The British rocker Joe Jackson once sang the line, “They say that choice is freedom/I’m so free it’s driving me insane.” As members of the modern streaming public, we can surely relate. Our choices of what to watch have never been more copious — or more overwhelming.
Rather than spending hours endlessly scrolling through algorithmically generated menus on Netflix, Prime Video and Hulu (or Disney+, Peacock and Paramount Plus), why not get straight to the good stuff? We polled some faculty members in the College of Letters & Science about what’s enthralled them recently and asked them to offer some insights and critiques. With a little luck, their suggestions will streamline your streaming paralysis.
“The Last of Us,” Max
Recommendation by: Jonathan Gray, Hamel Family Distinguished Chair and Professor of Communication Arts
“The Last of Us” is set deep into a zombie apocalypse, as Joel (Pedro Pascal) leads the miraculously immune Ellie (Bella Ramsey) across the country to those who might be able to develop a vaccine with the information they’ll glean from studying her. Now, zombie shows may not be your cup of tea — much less zombie shows adapted from video games — but “The Last of Us” is much more. Zombies, indeed, are absent from many episodes, as the focus is far more on the human drama and on the fragility and value of humanity in the end times.
Co-created by Craig Mazin, who last gave us the astounding “Chernobyl,” “The Last of Us” is anchored with great skill by Pascal and Ramsey, but equally important are its superb guests — Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett’s episode three love story vies for the most beautiful, saddest episode of television last year. Melanie Lynskey, Lamar Johnson, Anna Torv and Nico Parker also deliver the goods with guest turns. As an adaptation, the show is working with great material — arguably the second-best written video game ever — but the approach is as fun and refreshing, as it is both painstakingly loyal to the original, while always feeling free to add to (never subtract from) the mythology, depth and texture. And though the video game was often about fighting zombies, this isn’t “The Walking Dead” — it’s about how we survive, what we need to hold onto, what breaks us, who and what matters, and where we find hope. In short, it’s existential(ist) television. And since the best written video game ever is “The Last of Us Part II,” get in now because the show is bound to get even better in the second season and beyond.
“Bocchi the Rock!,” Crunchyroll
Recommendation by: Joe Austerweil, Associate Professor of Psychology
“Bocchi the Rock!” is an anime (based on a manga with the same name) that follows a girl suffering from severe social anxiety who slowly makes friends through playing guitar in a band. Often, depression and social anxiety in media are equated with being antisocial, which is not the case for most people who suffer from them. This show is an excellent exception to this stereotype. As someone who has struggled with depression and social anxiety since my early teens, Bocchi’s character resonated with me and captured some aspects of how I felt (I even made some friends in high school by playing in a ska band with them). The animation is beautiful, and the show uses the medium in creative ways to convey challenging emotions in a manner that would not be possible in a live-action show. Rather than being depressing, it’s an incredibly uplifting story with a lot of goofy moments.
“One Day,” Netflix
Recommendation by: Michael Wagner, Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication
I’m about three-quarters of the way through “One Day,” a serialized version of a novel about the relationship between two friends (who might be/are clearly in love?), as told by showing their interactions together — and behaviors apart — on the same day over each passing year. The friends, Emma and Dexter, are portrayed beautifully by Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall. Mod’s ability to simultaneously portray professional ambition and stuck-in-the-mudness, as well as personal longing and chance-taking, is moving. Woodall’s ability to share confidence and vulnerability, along with joy and sadness, are full of sneaky emotional gut-punches. “One Day” is also quite funny. My wife, who is also a professor at UW–Madison, and I have really enjoyed how the episodes engage stories about the way we love our friends, about how we find romantic love, about how we navigate familial love, and about the dynamics of how our past intersects with our present. Finally, as a person who graduated high school in 1994 and college in 1998, the years covered in the show (1988-2000) are a huge hit of nostalgia for me.
“Star Wars: The Bad Batch,” Disney+
Recommendation by: Sameer Deshpande, Assistant Professor of Statistics
I’ve loved Star Wars ever since the original trilogy was re-released when I was in grade school. All my life, there’s been new Star Wars content released every few years (and now, every few months!), and I’m always excited to dive back into that universe and discover new characters and stories. I’m currently watching “The Bad Batch,” an animated series that follows a group of clone soldiers who, after surviving the Clone Wars, must survive as fugitives from the new Galactic Empire. The animation and voice acting are incredible, and for obsessive Star Wars fans, the show ties together several other Star Wars stories and answers questions like “What does the Imperial Remnant want with Grogu/Baby Yoda in ‘The Mandalorian?’” and “How did Palpatine return in ‘The Rise of Skywalker?’”
