Misfits
I know I cover a lot of British TV on this site, but what can I say, I dig what I dig. Here’s a strange little show I stumbled across when looking for something (anything!) interesting on Hulu Plus. (In Hulu’s defense, I might find the service more interesting if I didn’t also have cable. Maybe it’s time to cut the chord?)
Misfits follows a crew of, um, misfits, who are serving community service when they are caught up in an electrical storm and get special powers. Two of the five have fairly conventional powers (mind-reading and invisibility). One other has the comic-bookish ability to turn back time, which leads to inevitable paradoxes. Of the other two, the girl has the Rogue-ish ability to make anyone want to have sex with her just by coming into contact with them and the other takes the entire series to figure out his power.
It’s billed as a comedy/drama, but I’d say it skews a little more dramatic than similarly categorized shows on this side of the pond. Also, I can’t understand half of what Lauren Socha says (she plays Kelly, the telepath). All six episodes are currently available on Hulu Plus.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
In a world where all vampires can do is look angsty and make teenage girls’ hearts melt, it’s almost quaint to look back at a vampire show that’s heavy on action (every vampire knows karate!) and even heavier on sass.
Buffy gave us a whole world of beasties and, um, beastie fighters over its seven seasons and you can catch up on all of them on Netflix and Hulu Plus (which are both now $7.99 for all you can stream). It also inspired a spin-off and launched Joss Whedon to his current nerd-genius status.
I missed the boat on Buffy the first time around, and I have to admit I haven’t quite caught up on all 144 episodes, but I have a few questions… Can someone be a werewolf and a vampire at the same time? How about a witch and a vampire? Why is there so much hand-to-hand combat involved in slaying vampires? And isn’t Angel just dreamy?
Uh… never mind that last one.
Of course, as with most TV shows that are almost old enough to drive, watching Buffy is like a constant parade of Before They Were Stars. It should be a drinking game… if you spot an actor you recognize in a bit part, you have to take a shot. (Don’t actually do that, I don’t want to get sued.)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 1 on Netflix
Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu Plus
And a special bonus: the original movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie on Netflix
Firefly
Star Trek has the reputation for being a short-lived sci-fi series, but it’s got nothing on Firefly. Fox bought the show, ran the episodes out of order, and killed it after only 14 were filmed. Nonetheless, Joss Whedon’s dystopian space western launched a cult following that, while not quite of Star Trekian proportions, was large enough to result in the film Serenity, which closed out many of the show’s story lines. (Fans of Firefly are called Browncoats, BTW, which you will understand shortly into the series.)
If this is your cup of tea at all, you might as well run out and get the DVDs (actually, if you knew about it and didn’t hate it, you probably already own the DVDs), but in case you’re not sure, the complete series is available on Netflix and Hulu Plus (and Serenity is available on Netflix, as well).
A stand-out character in the series is Adam Baldwin’s Jayne. If you like Baldwin in NBC’s Chuck (which had its fourth-season premiere last night), you’ll definitely dig him in Firefly and Serenity. Plus it features Nathan Fillion displaying all the charm he shows in Castle and Dr. Horrible (and that he didn’t not in the short-lived Drive).
I’m purposefully leaving out the details of the show, because I think it’s better to go in open to discovering what it has to offer. But in a television landscape that is increasingly full of remakes or retellings of the same old stories—or worse, reality show tripe—shows like Firefly are rare. If it had only been successful, maybe we could have a slew of space western clones instead of spinoffs of The Girls Next Door.
Firefly: The Complete Series on Netflix
Lie to Me
Apparently due to its licensing deals with the studios, most current shows are only available on Hulu in a very limited way. Usually just the last five episodes are available and they show up on the site anywhere from one day to two weeks after a new episode airs. I’m sure this makes sense to someone, somewhere, but it’s just frustrating for users.
But, one of the benefits of Hulu Plus seems to be that some shows’ current seasons are actually available in full. (Hurray!) One current show that you can check out on Hulu Plus is Lie to Me, a self-serious drama about human lie detectors loosely based on the concept of microexpressions.
The show centers around Dr. Cal Lightman, a microexpressions expert played by Tim Roth (Mr. Orange from Reservoir Dogs and Pumpkin from Pulp Fiction, for you Tarantino fans). Lightman is basically Dr. House, but instead of recklessly solving life-threatening illnesses (spoiler: it’s usually Wilson’s Disease), he recklessly assists the FBI with their cases. And they’re both on Fox. I wonder if there’ll be a crossover episode.
If procedurals are your thing and you haven’t checked out Lie to Me yet, give it a shot. This is the third season, though there’s really no need to go back and watch earlier episodes because there isn’t much in the way of a cross-season arc. If you want, season one is available on Netflix Instant as well (no season two yet, alas).
Modern Family
Last year while most of the country was watching Charlie Sheen and John Cryer over on CBS, ABC was busy taking The Office’s formula (quirky, single camera, documentary style, with no laugh track) and applying it to the new traditional family. And they did it to great success—they just won the Emmy for best comedy (plus eight others).
The show is worth watching just to see Ed O’Neill in a family sitcom not playing Al Bundy. And Cameron Tucker (played by Eric Stonestreet) is the funniest character on television. We’ve still got a couple weeks before the fall TV season kicks off and the new season of Modern Family premieres. If you work real hard at it, you should be able to squeeze in all 24 episodes of season 1 before then.
Lost
Maybe you didn’t watch it the first time around. Or maybe you just have 100 or so hours to kill between now and forever. But you’ve decided you want to watch Lost. The good news is that you actually have a few options. Hulu Plus has the entire series and Netflix Instant has the first five seasons. (Sorry, you’ll have to get the last season in the mail, at least for now. Maybe by the time you get through the first five, the final season will be available for streaming.)
But, even if you don’t subscribe to Hulu Plus or Netflix, you can still see most of the series: ABC.com (and the ABC iPad app) has the first five seasons and the last few episodes of the sixth season for free.
So, there you have it. If you watch 8 hours a day, you should be done after about two weeks (two and a half if you take the weekends off). If you do watch it, and you figure out what the hell is going on, be sure to share it with the rest of us.
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Short Circuit
When you look over Steve Guttenberg’s body of work, one movie stands out as better than the rest. But since Cocoon isn’t available for streaming, we’re left with Short Circuit. It may not have won any Oscars, and it may have been slightly racist in parts (really, Fisher Stevens as an Indian?), but it was one of my favorite movies growing up. And it holds up surprisingly well, even with the dreadful ’80s attire.
They were shooting for a futuristic look, but the decades have revised Number Five into a sort of proto-steampunk robot traipsing around the world and learning what it’s like to be alive. Just remember: disassemble = dead.
Arrested Development
Here’s another show that was canceled before its time. Everyone you know has already seen it, but if for some reason you can’t borrow someone’s DVDs (or maybe you don’t want to admit to never watching it), Hulu Plus has all three seasons available for streaming. That’s 53 episode of George-Michael, Gob, never-nudes, Blue Man Group and fugitive real estate developers. The One Where Michael Leaves is one of my favorites, but if you’ve never seen it, it’s probably better to start from the beginning. Even if you watched it the first time around, maybe you’ll want a refresher before the movie comes out.
Arrested Development on Hulu Plus
