5 Fantastical Shows We’re Watching on Netflix

Netflix has clearly decided that fantasy is its future, with a continued focus on developing genre TV. It makes sense. These are the shows that tend to get the most buzz and dedicated fanbases. Here are five series we’re watching:

Boo, Bitch

Not your standard ghost story, Boo, Bitch follows two high school seniors who are about to graduate and realize they have not left their mark or really put themselves out there. Erika Vu (To All the Boys’s Lana Condor), known to all as Helen Who thanks to a mean girl at school, and her best friend Gia (Fear the Walking Dead‘s Zoe Margaret Colletti) decide to live a little and go to a party – to the relief and joy of Erika’s parents. The wild night takes an unexpected turn that leaves Erika with a shot at her longtime crush Jake C. (Mason Versaw) and also dead. Maybe. She can still be seen and heard and interact with everything and everyone. She can’t walk through walls but she can affect things that run on electricity like lights, laptops, and radios. I’m still early in this one, but it’s got me curious to see where it is going. The leads are engaging and quirky and the drama is the perfect balance of believable and melodramatic high school drama.

First Kill

Juliette Fairmont is a legacy vampire who has come of age and needs to make her first kill or suffer from migraines, tears or blood, light and sound sensitivity, and insatiable hunger. New in town, Calliope Burns comes from a long line of monster hunters and has to prove herself to her family and the Guardian Guild by killing her first monster. The girls meet and share an instant connection which they must reconcile with their families’ natural enmity. It’s not a perfect show and is definitely targeted towards teenagers, but it captures some of what made series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer such a hit. A lot happens in season one, setting itself up for an interesting season two. Read our full review of this series.

God’s Favorite Idiot

When God picks kind but simple Clark Thompson to be his representative and try to turn the tide in a battle against Satan (Leslie Bibb), Clark’s life changes in unexpected ways. He gains the ability to glow and make specific songs play on the radio. Together with his guardian angel Chamael, his crush Amaly (Melissa McCarthy), and slew of semi-inept co-workers, he must bring the message of God to the people while resisting temptation. This show is what you get if you cross The Office with The Good Place. It took a few episodes for this show to grow on me (there is quite a bit of set up needed) but I find myself rooting for C.o.C. (Council of Clark).

Stranger Things

Season 4 of Stranger Things finds our crew split up as a powerless El, Joyce, Jonathan, and Will have moved away from Hawkins to try to make a fresh start and Hopper, believed to be dead, is being tortured in a shady Soviet prison camp. El, now going by Jane, is struggling to fit in at school but is trying to play it cool for Mike’s upcoming visit. Back in Hawkins, Max is struggling with the death of her brother, Lucas is trying to fit in by joining the basketball team, while Mike and Dustin embrace their inner nerds by joining the Dungeons & Dragons club, the Hellfire Club. When a cheerleader is brutally murdered, the crew realize that things aren’t over with the Upside Down and they are about to face their most dangerous enemy yet, without their most powerful weapon. While half the crew feels a bit tangential in this latest installment, El’s latest battle gives new insight into her past and sets the ultimate battle that will be the show’s final season.

Umbrella Academy

In Season 3, the Umbrella Academy has saved the world from a Vanya-caused apocalypse twice but there’s no time to relax. They return from the past to a returned present, one in which a different group of kids were adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreeves and raised to be the significantly more disciplined Sparrow Academy. The two groups immediately begin fighting, though unbeknownst to them, a new apocalypse is already brewing in the basement. The characters are, unsurprisingly, irrational in their shared hatred, which makes working together a seemingly impossible prospect. The show handles the transition of Vanya to Victor (to accommodate Elliot Page’s real life transition) swiftly, with little fanfare and immediate acceptance. This season meanders a bit, but it does an admirable job addressing grief, family, childhood trauma, and more.

Photo: Zoe Margaret Colletti and Lana Condor in Boo, Bitch. Courtesy of Netflix.