Holiday weekends are a perfect time for TV bingeing, as enough networks take the time they would dedicate to original programming and put it toward movies, specials, and marathons. With no work to worry about and not as much original content to consume, the holiday weekend is an opportunity for a TV fan to ensure they’re caught up on everything, to make up some ground that was lost during the smothering finale season that wrapped up around six weeks ago. However, if you’re up to date on everything you watch, the holiday weekend can be about finding another show to add to your schedule, especially if it’s something that hasn’t been on the air that long.
Which is why KSiteTV has put together a list of five summer shows you could (and, let’s be real, should) catch up on during the holiday weekend. Rather than make a list of shows that would require staying up the entire holiday break to binge, we’ve provided a mix of new summer shows that can be caught up on in one sitting and returnees that don’t have an intimidating number of episodes to power through. While holiday weekends are seemingly made for the TV fan in all of us to stretch their legs and get comfortable, we realize that they can also be about family obligations, travel, and this strange concept called getting sunlight. So loading you, dear reader, down with hundreds of episodes didn’t feel like the right thing to do. Instead, here are five currently airing shows worth indulging on during your holiday weekend, as well as the premise to every show, how many episodes you’ll have to binge, who’s included in the cast, reasoning why you should catch up, and various ways to watch.
Blood Drive (Syfy)
Premise: The last good cop in Los Angeles is forced into a deadly cross-country race featuring cars fueled by human blood and partnered with a femme fatale with an ulterior motive.
Episodes Aired So Far: 3
Cast: Alan Ritchson (Smallville); Christina Ochoa (Animal Kingdom); Thomas Dominique (Black Mirror); Marama Corlett (Sick Note); and Colin Cunningham (Falling Skies).
Why You Should Catch Up: Syfy drama Blood Drive is unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television. A delightfully twisted and consistently surprising tribute to the excess and exploitation of the grindhouse genre, the series sets its volume to 11 from the word go and never lets up. Its narrative energy enthralling and its color palette vibrant and comic book-esque, Blood Drive wraps commentary on monopolization, corporate overreach, and the callousness of society in a Maximalistic package of sex, gore, and comedy. With a little showbiz satire sprinkled in for good measure and enough procedural underpinning to keep its story coherent and sturdy, this is a show that’s consistently in on the joke and whose excess doesn’t exist just to exist; it’s sensory overload done with a purpose that is malleable enough to fit the thoughtfully constructed narrative pretty seamlessly. At a time when there are nearly 500 shows on television, Syfy managed to find something with no real analog and that type of original thinking should be celebrated with both a renewal and you (yes, you) giving it a shot.
How to Catch Up: Syfy.com | Syfy app | iTunes | Vudu | Amazon | Google Play
Claws (TNT)
Premise: An ambitious nail salon owner finds that the arrangement she had with the Dixie Mafia that she thought was temporary is anything but.
Episodes Aired So Far: 3
Cast: Niecy Nash (Getting On); Carrie Preston (The Good Wife); Judy Reyes (Devious Maids); Jenn Lyon (Justified); and Karrueche Tran (The Nice Guys).
Why You Should Catch Up: TNT dramedy Claws plays something like a cross between Justified and Desperate Housewives, taking the stakes and mood of the crime drama and fusing it with the humor and character work of the soapy dramedy. It’s a show of survival that thrives on its sense of place, as it highlights a low income area of southern Florida and juxtaposes it with the lavishness that a life of crime can bring, while centering itself on Nash’s towering performance as Desna, a fiercely determined woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders who’s just trying to take care of herself and those she loves. Nash is a pro at handling the shift in tones the show (and her character) can take any moment and brings about an infectious energy that makes any scene with the main ensemble into a fizzy, colorful, and highly enjoyable piece of television. For as much potential as Claws has demonstrated thus far, from its gorgeous direction to its wholehearted embrace of weirdness and the value it places on the community formed from friendships between women, it’s Nash’s performance that ties everything together and makes it a show that could become something special.
