7. Jupiter’s Legacy

This isn’t a bad show by any stretch of the word; it has an interesting premise, good acting, dynamic if not actually likable characters and a mystery that seem genuinely strange and difficult to figure out. I watched most of it in a couple of days just because I wanted to know how it was gonna end – that’s an intriguing mystery. Really the only reason it’s last on the list is just a personal gripe for me – namely the character they reveal is the one behind it all, the main jerk of the season, is the only character I really liked and connected to. So yeah, it’s as simple as that – but still it upset me enough that I probably will not continue watching even if this thing gets a season 2. Though I would recommend, if nothing for that build up – and the pay-off itself is really not bad at all, there were plenty of clues to it hidden throughout the rest of the show, it just wasn’t something I personally enjoyed all that much.

6. Angel

I first watched Angel, my god it has to be over ten years ago because I was very much a kid back then – and I never really watched it all the way through since. Not only because the only way we had to watch Angel for a long time was our collection of slightly confusingly organized DVDs (that may or may not have been pirated till this day I’m still somewhat confused by that); but because, and I say this with all affection, it’s a very dark show. Honestly if you’re planning on binging this show, I recommending watching something funny in conjunction with it, for your own mental health if nothing else.

Thus, it was a very different experiencing watching this compared to say something like Buffy, which I know so well I literally find myself quoting it accidently. So just off the bat, I may be a very biased source but Angel is not as good as Buffy. But saying that it’s by no means a bad show, in fact for the first two seasons, I was blown away but just how good a show it was. It was really fascinating to see just how much fun and inventive ideas you could play around with in the Buffyverse without having to always tie it to an allegory. You want to have Angel meet a thief with electric powers, sure why not; cut up a giant off screen monster – cool, sounds fun. Not that it doesn’t have Allegory in a lot of its monsters, it does, but it’s not a show built around them – unlike Buffy which had so many allegories that it became somewhat confusing exactly what they were allegories for. I mean is magic an allegory for Willow’s exploration of her newfound sexuality, or one for drug addiction? Both are fine, but you do have to pick one and stick to it. Otherwise…yikes.

But getting back on topic, yes Angel is a good show; but one that I would say has some persistent flaws that hold it back from being quite the equal of its parent show. In particular it seems to have a lot of characters or ideas that were really interesting, but either never goes anywhere with them, or criminally underuses them. For instance, take Gunn’s gang – a group of street kids that had starting fighting vampires to protect their neighborhood. Wow what an interesting idea, that completely uses the setting of L.A. and explores the realities of a world like the Buffyverse even better than the original show. There’s no superhero slayer that would protect these kids, so they took up the stake themselves. What we gonna do with them? Well, outside of their first appearance they show up as minor supporting characters in a couple of episodes, they need help from some Zombie cops in another, and finally they’re used as a cautionary tale for the prejudice that humans can develop towards demons. So background characters, save for one or two episodes where they need the mainly white (except for Gunn, but then even he’s portrayed as wrong in most of his interactions with the other main cast so make of that what you will) main cast. Yep, that feels like an idea that was fully utilized – nothing left to say here.
Okay so this part is running a little longer than I planned so I’ll just end on a brief run down of the seasons of Angel to give you a kind of idea of what you’ll get with each season.

Season 1 – An excellent season of television
Season 2 – Also excellent, but we’re beginning to see the start of the series storyline that preserves for the next two seasons to come. So, if that’s not your thing, just a head’s up this is where it starts.
Season 3 – Still very good, but we’re beginning to see those flaws I talked about manifest in more series ways, that objectively affect the quality of the writing.
Season 4 – I won’t say this is the worst season, since season 3 had some objectively stupider writing fumbles, but it is by far the meanest of the seasons of Angel.
Season 5 – By far my favorite, and the most fun of the seasons. It gets a lot of flak, but honestly, I think it’s just a fun ride all throughout.

