Top 5 Teacher-Recommended Shows to Binge 2022

Teachers Recommend

Summer is here and it’s a chance for teachers to catch up on all those shows their friends and families  have been urging them to watch.

Thinking of a light fun comedy set in Paris? We have a recommendation for you. How about a hot, steamy period piece? We have that covered too.

Binging is a relatively new phenomenon and teachers usually are too busy to partake. But now there’s a perfect opportunity to engage in some guilty pleasure and binge a noteworthy series.

ThinkFives and ESGI polled hundreds of teachers and here are their most-bingeable TV shows for the summer of 2022.

In a small Pennsylvania town, a detective investigates a brutal murder while her own life is falling apart around her. Kate Winslet stars in this well-written, seven-episode limited series as the cop who deals with the loss of her son while trying to solve a missing person cold-case.  Easttown suffers the slaying of a teen girl and is a place where everyone is a potential suspect.  This is a great adult drama worthy of a binge.

Rotten Tomatoes’ Top Critic Reviews:

• “I’m not sure I have engaged in appointment viewing in years! It was nice to be giddy on a Sunday night for m’stories.”
• “All of this rich backstory and careful character detail significantly enhances the girl-murdered-in-a-small-town TV series template.”
• “Exploring the dark side of a community was not only mystifying, bewildering, and perplexing, it became addictive.”

Power, politics, money…what more can you ask for.  It’s a family affair in this provocative, funny series about a highly dysfunctional dynasty. When Logan Roy (Brian Cox), CEO of one of the world’s largest media and entertainment conglomerates, considers retirement, each of his four grown children follows a personal agenda that doesn’t always sync with those of their siblings–or of their father.  More fun than a Trump family picnic.

Rotten Tomatoes’ Top Critic Reviews:

• “Succession is bitterly funny and juicy entertainment, but with mercurial assurance it slowly reveals itself as a tragedy.”
• “Succession is populated by a cesspool of vultures and terrible people you’d never personally want to know. But they sure are fun to watch.”
• “It’s in the way these characters are written, not with snappy dialogue or winking self-awareness, but with all the inelegance and uncertainty of real people.”

Warning:  This is a heavy one. A woman forced into sexual servitude struggles to survive in a terrifying, totalitarian society. 

This Emmy-winning series is based on the best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood and is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in a part of what used to be the United States. Gilead is ruled by a fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state and is faced with environmental disasters and a plummeting birth rate.

In a desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world, the few remaining fertile women are forced into sexual servitude. Well-written and alternatively depressing and uplifting, there are messages here for where our world is heading today.

Rotten Tomatoes’ Top Critic Reviews:

• “It was so close, too real, impossible, familiar, not enough, and everything, all at once.”
• “What makes The Handmaid’s Tale so striking isn’t just this world where all the pretense of female equality has been stripped away, but the ordinariness of such oppression even today.”
• “For many, the anguish of watching won’t be worth it. But the vision of a totalitarian society is realized so fully that the story remains gripping and its message vital.”

The counter to A The Handmaid’s Tale is the ever so cheerful, Emily in Paris. After landing her dream job in Paris, Chicago marketing exec Emily Cooper embraces her adventurous new life while juggling work, friends, and romance.

With allowances for an unbelievable premise, Emily is tasked with revamping a French company’s social media strategy. Her new life in Paris is filled with adventures and surprising challenges as she juggles winning over her work colleagues, making friends, and navigating new romances. (IMDb)  Light and airy, it’s perfect for a warm, summer night.

Rotten Tomatoes’ Top Critic Reviews:

• “What can I say? I watched every episode, mostly for the French scenery, which is transfixing and lovely.”
• “Emily in Paris is the perfect escape from reality we so desperately need right now.”
• “It obliterated the current harsh reality of our existence so thoroughly that I got a good night’s sleep.”

Topping our list of great summer binges for teachers is the risqué thrill ride called Bridgerton. Sumptuous design, soapy drama, and a sterling cast make this the ultimate summer guilty delight.

The storyline is simple: the siblings of the Bridgerton family look for love and happiness in London high society. Inspired by Julia Quinn’s bestselling novels, Bridgerton follows Daphne Bridgerton, the eldest daughter of the powerful Bridgerton family as she makes her debut into Regency London’s competitive marriage market.

While her initial prospects are many, bingers get to watch family interference, high society scandal, and secret relationships complicate her quest.  And best of all this is all captured in a scandal sheet written by the mysterious Lady Whistledown.  It may not be family viewing (or even husband viewing) but many will find it delightful.

Rotten Tomatoes’ Top Critic Reviews:

• “Bridgerton gives us everything we’re craving right now: extravagant parties, elaborate outfits, salacious gossip, human touch.”
• “Netflix’s Bridgerton delivered a deliciously fun time full of British refinement and soapy scandals.”
• “Bridgerton” is sexy enough to make Jane Austen blush. This is not your father’s “”Pride and Prejudice.” It is very originally Shonda Rhimes first Netflix project.”

What series would you recommend for a summer binge?

Honorable Mentions

• Money Heist
• Murders in the Buidling
• Grace and Frankie
• The Great British Great Bake Off
• Ozark

Sources

• https://www.hbo.com/mare-of-easttown
• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/mare_of_easttown
• https://www.hbo.com/succession
• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/succession
• https://www.netflix.com/title/80232398
• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/bridgerton
• https://www.hulu.com/series/565d8976-9d26-4e63-866c-40f8a137ce5f
• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_handmaids_tale
• https://www.netflix.com/title/81037371
• https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/emily_in_paris
• https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8962124/