I miss the days of binging one show over the course of several months. It’s how I completed shows like The Wire and Friday Night Lights. I must admit that I streamed the shows in college when I had significantly more free time on my hands. Since I write about entertainment for a living, I have less spare time to watch long-running shows that take weeks. Occasionally, I just need a show that I can finish on a Saturday night or Sunday afternoon.
Netflix is one of the best streaming services to finish a miniseries in one sitting. The show I’m most interested in features two terrific actors who play estranged lovers in a murder mystery. Other shows toward the top of this list include an adaptation of a landmark novel and a sports documentary about one of college football’s greatest runs.
5
The Perfect Couple
Murder by the sea
I love shows set in locations I would love to visit. If you set a show in a picturesque seascape with a beautiful house and stunning beach, I’m probably going to give the show the benefit of the doubt. The Perfect Couple is not a dramatic masterpiece, but it’s an entertaining thriller with a notable cast, a stunning location, and an enticing mystery.
Quiz
Which Netflix hit is this quote from?
Trivia challenge
These lines could belong to almost any show — but only one is right.
Sci-FiDramaHorrorActionMystery
Which show contains the line: “The darkness doesn’t scare me. It never did. It’s the light that lies.”
Correct! This brooding line belongs to Wednesday Addams in Wednesday, perfectly capturing her gothic worldview and distrust of cheerfulness. The show leans heavily into Wednesday’s sardonic philosophy, making lines like this feel entirely at home in her deadpan delivery.
Not quite — this line is from Wednesday. While Dark and Stranger Things both deal heavily with darkness and fear, this particular sentiment belongs to Wednesday Addams, whose entire worldview is built on embracing shadow and suspecting the sunny side of life.
Which show contains the line: “We didn’t travel through time to save the world. We traveled through time because someone had to remember it.”
Correct! This reflective line is from Dark, the German sci-fi thriller that made time travel feel less like adventure and more like a haunting responsibility. Dark is known for its philosophical weight, and its characters often speak about time with grief rather than wonder.
Not quite — this one belongs to Dark, Netflix’s mind-bending German series. Stranger Things uses time and alternate dimensions too, but Dark treats time travel as a tragic burden rather than an exciting power, and that distinction shows in lines like this one.
Which show contains the line: “I didn’t come this far to be someone else’s story. I came to write my own.”
Correct! This defiant declaration is pure Monkey D. Luffy energy from One Piece. Netflix’s live-action adaptation kept the spirit of Eiichiro Oda’s original manga alive, and Luffy’s dream of becoming King of the Pirates fuels lines exactly like this one throughout the series.
Not quite — this line is from One Piece. Squid Game is also about survival and self-determination, but its tone is far bleaker. One Piece thrives on bold, adventurous declarations of freedom, which makes this quote a natural fit for Luffy and his crew chasing the Grand Line.
Which show contains the line: “They don’t come from another world. They come from the part of this one we buried.”
Correct! This line is from K-Pop Demon Hunters, where the mythology ties demonic forces directly to suppressed cultural trauma rather than alien dimensions. The show cleverly roots its supernatural horror in the idea that what humanity represses eventually resurfaces in monstrous form.
Not quite — this is from K-Pop Demon Hunters. It’s easy to guess Stranger Things here since the Upside Down has similar vibes, but K-Pop Demon Hunters distinguishes itself by framing its monsters as manifestations of buried history and cultural wounds rather than extradimensional invaders.
Which show contains the line: “The rules were never meant to protect us. They were meant to protect the people who made them.”
Correct! This line cuts to the heart of Squid Game’s central critique of capitalism and systemic inequality. The show’s entire premise is built on the idea that the powerful design games — and societies — in ways that guarantee their own survival at everyone else’s expense.
Not quite — this one is from Squid Game. One Piece also challenges corrupt authority figures like the World Government, but Squid Game delivers this message with raw, contemporary urgency. The show uses its brutal game format as a direct metaphor for economic systems rigged against the vulnerable.
Which show contains the line: “I’ve seen things in that lab that would make you stop believing in coincidence forever.”
Correct! This line belongs to Stranger Things, where Hawkins National Laboratory serves as the epicenter of government experimentation and supernatural horror. The show repeatedly frames the lab as a place where the boundaries of science and ethics were catastrophically crossed, changing everything for the town of Hawkins.
Not quite — this is from Stranger Things. While Dark also features scientific experiments with devastating consequences, the specific reference to ‘that lab’ points directly to Hawkins Lab, the shadowy government facility that accidentally tore open a gate to the Upside Down in season one.
Which show contains the line: “Smiling is the costume everyone wears before they show you who they really are.”
Correct! Classic Wednesday Addams. This line is from Wednesday, and it captures her signature suspicion of warmth and social performance perfectly. The show is full of her sharp, cynical observations about human behavior, delivered with the same flat affect that made the original character iconic.
Not quite — this is from Wednesday. Squid Game might seem like a strong guess since it’s all about masks and hidden motives, but this particular brand of dry, gothic cynicism belongs squarely to Wednesday Addams. Her entire character arc in the show involves learning — reluctantly — that not every smile hides a monster.
