January was a big month for TV shows, but amazingly Netflix and other channels just brought even more to the table in February. Maybe the cold weather is keeping us indoors, but all these exciting shows are a good reason to stay in.

One Day at a Time

Returning for its third season on Netflix, this sitcom about the ups-and-downs in the lives of a Cuban-American family is a great blend of contemporary issues, heartfelt emotion, and wacky silliness. At the end of the second season, we all watched breathlessly as fan-favourite character Lydia (played by the amazing Rita Moreno) lay in a coma, but thankfully she woke up and continues to lovingly aggravate her daughter, Penelope, a single-mother of two teenage kids, this season. I’m already on my second watch-through of season 3, and I think it really holds on to the magic formula that makes this show successful. I love that they work through family issues: Lydia tries to reconcile with her estranged sister Mirtha (played by Gloria Estefan); lesbian daughter Elena is keen on helping her aunt (played by Brooklyn Nine-nine‘s Stephanie Beatriz) come out as well — with a surprising outcome; Penelope reunites with her estranged brother — who seemed to be favoured by Lydia. Also, at the heart of the season, Lydia works through her post-coma bucket list (or as she likes to call it “bouquet list”, because “It’s an arrangement of all the beautiful things you still want to do before you kick the bucket.”) and landlord/handyman Schneider finally gets a serious girlfriend! It’s another great season of a wonderful show, and I enjoy all the characters immensely (except for Elena’s “syd-nificant other”, Syd. There’s just something about how she talks, and how dorkily earnest she is, that really rubs me the wrong way. She seems like a nice person, but I don’t want to watch her — sorry!)

Miracle Workers

Another sitcom, this one follows the “high concept” route of The Good Place, but is not quite as successful at it. Featuring Daniel Radcliffe (fka Harry Potter), this show also takes an office-comedy approach to the metaphysical. Radcliffe’s character Craig toils alone as an angel in the department of answered prayers until a gung-ho transfer named Eliza joins him in a last-ditch effort to save the Earth from destruction. Steve Buscemi plays God as a lazy and depressed deity who just wants to give up on our world. Eliza makes a bet with Him to spare the Earth if she can answer the most impossible prayer (making two specific people fall in love). I’m not sure if this show is going to be a success or not. It’s clever, but the premise of Heaven as a big office environment is bordering on cliche, and while The Good Place has tackled a similar concept, I think it’s been flexing the imagination-muscles to the limit to keep it fresh and interesting. Newcomer Geraldine Viswanathan plays Eliza with a lot of pluck and energy (which is nicely juxtaposed with Radcliffe’s “reach for the middle” Craig) but I think we’re going to need to care a lot more about these characters and laugh a lot more at these jokes in order for this show to last on TBS.

Weird City

A show whose title sounds like a sitcom is actually instead a sci-fi anthology series in the vein of Black Mirror and its recent imitators. Airing on YouTube Premium, the first couple of episodes are available for free, with the remaining episodes for subscribers. The central conceit on this series is that the stories are all linked by the society that they’re set in: a city where the privileged wealthy live in a pristine, technically-advanced, and somewhat controlled half of the city “above The Line” and the others live in a run-down half of the city “below The Line” (and yes, there is actually a wall labelled “The Line” complete with border control officers and inspection.) That should already warn you that the series is going to be too heavy-handed with its sci-fi metaphors. The first episode is the better of the two free episodes that I watched, but that doesn’t say much. Starring Dylan O’Brien (of Teen Wolf and Maze Runner fame) as a young man whose parents moved from below to above the line, as an adult he is not assigned a soulmate (unlike the others who are born above the line) so he needs to rely on a computer dating service to match him up. When his match turns out to be a much-older man (played by Modern Family‘s Ed O’Neil), things start to get ridiculous. Neither man is gay, but because they have so much in common (the computer gets some things right), they become close friends … and more. The theme of love taking all shapes and sizes becomes laughable as the two men fight to remain together (after the computer error is realized). This series is clearly a little tongue-in-cheek, but the second episode just makes it so much worse as Arrested Development‘s Michael Cera plays an extreme-loser who gets kicked out of his support group for bringing everyone down. He brings his psychotic neediness to a gym where Rosario Dawson plays a trainer. What follows is both ridiculous, predictable, and over-the-top — and you’ll never look at gym smoothies the same way again. Supposedly some of the later episodes, featuring Sarah Gilbert, Steve Yeun, and Awkwafina, are better, but I will not be paying to watch them — way better off waiting for more Black Mirror.

