Esther McCarthy: If you're not watching these TV shows, you're wasting your money
Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn
My first months of the year are taken up with absorbing information from articles and podcasts: live feeds on how to drink less, move more, improve on relationships, recipes, and resources.
I must be more present, more grateful, more lean, more green. “Just BE BETTER!” the experts seem to admonish me, “you dehydrated, magnesium-deficient drunkard with unclaimed tax benefits, and crumpled bedclothes and face.”
Well, I’m going to share none of that helpful life-enhancing advice.
Instead, I’m going to tell you what I’d watch again on the many streaming services I’ve subscribed to, and can’t figure out how to cancel.
You are wasting your money if you haven’t watched these on your Netflix/Disney/Sky/Apple/Amazon/Paramount/Hulu.
There’s a lot of Aussie shows, all of them seemingly sharing the same actors (Patrick Brammall, I’m looking at you) so you can watch your Fisks and your Colin from Accounts and your Rakes but is the GOAT of them all, fair dinkum.
Ditzy doctor Nina is played by Asher Keddie — one of the best physical comedians I’ve seen since Peter Sellers.
Her family is adorably dysfunctional and hilarious. There are seven seasons, and multiple hot doctors.
The ideal choice to watch with the kids, in the brief window between chow down and the evening rush of drop and collects to wherever it is they’re supposed to be. (I don’t know, do you? I can’t keep anything in my brain anymore. This is why I’m writing this list, I’ll soon forget I’ve watched these shows at all.)
The sublime Tony Shalhoub brings humanity and hilarity to the eponymous detective.
I love that people get murdered by a little bash to the head — minimum violence, maximum family fun chiming along with his ‘Here’s What Happened…’ moments.
See also White Collar and Trollhunters.
OMG, I absolutely couldn’t get enough of this. The Wachowski siblings of The Matrix fame created this sweeping series where eight strangers are linked in the maddest way.
Diverse, inclusive, mind-boggling, surprising ... and dare I say it, a little bit sexy.
From the brilliant brain of Lisa McGee, this irreverent comedy takes us inside the chaotic lives of four hard core drinking buddies.
This made me feel good about myself, because say what you will about me, I have never smooched a corpse at a wake to win a bet.
Lots of familiar faces here from Derry Girls, including Sexy Priest practising being ridey as Packy.
Before there was Fleabag and the Hot Priest, there was , and the Hot Childhood Chum.
Written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, it’s six episodes long and they are all perfect.
Jonathan Bailey is deliciously camp in it, before he went all broody in Bridgerton.
Damien Molony is fab, he actually plays a lot of unlikely romantic leads including a driver instructor in GameFace and a vampire in Being Human — both recommended.
Keep watching until the paintball episode and if you don’t like it by then, there’s something dead inside you.
Who hurt you? But you’ll be hooked on Jeff’s character arcs, the blurred lines between Chevy Chase in character and IRL, and monitoring just how meta one show can be.
If none of that whets your whistle, watch for the Dean alone. However, I did not like what they did to Britta’s character.
A show that’s sharp, funny, and quirky set in a world where everyone gets a power when they turn 18, but Máiréad Tyers is still waiting for hers.
She is a brilliant actress who also has the good fortune to be a Corkonian, and someone who can make dating a cat look plausible. Fellow Cork thespian Siobhán McSweeney plays her cranky mam.
Ooh binged this, the first season was epic. So many incredible actors including the mesmerising Giovanni Ribisi who plays the titular con artist Pete.
Every episode ends on a cliffhanger and you promise yourself you’ll wrap it up soon, but then it’s three days later and you emerge blinking back to reality, with a healthy wariness of your cousins.
There’s so many more; Travellers, Jessica Jones, Lovesick, Firefly, Sherlock, Veronica Mars, Buffy, Archer… but there’s not a child in the house washed.
So if I had to pick one to avoid, like a pain in the hole in the pub with the nickname pothole, telling Knock Knock jokes, it would be LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland.
It was the most excruciating TV I ever sat through. I inexplicably couldn’t turn it off, and binged the whole series in one sitting, through my fingers, and I’m still not the better for it.
