I’m back with another annual list! This time, we’re reviewing my top ten favorite 2019 series debuts!
Again, I want to reiterate that I’m not a critic, and I don’t base my favorites off of what critics enjoy. I might like art, but I don’t have that eye to appreciate the shows the way they do.
My love and appreciation of art is very different, and I might have seen some critically-acclaimed shows that I vehemently agree with its star quality, but it may not have made the list for my personal favorites.
Another thing about this list this time is that it’ll be shorter and won’t have the full analysis as my first list for the 2018 shows. At the end, I’ll actually preview my favorite mindless binges of the year (unlike last year), and tell you some other great shows that I watched and enjoyed.
Title poster of the CW network summer series, “Pandora” features the side profile of Priscilla Quintana as Jax, looking up. Image courtesy of TheTVDB.
Clones. Telepaths. Androids. Demons. Electrifying our summer, the CW network lands the promising, planetary romance drama Pandora at our doorstep. It is, indeed, a very mixed pot with several different elements shaping up the series, but at the heart of it, emotional dynamics and relationships shape the story.
Poster image of the AMC network, horror series NOS4A2 depicting Zachary Quinto as Charlie Manx shadowed and bent over in front of a shadowed jalopy’s headlights shining on him. The entire image is creepy, dark, and eerie.
Both bone-chilling and psychologically terrifying in its midst, heralding from AMC network, NOS4A2 brings to reality the terrifying world of the forgotten and neglected children of white suburbia. It begins moments before a midtown family in Here, Iowa meet their demise as our central villain, Charlie Manx (played by Zachary Quinto), and his temporary sidekick make their debut on our screen. Along with their new recruit, we see the frightening Charlie slowly weaken and de-age as they head for the snow-filled world of Christmasland. Opposite of that, we are introduced to the life of Victoria “Vic” McQueen (played by Ashleigh Cummings), an eighteen-year-old high school student in smalltown, Haverhill, Massachusettes. We see the good and the ugly, and it is the ugly that leads her to divest and carry on in a space of peace where the suspension of belief sets in. Our connection to our big bad slowly brews here. Back in Iowa, we also meet Maggie Leigh (played by Jahkara J. Smith), a medium who uses scrabbles to guide her in her midst. Maggie has a connection to the family that witnessed misfortune, and this persistence on her part slowly draws her to our protagonist. Closing out the episode, we see the janitor of Vic’s school, Bing Partridge (played by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson), come to staunch realizations about a comic he’s been fairly obsessed with.
Poster for DC Universe’s Swamp Thing. It’s a realistic illustration with the swamp at the horizon line and filling the background; it’s very foggy. In the foreground, wooded vines and bark cover the marsh area.
Following after the excellency of Doom Patrol, DC Universe immediately gifts us with the horror-filled, Swamp Thing to satisfy our summer freight. The grotesque, southern gothic drama follows Abby Arcane (played by Crystal Reed), a CDC specialist, as she returns to her hometown of Marais, Louisiana following a report of an epidemic. Once there, she gradually touches bases with everything and everyone she formerly had a connection with as she’s investigating more into sickness gradually plaguing the town. Her research eventually leads her to Alec Holland (played by Andy Bean), a contracted wildlife biologist investigating the plant and swamp life of the town. Their dynamic becomes the heart of the show as it ends on a much-unexpected note.
Poster for the NBC drama series “The InBetween” featuring the face of Harriet Dyer, and the full bodies of Anne-Marie Johnson, Paul Blackthorne, and Justin Cornwell.
The InBetween follows Cassie Bishop (played by Harriet Dyer), a woman with a connection to the spirits lingering in the space between the living and the death (known as purgatory). We’re immediately shown that this is not a new experience for her and that she drowns this out with alcohol use. Where the plot begins is her newer visions that become a major clue to the overarching investigation by the Seattle Police Department where her foster father, Tom Hackett (played by Paul Blackthorne), and newly transferred FBI-turned-cop, Damien Asante (played by Justin Cornwell), work. Over the course of the episode, as Cassie helps a young child close a chapter in her life, the police detectives unravel the mystery of a serial killer. In the midst of both plots, we see that Damien might be more connected to the lives of Tom and Cassie than he’s willing to admit.
The title posters of the following series (left to right, top bottom): Facebook Watch’s Queen America, NBC’s Rise, Netflix’s Diablero, DC Universe’s TITANS, Freeform’s Cloak and Dagger, The CW’s All American, YouTube Red’s Step Up: High Water, SHOWTIME’s The Chi, The CW’s Black Lightning, and FX’s Pose. Photos courtesy to TheTVDB.
I watch a lot of shows. If you don’t follow me on TVTime or Twitter or even Tumblr, you may not be aware of that, but I do. I watch a lot of them, and I have opinions on them. I recently started reviewing the pilots for certain series that debut; sometimes, I’ll do full-series reviews, or I’ll review the premiere episode of an additional season. With all that being fresh, and with some rhetorical questions asked by Trudy who runs the entertainment review site, Cinemacked, I decided that maybe I should continue the episode and series (fan) reviews but also do list-ofs for all the shows that I don’t review individually but watch. This can be a way for me to warn of content and examine the series overall.
Poster for BOOMERANG featuring Lala Milan, RJ Walker, Leland B. Martin, Tetona Jackson, Brittany Inge, and Tequan Richmond. Photo courtesy of BET web site.
BOOMERANG is a continuation, dramaedy series of the 1992, Eddie Murphy-led film of the same name that takes place twenty-five years into the future and situated on the adult children of our protagonists.
adventures na kati ntoto 