The Umbrella Academy

Back on Netflix, The Umbrella Academy has finally arrived. This latest super-team, comic-book adaptation takes a different slant on the story of people with powers. The main characters are a surrogate family comprised of a group of now-grown children whose mothers all mysteriously gave birth to them on the same day, not having been pregnant the day before. They were all adopted by an eccentric billionaire whose death is the event that brings them back together for the start of the series. This show itself is pretty eccentric (there’s an intelligent chimpanzee as a butler, and the family’s “mother” is an android) plus the children have wide-ranging super-human abilities. Nevertheless, there is as much (or more) of the story devoted to their human, emotional struggles and relationships as there is to any outlandish sci-fi concepts. I think this show is written in a way that’s a very odd blend of these two aspects, but it works. It doesn’t take long to care about these very damaged characters, but there’s also the heightened thrill of super-human fight scenes; and one character in particular, called Number Five, whose situation is beyond-unique. He is a teleporter who accidentally transported himself to the future where the world (and his family) were destroyed. Now he’s returned (in his original pre-teen body) and is trying to use what few clues he has to stop the apocalypse before it’s too late. Even though all the episodes of season 1 are available for streaming, I’ve only watched the first two, but so much has already happened, and I’m excited to find out how the rest of the story goes.

Nightflyers

A sci-fi series that is not new to broadcast (having originally debuted on Syfy in the US) is now on Netflix for the rest of us. Based on a novella by Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin, this is another sci-fi horror about a rag-tag band on a spaceship in the not-too-distant future, where things don’t quite go as planned. The Nightflyer is on a mission to meet up with an alien ship passing near-ish to Earth. The Earth is dying, and they hope that these aliens will be able to help save us. Unfortunately in hopes of better understanding the aliens and making first contact, the science team have brought along a telepath (known in this series as an “L-1”), and as we all know, all telepaths are also psychotic killers. As if that weren’t bad enough, there is also something else horrific happening on the ship, some kind of malevolent presence. Dr. D’Branin (played by Eoin Macken) is seeing visions of his dead daughter (Why do all these movie scientists have dead children?) on board, and others are experiencing weird and trippy things going on with them as well (including one engineer who got burnt alive, and others who were killed by a laser-shooting robo-spider that got out of control). On one hand I want to keep watching this show to find out what is happening, but on the other hand, it’s not fun to watch. It’s constantly tense, and everyone is kind of an ass. I know that’s all intentional; that we’re supposed to feel anxiety and fear in a horror show, but again, it’s not fun.

The Dragon Prince

As wonderful counter-programming, this Netflix original animated series is very fun. It’s in its second season, and is created by some of the masters behind the beloved Avatar: The Last Airbender show. It’s set in a different universe, but it still deals with elemental magic and a quest by a group of young people to save the world. In this case, they need to bring the titular dragon prince, aka baby dragon Zym, to the magical land of Xadia, in order to try to prevent ongoing hostilities between the magical realm and the human realm. That’s the story on a grand scale, but what it’s really about now is two young princes on the run with their elf-assassin-turned-friend. It’s a kids show (that’s why most of the characters are kids) but it’s really well-done and adults with a sense of wonder would likely really enjoy it as well. The series also has a very refreshing approach that is very diversity-positive and inclusive. There was much made in the fandom about the problematic quality of the animation last season, so the creators have supposedly made improvements on that front (I didn’t really have much problem with it before, but things definitely look good now). The action sequences are really well done, especially the body movements and fight scenes. As the princes, Ezran and Callum, make their way to Xadia, they are met again by their friends Claudia (a sorceress) and Soren (a warrior) who have secretly been tasked by their father, the sorceror-vizier Viren, to capture/kill the princes and seize the dragon egg/baby. The characters are almost all very likeable (even the villains are interesting), and the way they interact and reflect on their own circumstances and relationships is well-written. It adds a kind of depth that would typically not be part of a kids show. I’m really glad that this series is back and that it’s better than ever. This is one of the best shows on right now, especially kids shows (to say nothing of epic fantasy shows, of which there are virtually none). The season ends with a number of intriguing cliff-hangers which hopefully means that they will be back for another great season before long.

Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj

A very different kind of show that’s also on Netflix is Patriot Act, which is a weekly news-comedy show featuring former The Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj essentially giving a speech about a controversial news topic each episode. Of course, that description sounds super-dry, and these episodes are not. On the contrary, they are super-captivating. Minhaj is a very charismatic and funny host, who has a paradoxically cocky yet humble demeanor. He tackles topics like censorship in China, and drug pricing in the US, with the same enthusiasm and excitement (not to mention slang) that you might expect him to talk about hot new sneakers, or a game-winning basketball shot. Adding to the freshness of this show is the set, where Minhaj stands on a platform that is basically a group of computer screens all around him, illustrating and illuminating his points with video and infographics. I am not a news-junkie, and I didn’t really watch The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, nor Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, but I cannot get enough of this show. Frankly, I am really hoping that his facts are reliable and his research team is trust-worthy, because Minhaj has such an infectious, pleasant quality (though he’d probably balk at the stodginess of that description) that I am on his side as soon as the catchy theme music plays.