IT’S TIME TO BINGE
Keep cool and catch up on these 5 shows
Look, it’s hot out. Going outside when the heat index is in the triple-digits is overrated. Here are five TV shows to binge-watch until the temperature gets back to reasonable levels.
‘GLOW’ (Netflix)
A heavily fictionalized account of the late ’80s wrestling phenomena the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, “GLOW” takes the real story (chronicled in the moving documentary “G.L.O.W.: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling”) and morphs it into a sweet, often very funny look at the intersection of women, money and power, the perils of entrepreneurship and 1980s hair.
Alison Brie plays Ruth Wilder, a struggling actress who backs into this wrestling startup when she is out of options. Betty Gilpin (looking exactly like Nicole Brown Simpson, for some reason) plays her best frienemy Debbie, who also joins the crew.
Plenty of wrestlers are sprinkled throughout (Kia Stevens, who has wrestled under the names Kharma and Awesome King, has a key role, while Alex Riley and John Morrison/Johnny Nitro pop up).
And then there’s Marc Maron, who apparently has been waiting his whole life to play Sam Sylvia, the schlock filmmaker who serves as the wrestling crew’s head writer, director and co-producer. Maron can apparently do “mildly sleazy” and “not as awful as he first seems” as well as anyone alive. The first season is eight half-hour episodes and just flies by.
‘The Defiant Ones’ (HBO)
Sure, it’s essentially a four-hour “Behind the Music” without the melodramatic voice-overs, but it’s a four-hour “Behind the Music” about Interscope Records head Jimmy Iovine and producer/executive Dr. Dre, two of the most powerful, influential people in the past 30 years of popular music.
Iovine’s story starts in the 1970s; he’s an Italian kid from New York City longshoremen stock who worked his way from studio sweeper to engineer on “Born to Run,” to producer (Patti Smith, Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, etc.), to co-founder of Interscope, where his path eventually crossed with a post-N.W.A. Dr. Dre. (The series goes back to Dre’s childhood as well.)
Dre, fresh from leaving N.W.A., was looking for someone to put out “The Chronic,” which became one of hip-hop’s true game-changers. Interscope got into bed with Death Row Records, and the rest is history, a history that ends up involving U2, Nine Inch Nails, Tupac, Marilyn Manson and more.
Director Allen Hughes is a canny documentarian and talks to most of the major players, and the whole thing is catnip for music doc nerds.
And the scene of a very young Dre blending “Please Mr. Postman” with some old school electro … well, it was 30-plus years ago and still sounds shocking.
‘Rick and Morty’ (Adult Swim on Cartoon Network)
Is it the best show on TV? Well, when you are in the