Which show contains the line: “Every stage you survive just means they’ve found a better way to kill you next time.”
Correct! This line is from Squid Game, where the escalating lethality of each game is both the show’s dramatic engine and its darkest joke. Contestants quickly learn that surviving one round is never cause for relief — the next challenge is always designed to be more psychologically and physically devastating.
Not quite — this one is from Squid Game. The show’s genius is in how it turns children’s games into elimination rounds with mounting dread. Stranger Things has its own escalating monster threats, but Squid Game makes the manufactured, deliberate cruelty of each new stage a core part of its social commentary.
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Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson) is set to marry Benji Winbury (Billy Howle), who comes from one of the richest families on Nantucket. Benji is the son of Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman), a famous novelist who plans to make this wedding the event of the season. Unfortunately, a dead body is found in the harbor, bringing the wedding to a halt as everyone involved becomes a suspect. The Perfect Couple has the murder mystery energy of Knives Out combined with the melodrama of a soap opera. That style of show plays well when the goal is to watch in one sitting. Here’s to the twists and turns that are as amusing as they are ridiculous.
There are six episodes of The Perfect Couple, with run times ranging from 42 and 63 minutes.
4
Missing You
Another Harlan Coben mystery
If you’ve used dating apps, you may have come across your ex’s profile. That same scenario happens in Missing You, but with a serious twist. Detective Kat Donovan (Rosalind Eleazar) believes she has met the love of her life in Josh (Ashley Walters). The two are set to marry until one day Josh disappears without a trace. There’s ghosting, and then there’s what Josh did. What’s even stranger is that, 11 years later, Kat finds Josh on a dating app.
Since this is a Harlan Coben series, there is a mystery at play — Kat pieces together clues about her father’s murder. I feel like Coben owns Netflix’s limited series section at this point. The prolific author has done over 10 shows with the streamer, and more are on the way. He knows how to attract an audience with his enticing storylines. His shows are like catnip for fans of thrillers. Missing You is no different.
Missing You has five episodes that run between 41 and 46 minutes.
3
Untold: Swamp Kings
Gator Nation’s most prolific run
For many college football fans, myself included, you will instantly recognize this name: Urban Meyer. After an undefeated season at Utah, Meyer became the head coach of the Florida Gators. Once he arrived in Gainesville, Meyer immediately turned the team around. In his second season, Meyer and the Gators won the national championship. In 2008, Meyer led the Gators to another national championship.
Untold: Swamp Kings takes fans behind the scenes of Meyer’s turnaround through the eyes of his players, including Tim Tebow, Major Wright, Brandon Spikes, and Brandon Siler. However, the player that will garner your full and undivided attention is Aaron Hernandez. Frankly, this documentary needed to focus more on Hernandez’s story, which later ended in tragedy. Still, it’s a must-watch for college football diehards.
Untold: Swamp Kings contains four episodes, with run times from 45 to 48 minutes.
2
Lord of the Flies
I have the conch!
When I read Lord of the Flies in middle school, I didn’t appreciate its influence on movies and television. Yellowjackets, Lost, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Survivor can trace their roots to the novel. Most of the book-to-screen adaptations of Lord of the Flies are mediocre. That all changes with Netflix’s Lord of the Flies from Adolescence creator Jack Thorne.
For those unfamiliar with the story, a plane crashes in the Pacific Ocean in the 1950s. The only survivors are a group of young boys who seek shelter on a deserted island. The boys are forced to govern themselves, which eventually leads to a schism that drives some of the boys toward violence and chaos. Thorne has an eye for young talent because the child actors are fantastic. In particular, Lox Pratt, who plays Jack, has a bright career ahead of him as Draco Malfoy in HBO’s Harry Potter.
Lord of the Flies consists of four episodes that range from 59 to 61 minutes.
1
His & Hers
Jon Bernthal & Tessa Thompson investigate a murder
What a year it’s been for Jon Bernthal. This month alone, Bernthal starred in a surprise-release episode of The Bear and the Marvel special TV presentation, The Punisher: One Last Kill. Earlier this year, Bernthal teamed with Tessa Thompson in the addictive miniseries His & Hers, based on Alice Feeney’s 2020 novel of the same name.
Anna Andrews (Thompson) is a former news reporter turned recluse following a devastating tragedy. Her estranged husband, Jack Harper (Bernthal), is a detective assigned to a troubling murder case. Anna’s decision to return to the field and cover the murder interferes with Jack’s investigation, creating tension between the estranged couple. I find that murder mysteries are great for one-sitting binges — solving the case is motivation to keep watching. It also helps to have two magnetic screen presences in Bernthal and Thompson.
His & Hers consists of six episodes that range from 39 to 47 minutes.
More Netflix shows to stream
The great thing about Netflix is you’ll seemingly never run out of shows to watch. This May, Netflix has several new shows, including Nemesis and Legends, that should be added to your watchlists. This weekend, try watching the returns of Perfect Match and Devil May Cry.
- Subscription with ads
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Yes, $8/month
- Simultaneous streams
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Two or four
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
