“Lucille” To stay in the United States, Ricardo, a hardworking Latinx immigrant, is forced to marry Lucille, a volatile, racist redhead. Although they live together in a small New York apartment, they sleep in separate beds and lead separate lives. Lucille frequently conspires with her fellow-Karen, a neighbor named Ethel, to thwart Ricardo’s efforts to help other immigrants band together and build a better world.
“Howser” This medical drama is set in a hospital of the future, when the number of adult doctors has been so depleted by pandemics and the broken health-care system that child doctors must fill the void. The hospital’s jaded but seasoned chief physician? Sixteen-year-old Doogie Howser, M.D. “I’m too old for this job,” he growls, as he struggles to save the lives of a pregnant woman and her unborn doctor.
“The Junction” The breakdown of America’s transportation infrastructure is seen through the eyes of three sisters working dead-end, minimum-wage jobs in Hooterville, a depressed rural town. The women and their mother toil long hours at the Shady Rest, a nursing home next to the defunct train station, where the lack of basic facilities necessitates bathing in an old water tank. Though they try to keep their spirits up with listless games of horseshoes, the women are ruthlessly exploited by their fearsome but sluggish patriarch, Uncle Joe.
“How I Never Met Your Mother” Ted Mosby is a single architect looking for a soul mate. Unfortunately, he’s doing this during a global pandemic—an era of Zoom calls, social distancing, terrible dating apps, and drug-resistant herpes. But this doesn’t stop him from trying to find love, with consistently heartbreaking results—all told in flashbacks, as he sits in an empty living room talking to himself.
“Captain Miller” In the face of Black Lives Matter protests, Captain Barnett Miller of the N.Y.P.D. is given the assignment of turning around the precinct with the highest number of excessive-force claims. Can he reform a deeply ingrained culture and the loose cannons that fuel it—like Detective Wojo, who never met a situation he couldn’t escalate?
“Two and a Half Men” The COVID pandemic has wreaked havoc on the life of Alan Harper: his wife succumbed to the virus, and his grown son, Jake, had both legs amputated. To help him care for Jake, Alan reconnects with his estranged brother, Charlie, who wrestles with opioid addiction and a string of angry creditors.
“Huxtable” The sinister ob-gyn at the center of this drama tries to keep a dark secret from his loving family.
“Island” A tale of survival set against the ravages of global warming. Seven day-trippers stranded on an uncharted desert isle combat hurricanes, rising tides, radioactive vegetables, and freak storms. One, known only as the Professor, insists that the disasters are the result of human-induced climate change and urges the group to find higher ground, while anti-science billionaire Thurston Howell III claims that climate events are random, and builds a beachfront mansion out of bamboo. The survivors must choose sides while steering clear of the Captain, a large, rage-filled white man who takes out his guilt over the desperate situation by hitting others with his hat.
“The Nun” A novice assigned to a convent in San Juan becomes aware of a clandestine pedophile ring involving priests. She also learns how to fly.
“Friends?” The haunting title song sums up the mood of this dark drama: So no one told you life was gonna be this way. Whom can you trust when anyone in your pod could be carrying a deadly virus? Follow six poorly socialized friends in New York City as they learn that, when you’re this young and good-looking, vows of isolation are difficult to maintain, and breaking them can be lethal.
“I Dream of Jinn-i” When Major Anthony Nelson returns from the war in Iraq, he discovers that the souvenir incense burner he picked up in Baghdad contains Jinn-i, a supernatural being who manifests as a young Islamic woman. Anthony, who is an evangelical Christian, is torn between his feelings for Jinn-i and the need to hide her from his nosy, xenophobic neighbors—especially Reverend Bellows, who moonlights as an ICE agent and is convinced that Anthony is harboring a demonic spirit.
“The Really Bad Place” In this thriller, Eleanor, Chidi, Jason, and Tahani wake up from comas in what they think is Hell. What isn’t revealed until the end of Season 1 (spoiler alert) is that they haven’t actually died—they’ve just woken up in 2020. ♦
