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Scene from "Reservation Dogs": a unique, quirky universe
Photo:
FX Networks / Disney +
There may have been more tinsel in the past, but there were definitely fewer series.
Of course you can also find the excess of the streaming age exhausting: Do you really have to see it all?
Perhaps you shouldn't take the "must" in the article heading too literally.
But rather as an indication of how overly laid the series table is and how much can still be discovered apart from »Squid Game«.
Hopefully there is finally time for that.
Instead of a best-of list with titles that you have known for a long time, we have collected six outstanding series of the year for you, which were somewhat lost due to the sheer volume.
1. "The White Lotus," HBO
Nothing could be more obvious than dreaming of Hawaii in freezing temperatures or continuous rain.
The warm sun on your skin, the sound of the waves, the sand between your toes ... stop.
This series is not an excursion with the »dream ship«.
But a deep black satire on rich people and their problems, which they follow up to the luxury oasis »The White Lotus«.
The two newlyweds Rachel and Shane, for example, he a puke with deep pockets, she an insecure would-be journalist.
Or the Mossbachers, they CEO of a tech company, he hypochondriac husband with swollen testicles, the children looking for drugs to make the misery bearable.
An eye in the storm of spite is initially hotel manager Armand, who, however, reacts increasingly uninhibited to the unbearable subtlety of his guests and in the end finds a disgusting and glorious way to get revenge.
Nastier than this was no series this year;
No more imaginative, more pointed and just madly entertaining either.
Six episodes between 50 and 65 minutes, to be seen on Sky Ticket.
2. "Maid", Netflix
Speaking of rich people: They get off very badly here too. "Maid" is one of the few American Netflix series that addresses the social divide in the USA, but in a surprisingly eye-opening way. At the beginning you can see the young mother Alex in the supermarket, on the right in the picture a column of numbers shows how her last cash melts with each new item. She has to pay for the cleaning supplies for her new job as a domestic servant, and in the end there is not even any money left for a sandwich. Alex, played by Andie MacDowell's daughter Margaret Qualley, has left her boyfriend Sean, a creep who uses her as an emotional trash can, with her three-year-old daughter, and is now alone.
"Maid" meticulously shows the hardship of single parents who threaten to fall through the social grid in the USA, from the Kafkaesque bureaucracy to exploitation in the labor market to the health-threatening mold in transitional institutions.
The fact that the makers of »Maid« manage to find strength and inspiration in all the misery without deviating even an iota from their charge of blatant injustice makes this series an experience.
Ten episodes between 45 and 60 minutes.
3. "Only Murders In The Building," Disney +
This plot sounds insanely bland at first: three fans of true crime podcasts are secretly investigating a murder case that took place in their apartment building.
But it's not a job creation measure for the aging stars Steve Martin (who also co-invented the series) and Martin Short.
And Selena Gomez is also more than a fig leaf: she is finally convincing as an actress.
"Only Murders In The Building" is the rare case of a crime parody that is just as exciting as the genre it is making fun of.
The plot is incredibly clever, the gags are right because Martin and Freeman are also in the best of moods, and each character hides secrets that both fuel the tension and lead into surprisingly dramatic realms.
Addiction factor: murderous.
Ten episodes of 30 minutes each.
4. "Hellbound," Netflix
The hype about »Squid Game« had not yet subsided when the next series came from South Korea, which won over the critics and was right at the top of the Netflix charts.
Nevertheless, »Hellbound« went under a little in the face of the hype about »Squid Game«, especially since the story only sounds digestible for hardcore horror fans: Shaggy monsters announce the exact time of their death to people who have allegedly sinned and then appear punctually to do their work.
But as with »Squid Game«, the genre here serves as the framework for a story that develops in surprisingly thought-provoking directions.
Directed by Yeon Sang-ho, who had his zombie thriller "Train To Busan" played in a high-speed train a few years ago.
In »Hellbound«, on the other hand, he takes his time to reflect on the contradictions of human behavior, the fragility of relationships and the search for the divine in a thoroughly rationalized world.
To emphasize once again how many amazingly good films and series come from South Korea would really mean carrying owls to Seoul.
Six episodes between 40 and 60 minutes.
5. "Reservation Dogs," Disney +
Ah California! Still a place of longing and promises of a better life. The fact that "Reservation Dogs" was shot entirely in Oklahoma shows that the dreams of Elora, Cheese, Bear and Willie will not do anything. The teens really go out of their way to collect the travel money they need, both legally and illegally. The series makers, who include Taika Waititi ("Jojo Rabbit"), who is known for his uniquely eccentric humor, watch them half amused and half apprehensive. »Reservation Dogs« was created almost exclusively with indigenous artists in front of and behind the cameras.
That's why this melancholy comedy makes little fuss, it moves in its very own, quirky universe.
Once a warrior appears in a vision from the eternal hunting ground and says with the greatest dignity: “It's cold in the spirit world.
My nipples are always hard. «Tradition, wisdom and the lust for sophisticated nonsense form a memorable liaison here.
Eight episodes of 30 minutes each.
6. "Yellowjackets", Showtime
The year ends with another series highlight from the USA. One source for the incredible breadth and quantity of American stories is the history of literature, music and film, which is constantly being soldered together in new versions and, if things go well, completely new art can be created from the used parts. As in the case of "Yellowjackets", a mixture of drama, social farce and bloody real horror: "The Lord of the Flies" meets the survival thriller "Survival!" Meets 90s high school drama.
The story takes place in parallel in 1996 and 2021: In the 1990s, the girls' soccer team at a high school crashed by plane in the Canadian wilderness and was lost for 19 months.
In the present, one can see survivors of the disaster mercilessly slaughtering cute rabbits and reloading precision rifles, which suggests that some trauma had accumulated back then.
Bit by bit, the series reveals the cruel truth and its implications for today.
In short: we may perceive ourselves as progressive - but our supposed past, including archaic tribal rites, is always at hand when it comes to mind.
From December 28th on Sky Ticket, six episodes of 60 minutes each.