with Kat. It’s about these people in their twenties living in an abandoned hospital in the UK. The show is very short. It’s a limited series with six half-hour episodes. It’s a fun and quick watch.
9.//Fleabag
I watched this immediately after watching Crashing. Season 2 won four Emmy Awards last year and I can understand why. The show is about a woman who’s best friend was hit by a bus. The plot is kind of about her getting her life together and about her relationship with her dysfunctional/toxic family. I’ve never seen a show break the fourth wall so well. I thought the first season was okay but the second season is many levels above the first. It is significantly better. I can’t believe this was originally going to be a limited series because I don’t think it works as well without the second season.
The show is very short. Both seasons have six episodes each like Crashing did. It was produced by Amazon Prime, which I have slept on for way too long. I already got my dad and one of my friends to watch the show and they both agree that it’s good (You just got to get through the very short first season to get to the best part).
10.//The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
I slept on this show for a very long time. After watching Fleabag, I decided to watch another Emmy winning Amazon Prime T.V. show. I had heard of Mrs. Maisel and had seen ads for it everywhere, but I didn’t know what it was about. This show takes place in New York in the 1950s, so the whole aesthetic of the show is beautiful. It’s about a housewife named Midge who becomes a comedian after her husband leaves her.
One thing I love about this show is that she’s actually funny. Some shows about comedians don’t have funny sets, but the ones in this show are hilarious. The acting is also phenomenal. Do you guys remember the show Monk? He plays Midge’s dad in the show and he’s very funny.
Now, I understand all the hype this series gets. I was sucked in at the first five minutes.
11.//Girl Meets World
After watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, I rewatched seasons 2 & 3 of Girl Meets World. I don’t know why. I just had the itch, too. My brother and I were obsessed with this show when it came out. We watched it every single week. I honestly forgot how good it was and got sucked in again. I wish it was as long as Boy Meets World because there was so much left to explore.
After finishing Avatar, Zidan and I started re-watching this (after my initial rewatch on my own), but I don’t mind watching it again. We watch an episode like every other day.
12.//The Newsroom
This took me a long time to watch. Not because it wasn’t good. The show is amazing, but it took a lot out of me. It’s made by the same guy who made The West Wing, so it’s no surprise that this is a well thought out show. It was honestly wasted in 2012. This show predicted everything that is happening right now. It’s scary.
The Newsroom is about a studio that is trying to create a news show with just the facts. They’re not trying to push an agenda. They just want to create a good show that gets important information out there. There is a lot of backlash along the way, and the dialogue alone will teach you something. There was a debate between Romney’s campaign manager and one of the reporters where the campaign manager talked about the middle class in response to a question about poor people and the reporter said “The middle class are poor!” that really stuck with me. Even the first scene in the pilot where McAvoy was talking about how the U.S. isn’t the greatest country in the world was amazing. Brought so many points across.
Again, this show was wasted in 2012. It took me months to finish despite it being a short show because I would watch one episode and have to sit and think about it for the rest of the week.
It also has a really great cast.
13.//Hollywood
This is another show I watched with Kat. I highly recommend this one, too. It’s about a group of people trying to add diversity to film in the 1940s and the backlash they receive for it. The acting and the writing is great, plus the message is still pretty applicable to today. It’s a good show.
14.//Ramy
Season 2 of Ramy came out at the end of May, but I didn’t watch it till July. I ended up loving the second season even more than the first. The show is about Ramy, a first-generation Egyptian American who is struggling to be a good Muslim and is figuring out how to practice what he believes. This is the description I Googled:
Ramy follows “a first-generation American Muslim who is on a spiritual journey in his politically divided New Jersey neighborhood. It explores the challenges of what it is like being caught between an Egyptian community that thinks life is a moral test, and a generation that thinks life has no consequences.”
It was nominated for two Emmys this year.
15.//Soy Luna
I started watching this solely because I wanted to practice my Spanish. I had heard about it a few times over the years but didn’t have access to Disney Channel Latin America shows before Disney+. I just randomly decided that I wanted to practice my Spanish one day in August and turned it on.
I became mildly obsessed with the show. I don’t think I’m going to finish it because Season 1 has eighty episodes alone and the next two seasons are also very long. I’m not committing to that if what I think is going to happen will happen. Anyway, the show is about an adopted girl in Mexico named Luna, who’s parents are basically blackmailed into taking a job in Argentina. Luna and her best friend in Mexico love roller skating (his thing is more music, but they both just pursue both hobbies together), so when she arrives in Argentina she goes out skating and finds a giant roller skating rink where people roller dance. The show centers around the characters who skate there.
There’s also a telenovela element to the show, which I’ve heard is common in other Disney Channel Latin America Shows, as well. The owner of the mansion finds out that her niece Sol, the original heir to her fortune, may still be alive, so she goes through a lot to find her. We the audience know that the heir is Luna, but the characters don’t know that yet.
There’s also a lot of music in the show. It technically isn’t a musical because they rehearse and perform the songs at open mics. They don’t randomly burst into song for their inner monologue, but I’m sure it’ll happen at some point.
It’s always interesting to watch T.V. shows and movies that take place in other countries because you get to see the tropes that exist there. I’ve already mentioned the telenovela elements, but it wasn’t too over the top to the point where it was unbelievable. The main cast is larger than I’m used to. I counted all the people in the intro song, and there are 24 characters total. There are some things I noticed that wouldn’t be included in a Disney Channel show in the U.S. There is a relationship that occurs in the show between two friends where one is a few years older. I’m pretty sure he’s 19 and she’s 16, which is completely okay. It just wouldn’t be shown on a kids/teen show on Disney Channel here (where there is legit a one kiss per season rule). Then there are tropes like love triangles that are common tropes there as well.
The production value is amazing and the episodes are also twice as long as Disney Channel shows here. I found out that a new episode aired every day Monday through Friday weekly per half season (The seasons are 80 episodes long), which sounds amazing! They didn’t have to wait a whole week for a new episode, which is nice considering how many cliffhangers there are.
Anyway, I do recommend it. I’ve been watching it so much that my Disney+ account thinks I speak Spanish and every movie I watch is automatically dubbed in Spanish now. (I’m lowkey proud of myself for that.)
So yeah…those are the shows I’ve been watching these past five months. I’ve watched bits and pieces of other light shows like Life In Pieces or Young & Hungry. I started watching Downton Abbey, but I haven’t gotten too invested yet. I started the first episode of the final season of The 100, but didn’t watch it again for months. I assumed I would catch up at some point, then the internet was screaming how this was worse than the Game of Thrones ending. I’ll give my review in my September entertainment wrap-up because the series will have finished by then.
Anyway, that’s it for now. Until next time!
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What was the favorite show you’ve watched in quarantine?
Ooo! I definitely have to give these shows a try. Thanks for sharing your list. 🙂