It seems like a million generations ago when Amazon was a modest online book store trying to drive out the brick-and-mortar joints where lonely high school students hung out when there was nothing else to do. Now that creator Jeff Bezos appears bent on taking over the planet, it makes sense for Amazon Prime Video to drive relentlessly to produce original content that can compete with Netflix and premium cable channels.
With a large range of Amazon Prime originals, you’re going to have to make a few decisions on how to spend your precious binge time. As a result of this rating, to make it more manageable, we limited our reach to the English-language Amazon originals.
1. The Man in the High Castle
The Series is based on the works by Philip K. Dick, this original Amazon Prime series took place in the 1960s, albeit in an alternative history where Nazi Germany and Japan won the Second World War and separated power of the US coast. This “what if” series tells the story of a few people in this alternate Earth who find a series of movies that prove the U.S. wins the Second World War.
This series, clearly, continues from Dick’s original novel and depicts protagonists not only discovering that they are on the alternative Universe, but that it may potentially be possible to return to the timeline where the US and its allies won the Second World War. All four seasons are now available for viewing.
2. Goliath
Goliath is an old-school legal thriller by an old-school tv novelist, David E. Kelley (The Profession, Boston Legal), who is still the reigning king of legal drama. It’s a meat-and-potato film, one powered by an engaging plot and convincing, flawed characters lead by Billy McBride (Billy Bob Thornton, who won the Golden Globe for the role).
McBride is an alcoholic has-been a prosecutor who, in classic John Grisham fashion, has a lawsuit against a major tech company to fall into his lap. On the other hand, McBride’s former firm, his ex-wife (Maria Bello), and his former law associate (William Hurt) have become a nemesis.
3. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
One of the most recent original Amazon series may be the best one ever for the Amazon Prime Video program. In the late 1950s, it focuses on a woman in New York who wanted to become a comic book after her husband abandoned her. The show received the Emmy Award in 2018 for Best Comedy Series and its star, Rachel Brosnahan, also won the Best Actress in the Comedy Series that year. It has either won or has been nominated for a variety of other big awards over the last few years.
Even if it’s called a sitcom, The Wonderful Mrs. Maisel has a lot of action, as you would imagine from her producer Amy Sherman-Palladino, who also made Gilmore Girls. It’s also a wonderful look back in time to the late 1950s, when women were only starting to make themselves heard in the workforce. The first three seasons of the show will now be streamed.
4. Undone
It’s unusual to see Rotoscope animation outside of a couple of Richard Linklater film, and Amazon’s Undone is the first episodic TV series to use the unreal and trippy technique. It’s more than a technical achievement, though; the Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg-created series still tells a wildly convincing, amusing, and heart-breaking mystery-box, reality-questioning plot. After a terrible car crash places Alma Winograd-Diaz (Rosa Salazar) in a coma, she wakes up with the power to communicate with her quantum physicist father, Jacob (Bob Odenkirk), who claims he was killed because of his time travel experiments.
Alma’s younger sister Becca (Angelique Cabral), her mother Camila (Constance Marie), and her boyfriend Sam (Siddharth Dhananjay) all believe she’s losing it while secretly playing with bending time and space under her dad’s supervision. Every 20-minute episode is stuffed with an emotional experience that’s exhausting, but Undone is so fantastic that it’s impossible to avoid watching until the very end.
5. Upload
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOQKFUlyCgg
Upload is a show made by Greg Daniels who is known for his works on The Office and Parks and Recreation. It is a show that brings the best parts of rom-com, science-fiction, social commentary, and a murder mystery into a mix knowing full well that the end product would be thought-provoking and funny. The series introduces a not-so-distant future where a scientific revolution has made accessible a number of interactive afterlife possibilities to prolong one ‘s life for centuries — which might sound familiar in the era of Black Mirror — but no afterlife technology is as heart-warming, humorous, and unpredictable as Daniel’s.
Navigating the wired world with Robbie Amell’s Nathan, a tech pioneer who dies suddenly and struggles for his soul, “Angel” Nora (Andy Allo) customer service, is an oddball experience with celestial outcomes.
6. The Boys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06rueu_fh30
One of Amazon Prime Video’s greatest TV series is also an original one. The Boys are essentially trying to address the question, “What if there were superheroes in the real world? “In this series, superheroes will be used as goods and publicity vehicles by big business. Also, most of the superheroes themselves in this series are pretty mean guys. They believe confident they can do whatever they want to get away with it.
The Boys are based on a single superhero community, The Seven, and the activities of a red party of (mostly) regular citizens (The Adults). The Boys know the truth, and they want to tear down those strong beings. It’s a really mature TV show (do not let the kids see it for sure), but if you want to take a more authentic and brutal look at the superheroes, this display is a must on Amazon Prime Video.
7. Fleabag
Here’s another original Amazon Prime series planned to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Phoebe Waller-Bridge writes and stars like “Fleabag,” a young woman who is struggling to find love and companionship in London. She also speaks straight to the camera in a fourth-wall-breaking technique that, for once, is not irritating, but also manages to make her more fun and relatable at the same time. In reality, it’s so hilarious that Emmys won the Best Comedy Series show in 2019, and Waller-Bridge also won Best Comedy Series Writing and Female Acting.
Waller-Bridge has adapted her one-woman play for this show, which also displays in several episodes of this two-season series. The scale of the performance, though, is broad enough that it doesn’t feel like a stage act. Right now, you can catch both Fleabag seasons on Amazon Prime now.
8. Hunters
Hunters is out to get blood. Newcomer David Weil’s series, co-produced by Jordan Peele, is an unbridled film of Nazi-hunting that shocks in more ways than one, from its wit, camp, and Blaxploitation inspiration nodes, to the very violent violence that occurs as a group of underdogs chasing down Nazis lurking in the Americas of the 1970s.
The series drew Al Pacino on TV as Meyer Offerman, a man who sees it as God’s will to mobilize his Nazi Hunters and take his new recruit, 19-year-old Jonah (Logan Lerman), under his wing to help him pursue revenge after a tragedy unfolds in his own life. Though the show might not be what you expect, it has its power — which embodies the disenfranchised — and the feeling of catharsis follows.
