Valeria (Diana Gómez) is something of a failed writer. She’s working random jobs to make ends meet while trying to write something, anything. She’s also feeling disillusioned with life and drifting farther away from her husband with every passing day. Valeria’s lost and unsure in which direction to head. Fortunately, her friends are a riot and always around to help her sort through missteps and next steps.
There’s some solid character development here so it’s easy to get lost in the story. Each of these ladies is fun and flawed in equal measure, which gets them into all sorts of melodramatic and comedic situations. It’s with fun, relatable and well executed performances that these women make it easy to invest in their individual storylines and so getting sucked into the plot is inevitable. The Sex and the City vibes are strong early on but fade relatively quickly. Valeria has more to offer than the sock value of uncensored female friendship and that dramatic aspect is what’ll hook you.
Recommended: Dark - Netflix
A few things before you dig into this one:
Dark is in German so you’ll either have to deal with the English dubbed version or English subtitles. As always, I recommend you watch the original language version with subtitles. I’m dyslexic. Sometimes I still need to read slowly and I managed just fine. If I can do it, you can do it. However, if you don’t speak German and don’t often watch German TV and / or movies, it’s going to take a while to adjust to the language change. Don’t be impatient. It will take a second, but once your brain gets familiar with it, the sounds will begin to fall into place. Trust me. Actually, no. Trust your brain.
You’re probably not going to be able to multitask while watching this. Dark takes place in several different timelines. You jump around a lot throughout. This isn’t the kind of show you can “watch” while you scroll through your phone. No sir, you’re going to have to fully focus your attention to understand what the hell is going on at any given time.
Stick with it. This is one of my favorite time travel series ever and there are quite a few floating around the streaming services right now. Dark is head and shoulders above the rest and well worth the extra effort.
Jumping around from era to era and figuring out which character is which in the different timelines is involved but still lots of fun. Everyone’s story is so salacious, intriguing or shocking that it’s exciting to sort through their respective details. Plus, that moody German vibe was fun to hang out in for a while. If time travel is interesting to you then this will be too.
Recommended: Diablero - Netflix
Diablero is a Mexican Netflix series (best viewed with subtitles in the original language). If you’re open to paranormal antics, dark humor, colorful language, quick-paced storytelling, and excellent music then this one’s for you. While Diablero has an original approach, the story is familiar. You see it all the time in American series like Grimm, Haven or even Supernatural. If you were into those, there’s a good chance you’ll get into this series too.
Elvis (Horacio Garcia Rojas) is a demon hunter for hire and he works with his sister Keta (Fátima Molina). Together with the help of Nancy (Giselle Kuri) “the vessel” who manipulates her demonic possessions for the good of mankind, they fight to keep order in the world by keeping evil at bay for a nominal fee. Along the way the trio meets an ex priest, a bunch of gangsters, and plenty of demons. The show’s campy, heavy on the dark comedy and even handed on the visual effects, all of which serve to amplify the excellent performances from the cast.
Recommended: Dead to Me - Netflix
Jen (Christina Applegate) and Judy (Linda Cardellini) meet at group grief counseling. Judy clicks with Jen instantly but that’s mostly a one-way street at first. Jen can be a little abrasive and Judy’s the free spirit type. Aside from having just lost their partners they don’t seem to have too much in common. Despite all that, Judy makes it her business to become Jen’s friend. The pair grow incredibly close and life inevitably ends up getting complicated. Judy bringing the cops into Jen’s life while Jen’s busy obsessively trying to track down the driver of the car that hit her husband and left him for dead. In the end these ladies have much more in common than they ever thought possible. Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini are great as this pair of mismatched best friends and the story is outrageous, which is suits the lead characters well.
Recommended: Love Death + Robots - Netflix
Love Death + Robots is an animated anthology of 18 stories about, you guessed it: love, death and robots. If you’re old like me, you’ll remember Liquid Television on MTV. This anthology is a lot like that. Granted the animation is much more sophisticated and the stories are more gorey, racy and scary. So if you enjoyed the irreverent line-stepping that made Liquid Television great, then you’re likely going to understand what Love Death + Robots is about. The different animation styles are cool to get into and each episode stands alone so there’s no long-term investment here. What I’m saying is you’ve got nothing to lose, check it out.
Recommended: The House of Flowers (La Casa de las Flores) - Netflix
The House of Flowers / La Casa de las Flores is at its core a novela. It’s melodramatic, hilarious, fun and easy to watch. Verónica Castro leads a charismatic and convincing group of actors, each with sufficiently fleshed out story lines of their own. It’s a great Mexican telenovela and we all know Mexican novelas are the crème de la crème of that genre. If a dramedy with soap opera vibes sounds like something that might grab your attention, give this one a shot. It’s dubbed if subtitles aren’t your thing. I say go with the original language & subtitles combo, it’s my favorite.