Coming off one of the greatest TV show runs of all time, Game of Thrones is bound to leave a void in your weekly couch potato lifestyle. Many people are desperately searching to find the next big show to cling to, and Hollywood is more than willing to throw an endless stream of new show promos in your Insta feed. Lucky for you, TMYK’s Resident Couch Potato has used his Prime, Netflix, HBO, Hulu, and Disney Jr. subscriptions for good, and prepared a list of the perfect rebound shows for all you heartbroken “Thronies.”
Killing Eve - Hulu/BBC America (2 Seasons) Missing mankind’s top stealth assassin, Ms Arya Stark? If you are looking for the next badass female assassin, I highly suggest streaming Killing Eve. The show stars Grey’s Anatomy’s uber-talented Sandra Oh who plays an MI6 analyst who travels throughout Europe to capture the deadly assassin, Villanelle. Villanelle is played by Jodie Comer, a young and talented newcomer to many American audiences. The show includes terrific dialogue, stylish clothing and design, and visits to many beautiful sites in Europe. It’s a perfect binge-watching show because most of the episodes end with a cliffhanger that begs you to watch “just one more episode” at the end of the night.
Westworld - HBO (2 Seasons) Miss rewatching episodes in search of new Easter eggs of information? How about religiously following that fan blog or podcast in an effort to figure out the meaning of the last episode? The new trailer for Westworld’s third season aired before the final episode of GoT, and has me fan-boying real hard. The trailer shows a still angsty and downtrodden Aaron Paul (from Breaking Bad fame) in a cold and grey futuristic city. The first minute or two of the trailer has this gritty Orwellian vibe and we don’t get the big reveal to the last few seconds: out of the shadows appears actress Evan Rachel Wood who brilliantly plays the self-actualizing AI robot, Dolores (had to IMBD that character name...remember it sounded like a female body part). I read somewhere that the Paramount Ranch, where Westworld had been filming, burned down in a California wildfire. Everyone was curious what the showrunners would do...now we have an answer. We go back into the future!!!
Tacoma FD - TruTV (1 Season) Are you mentally exhausted from 90-minute episodes of death and betrayal? Need a mental palate cleanser? The boys of Broken Lizard’s Super Troopers are back with a half hour comedy set in a Tacoma, WA fire station. Kevin Heffernen (Lt. Farva) and Steve Lemme (Mac) star as immature prank-playing brother-in-laws. The show is full of frat boy humor and your standard meathead tropes. It delivers its punchlines using the Rule of Three more frequently than an episode of Family Guy and doesn’t try and do more than stick to its simple formula...and it works Chicken F#@*ers!
Last Kingdom - Netflix/BBC America (4 Seasons) Missing the gory battle scenes of GoT? Do you need to see your protagonist, with a sexy accent, run through endless amounts of enemies? Netflix’s Last Kingdom stars Alexander Dreymon as a Viking warrior named Uhtred. Set during the earlier middle ages of England, the show looks and feels very much like the GoT scenes in the North, but it plays along a historical story line. Uhtred is in constant battle with Saxon King Alfred and several other Viking warlords. The show plays like an amped up Hercules or Xena from back in the day. You can tell the budget went up after the second season, and the writing improved as well. My only beef with the show is after I binged it, I walked around trying to talk in a lame ass Danish accent. UHTRED VON UHTRED, SON OF UHTRUD!!!
The Romanoffs - Amazon Prime (1 Season) Did you obsess over a royal family whose enemies tried to murder them out of existence? Did the Bolsheviks pull off a real Red Wedding back in the day? Prime released this show last fall, and the Mrs. Couch Potato and I fell in love with its storytelling. The opening credits begin with the massacre of Czar Nicholas and his wife and children; all set to the soundtrack of Tom Petty’s “Refugee.” Each episode tells the story of a modern day Romanoff descendant in a different major city who is facing problems of his or her own. The eight episodes play like short stories or vignettes, and oftentimes they hide the identity of the Romanoff descendent till deep into the episode. The episodes are independent three-act plays, but tell a familiar story about how the Romanoffs continue to persevere against all odds. Remind you of another Royal Family? If you are going to watch just one episode, watch the season finale (Episode 8). It gives the master plan/plot twist ending that I wish GoT had.