5 Post-Oscar Shows to Binge Right Now (Your Couch Is Waiting)
Oscar season is over. The speeches have been made, the discourse has been discoursed, and you're probably emotionally drained from yelling at your TV. Good news: your couch doesn't judge you, and these five shows are ready to fill that awards-season-shaped hole in your life.
Oscar season is over. The speeches have been made, the discourse has been discoursed, and you're probably emotionally drained from yelling at your TV about Marty Supreme getting shut out. Good news: your couch doesn't judge you, and these five shows are ready to fill that awards-season-shaped hole in your life.
I binged all of these in the past two weeks. Some of them in a single sitting. No regrets. Here's your post-Oscar detox plan.
1. One Piece Season 2 (Netflix)
Episodes: 8 | Binge factor: Extremely high
Look, I know what you're thinking. "Sam, I just sat through three hours of prestige cinema discourse, and you're recommending a live-action anime adaptation?" Yes. Yes I am.
Season 2 of Netflix's One Piece dropped on March 10 and it's the exact kind of wild, colorful, zero-pretension adventure your brain needs after Oscar season. The Straw Hat crew is sailing into the Grand Line now, which means bigger enemies, weirder islands, and enough jaw-dropping set pieces to make you forget that anyone ever argued about whether Sinners deserved Best Picture.
Mackenyu continues to be ridiculously perfect as Zoro, and the production design is somehow even more insane than season one. Eight episodes. One weekend. You won't even check your phone.
2. DTF St. Louis (HBO)
Episodes: 7 | Binge factor: Dangerously high
Jason Bateman and David Harbour as middle-aged dads whose lives implode because of a hookup app. That's the pitch. That's all you need.
Steven Conrad created this dark comedy miniseries and it's the kind of show where every episode ends with you going "wait, WHAT" and immediately hitting play on the next one. The love triangle at the center gets progressively more unhinged until someone ends up dead, and the journey there is equal parts hilarious and horrifying.
Bateman is doing his dry deadpan thing but cranked up to eleven, and Harbour brings this wounded-bear energy that makes you feel sorry for him even when he's being a total disaster. Linda Cardellini ties the whole mess together. Seven episodes, and I promise you'll watch them all in one sitting.
3. Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (Netflix)
Episodes: 6 | Binge factor: You literally cannot stop
The Duffer Brothers produced this and it shows — not because it's Stranger Things, but because it has that same ability to grab you by the throat in episode one and not let go.
Created by Haley Z. Boston, this atmospheric horror miniseries follows a couple in the week before their wedding, and — as the title promises — something very bad is indeed going to happen. It dropped on March 26 (literally yesterday as I write this) and I already binged the whole thing.
Camila Morrone and Adam DiMarco have this chemistry that makes you root for them even as every scene drips with this growing sense of dread. The show doesn't rely on jump scares. It's more like a slow tightening of a knot in your stomach. Six episodes. Perfect for a single evening when you want to feel unsettled and alive.
4. The Madison (Paramount+)
Episodes: 6 | Binge factor: A slow burn that hooks you
Taylor Sheridan just had the biggest debut of his career with this one, and for good reason. Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell lead a drama about a New York family processing grief during a Montana vacation. If you're thinking "oh great, another Yellowstone spinoff" — it's not. It's its own thing.
The first three episodes dropped March 14 and the rest on March 21, so the whole thing is ready for you right now. Pfeiffer delivers what might be her best work in years — there's a scene in episode four that made me pause, stare at the ceiling, and seriously reconsider my own life choices.
Sheridan trades his usual gunfights for quiet devastation here, and it works. Six episodes of beautifully shot Montana landscapes and people trying to figure out how to keep living after the worst has happened. Bring tissues.
5. ted Season 2 (Peacock)
Episodes: 8 | Binge factor: Effortless
Seth MacFarlane's prequel series came back for a second (and final) season on March 5, and it's the comedy palate cleanser you didn't know you needed.
All eight episodes dropped at once, which is perfect because this is the kind of show you put on, laugh a lot, and suddenly it's 2 AM. Season 2 picks up with teenage John and Ted navigating the mid-90s, and MacFarlane's voice work continues to be the funniest thing on television. The nostalgia factor is real, the jokes land more often than they miss, and it doesn't ask anything from you except to sit there and be entertained.
Fair warning: MacFarlane has confirmed there won't be a season 3, so this is your last ride with these guys in this timeline. Make it count.
The Verdict
Total episode count across all five: 35 episodes. That's one very committed weekend or a comfortable week of evening binges. My recommended order: start with Ted to decompress, roll into One Piece for pure fun, let DTF St. Louis mess with your head, recover with The Madison, and end with Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen so you can lie awake questioning everything.
Or just pick whichever one sounds best and go. Your couch is waiting. It doesn't care about your Oscar predictions anymore either.