Derry Girls
Derry Girls follows a group of five teenagers—Erin, Orla, Clare, Michelle, and James—as they navigate life growing up in Northern Ireland in the early 1990s. Sometimes the drama is entirely of their own making, and sometimes they get swept up in the geopolitical events happening around them. In every event, there’s a little bit of chaos and a whole lot of heart.
North and South
If you’re like me and are therefore a total sucker for those lush BBC adaptations of 19th century novels (in this case, Elizabeth Gaskell), this one is a real treat. It’s got regional and class conflict, labor unions, industrialization, and a slow-burn romance. The adaptation is almost 20 years old now, but it’s held up pretty well.
Listen, I am not big into reality shows, and especially not competition shows, and yet I’ve been hooked on this one for years. Literally years. It's warm, creative, and funny, and has even inspired me to try my hand at a little baking on occasion.
The Great British Bake Off
Lucy Worsley’s Documentaries
Lucy Worsley is Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, but her documentaries are not the staid, quiet things you might expect. Instead, you’ll often find her trying on costumes, clambering up into rafters, and cracking sly jokes about revered historical figures. She covers a wide range of topics, from Jane Austen to literature to the Romanov family to historical houses.
One of the things that makes this show so special is host Samin Nosrat’s unabashed earnestness. I’ve grown tired of irony and antiheroes for a long time now, so when she showed up on my screen with genuine excitement for olives and citrus and rice, it was like a warm breeze blew threw the window on a summer afternoon. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve watched this show.
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