Top Five Friday: Top Five Most Binge-worthy TV Shows of The Recent Past

Hullo thar! I’m super excited to share these wonderful shows with you for my Top Five Friday post (inspired by a T10T from a couple of weeks ago that I missed out on!). I’m pretty sure I’ve flailed about some of these on various social media, and recently, but I’m just so in LOVE!! that herk yas I want to share it in a proper post for you all right now. Let’s get to it!

1. One Day At A Time

 

Is this a sitcom with a laugh track with sometimes awkward acting and really random B-plots? Maybe, honestly I can’t remember, because this show is so freaking amazing. The entire main cast is perfect I tell you PERFECT. The show’s central family are Cuban-American and every person is so fully realized. There’s Penelope, the mother, living with PTSD and anxiety who takes anti-depressants, a former Army medic, now studying to be a nurse practitioner. Her daughter, Elena, who comes out during the course of the show and she is the SWEETEST person and such a nerd and her storylines and growth are just *gross sobbing.* I won’t spoil her plotlines, but so much of her experiences become very heart-warming. Alex is the laidback son, and I just love him, and I think his character development will only get better as the show goes into a third season and as the actor gets a little older. And then there’s freaking Rita Moreno as matriarch Lydia.

Absolute goddess and hysterical but completely sincere and so loving. JUST THE BEST.

Even the token white guy is pretty great (honestly I love him, and started to when he reacted in the best way to Penelope going off of her anti-depressants far too rapidly. I’ve been there (I don’t know if my friends knew in the moments how not-smart I was being) and to be treated so kindly and with such understanding… thanks, Schneider.) He’s not as amazing as Jake Peralta (who is?), but he’s pretty freaking great.

This show is so well-written, and funny, and has no chill, much like Brooklyn 99. (In one of the very first episodes, Penelope was upset that her husband was still working security overseas, and just wished he would come home, where he wouldn’t get shot at work. And her daughter was like “We live in America??” DAMN.) The highest of recommendations!!!

2. Steven Universe

 

This show is a lot. Much like Avatar the Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, this show is appropriate for children, but contains such important and sometimes dark/real themes, and absolutely phenomenal worldbuilding, it’s ridic. We are so blessed to have this show. It’s about life and death and love and birth, and peace and war on the planet Earth (and beyond). It’s about two (or more) sapient beings falling in love and dancing together and having a conversation. It’s so diverse, in both characters and voice cast. There are pink lions with portals in their manes, rocker dads who listen, jam buddies and pumpkin pups, music and metaphors and plot twists and tears and gender-binary smashing. I’m almost done with the current bunch of episodes and, happy sigh, it’s everything you could want in a show about a trio of space gem mums and their chubby, idealistic son. It’s everything.

Just, every location, lol, but especially Steven’s temple/beach home ❤ I WANT.

3. Queer Eye

I did not expect to love this show as much as I freaking do. I never watched the original, and they seem like different shows after the basic format, TBH. This revival is full of so much love, honestly. I was pleasantly shocked. The Fab Five are the opposite of toxic masculinity and they really do want to help their clients according to their desires and means. It’s been a joy experiencing them on the show and through other social media, and quite a few of their featured humans are also so amazing and such inspirations. It’s been so fab to see them continuing to do both little and big things to make themselves, and others, happy.

 

There are questions or jokes that I’ve seen around the fandom, which I’m taking as more cute than malicious (can Antoni really cook? lol freesh avahcuhdoos for everyone), and I really wish the episodes were at least two hours because they cut out so much. (Through the link is an interview with Skyler, so some spoilers for his ep there.)

 

I don’t physically tear up at stuff but this show got to me several times. The first episode I ever watched (some spoilers through the rest of this paragraph) was the first of the second season, where a mother very active in her church wanted to help her gay son (and the gang also renovated her community center, how wonderful is that!). When her son first came out, it was with a negative reaction that can be seen far too often from someone raised in a religious community – she rejected him. And I was upset, feeling, so it’s just one of those situations, where she suddenly, outwardly, eventually “got over it”? But no, she literally sat him down and apologized and even though he told her “I know you didn’t mean it,” she was adamant that he needed to know she had been wrong to hide behind her fear, her upbringing, and to twist God/religion that way. Just, people can surprise you, and people are brilliant, and kind and good. This show is proof of that.

4. Schitt’s Creek

 

This show snuck up on me. By the time the third season rolled around, I absolutely unabashedly loved everyone. The entire cast is spot on with their delivery and it’s just so funny-sweet in the vein of Parks and Recreation. And there is some great rep with the pansexual David (the word is used! wine metaphors are conveyed!) and Alexis is honestly the CUTEST BEAN I CAN’T EVEN WITH HER FACE AND HER BUNNY HANDS AND HER “DAAAAVID”s. Season four had a run of episodes where ships were sailing and character growth was happening and I’M DEAD. It’s so good.

 

5. The Librarians (and by extension (and always and forever) Leverage)

This is such a fun, breezy, adventure show, my dudes. With the best thief this side of Parker (from Leverage). I would honestly die for the duo that is Ezekiel Jones, Aussie narcissistic heart-of-gold jerkass, and Cassandra Cillian, who is just so chuffed about science and MAGIC and has the best fashion sense and she deserves the world. (I love Jake Stone, too, but he’s just no Eliot Spencer (from Leverage) you know?) Ahem, so The Librarians and Leverage have the same creator behind them, hence my comparisons, but I honestly love both. They are just the best genre of heist/found family/literary adventure tropes ever. So many references and badassery and awesome friendships. I’m always down to return to these worlds for a break from our own.

ALSO I’VE BEEN THERE!!! This show is partly set in Portland, Oregon, and that’s the freaking OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (I got a stuffed space turtle there once, his name is Orion Cosmo) and it’s such a fun place and UGH I can now say I’ve been where the Goonies and the Librarians have walked. 😀 X 1000

Have you seen any of these TV shows? Have I peaked your interest? Whatever you’ve been watching lately, I hope it’s been a five star watch! ❤