11 Netflix Shows to Binge-Watch Alone This Holiday Season (Photos)
Sure, you love your family. But sometimes you also need to hide somewhere and binge watch Netflix all by your damn self. We recommend you binge watch these shows when you’re not feeling social.
BREAKING BAD
Your relatives don’t understand: You do everything for them. Your burden is not unlike that of cancer-stricken Walter White, who starts cooking meth to provide for his wife and kids when he’s gone. Why can’t anyone see that he’s a hero?
DOCUMENTARY NOW!
Bill Hader and Fred Armisen’s IFC series satirizes the kind of good but vaguely depressing documentaries you half binge watch while you binge-eat leftovers. The extreme specificity of the jokes will add to your sense of delicious isolation.
BLACK MIRROR
Feeling downright misanthropic, are we? Wallow in the irony of using your phone or laptop to hide under the covers and watch a show about how technology divides us from the people we love most. (Here’s every episode, ranked from good to mind-blowing.)
THE CROWN
Do you want to watch a captivating drama about British royalty with your half-in-the-bag brother asking questions like “Which ones are the Windsors” and “Does the queen outrank the prime minister?” Of course not. “The Crown” is to be savored alone. (We ranked the characters.)
30 FOR 30
The ESPN documentaries are just incredible, even if you aren’t into sports. Watch one, go down to the cellar to ask your dad what he remembers about the ’85 Bears, and have your first real talk with him in years.
WITH BOB & DAVID
You need dose of absurdity right now, and Bob Odenkirk and David Cross are masters of it. You should also seek out and watch every single episode of their 1990s HBO series, “Mr. Show With Bob and David.”
BETTER CALL SAUL
We like Odenkirk a lot, okay? “Better Call Saul” shows how the “Breaking Bad” broke from his loved ones to become such a loner, not that you’re going in that direction, not at all.
MAKING A MURDERER
The coldness of the Wisconsin murder mystery parallels the chill in the air when your family starts talking about politics. Switch the conversation to one that can eat up hours of your life: Did Steven Avery do it? (Here are some updates since it aired.)
NARCOS
The holidays can be depressing, and one way to avoid binging on drugs is to binge on shows about drugs.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE
When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles, I waited all year for the Twilight Zone marathon on KTLA. Now everyone in America can join in, without their mom asking you to turn it back to the parade.
MAD MEN
You know those “good old days” your grandpa is always talking about? These are those “good old days.” They weren’t that good.
HONORABLE MENTION: ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
You know what? Go ahead and watch this one with everyone. It will spark some good healthy discussion and debate.
