- Four new series to watch on Netflix this weekend include Major Crimes, Heartland (Season 19), The Audacity, and Mousetrap.
- Major Crimes follows Captain Sharon Raydor as she takes over the LAPD’s Major Crimes unit from Brenda Leigh Johnson, dealing with detectives who resent her past as an internal affairs officer.
- Heartland (Season 19) is a Canadian drama set in Alberta, focusing on the Bartlett-Fleming family’s ranch and the challenges they face, including wildfires and reputation damage.
Four of the best series to watch on Netflix this weekend came to the service in a 50/50 split—two from the back end of August, and two newbies just dying to make an impact on the Netflix Top 10.
<a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/netflix-<a href="https://comicvibe.com/15-best-hbo-shows-of-the-2010s-ranked/” title=”15 Best HBO Shows Of The 2010s, Ranked”>shows-you-can-binge-in-one-weekend-august-28/?utm_source=syndication” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Last weekend, we eased you out of August with Swedish thriller Blood Sacrifice, the witchy vampire feast Talamasca: The Secret Order, and Revival, a fresh take on zombies in small-town America. But you don’t have to live in the past—start with this weekend’s suggestions and go from there.
Major Crimes
The Closer’s long-running spin-off finally hit Netflix
I didn’t really get on board with the 2005-2012 series (The Closer) that this stalwart series was spun off from. But it was its star, Mary McDonnell, whom I loved as steadfast President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica and not-quite-committed-to-Sparkle Motion mom in Donnie Darko, who drew me to check out Major Crimes, now that its full 105 episodes just dropped on Netflix.
The TNT police procedural sees Captain Sharon Raydor (McDonnell) inherit the LAPD’s Major Crimes unit from Kyra Sedgwick’s Brenda Leigh Johnson, but Raydor has to contend with the division’s detectives (most of whom return from The Closer), who harbor resentment for her days as an internal affairs officer who investigated them. The show is unique in that Raydor’s team, amidst terrible funding, is more focused on scoring plea deals than confessions. Major Crimes is well acted, the dialogue is quick for a procedural, and you’ll find yourself binging several episodes.
Heartland (Season 19)
Drama in the foothills of Alberta
The longest-running scripted one-hour drama in Canadian television history, Heartland has seasons and episodes that go on for days, just like the rolling foothills of the Alberta countryside it’s set in. Surprisingly popular south of the border, too, season 19 has just landed on Netflix roughly a year ahead of schedule.
Based on Lauren Brooke’s bestselling novels, Heartland follows the loves, dramas, and hardships of generations of the Bartlett-Fleming family on their ranch outside the fictional town of Hudson. Season 19 of the equestrian-based series is topical, bringing wildfires to the ranch, and series star Amy Fleming (Amber Marshall) does damage control on her reputation as a horse trainer after some neglect allegations, while balancing life with her daughter and a new love.
The Audacity
A messy and hilarious Silicon Valley skewering
When I read the reviews for AMC’s neurotic Silicon Valley satire, The Audacity, some of my favorite shows of all time were mentioned as comparisons—Succession, Better Call Saul, Mad Men,and, of course, Silicon Valley.That’s all I needed to hear, so of course, as a non-AMC subscriber, I was ecstatic when the 80% fresh series landed on Netflix, with all episodes there for a binge-watch.
The Audacity is also created by Jonathan Glatzer, a writer on both Succession and Saul, which you can totally feel in its biting story that follows Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen), a tech bro whose tanking data-mining company goes into a death dive after Duncan pulls some dodgy market manipulation. He unloads all his wrongdoings on his therapist, JoAnne Felder (Sarah Goldberg), who’s been trading on the secrets of her tycoon clients, including the weird and wonderful Zach Galifianakis’ billionaire, Carl Bardolph. When Duncan finds out, he blackmails Felder into manipulating Bardolph to invest in the company. It’s as fun and quirky and intense as it sounds.
Mousetrap
A haunting Korean identity-theft tale you can’t stop watching
My top pick this weekend is this incredible Korean-language psychological thriller series that has had me biting my nails (more on this in a sec), and I’m only a few episodes into its ten-episode run. Even though Mousetrapis a take on a Korean folktale about a rat that can eat a person’s fingernail clippings and then become their exact double, its identity-theft backbone makes it seem hauntingly plausible.
Panic-attack-stricken, shut-in novelist Je Moon-jae (Ryu Jun-yeol) hasn’t left his apartment in years, but when he’s locked out of his phone and finances, no one recognizes him, and his apartment is somehow sold out from under him, his life spirals out of control as he tries to figure out why. Desperate, Moon-jae teams up with a loan shark (Sul Kyung-gu) while a tenacious detective (Lee Kyoo-hyung) works the case, too. It’s the best series on this list and currently ranks No. 5 on Netflix’s global non-English chart.
Start with Mousetrap on Friday and see where the weekend goes
A police procedural, a rural Alberta drama, a scathing tech-world satire, and a chilling Korean identity thriller—that there’s a solid weekend of options. Check out all our streaming content in our streaming section, but if you’d prefer to drill into Netflix on your own, try using Netflix’s secret codes that can help you parse through its massive library.