5. BoJack Horseman

BoJack Horseman is a liar. It lures you in with its bright colors, talking animals, and the fact that it’s listed as a comedy in Netflix and then it hits you full in the face with the fact that it’s not really a comedy at all, it is a tragedy with funny bits. In all honesty if you are in anyway feeling depressed or just vaguely down at all do not watch this show. Or at the very least do not watch this show by itself, I’ll give you the same advice I gave for Angel, pair it with an objectively funny show for the purposes of binging.

Having said that this also just a really good, very engaging show. Like when I was watching it, I was aware that there were other things I needed to do in the day, but like I really just needed to know what happens next. Just a really good show, with such deep and complex characters, that didn’t feel the need to give satisfying answers to all its question or at least that’s how I felt. Everything everybody else has said about it, is completely true – it is just a fantastically made piece of television. Also, fun fact, for those of you not in the know, one of the characters is played by Aaron Paul, who improves everything he’s in, even if it starts out good already it will just be made even better by the inclusion of Aaron Paul – so that’s fun.

4. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a show about successful lawyer, Rebecca Bunch (pictured above sitting on a piano in a pink dress) – who after meeting her ex-boyfriend in the street once, decides to completely up-end her life and move to his hometown of West Covina, California to win him back. It is a show about bad decisions, poor mental health and coping strategies; and what can happen when those two forces come together and conspire. Oh, and it’s also a musical. It is a fantastic show whose story and characters only grew better and more complex the longer they were on screen.

If I did have one criticism, it would be the slightly unbelievable devotion all of Rebecca’s former love interests still hold for her. Especially considering, well everything she’s done to each of them by the time of the final. I wouldn’t mind too much if it were a traditional Rom-com esc, show – as those don’t always take the time to examine the morality of their protagonists’ actions. However, ‘Crazy Ex-girlfriend’ wasn’t that, and characters bad behavior would usually be examined through (most of the time through song and dance number). So, it comes off feeling slightly false to still have all these men falling over themselves to be with Rebecca Bunch, despite all the turmoil being in a relationship with her in the past has put her through. Really it makes me like her less.

Still, other than that I’d highly recommend it.

3. How I met your mother

Yep, if you’ve read the original post in the Wee blog, you knew it was only a matter of time until this show, well…showed up on this list. I go into the specifics of this show, as well as my own outlandish theories on the original post so I’ll keep this as brief as I can get. All I say is this is that whatever else you might say or complain about it, that this is a very funny show. Seriously I have only laughed harder at one other show in this list – but more about that later. And while it does have its genuine heart-breaking moments, that I promise you will make you cry – unlike a show like BoJack Horseman this is a show that knows exactly what it is, and tells you that upfront – a comedy. Binge it by itself, or pair it with a much more miserable show, either way your bound to have a blast.

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire is fantastic. Yeah, it may be twenty-five years later, but the show about the tiny blond who kicked vampire booty still for the most part holds up. Whether it’s the inventive dialog, the dramatic storylines, the acting, the writing, the feminist messages, the humour, or heck even just some of the goofiness of the effects this is a program well worth the binge. Although for honesty’s sake I will say that there are a couple of problems with it. The first being just how monolithically white the cast is – I mean there is no reason that a town in California should be this white. And it’s not just a weird nineties thing, where yeah the main cast is all white but maybe there are people of colour off screen or in the background. No, it’s stated in story that Sunnydale is a predominantly white town – using the old writer’s trick of ‘if we acknowledge the problem, we don’t actually have to fix it’. Really the only way this is made slightly less cringe is if this is all because of the Hellmouth. Like either white people are so dumb they don’t notice the evil among them, or they just are the evil. Honestly at this point either is as likely as the other – and I say that as a white person myself. But joking aside, the sensible part of me knows this is just pandering to Joss Whedon’s by now very publicized racism.

And the second issue is honestly less of problem, but it still can make some of the story elements a little confusing. Namely what I mentioned in the Angel section, the shows over reliance on allegories. Now its original premise was ‘High school is Hell; so, allegory was always going to be a big part of what Btvs was – that’s not the problem. The problem is when the allegory is given more importance than the actual facts of the story. For instance, in season six where after (spoilers) coming back from the dead, Buffy finds that her finances are in disarray. [Mainly because she has terrible friends, who despite two of them living in her house and one of them having a well-paid job, spent all her money.] But before her and Giles can start sorting everything out, she gets a call from Angel and runs off to go and see him.

