Sunday, March 11, 2012

Top 5 on Netflix Series


I frequently get texts or tweets from friends asking me to recommend something on Netflix streaming (which, by the way, pretty much makes my day when that occurs).  So I’m starting a new series for the blog in which I will pick a specific subcategory of films or TV shows on Netflix streaming and lay out my Top-5 in each of those categories. 

More often than not, when the wifey and I set out to find something to watch on Netflix, it ends up with me searching for something for over 10 minutes because I see the same stupid recommendations over and over, and then we settle on something neither of us really want to watch that much and then fall asleep or just completely tune it out while we play Angry Birds or Tetris.  Also, don’t you just freaking hate it when you know there’s something you spotted while browsing that you wanted to see, only you forget to put it on your queue, and then later you can’t remember what it was that you wanted to see? 

So that’s the point of this series: next time you can’t decide on something, and all of the recommendations are totally uninteresting, you can come here to the blog and look and say, “Oh YEAH!! I’ve been wanting to see Chinatown! How could I forget?!”  And then you can call me and thank me after watching it, and then we’ll go ride a tandem bicycle together and drink iced tea and discuss the merits of Jack Nicholson’s performance (or, you know, something like that, it’s not like I’ve thought it all out...)


Top 5 On Netflix: Top 5 TV Dramas

Few mornings go by where I don't wake up wishing I turned into
Don Draper overnight.
I never really talk about TV on this blog, although I have wanted to on several occasions, so for my first post on this series I want to recommend a few of my favorites. As one of my idols, Chuck Klosterman, put it recently, slow-burning TV dramas have “replaced reading.”  As sad as that is, I agree.  For example, it takes a similar frame of mind to be able to sit down and watch an episode of Mad Men as it does to read a chapter of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. 

I know the ink isn’t exactly still drying on the news that the shows on this list are awesome.  But I’m always surprised at the people who would be into these shows (and equally, enjoy wasting their time on TV as much as I do) who haven’t seen one or more of the shows on this list.  Having instant access to every episode of all five seasons of Friday Night Lights, for instance, is some kind of incomprehensible gift from Heaven; it’s like those times when you go shopping at a nice clothing store and find some ridiculous deal on something that would normally be twice that price, and you assume somebody must have mismarked the price tag, and then even after you pay that price you walk out feeling like you stole something. 

For most of this series I will write a little bit about each of my choices, but for this first one since I’ve already babbled on long enough, I will let my choices speak for themselves.  Just know that on any given day of the week it's a debate for me between my number one and two choices.  

Note: because HBO continues to be douchebags refuses to put any of their shows on streaming (and reportedly will stop offering their shows even on DVD soon), great shows like The Wire and The Sopranos couldn’t be a part of this list

Top-5 Television Dramas

1.  Mad Men
2.  Breaking Bad
3.  Friday Night Lights
4.  Lost
5.  Dexter