10 Series To Watch To Become Cleverer
We would like to think that TV shows make us cleverer. Series tackle a lot of specific and actual issues. A lot of resort to technical vocabulary, that mistakingly or not, make us think that we understand Law or can diagnose diseases for instance. Interestingly enough, series help us understand and qualify the world we live in.
Here are 10 series that will make you cleverer for sure.
1. Independence: The Good Wife
Great moment for TV history. This brilliantly written series follows the life and career of a real strong woman, Alicia Florrick, whose life is entangled in politics, law, marriage and betrayal. You can easily relate to her struggles as a free woman, a wife, a mother, a lawyer.
2. Resilience: Veronica Mars
Veronica Mars is sassy, Veronica Mars is clever, Veronica Mars is a detective. This series is one of the best of her generation. Stopped after only 3 seasons, you will love the way she thinks and sympathise with her struggles as a middle-class student living in the posh city of Neptune.
3. Empathy: NYPD Special victims unit
NYPD Special Victims Unit is a very realistic series that portrays the aftermath and investigation of sexual assaults in NYC. Olivia Benson and her team arrest pedophiles, rapists and other psychopaths who commit these crimes. The subjects tackled are very sensitive and offer you another and less traditional perspective on crime.
4. Addiction: Skins
Skins is an emotional series following the lives of a group of teenagers. Every season, the episodes are named after each character of the group. The series explores themes such as drug addiction, alcoholism, murder, anorexia/bulimia, psychological abuse.
5. Logic: Sherlock
Brilliantly portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, this modern version of Sherlock Holmes is absolutely addictive. Every episode is directed like a mini-movie, and is set in contemporary London. You get to see Sherlock and Watson evolve and solve complex investigations and confront Sherlock’s nemesis, Moriarty.
6. Intelligence: Hercule Poirot
David Suchet is THE best Hercule Poirot ever. Check out this version, and you won’t regret it – it revisits his best well-known investigations and others. Not only does he do justice to Agatha Christie’s character, but some of the best actors such as Casey Milligan appeared in the show. The series stops with the poignant death of Poirot.
7. Psychology: Criminal Minds
Profiling criminal minds is the job of these detectives specialised in crime. Each episode starts with a quote by a writer or someone famous, and mixes the American talent of offering to the audience an action-filled plot, melodrama and an inside look at criminals’ psychologies.
8. Relationships: Desperate Housewives
The lives of Bree, Gaby, Susan, Lynette and Eddie are shattered by the suicide of their best friend – and perfect housewife – Marie-Alice. The series offers a funny, and yet sarcastically, if not tragically true portrait on the American concept of suburbs and consumerism. Follow the evolution and the hardships of these modern women.
9. Self-destruction: Luther
Luther is a detective series that explores the darkness of human nature. Iris Elba offers a very convincing performance as this self-destructive detective that sympathizes with a sociopath played by the brilliant and enigmatic Ruth Wilson. The plus of the series: it is set in London.
10. Coming of age: Girls.
Written and directed by the talented Lena Dunham, Girls explores the turbulent emotional, physical and professional coming of age of a group of young women. Very entertaining, sometimes crude, the series offers a rather realistic portrait of societal expectation and pressures on women – you fail if you don’t fit. A life without mistakes is not worth living…
