No lie, spending all this time at home practicing good social distancing and self-isolation thanks to the coronavirus can be rough. It's not even that home sucks or anything. My home has everything I need, and I love having more time to spend with my family. But it feels like the only person I've seen in the last week other than my wife or kid was the drive-thru guy at Wendy's and he had gloves on when he gave me my change.
Pass the time while you're stuck at home with some really binge-worthy content on Hulu. Of course Hulu has so many things worthy of your time. Just look at all the comedies with tons of seasons you can go for: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Archer, Bob's Burgers, Seinfeld, Community, Atlanta... even cartoons like Adventure Time and Rick & Morty could keep you distracted for a while. That doesn't even consider dramas and more serious affairs like Stumptown (just binged the first season of this! Surprisingly good!), The Handmaid's Tale, Castle Rock, ER, Killing Eve, Empire, and more. Hulu is filled with good stuff, so I've tried to find a few shows either you haven't heard of or have heard of and never bothered to watch. Or maybe, like me, they are shows you watched once before but would like to re-binge again.
Hulu
With lots of great content, and tons of original content, there's defintiely something available to watch on Hulu.
Remember that Hulu can be combined with Disney+ and ESPN+ in a relatively inexpensive bundle if you don't have it yet. You can also go with just Disney+ if you want the ad-free version of Hulu. While the shows on this list are more adult, Hulu has plenty for kids as well. Check out the Top 16 Kids Shows on Hulu.
12 Monkeys
When people ask me "What's your favorite Bruce Willis movie?" or "What's your favorite Brad Pitt movie"? (and they do, like all the time. Just every second of the day.) I always respond the same way to both questions: 12 Monkeys. It was one of the best science fiction movies of the mid-90s, but if you've seen it then you know why a TV show wouldn't seem like something that would work very well (No spoilers!). They had to take a few liberties to give it a plot that stretches (and neither Pitt nor Willis are in it), but 12 Monkeys was the best thing on the Sci-Fi channel (no, I'm not calling it Syfy), since abandoning The Expanse. (Also, if you're a fan of Schitt's Creek, you'll get a kick out of Emily Hampshire's role in this show.)
This is a time travel, end-of-the-world post apocalyptic sort of science fiction show. And it's a lot of fun. Time travel can be confusing and often contradictory, but 12 Monkeys handles it well for the most part.
Catch-22
I consider Catch-22 by Joseph Heller to be one of my favorite books of all time. It's always on my list, and it's a book I have re-read a couple of times. Since getting out of the military myself, it has actually moved up on my list. Despite being a book written in the 50s and talking about World War II, it's amazingly accurate at capturing a feeling that still exists in the military to this day. While the TV show can't quite capture all of Heller's satire, it does a really good job. George Clooney's intermittent performances are truly one-of-a-kind as well.
The book is a classic. The TV show is hilarious. This is a Hulu original, which makes Hulu the only place you can watch it. And you should definitely watch it.
Happy Endings
Remember when Damon Wayans Jr. was in the pilot of New Girl and then he wasn't in the show and then he was again? This is the show he left for. Then it got cancelled and he came back. It shouldn't have been cancelled though because Happy Endings was a fun watch. Binging is always best when you can go beginning to end, though, so it benefits you if you're in a binge-worthy mood that this show has three seasons and no more. It's funny and a little quirky and definitely worth the watch if you haven't seen it yet.
A show that stars Damon Wayans Jr. and that girl who starred in the last couple seasons of Scrubs. It's a show that uses The Real World as a background for how these people met. You know you want to watch that.
Tyrant
Are you a fan of the show Succession on HBO? Have you at least heard of it? Because it's the best example I could think of for what Tyrant is. However, where Succession follows a dysfunctional family living in skyscrapers and dealing with modern media, Tyrant follows a dysfunctional family living in a palace in the Middle East dealing with a revolution. The show only lasted three seasons, so you may have missed it, but the setting remains one of the most unique in TV. It's not a perfect show but so few are.
If you ask Jose Conseco, he'll tell you. Don't judge a book. This Lonely Island collaboration is hilarious and will keep your toes tapping... by its cover. Don't judge a book by its cover. Nailed it.
PEN15
This is the only entry on this list that is actually still going on. The show has one season on Hulu so far, but there is a second one in the works. It's a weird show starring two grown women who play fictionalized 13-year-old versions of themselves. In the show, they live perpetually in the 7th grade, and they will still be in the 7th grade in the second season and any future seasons. The other kids on the show are played by kids, too, which makes it weirder. It's a coming-of-age show where the stars both neither fully come of age and have already well surpassed this moment in their lives.
The premise of this show was a little too weird for me at first, but once I gave it a shot the comedy was worth it and the idea of grown women playing 13 year old girls faded for the sake of the story being told.
The League
I just had to throw this one on the list. It's a stupid show that ran on FX for a while. It was semi-improvised, too, which means there's some comedy that hits hard and some that doesn't land at all. The whole thing revolves around a fantasy football league, and it may be the only show I've ever seen make that work. If you're into fantasy leagues and you're feeling a little starved due to coronavirus cancelling all sports forever and all time, this is the show to binge right now.
I don't know if this show ever received any critical acclaim, but it definitely won the Emmy of my heart. It's funny and silly and lasted for several seasons, which gives you plenty of episodes to binge.