Of course, she’s back the very next episode where she’s confronted by a concerned Scooby Gang. And for a moment it looks like they’re going to talk to her about running off like that the previous episode; but our brave slayer cuts them off, with the revelation that she’s developed a plan on how to manage those bills. It’s not necessarily a long-term plan, but it’s clearly been well thought out, and with the help of her friends she can iron out the rough patches. So, everything should be better, right? Nope, because apparently, they weren’t here to help her with the bills, they were here to shame her because she doesn’t have a plan for her life. At 21, after just coming back from the dead. The Allegory in season 6 is depression, and you can see that the Scoobies are meant to represent the well-meaning friends and family who put pressure on the depressed person to get their life together, without understanding how much harder doing even simple things is for them. But the difference here is, the Scoobies know she just came back from the dead. And even if that weren’t the case, Buffy has a life plan – she’s the Slayer.
I’m running long again so I’ll just run down the seven seasons and give you my brief thoughts.

Season 1 – The weakest of all the seasons, they were still finding themselves.
Season 2 – A good dramatic season of television, with extra props for introducing Spike and Drusilla. Although the Angelus plotline hasn’t aged all that well.
Season 3 – Some of the best stand-alone episodes of the series, with an ambitious if slightly confusing main storyline.
Season 4 – Terribly underrated. Although I do take points off for introducing the world to Riley Finn. Shame! Shame! Shame!
Season 5 – The best plotted of the seasons; and a really fun bad guy.
Season 6 – Talk about under-rated – it delved into very deep subject matter (not all of which it was prepared to handle). But overall, what makes season six one of my favorite seasons is the musical episode.
Season 7 – Just the perfect end, with the balls to say that the exceptional woman trope that the line ‘in every generation a slayer is born, one girl in all the world to fight the demons’ is kind of sexist and maybe we shouldn’t do that anymore. Talk about going out on a high note.

1. Jeeves & Wooster

Jeeves & Wooster is the only show I’ve laughed harder at that How I Met your Mother. Set in the twenties, Jeeves &Wooster tells the story of rich bachelor Bertie Wooster (played by Hugh Laurie, pictured above standing) and his genius valet Jeeves (Played by Stephan Fry, pictured above sitting); and the hilarious and strangely peculiar hijinks they get themselves into. Or Bertie gets himself into and Jeeves gets him out. It’s a surprisingly uplifting show, especially for this time of deep existential thoughts while we slowly settle back into a world that expects us to actually talk to people. Sometimes we just want to laugh at the stupid antics of rich young gentlemen, who haven’t yet experienced the great depression. Now for honesty’s sake I should say that once again this is a show that was set in the twenties and it was released in the nineties – so not everything in it has aged terribly well. I might recommend skipping the episode ‘Kidnapped’ entirely as the Drones club (the idiots Bertie has to save from their own stupidity half the time) dress up in blackface. It’s a practice derided by the episode, and every character who wears it ends up in prison by the end for one reason or another, but they do it on screen so it can be pretty uncomfortable to watch. But all the other episodes have aged incredibly well, and since they’re based on the Jeeves short stories of P.G. Wodehouse, most of the episodes are their own self-contained stories. So, missing one won’t spoil your enjoyment of the rest.

So, sit back and enjoy the smart writing, clever dialogue, and the slow creeping feeling of shock as you come to the realisation: ‘Oh my God, is Stephen Fry hot?’. Yes, dear subscribers, yes, he is.

If you’ve enjoyed this wee list of mine don’t forget to check out the original post here, and follow the Wee Blog if you haven’t already. Also check me out on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads and Tumblr for all that good stuff. And if you would like to support the wee blog, why not buy me a wee coffee on Ko-fi. Until next time Wee Subscribers, stay safe, stay awake and have a very bonny day.

Day: Jun 7, 2023

The Wee Archive: A look back on 2020 Tv binging