Back in February, I did a roundup of shows and movies that I think are worth watching on Netflix. Since the content is regularly updated, I figured it’s time for an update!
Here’s what I’ve been watching:
The Vampire Diaries, Season 1 through 3- Okay, so until now I hadn’t jumped on the whole vampire/werewolves/supernatural bandwagon (aside from Buffy, which was basically a million years ago). I’ve never seen Twilight or any other recent vampire show/movie. BUT. BIG BUT. The Vampire Diaries (forgive the forthcoming pun) totally SUCKED ME IN. Every episode, every season. I realize that I’m not a teenager, but I don’t care!
I had been interested in watching True Blood, but heard it’s pretty violent, and I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to violence. So I figured that Vampire Diaries, being on The CW would be really tame. Wrong! I was actually pretty surprised at the level of violence on the show. I mean, for a show on CW, it takes it much further than Buffy ever did. Somehow, though, it manages not to cross the WTF line (okay, maybe once or twice, but more shock than violence).
The basic premise is that there is a girl who is being stalked by this vampire guy who is actually a pretty cool dude, but his brother is a bit off the rails. Love triangle ensues. Need I say more?
The writing and pacing are really clever and well timed, and overall it’s a super solid show. The supporting characters and their subplots are interesting and keep you entertained, and the show just keeps getting better as the episodes progress. It all made total sense when I realized that it was co-developed by Kevin Williamson, who was responsible for Dawson’s Creek and the Scream franchise.
Hart of Dixie, Season 1- Hart of Dixie took me about half a season to become invested, but I grew to like all of the major characters. It’s not an earth-shattering series, but I’ve had some laugh out loud moments with one-liners, and overall I think it’s a cute, pleasant series when all you want to do is decompress in front of the tv.
The premise for the show is that an uptight young doctor (Rachel Bilson from The OC) and surgeon-wannabe from New York City ends up in Bluebell, Alabama as a general practitioner. She gets caught up in the small town’s happenings and somehow finds that she likes it more than she imagined she would. Of course, there’s a dude who she likes and a dude who likes her. Love triangle, etc, you know the drill.
Pretty Little Liars, Season 3- You know, I loved me some Season 1 and 2 of PLL. But things just kind of fell apart during Season 3. I’m all about the mystery of who “A” is, but I feel like there needs to be a little more give. Half the time I also couldn’t remember scenarios that they were rehashing from previous seasons, and felt that a lot of the plot could have been thinned out to make for more clarity. I would say watch it, but put it on your second-string of show-watching. In all honesty, you could probably skip it entirely, start Season 4 and not miss a beat.
The Hunger Games- I saw The Hunger Games in theaters last year, after I had read all three books. The books are quite possibly my favorite series of all time, so of course any movie would be hard to compare.
But now the movie’s on Netflix and I watched again to see if I had missed anything. The film is fairly straight-forward and does an okay job at covering key points over the course of a couple of hours, but misses some key things that I would have liked to seen shown. But overall it’s entertaining, and worth a watch. If nothing else, it’s a good precursor to the upcoming movies, which I have high hopes for now that the series has been established as a lucrative franchise by moviegoers (and hopefully means a larger budget).
The premise is better explained by just reading the books, I’ll leave it at that. So go do that if you haven’t already!
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Well, it looks like my my tv-watching habits revolve primarily around teen dramas/dramedies lately. But I promise, they’re good!
Seriously though, for $7.99/month all of this Netflix-watching is a steal. Sometimes you admittedly have to pick through a bit to find stuff you like, but if you need to supplement the content, you can always head to Redbox to rent films at a little over a dollar per rental. Which, by the way, did you know you can also reserve Redbox rentals online? I haven’t done it yet, but looking forward to trying it out.
What are your current favorites on Netflix? What are your favorites on Redbox?