It’s been a while since I made one of these posts! But I realised that I have watched quite a few one-season Netflix shows recently so thought I would share my thoughts on them. They are in order of watched most recent so I might have recency bias but I have enjoyed all of these a lot.
Running Point
An easy one to start with, I literally finished this a few days ago. I wasn’t sure what to think initially when I decided to watch this, but now I have watched it and I agree with what everyone online has been saying, that this is kind of like Ted Lasso for basketball.
Isla Gordon is put in the spotlight as she takes over her family’s basketball team, the LA Waves. The show is filled with dysfunctional family drama while Isla tries to girl boss her way to the playoffs. Thankfully, you don’t need to know anything about basketball to watch this show. I had no idea what was going on with that bit, lol, but I still really enjoyed this.
I enjoyed the reappearance of Brenda Song in my life, better known as London Tipton from the Suite Life of Zack and Cody. It was a nice surprise. I also enjoy the dysfunctional family dynamics of the Gordon family including a secret half brother no-one knew about until now. I am looking forward to seeing where it goes, but also sad I have to wait for another season. At least there will be another season, I know Netflix can be flaky with this kind of thing so we shall ride the wave as long as they allow us. Omg that was totally an unintentional pun lol.
Nobody Wants This
I remember binging this one pretty quickly. It’s a fun rom-com with Kristen Bell and Adam Brody where a sex podcaster falls in love with a Rabbi. Yeah the summary pretty much says it all lol.
I feel like in general Kristen Bell and Adam Brody make an unlikely couple, and I thought they were vastly different in age but they aren’t. So it’s a weird pairing but I was rooting for them. I mean if you aren’t rooting for the couple in a rom-com then maybe the rom-com isn’t for you. But this was a lighthearted and fun one. I think the theme for most of these recent shows is that they are fun and lighthearted and we need more. Like, if this was airing 10 years ago, it would be a 24 episode season drama and it would go on for at least 5 years and it would be amazing. So yeah I’m excited for more.
The Perfect Couple
This was on my list for a while and I finally watched it last year and it was a letdown for me. The story is that a family is hosting a wedding at their boujie home but the bride’s best friend gets murdered. So everyone in the family is a suspect.
And usually this kind of drama would be my thing, I love a little murder mystery, especially if it involves rich people. But this was falling flat in so many ways. I just didn’t care about any of the characters. And they were trying to be a little silly while trying to stay serious and it didn’t work, it needed to be one or the other.
I think the most enjoyable thing about it was the opening credit flash mob. So save yourself some time and just watch that because it was fun and silly lol.
Man on the Inside
Another fun one, this one is about an old man who is hired by a private investigator to go undercover in a retirement home to solve the mystery of a missing necklace.
I loved watching this and would happily follow Ted Danson through all of his undercover adventures. It’s just one of those feel-good shows, which is unserious and I highly recommend.
Culinary Class Wars
A very different vibe from all the other shows listed, this is a Korean reality cooking competition lol.
So, random fact but I love a good cooking competition. One of my favourite shows is Chopped, where people make dishes using 4 random ingredients and it’s just so interesting how they are able to come up with dishes and so quickly.
Anyway, this show is a competition between black spoon chefs and white spoon chefs, the black spoon chefs are regular everyday chefs who are well-known in Korea for their restaurants and cooking styles while the white spoon chefs are Michelin-star/celebrity chefs.
I really enjoyed this one because it was so dramatic but also all the chefs looked like amazing cooks. The challenges were also really interesting and I got so invested in everyone’s story. So if you like cooking shows then I would recommend this. I will also note I watched it with subtitles, I don’t know how it is to watch when its dubbed but I find dubbed voices for this kind of thing off-putting. So I stuck with the original Korean.
Not sure if there is going to be another season of this show, mainly because in the beginning they found 100 chefs to compete and that probably took a long time and the budget looked insane so it’s expensive to make. But I would definitely watch more. (Update: I checked, yes season 2 is happening so bring it on)
That brings me to the end of my Netflix show list. I gotta say it is a risk watching shows on Netflix which only have one season, mainly because you can fall in love with it and they can drop it without notice. But I am glad that all these recent ones have been picked up again, minus the Perfect Couple, it was a limited series but I’m not mad about that.
While I have been enjoying these new shows though I would love something that I can binge. I need something longer than a few seasons to get going, I mean my fiance and I recently finished the Mentalist and so I feel like we need something like that again. So will have to be on the hunt for something old that I just never got around to watching when it aired. Maybe we’ll start watching something like CSI lol. I’m sure we’ll find something.
Anyway, I have to say I am enjoying the lighthearted stuff that is coming out now. I feel like there was a focus for a long time on the super long and serious 40 minute dramas, which I am all for but we also need to 20 minute sitcoms to get through the days. The world is serious enough, bring me the mind-numbing TV, please.
And in between all of this, I have been rewatching Gilmore Girls and other comfort shows because as exciting as new TV is, there is nothing better than binging a show you already know is good. And with that I am leaving it here, if you are interested in finding out more about the TV I am watching then follow me on Serializd, because if there’s one thing you can count on with me, it’s to log almost everything I’ve ever done ever somewhere online lol.
Courtney's Blog 