Shows to Stream Over The Weekend

By Guillermo Rosario

Imagine playing a video game and having so much fun fighting monsters or following a great story. Suddenly, your morning alarm goes off and you look out the window, the sun rises and your shift to work is four hours away. You have spent the whole night immersed in your own little world. Now picture a movie trilogy, starting with the first film and then six hours later you’re going through the credits of the third film.

This is the binging experience. They tend to happen when a story has the power to hold the attention of their audience, keeping them gripped to witness a thrilling conclusion. They are the most commonly attributed to television shows. There are many thrilling TV shows that make binge-watching easy to do, from making interesting, likable characters, to creating a compelling setting and attention grabbing storyline.

Many shows on Netflix, Hulu, and HBO have a massive library of ongoing and completed series that make for an incredible load of entertainment. There are several ways a tv show can be binged. One popular way is to release all the episodes at once. This is the case with series like Stranger Things, where the entire season is released after a large amount of production and behind the scenes. Traditionally, series like Andor and Last of Us have weekly releases of the episodes.

10. The Walking Dead

The story arcs of The Walking Dead flows in similar, engaging ways. The show mainly follows Rick’s group of survivors and the people connected to him. Binging the show makes the investment in the characters important due to how thrilling moments against the walkers and antagonistic survivors can be. Stakes are always high, character moments are engaging, and fan favorite beloved characters could get killed off or redeemed as heroes if they were introduced as villains.

The entire series is currently complete with the final season having premiered in 2021 and concluded in 2022. This is the best opportunity to stream the series on Netflix and AMC+ for a binge watching session of the thrilling horrors. All 11 seasons are available on both these services.

9. Game Of Thrones

On HBO’s streaming service, George R. R. Martin’s book, A Song of Ice and Fire, has been adapted into the enthralling dark fantasy series Game of Thrones. Following the exploits of Jon Snow, the descent of total war in the Seven Kingdoms, and the rise of Daenerys Targaryen, mother of dragons. The series has everything from gratuitous violence, suspenseful intrigue, and a developing ensemble of characters.

Game of Thrones has concluded with eight seasons and an ongoing spin off House of the Dragon to watch on HBO max. Each episode is roughly an hour, making it seem that viewers are watching several movies together at a time. The success of Game of Thrones in the beginning was one of the defining reasons for many TV shows being given a Hollywood level of production.

8. Critical Role: Legend Of Vox Machina

Legend of Vox Machina takes the thrilling Dungeons & Dragons journey of Critical Role and adapts it into a humorously dark comedy fantasy series streamed on Amazon Prime. The series currently has two completed seasons to watch and contains a fair share of action and character driving moments that’ll make one sitting last the entire evening. Each season also had a very powerful start that carried the investment to watch the outcomes of our heroes’s adventures.

Legend of Vox Machina features a majority of the original voice talents from the tabletop streams returning as the voices of their campaign characters, giving fans that extra level of effort and immersion for the full experience. Jokes from the original campaigns, musical moments with Scanlan, and the developing relationships are mostly adapted with several interesting tweaks here and there to keep the experience fresh.

7. Camp Cretaceous: Jurassic Park

Camp Cretaceous is an animated series taking place between the events of Jurassic World and Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. Following the adventures of six teenage campers on Isla Nublar, the series mostly focuses on their attempts to escape the island while evading dinosaurs and dealing with corrupt people that complicate their survival. The show is applauded for giving a unique cast of characters their time to shine and develop and giving them all moments of laughter, cheer, and tears.

The show is clearly targeted towards young fans of the Jurassic World films but can still be enjoyed by young adults and older folks who enjoy a decent story following the events of Jurassic World. There is enough peril and danger that even little kids would be nervous for the characters and the traumatizing stakes they go through, from people getting eaten by dinosaurs in front of them to lunatics going after their lives. All five seasons are bingable with eight or so episodes each on Netflix.

6. The Strain

Watchable on Hulu, The Strain is an intense vampire story that follows an impressive cast of characters that grow and develop from usual day by day characters to heroes and survivors that prevail against adversity. The series is four seasons long and follows the gradually degrading state of New York City as it gets overtaken by ancient vampires.

