I need your help, Dear Listener. I'm almost finished binging my current TV series and need suggestions for what I should watch next.
D. K. Wall:Before you rush to answer, though, I should clarify a few things.
D. K. Wall:For example, actual bingers, from what I gather, plow through a season or even an entire series in a weekend fueled by takeout and a firm disregard for sleep.
D. K. Wall:Not exactly my pace.
D. K. Wall:I say binge the way some people say they are training for a marathon after one lap around the block.
D. K. Wall:Take my current binge, the TV series, Shameless. No, not the British version set in Manchester. I am referring to The U.S. cast, South Chicago.
D. K. Wall:My followers in the United Kingdom are now grumbling about why I would watch the clearly inferior American remake.
D. K. Wall:The messages from across the pond will arrive polite and devastating in that distinctly British way. Lovely program. Pity you picked the wrong country's version of it.
D. K. Wall:Don't worry. I can handle it. I once argued with an Australian about whether Vegemite was edible or a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
D. K. Wall:I'll let you guess which side of the divide I sat on. We were sitting in a pub in Adelaide, Australia at the time. I was slightly outnumbered.
D. K. Wall:So wisely sought common ground to lower the temperature. I related my recent encounter with a kangaroo, which was decidedly unlike my long held opinion formed from Saturday morning cartoons.
D. K. Wall:Being downwind of the critter, I caught a whiff. Anyone who has ever hung around a farm would recognize it. A kangaroo was, in my expert opinion, little more than a cow that hopped.
D. K. Wall:My newfound friends heartily agreed with my assessment and promptly ordered a round of Aussie beers and some Skippy burgers.
D. K. Wall:Tasty enough, except for the thick slices of beet root where a tomato should reside. But I wasn't interested in creating another divide, so I ate it without further protest.
D. K. Wall:Anyway, the best defense I can muster for my choice of The U.S. shameless is William H. Macy.
D. K. Wall:He's one of those actors you discover in some offbeat role. For me, it was a twitchy, scheming car salesman in Fargo. Once you appreciate him, you spot him in dozens of movies. I mentioned a few months ago that I had rewatched the old Matthew Broderick movie, WarGames. Yep. There was William H. Macy waltzing around NORAD in an Air Force uniform.
D. K. Wall:And then he's alongside Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights or astride a motorcycle in Wild Hogs. The man has apparently made an entire career out of showing up in things that I had already watched without noticing him. Then he became one of those actors that if he was in something, I wanted to watch. Like Shameless, the entire series on Netflix.
D. K. Wall:Not that I started right away. There was first the wee problem that I wasn't a subscriber. Not to Netflix. Not to anything.
D. K. Wall:I didn't even have cable TV. Or a TV. Technically, that's not true. I own a TV. It's in the storage room, unplugged. I'm not sure whether it works or not.
D. K. Wall:I know how this sounds, like I churn my own butter and read by oil lamp. Okay. Fine. I do draft my stories on a pad of paper, but it's with a pencil, not a quill dipped in an inkwell.
D. K. Wall:And the story does find its way onto a computer at some point and then out to the Internet for your enjoyment, so I am not a technophobe.
D. K. Wall:And it's not like I didn't watch TV as a kid. Adam-12. Emergency! The Carol Burnett Show. Gilligan's Island. And, of course, those aforementioned Saturday morning cartoons that formed my opinions of animals Down Under. Over the years, though, I somehow lost interest in television. My evenings became focused on curling up with a good book, writing my own stories, hiking with the dogs, hanging out with family and friends.
D. K. Wall:But a few shows have caught my attention. I was late to Breaking Bad but loved it to the end. I watched The Walking Dead, at least until they killed Glenn and I, pardon the pun, walked away.
D. K. Wall:Then I added Shameless to my list. Promised I would get to it someday.
D. K. Wall:Wasn't in a hurry until I read it was leaving Netflix. I needed to get a move on before it disappeared.
D. K. Wall:So I sat down one evening, flipped open my laptop, subscribed to Netflix, and watched the pilot episode. I laughed so hard I was hooked. I binged Shameless.
D. K. Wall:Which brings us back to how my definition of binge might differ from everyone else's. I didn't start a week ago or a month or even earlier this year.
D. K. Wall:It was October 19, 2025. Three hundred and eleven days ago. How far have I watched? Episode number 88. Of a 134.
D. K. Wall:Yeah. I'm not exactly winning that marathon. I'm more the overweight, out of shape geezer wearing jeans and a pair of loafers, trotting along at the back of the pack, wondering when the first water station will appear.
D. K. Wall:And now the pressure mounts. Shameless is still leaving Netflix on October 11, a mere forty eight days away with 46 episodes to watch.
D. K. Wall:Back to that overused marathon analogy, I've got nine miles left to go, and the race organizers are packing up ready to go home.
D. K. Wall:So the odds are good that I won't see the final episode or probably not the last season or two. Either way, my time with the Gallagher clan is coming to an end.
D. K. Wall:Not with William H. Macy, of course. He's been in more than a dozen roles since he last filmed Shameless. I'm sure I will see one or two of them at some point.
D. K. Wall:So I need your suggestions for what to stream next. Just keep the rules in mind. Since I only watch an hour or so a week, nothing with twelve seasons.
D. K. Wall:Nothing that requires a family tree and a flowchart just to remember who is related to whom. And please, for the love of all that is holy, nothing that is also scheduled to vanish from whatever service I finally get around to subscribing to next.
D. K. Wall:At my current pace, whatever I pick, it will probably be it for the next year. So it had better be good and short. Fire away.