You may have heard that we're in the midst of Peak TV. The Golden Age of TV. A TV Renaissance.
That really just means that there's a whole lot of TV happening right now (like around 500 scripted shows), which is hard for those of us who want to watch as much of it as possible, but truly a gift for those of us who love it when TV gets really, really weird.
There are currently a whole bunch of really, really weird shows available to watch on a whole bunch of platforms, joined most recently by YouTube's Weird City and Netflix's The Umbrella Academy, both of which debuted last week.
Weird City is an anthology series from Jordan Peele about the residents of a city divided into Above the Line (where the rich live) and Below the Line (where the poor live). The first episode is a beautiful love story about Stu (Dylan O'Brien), who falls deeply in love with Burt (Ed O'Neill) while they both wear very strange shirts.
The Umbrella Academy is a dramedy series about an adopted family of superheroes with various powers. One of them can time travel, their mother is a robot, their butler is a chimpanzee, and it's all based on a comic book created by the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. Also, Mary J. Blige plays an assassin named Cha Cha, and sometimes there are dance numbers. Not sure what else we need to tell you in order to convince you it's a show worth watching, because it really truly is.
Some reviews of both shows have said they're just weird with no purpose, but that kind of is the purpose, and if you're into that kind of thing, they're both really fun binges. They're also not alone in terms of being weird almost to the point of being unhinged, so if you're in the mood to escape reality for a few hours, we've got you covered.