With many options in video streaming services, I struggle to decide what I want to watch. As time is so precious spending half of my free time searching for what to watch is of no value, but it is absolutely essential to find the binge-worthy TV show where I invest a many hours into. So I decided to jot down the shows that I liked this year. If you have not watched these shows yet, you can have a wonderful time during the holidays binge watching these British/ Indian/ American shows from Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
1. Modern Love (Amazon Prime Video)
IMDB Rating: 8.1/10, Language: English
Based on eight essays from popular New York Times column Modern Love, the 8 episodes of this show are the stories of unlived, untested love, stories of love in the final lap of life, stories of keeping love alive in long lasting marriage, and stories of love getting ignited while vulnerabilities getting exposed. Love comes from unexpected human connections and shapes our lives. These stories definitely touched my heart and kept a lasting impression.
2. Made in Heaven (Amazon Prime Video)
IMDB Rating: 8.3/10, Language: Hindi/ English
Made in Heaven is a story of two wedding planners, who run a high-end wedding planning business in New Delhi, India. In modern India, the traditions jostle against progressive aspirations and exposes facades of human character and societal issues. I liked the portrayal of the grayish nature of the characters and, of course, raising strong voice for the social issues that I care about. Spoiler, Vinay Pathak played a short but very important role that tells an important aspect of our parent’s generation.
3. Spy (Netflix)
IMDB Rating: 7.9/10, Language: English
Spy is based on the true life story of an Israeli spy Eli Cohen, who infiltrated the highest rank of Syrian Government in 1960s. Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays Eli Cohen, portrays the thrilling stories of the spy-craft while exposing the real struggle of his family and the deep emotions of love and care for his wife and children. This six episode mini series is definitely binge worthy.
4. The Family Man (Amazon Prime Video)
IMDB Rating: 8.7/10, Language: Hindi
The Family Man is about a middle class family man, Srikant Tiwary, who is a world class spy, constantly juggling his responsibility in his family and his top secret intelligence job. It is a gripping spy-thriller with glimpses of comedy of middle class family life that I can totally relate to. Brilliance of the actor Manoj Vajpei playing as Srikant Tiwari made it binge worthy for sure.
5. Bodyguard (Netfix)
IMDB Rating: 8.2/10, Language: English
Bodyguard is a British thriller starring Richard Madden as bodyguard of a British Conservative party politician. The story starts with the main character, who is an Afghan war veteran suffering from PTSD, preventing a suicide bomber from blowing up a train. It later depicts the veteran’s personal struggles while chasing numerous plots of terrorist activity and/or assassination. It is definitely a riveting 6 hours of binge watch.
6. Yeh Meri Family (Netflix)’
IMDB Rating: 9.3/10, Language: Hindi
Childhood relived. The series Yeh Meri Family gathered all the memories of kids who grew up in India in the late ’80s and ’90s. Every moment, every relationship, every emotion, and every activity captured in this series feels so real. The series is made by TVF, (The Viral Fever) a group of IITians who started creating web series like Pitchers, Permanent Roommate and many more skits for the last few years. I have been an ardent follower of TVF in the last few years, but hands down, Yeh Meri Family is their best production till date.
7. Little Things Session 3 (Netflix)
IMDB Rating: 8.3/10, Language: Hindi/ English
Based on a story about modern day relationship of a couple in their 20’s, living in Mumbai, India, Little Things revolves around the ups and downs of their work life and how they manage the social expectation while they stay in a live-in relationship with the girl being the breadwinner. I started watching this series out of curiosity as this kind of relationship did not exist in urban India when I lived there 18 years back. I was quite amazed with the maturity of the millennials portrayed in the characters. However, I found it quite slow. So stopped watching after Season 1. But recently based on the recommendation of my friend, I watched the third season. In this season, the characters have matured, so has the relationship. The show portrays the complexities of life with balancing out personal growth and relationship, taking care of aging parents, living on the nostalgia of childhood along with the realities of the current situations of their careers and relationship. For my girl friends, you will be able to relate to many aspects of a relationship portrayed in Little Things season 3.
8. Delhi Crime (Netflix)
IMDB Rating: 8.5/10, Language: Hindi
The title does not require any reminder of the crime. I debated many times before watching this series, wondering should I really watch this heinous crime in my leisure time? But I got glued into it as I started watching. This crime drama followed Delhi police’s investigation to find the criminals who committed the crime. The honest and hard effort from so many hard working police officers helped to capture all of the culprits within a few days. Overall, you come out with the feeling that goodness of the majority of the people prevails over the badness of a handful of individuals. It is definitely a binge worthy 7 episode crime drama.
Hope you enjoy binge watching these shows this holiday!
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