Guillermo del Toro’s attention to detail with the sets, makeup, and the prosthetic effects makes the series feel like several full length films together and a viewer can easily sit through an intense number of episodes together in one sitting. The film-like quality of The Strain makes it one of the best shows for horror fans to binge on Hulu.

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5. Stranger Things

An investigative sci-fi horror that takes many references and elements from 80s films such as The Goonies and Ghostbusters. Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s flagship series and was one of first shows to use streaming services for original programming. Stranger Things has four current seasons with a fifth one in production. Each episode is an hour with eight or so episodes each season.

Stranger Things follows up to two distinct perspectives between a group of children investigating the events around them and adults who get enthralled in some conspiracy. Their investigation unveils a dangerous mystery responsible for unleashing monsters from a different dimension. Each season follows a developing series of peril and stakes, with deaths being portrayed as sudden, heart wrenching moments. There is a great balance of suspense, action, moments of character development, and adding to the story that makes any viewing turn into an afternoon to midnight marathon.

4. Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities

Guillermo del Toro released an anthology of interesting horror stories on Netflix in 2022. Cabinet of Curiosities follows several episodes of different types of horror, from psychological to outright cosmic. Each episode is a self-contained story that has an estimated runtime of 45 minutes to one hour each, the equivalent of a short indie film. The series is a decent showcase of both horror stories and the different directors responsible for them.

Anthologies are interesting to binge watch because depending on the format or layout it’s optional to watch them in order or in one sitting. Despite that, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities manages to make each of the stories compelling and interesting enough for a night session of horror watching fun.

3. Castlevania

Castlevania is a dark fantasy animated horror series on Netflix. It partially adapts the Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse game, following the journeys of Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades, and Alucard Tepes. The series is complete with four seasons and a continuation in the making that follows different characters. The first season is short with four 20 minute episodes and can be finished in one sitting. It flows perfectly into season two and both of them can be watched together for an afternoon to evening session.

After season one basically established the plot and characters, season two through four are between eight to ten episodes long each. Castlevania contains a consistent flow in character development, intense action, and moments of levity and humor. It is hands down one of the most impressive adaptations of a video game that takes its source material in an original and compelling direction. Definitely a good weekend binge series.

2. Love Death + Robots

Another anthology series on Netflix, Love Death + Robots currently has three seasons to watch and are easy to go through in one day. Each episode is a unique animated story done by different studios. They are a mix between adult comedy with raunchy humor, to outright horror stories and serene dramas.

The episodes for Love Death + Robots are all short and sweet, each of them between 15 to 20 minutes long and it makes the series bingeable in a single day. Viewers that have an interest in unique storytelling through animation would have a blast watching Love, Death, and Robots. Many episodes are gut busting funny, others are beautiful tear jerkers, and several are blood chilling horrors with graphic depictions of brutal violence. This is definitely one of the most diverse anthologies to watch on Netflix.

1. The Last of Us

The most recent and currently ongoing series on the list. The Last of Us is a live action adaptation of the post-apocalyptic survival game by Naughty Dog. The series has been releasing episodes weekly on HBO max. There are currently enough episodes to have a decent binge night through several episodes. While Castlevania was incredible for taking the games and adding new elements to make an interesting story, The Last of Us adapts the cinematic feel of the game while making enough unique moments to be distinguishable.

The first season of The Last of Us is said to adapt the events and story notes of the first game, following the journey of Ellie and Joel while expanding on the side characters they meet throughout their seasonal travels to the Fireflies base in Salt Lake City since Ellie might have the cure to the cordyceps infection. The story is full of humor, intensity and tear jerker moments that put some parts of The Walking Dead to shame.

Binge watching TV shows is a precious investment of time and patience. Not everyone has the available time to sit down for hours watching events play out with different characters across a series of episodes. It’s the reason why many people could only handle being in a movie theater for two hours or so. Very rarely would a movie be three or four hours, whereas TV episodes can take eight to ten hours to finish.

That being said, a show has to be incredible to grab the attention of the viewers. They are either compelling stories or the characters and settings are that compelling and likable. The entries of the list are diverse examples of TV shows that make the time spent watching each episode and season feel like a fulfilling adventure right in the comfort of the house.