PRIDE MONTH: THE ULTIMATE WATCHLIST
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Showmax curates the ultimate Pride Month watchlist, with something for everyone. We’re all different, and we all have different tastes. That’s the whole premise of streaming; that no two people’s home pages look alike. So to celebrate Pride Month in South Africa, Showmax has compiled the ultimate LGBTQIA+ watchlist, with something for everyone.
BEST HORROR: CHUCKY S1-3
Yes, it’s about a serial killer-possessed doll who makes horrible puns and murders people. Still, Don Mancini’s Chucky series has one of the most multi-faceted portrayals of queer identity and exploration of the world on TV.
It starts when Jake Wheeler (Zackary Arthur), a 14-year-old gay boy and doll collector, finds Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif), who returns the “favour” of being rescued from the yardsale trash pile by targeting Jake’s bullies, including his abusive alcoholic father (Devon Sawa). As well as giving us a queer revenge story that turns to horror, Chucky delivers a voyage of discovery between Jake and his crush-turned-friend and more, Devon Evans (Bjorgvin Arnarson).
Chucky and his lover-turned-enemy Tiffany’s (voiced and embodied in the series by Jennifer Tilly) genderfluid child Glen/Glenda have been exploring their identity throughout the series – with both mom and dad’s blessing and support.
Chucky is headed for the White House in Season 3 as he cosies to America’s First Family. Season 3 has a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Collider saying, “This killer doll series is only getting better… There is no horror series out there quite like Chucky… It is all killer with almost no filler… Its cast is impeccable, the kills wonderfully unhinged, and the humour remains as sharp as ever.”
Chucky S1-2 is available to binge now, with S3 arriving on 23 October.
BEST POST-APOCALYPTIC SHOW: THE LAST OF US S1
A horror series about the end of the world is also one that clings to love and hope in all forms. Joel (Pedro Pascal) the smuggler escorts 14-year-old Ellie (non-binary performer Bella Ramsey) across an apocalyptic version of the United States. Society has collapsed thanks to a fungal outbreak that turns its human hosts into zombies. Episode 7 centres on Ellie’s backstory, including her playful love for her best friend Riley (Storm Reid) and their first kiss.
Series fans have also fallen in love with gay couple Bill (Nick Offerman), a grumpy doomsday prepper, and Frank (Murray Barlett), an outgoing survivalist in episode 3, who get a far kinder and more moving story than they did in the game on which the series is based. In flashbacks, we see Bill and Fred thriving together despite the world going to hell.
The Last of Us has raked in 24 Emmy nominations this year – behind only Succession S4. Pascal and Ramsey both received their first-ever Emmy nominations, with Melanie Lynskey nominated as Guest Actress for The Last of Us as Kathleen, as well as Lead Actress for Yellowjackets as Shauna. The hit PlayStation adaptation also earned Guest cast nominations for Bartlett, Offerman and Reid, not to mention Anna Torv as Tess and Lamar Johnson and Keivonn Montreal Woodard as Henry and Sam Burrell.
BEST COMEDY ABOUT COMEDIANS: HACKS S1-2
Hacks follows the sparky interplay between bisexual trainwreck and Gen Z comedy writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder), her “boss” – demanding ageing comedienne Deborah (Jean Smart) – and Deborah’s retinue, including her manager Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins) and PA Damien (Mark Indelicato).
Hacks’ creators have stated that they wanted to reflect the full spectrum of gender and sexual identities and cultures that they worked with in LA but more than that, they wanted to show the world as they wanted it to be: filled with queer people just living their lives.
Hacks has a 100% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where Season 2 was the fifth best-reviewed show of 2022. IndieWire praised Hacks as “a series of endless wonders”; AV Club wrote that the new season is “pitch-perfect” starring “a never-better Jean Smart”; and The Wrap adds, that it “remains one of the most consummately funny shows on TV.”
BEST MEDICAL DRAMA: THIS IS GOING TO HURT
Winner of four BAFTAs, This Is Going To Hurt follows a junior doctor in an obstetrics ward in the UK’s overburdened and collapsing public health system during 2006. Adam Kay adapted his own tragic-comic memoir of the same name, winning the Writing: Drama BAFTA in the process.
Adam (Ben Whishaw in a BAFTA-winning role) spends most of the series at the end of his rope from exhaustion as he tries to train another junior doctor, Shruti (Ambika Mod), and to be present in his relationship with his supportive boyfriend, Harry (Rory Fleck Byrne), but there’s just not enough of him to go round and everything is starting to buckle.
The series shows Adam clinging to survival by his wits as his parents urge him to marry a nice girl and go into private medicine, and he’s battling with just not fitting in with the posh, straight friends he grew up with, or Harry’s hard-partying queer friend group. The struggle is real.
This Is Going To Hurt has a 95% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Time hailing it as “the best medical drama in years”.
BEST PERIOD DRAMA: GENTLEMAN JACK S1-2
This BAFTA-nominated historical romantic drama is based on the coded diaries of real-life Victorian-era landowner, lesbian and industrialist Anne Lister (Suranne Jones in a BAFTA-nominated performance), and explores her courtship and relationship with Ann Walker (Sophie Rundle).
Gentleman Jack’s treatment of their relationship covers everything from discreet and guarded flirtation in public to non-exploitative, sensitive and tender sex scenes that build off the couple’s relationship without ducking entirely behind steamy metaphors. At the start of the series, Anne is a woman who adopts male-leaning versions of feminine dress for the time (hence Gentleman Jack), while Ann favours the full-blown floral femininity of Victorian dress, and it’s interesting to see how they influence one another’s style choices across the series.
Directed by BAFTA winner Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Last Tango In Halifax), Gentleman Jack has an 8.2/10 rating on IMDb and a 92% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus is, “Suranne Jones’ boundless charisma brings the indomitable Anne Lister to vivid life in Gentleman Jack, a gently revelatory series that mines terrific humour from the icon’s unapologetic forward-thinkingness.”
BEST SEX ED: SEX IN AFRIKAANS
South Africa’s Afrikaans community is often seen as deeply conservative but this docu-reality series blows the lid off that potjie.
As clinical psychologist Bradley R Daniels leads a panel of 10 Afrikaans people in opening up about what they do when the neighbours aren’t looking, and what they’re curious about, we see the true range of how Afrikaans people pursue pleasure.
The panellists also comment on on-screen interviews with sex workers who reveal what their clients ask for, owners of adult entertainment shops, and a host of people who enjoy alternative expressions of sexuality.
Sex in Afrikaans won the 2023 SAFTA for Best Structured or Docu-Reality Show.
Special mentions: Sex and Pleasure and Planet Sex with Cara Delevingne
BEST LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL MOVIES
If you’re looking for something shorter, Showmax also has multi-award-winning African films like the GLAAD winner Rafiki and nominee Kanarie; the BAFTA-nominated Moffie; the Oscar-shortlisted Inxeba | The Wound, and the Showmax favourite Umakoti Wethu, not to mention five of Rotten Tomatoes’ Best Queer Movies Of All Time: Booksmart, Parallel Mothers, Call Me By Your Name, The Fallout and Swan Song. Also, look out for the AFI Docs Audience Award winner Transhood.
PS: ACE representation can be hard to come by but Conleth Hill who plays Varys in Game Of Thrones has confirmed that his character is asexual, as is Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons) in Watchmen S1.