For more casual fans, “The Bad Batch” has a ton to offer. In many ways, the show is like “The A-Team” but set in the Star Wars galaxy: soldiers-of-fortune pursued by their government take on a new mission, some things go awry, other things blow up, and the good guys ultimately prevail. But “The Bad Batch” also packs a hefty emotional punch and is deeply affecting in its exploration of a found family (especially through the character Omega), its depiction of post-traumatic stress and how its characters, who were programmed to be hyper-loyal super-soldiers, must grapple with their purpose and morality once their war ends.
“Wave Makers,” Netflix
Recommendation by: Jing Wang, Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication
“Wave Makers” has been making splashing waves across East and Southeast Asia since its global debut in April 2023. This TV show is a political drama series produced in Taiwan, featuring very powerful female characters. The show has broken many records. It is the first political drama in Taiwan to tell the stories of campaign staff of a fictional political party during the run-up to a presidential election. “Wave Makers” also does not shy away from topics such as sexual harassment within the party, the death penalty, same-sex marriage, environmental issues and immigration.
Since its debut, the show has had a profound impact on the social and political lives in Taiwan. Tammy Darshana Lai, who plays the character of a major presidential candidate in the show, was soon invited by Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn (the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics), to be his running mate in the real presidential campaign in Taiwan. Moreover, the show has continued to inspire and fuel the #MeToo movement through one of its most iconic lines: “Let's not just let it go, OK? Many things cannot be let go. If we let it go, people will die slowly. They will die.” This year, we are in the election season in the United States. “Wave Makers,” as a fast-paced, relentless and heartwarming TV show, can certainly offer you fresh perspectives on imagining the future of political campaigns, regardless of where you are now or where you come from.
“For All Mankind,” Apple TV+
Recommendation by: Derek Johnson, Communication Arts Partners Professorship and Chair, Department of Communication Arts
While we usually think of the 1960s space race in terms of the massive technological evolutions that allow humans to leave orbit, “For All Mankind” invites us to consider the social, political and economic change produced by the competition to reach for the stars. The series does so by concocting a “what if?” scenario in which the response to the United States’ failure to land first on the moon leads not just to redoubled scientific research, but also accelerated racial and gender equality in the astronaut program (even if only out of political desperation in the face of that national defeat). As this butterfly-effect premise unfolds over decades — often with major time jumps between seasons — the world in the show is increasingly familiar yet also increasingly unrecognizable.
Echoing the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike that disrupted U.S. television production more broadly over the last year, the most recent fourth season of the series tackles labor head-on, envisioning how the push to explore outer space, if sustained until the early 2000s, might have depended on the exploitation of an underclass of workers willing to put their lives on the line in the hopes of winning better livelihoods for their families. At this point, the series pitches the space race as a competition not just between nations, but also corporate interests in celestial resources (though the USSR still exerts plenty of sinister influence, in true Hollywood fashion). As employees on the ground start organizing in this context, the lines between labor movement and political revolution blur, allowing new identities, affiliations and even nationalisms to emerge. This series-long exercise in conjecture suggests there’s nothing written in the stars, and that the projects we prioritize — in space or elsewhere — determine the shape of our future.
“Ridley Road,” Prime Video
Recommendation by: Harry Brighouse, Mildred Fish Harnack Professor of Philosophy and Carol Dickson Bascom Professor of the Humanities
My dad’s next-door neighbor, Simon, found success as a hairdresser in Swinging London in the ’60s alongside Vidal Sassoon. Like Sassoon, he had grown up in London where, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, they had worked with an organization called the 43 Group, which devoted itself to smashing up meetings of the British Union of Fascists, a group led by the “British Fuhrer,” Baronet Oswald Mosley (who has dodgy dealings with the Shelby family in “Peaky Blinders”).
“Ridley Road” is a fictionalized account of a successor to Simon’s organization, named the 62 Group. Colin Jordan (played brilliantly by Rory Kinnear) and John Tyndall, leaders of the next generation of British Nazis, regarded Mosley (whose wedding was attended by Hitler) as too moderate. So, in 1962 they formed the National Socialist Movement, a mainly propagandist outfit with a violent wing that specialized in fire-bombings. The 62 Group spied on and sabotaged NSM activities and protected victims.
In “Ridley Road,” Vivien Epstein, a teenage hairdresser, runs away to London from her home in Manchester. She is encouraged by her uncle, 62 Group leader Soly Malinovsky (based on the real-life Wally Levy, the owner of London’s largest black cab company) to dye her hair blonde and infiltrate the NSM, exploiting Colin Jordan’s roving eye. It portrays real events: the notorious fascist Trafalgar Square rally; George Lincoln Rockwell founding the World Union of Fascists with Webster; and Webster’s marriage to Francois Dior (disgraced niece of French Resistance hero Catherine and fashion designer Christian). Fortuitously for a Masterpiece production, the National Socialist Movement was backed by aristocrats, so a good deal of action takes place in the gorgeous country house where Webster was based. It’s thrilling, moving and, unlike so many TV shows, short and self-contained. Sorry for a spoiler, but in this one the goodies win. For the time being.