The top binge-watch worthy web series of 2020 with women at the centre stage
If you haven’t watched these web series yet, your binging time has been deprived. Use the holidays to catch up on some worthwhile shows with great performances by incredible women on Amazon, Netflix, and Disney+Hotstar.
The pandemic made sure that 2020 was the year of OTT platforms. Amidst new releases almost every week, viewers were really spoilt for choice when it came to variety. Some shows came up with new seasons while others stood out for unbelievably striking stories, plots, and female characters.
We present a list of web series led by women characters that got us binge watching this year.
Four More Shots Please 2, Amazon Prime Video
Four liberated, flashy, bold, and sometimes over-the-top millennial women return in the second series of director Anu Menon and producer Rangita Nandy’s Four More Shots Please. Anjana, Siddhi, Umang, and Damini continue to lead complicated lives while they remain entwined as besties with a miscommunication or two thrown in for good measure. The series takes us all over the place – literally – from Turkey where Siddhi tries to find her calling or a picturesque palace in Udaipur where Umang almost gets hitched to her star girlfriend. In the end, while one finds it a tad difficult to separate reel from reality, the series is over and you realise you have clicked “next episode” automatically and actually enjoyed the watch.
The Queen’s Gambit, Netflix
One of the best series on Netflix this year, The Queen’s Gambit, the miniseries follows the life of chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anna Taylor-Joy), who learns to play the game in the basement of her orphanage from the janitor. When Beth is adopted and moves into a semblance of a home, her chess skills also start receiving recognition. In the process, she gets heavily dependent on drugs and alcohol. An alcoholic mother, new friendships, and varied tournaments put her on the quest to become a champion. The series is like different moves in a chess game – carefully thought out, with a clear winning strategy.
Emily in Paris, Netflix
For those looking for a breezy, light-hearted, and somewhat soppy binge-watch series, the first season of Emily in Paris is perfect. You just have to love Paris, be an incurable romantic, and the stage is set. All you need is the popcorn. Emily in Paris follows the life of Emily (Lily Collins), a twenty-something marketing plus social media executive who moves from Chicago to Paris for a new job opportunity. There she has to navigate sceptical colleagues (in the beginning), new friendships, and love (almost) as she makes Paris her new home.
Virgin River Season 2, Netflix
If you are avid reader of Robyn Carr’s novels, the adaptation of Virgin River is just the series for you. It follows Melinda ‘Mel’ Monroe (Alexandra Breckenridge), a nurse practitioner who moves from big city LA to rural Virgin River to help a surly Doc Mullins. She meets Jack Sherridan, ex-Marine and the local hunk, and a friendship and later love blossoms between the two as they come to terms with their past lives and present confusions. All this alongside a beautiful flowing river, Virgin River’s nosey inhabitants, and some stunning locales.
Unorthodox, Netflix
A German-American drama miniseries based on the Deborah Feldman’s autobiography Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, is a stark insight into the lives of Brooklyn’s Hasidic Jews, their orthodoxy, regressive customs, and how one woman Esty (Shira Haas) sought to run away from the oppression and make her own life in Berlin. The winner of many Emmy Awards, Unorthodox, a story of rebellion and freedom hits all the right chords. A must-watch.
Aarya, Disney+Hotstar
Watch Aarya only for Sushmita Sen, who proves age is just a number and why she didn’t fit so well into the usual Bollywood song-and-dance routines. The former Miss Universe seems destined for greater roles, ones that bring out her passion, emotions, courage and grit, like Aarya. Based on the Dutch series Penoza, Aarya follows the life of her family torn asunder by the death of her husband Tej (Chandruchur Singh), delving deep into the world of drug transactions, betrayals, family loyalties, and fractured ties as Aarya does all she can to protect her children at any cost.
Edited by Teja Lele