With Netflix adding shows left and right, it can be hard to keep track. Here's a definitive ranking of the new releases Netflix has added to it's portfolio:
1. Altered Carbon
Even before its anticipated February release, Altered Carbon got a bad reputation across the board. Though critics categorically demonized what many hoped was Blade Runner’s second coming, the mind–bending Netflix original conforms to none of the same rules. In fact, Altered Carbon makes wide strides into its own iteration of the future realm with man–machine hybrids, consciousness conserved in new age flash–drives, and a whole new, ethereal dimension for the term ‘cloud computing.’ Unlike your laptop, the series never slows down for updates, always quickening the pace and challenging you to keep up. Altered Carbon is gritty, sexy and written in its own distinctive language of dystopia. For the visuals alone and the newest take on battle–worn rebels fighting the good fight against The Establishment, checking it out is worth it. Even a second look is well–deserved.
2. Wormwood
Raise your hand if you’ve ever thrown yourself down a YouTube conspiracy video black hole. Though I and Tim, the NSA agent assigned to my webcam, find much to discuss on the topic of crop circles, Area 59 and Pluto obviously being a planet, Netflix’s new Wormwood is a case–study from the mega–conspiracy file of MK–Ultra and boy, does it get trippy, fast. Under the direction of Oscar–winning Errol Morris, Wormwood examines the death ruled suicide of scientist and CIA employee Frank Olson, who (allegedly) fell from his New York City hotel window in 1953. Read a full review here.
3. End of the F***ing World
The world of teenagers, or the universe as it seems when you’re in it, is hard to capture on camera. The volatile landscape of teen psychology is even harder, usually because the adults behind the camera have already completed that amnesia procedure we go through to forget we were that guy. End of the F***ing World does something brilliant in taking seventeen–year–olds, James (self–proclaimed psychopath) and Alyssa (self–proclaimed troublemaker), out of their big little world and letting them run amuck in our own. The result is a scrambling, heartfelt, outrageous tale that’s less about coming–of–age than it is about going–anywhere–else. Watch to see if they get there.
4. Babylon Berlin
From its Hitchcockian title sequence, to the sense of foreboding that pervades the series from the moment viewers hit play, Babylon Berlin is The Fall meets Weimar Republic Germany. Based on the novels by Volker Kutscher, the German–made television program tells a story of a buried era all while turning the familiar narrative of a hard–boiled detective on its head. The first episode begins with a disorienting sequence of memories that remain just as discomforting by the series’ whirlwind end. Without a single weak performance to be seen, Babylon Republic represents the very best of international television: it’s spine–tingling, escapist voyeurism that somehow preserves the threat of being caught.
