My Top 6 Netflix Shows to Avoid During a Pandemic

Last week I spoke about six Netflix shows I highly recommended, shows that excited, inspired, or made me laugh.

And now we’re turning everything around, with six more shows… that were so damn awful, I’m almost embarrassed I watched them.

The same parameters apply:

a. Available on Netflix in Israel.

b. It’s a proper show, not a limited miniseries.

c. I’ve watched all available episodes.

At the end I’ll have a list of shows that were so awful, I stopped watching after one or two episodes.

So without further ado, the list of shame:

6) Warrior Nun: Netflix’s Premier Show… with Fighting Nuns

It still shocks me when I think that someone actually sat down and said to themselves, “You know what would give an action show just a little edge? Let’s make the main heroes of the show a bunch of nuns. The kids’ll love it!”

They basically ensured right off the bat that when the action slows or stops, it’s going to be snoozefest. Which was most of the time.

The main character was completely uncompelling. We’re supposed to believe the whole time that there is something special about her, but we never feel it. We’re just told that is must be the case.

And the first half of the season runs more like an ultra-cheesy teen drama than an exciting adventure tale. The storyline for this section of the show is hard to swallow, filled with characters who are uninteresting or annoying (or both). It feels like the writers were required to fill ten episodes, but their main story could only successfully fill half of that… so they just fluffed up the extra five episodes with blah blah.

A taste of the power:

5) The Messiah: Wish He Could Have Come and Saved Me from the Show…

This show could have been good. The acting was fine. Some of the scenes were exciting or interesting. But ultimately not much happened throughout the course of an episode, and the overall show was very forgettable.

There was never a point during the season in which I, the viewer, felt convinced by the protagonist, the messianic figure. The writers relied too much on two things, both of which did not impress me. Either the messiah just knew random things about people that he wasn’t supposed to know (big deal) or he would stare at them until they were convinced that he was the one true Messiah.

His knowledge of whatever and awkward stares (not to mention his nonsensical speeches or very unclear messages) were not enough to keep me all that interested. The Messiah has been cancelled. No second season. I’m not upset.

Are you compelled yet?

4) The Innocents: Yet Guilty of Boring Me

“Oh yeah, we watched that also.”

Pretty much all that’s left to say about this one.

I barely remember what happened. The concept was interesting enough, but the overall show was so damn slow. Many characters were odd or irritating. And the overall plot ranged from hard to swallow to more confusing than I’d prefer.

All-in-all, The Innocents is ironically memorable as being the most forgettable show we watched.

Enjoy:

3) Under the Dome: And into the Trash

What happens when the tough-as-nails DEA brother-in-law from Breaking Bad needs a new job? Well, unfortunately nothing too good. Yes, there were some decent actors on the show… mixed in with a few who, let’s just say, could use a little work. The plot was kind of cool and interesting… for a while. Then it was just, “Hey look, they’re under a dome. OK, great. Now what?” And it finished off with a pile of, “Wow, this is tastelessly weird, and not even mildly believable.”

If you enjoy high-quality science fiction dramas… look elsewhere. You haven’t found it yet. Only watch this show if you’ve exhausted everything else on Netflix and this is just about the only thing left. And only if you’re goal is passing the time during a global pandemic…

Prepare for intrigue:

2) The Unlisted: Everyone’s Favorite Netflix Adventure… for Kids

Well, we learned a really big lesson from this one. Just because the concept seems interesting enough and the trailer is fine, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check the suggested age for the show. We were a couple of episodes in when we started wondering, “Why do none of their actions ever seem to have consequences?” And then we noticed that the show was labeled 7+… a mistake we will not make again.

The Unlisted masked itself as an intense drama, with a corporation turning children into advanced-capability robots. But the semi-interesting concept was ruined by awful writing, worse acting, and this overarching feeling that the main characters were completely useless. If you want a peek into a quasi-parody of Indian culture in Australia, explosive diarrhea-inducing food, Super Recognizers, scores of people escaping to safety by hiding behind walls, literally the saddest and most pathetic disguises you will ever see, and a complete disregard for any of the elements that make a show worth watching, The Unlisted is the perfect show for you!

A small taste of the magic:

1) Between: The Netflix Show We Love to Hate

This show is uniquely bad. I swear they found their cast by walking around Canada and saying, “Hey, wanna be in a show.” They then continued production by telling the actors to not even try, took the first take of any scene, and voila, a perfect show, there and ready to entertain its viewers. I mean, when the name of the town in your show is Pretty Lake, I think it’s fair to say you’re not really trying.

The best thing about Between is how much we enjoyed hating it. It became half the fun of watching the show.

The other half was waiting to see what ridiculous things the writer would do from episode to episode. I picture the writer sitting in a room, quite drunk, cigar in hand, saying, “You know what this show needs? A random escaped tiger! Oh yeah, and surface to air missiles. Oh! And let’s not forget to toss in some Mennonites. That’s what the kids really want to see these days!”

A little trailer to entice you to join the hate (seriously, it would be fun to have other people to make fun of the show with):

Netflix Honorable Mentions

A couple of honorable mentions:

Black Lightning and Titans were both entertaining. Just not very good shows. They’re like the singer on American Idol who no one talks about. They’re not amazing. They’re not hysterically awful. Just meh, and never worthy of thinking about again. That being said, if all three seasons of Black Lightning looked like the third, it would have easily had an honored spot on this list.

Netflix Dishonorable Mentions

And a few dishonorable mentions. These shows were just so bad, I couldn’t make it past one or two episodes without running for dear life. There are probably others that could have been on this list, I just long forgot about them…

Never Have I Ever had a trailer that made it look mildly cute. It wasn’t. Every joke fell flat. Literally every single one.

Grimm was so bad, when compiling this list I totally forgot about it. It was awful, unoriginal, and I’m so happy we stopped watching.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was unwatchably annoying. It wasn’t just unfunny. It was unbearable. Didn’t make it to a second episode.

Not sure why I gave Jane the Virgin a chance. The idea was funny. First episode wasn’t terrible. Maybe OK for a sketch, but more than two episodes, not a chance.

This one might be unpopular, but I couldn’t stand Lucifer. There’s nothing I found appealing about the show. It fit the pattern of a million other cop shows, where the police work with a consultant with unique skills (The Mentalist, Bones, Numbers, CSI, etc etc etc). In this case, what was his skill? He was the devil, and knows your desires. Yes, boys and girls, a very clear sign that TV writers are completely out of ideas.

Anything else? Probably. Some may have been so bad my brain won’t even let me remember they exist…