How to Catch Up: TNT.com | TNT app | iTunes | Vudu | Amazon | Google Play
Daytime Divas (VH1)
Premise: A behind the scenes look at daytime talk show The Lunch Hour, which is beset by co-host infighting and secrets ready to bubble to the surface.
Episodes Aired So Far: 4
Cast: Vanessa Williams (Ugly Betty); Tichina Arnold (Everybody Hates Chris); Chloe Bridges (The Carrie Diaries); Fiona Gubelmann (Wilfred); Camille Guaty (Happyland); and McKinley Freeman (Hit the Floor).
Why You Should Catch Up: Featuring a perfectly pitched bit of Machiavellian divadom from the incorrigible Vanessa Williams, VH1 soap Daytime Divas is a light, frothy little romp through the world of daytime television that manages to keep its catty moments A) full of fun and B) rooted in something real. For all its kitschy one liners and mustache twirling manipulation, Daytime Divas, which has shown early signs of being capable of filling the shoes of dearly departed Devious Maids, frames the animosity built between its fictional co-hosts as a real consequence of being a woman in power, particularly in the entertainment industry. When there aren’t that many seats at the table anyway and you’re working to legitimize yourself in a format still fighting for respect, it can be easy to see the person to your left as a competitor rather than someone fighting the same battle as you, which is headier subtext than one might expect from something like this and why you should give it a go.
How to Catch Up: VH1.com | VH1 app | iTunes | Vudu | Amazon | Google Play
Playing House (USA)
Premise: A mother-to-be discovers her husband is having an affair and turns to her longtime best friend for support.
Episodes Aired So Far: 22 (4 this season)
Cast: Jessica St. Clair (It’s Complicated); Lennon Parham (Accidentally on Purpose); Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele); Zach Woods (Silicon Valley); and Brad Morris (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World).
Why You Should Catch Up: In a television era where concepts have to be pre-sold or larger than life in order to get on air, it’s refreshing that something as subtle and sweet as USA’s Playing House can last for three seasons (and counting). Once the show’s initial concept was fleshed out early in season one, it basically turned into an excuse to watch real life best friends Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair be silly together and infuse the warmth and heart of their relationship into the connection between their fictional counterparts. Built on the familiarity and sincerity that comes with a decades-long friendship, Playing House thrives on the energetic and fully committed improv skills of its cast and beautifully explores the importance of a platonic life partner in life’s tougher moments. There might be shows with louder concepts than Playing House and there might be shows with more plot, but there is no show that portrays the ins and outs of long-term adult friendship, let alone female friendship, any better.
How to Catch Up: USANetwork.com | USA Network app | Seeso | iTunes | Vudu | Amazon | Google Play
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuDRwBGU58Y
Stitchers (Freeform)
Premise: A graduate student gets recruited by a secret government agency that specializes in “stitching” into the memories of the dead in order to solve pending homicide investigations.
Episodes Aired So Far: 25 (4 this season)
Cast: Emma Ishta (I Smile Back); Kyle Harris (The Carrie Diaries); Ritesh Rajan (The Jungle Book); Allison Scagliotti (Warehouse 13); Salli Richardson-Whitfield (Eureka); and Damon Dayoub (Caller ID).
Why You Should Catch Up: Though network television is dominated by procedurals and shows with procedural elements, the best of the bunch might actually be on cable in the form of Freeform’s sci-fi drama Stitchers, a show that manages to hang its crazy and (sometimes) complicated mythology on its procedural structure to great effect. The cases investigated by the central team, whose chemistry has only deepened and grown more comfortable with each passing season, always add something to the more serialized elements of the show, be it the relationships between characters or the overarching mythology. Additionally, the cases allow the show to be visually adventurous and play around with both format and issues relating to perception, memory, and death, with their overall presence keeping the show running smoothly and its narrative neat. Throw in a giddy, pop culture literate sense of humor that shuns the earnestness that could sink a show like this and a central relationship as endearing as it is meaningful and Stitchers is a fun, brisk watch that just screams summer binge.
How to Catch Up: Freeform.com | Freeform app | Hulu | iTunes | Youtube | Amazon | Google Play
