Ranking The Best New Shows On Netflix You Can Stream Right Now

For the weekend of June 23, Streamline recommends “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” in the top Netflix spot for the fourth time.

As was the case last week, the show still holds the top spot on the weekly Streamline ranking of all television. The summer doldrums of relatively mediocre shows is upon us. The latest season of “Unbreakable” was fantastic, but something probably should have knocked it off that perch by now.

What’s New This Week

“Marvel’s Luke Cage,” Season 2.

This season is better than the first, with larger stakes that don’t cheapen the down-to-earth realism at this show’s core. And that initial season was pretty good to begin with, so improving on that is definitely impressive and atypical for the Marvel shows.

Luke Cage is a superhero who is basically indestructible. Bullets don’t phase him and his fists can take out small armies. After getting these superpowers and winning various battles, he becomes nationally famous. His home area of Harlem in New York City celebrates him as a hero.

The new season deals with how this fame changes his once-simple life. But because this is a superhero movie, another, even stronger main villain is also introduced for Cage to fight.

The glut of superhero projects is exhausting, but this is definitely one of the better ones.

You can watch the trailer for that series below. And if you want to stay up to date with what to watch on a weekly basis, subscribe to the Streamline newsletter.

Top 5 Netflix News Items From This Week

1. Will Ferrell has signed a deal with Netflix to write and star in a movie called “Eurovision.” This is Ferrell’s first movie with Netflix. It could be an international play, as the Eurovision singing competition is much more popular around the world than in the U.S., while Ferrell’s fame is also global.

2. “Dear White People” is coming back for a third season. I love this show and am happy it gets to continue. A big foreseeable problem is that the actors are quickly aging out of their college student roles. The main cast is made up of people in their late 20s and early 30s. Better start filming soon.

3. The creative teams for Netflix’s “One Day at a Time” and Starz’s “Vida” teamed up to publicly demand an end to the separation of families at the U.S. border. This has been a blood-boiling couple of weeks, and it is nice these two shows tried to use their platforms to raise money.

4. Netflix signed its first overall deal with a European creative team, bringing on the creators of the German show “Dark.” The duo behind that show will make more projects for Netflix in the near future.

5. And romantic comedies seem to be a new focus for Netflix. After the success of “The Kissing Booth” and “Set It Up” (the latter of which I actually really liked), the company announced it’s adding many more rom-coms this year. “More than 80 million accounts have watched a romance film on Netflix in the last year ― that’s nearly 2/3 of Netflix global audience,” a Netflix rep shared in an email.

Random Netflix Tweet

The Netflix Twitter account is one of those try-hard media brands that like to make jokes. Streamline will present one a week without comment.

One Weird Thing

Netflix sent the cast of “Queer Eye” to Yass, Australia, for a bonus episode that’s available on YouTube.

Streamline includes related reading below the show recommendations, as well as a list of other shows and movies joining the service this week.

Note: This list only includes shows that debuted their most recent episode less than a year ago. Much like the main list, it prioritizes newness.

#1. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

The 5-word plot: Woman slowly finds her way.

Pro: This might have the most solid jokes per minute of any show out there right now. As this show comes to a close, it's still as strong as ever.

Con: Episodes are probably slightly too long and often could use some tightening. The humor can be overly zany for long stretches in which it fails to ground itself to make the jokes work.

#2. Marvel's Luke Cage

The 5-word plot: Superhero deals with new fame.

Pro: The show has improved from an already strong Season 1. Focusing on the celebrity aspect of being a superhero and the costs of that is an interesting angle to couple with the visceral joys of watching someone punch through baddies. Luke Cage also meets a worthy opponent this season.

Con: It's a knock mentioned repeatedly, but this is yet another superhero project. And with a fraction of the budget the Marvel movies have, it's questionable whether this is worth your time.

Here's the trailer.

#3. Arrested Development

The 5-word plot: Family struggles to stick together.

Pro: The original iteration of "Arrested Development" is one of the best shows of all time. The new jokes are still strange and unique after all these years.

Con: This is probably the worst season. Characters used to make some sense, but now everyone is a cartoon character. Plus, the whole Jeffrey Tambor controversy hangs over this.

#4. Dear White People

The 5-word plot: College students struggle with racism.

Pro: One of the most accurate portrayals of contemporary young adult life. Also has much to say about the resurgence of vocalized racism in America and does so with nuance.

Con: Directing choices don't always allow the characters to be believable, but this heavy-handedness still kind of helps emphasize important points.

#5. Sense8

The 5-word plot: Linked humans face adversities together.

Pro: The show highlights many philosophical ideas that don't get tackled too often with television. LGTBQ representation is also very strong.

Con: Pretty much everything about the show is extremely ridiculous -- sometimes good comes out of this, but more often it's bad. This is so heavy-handed it often feels like high schoolers are running the show.

#6. Collateral

The 5-word plot: Crime thriller in contemporary London.

Pro: It's a compelling watch that stays fun with a constant sense of humor. At just a few episodes, “Collateral” resembles one long movie.

Con: At times it certainly feels like yet another crime thriller.

#7. Safe

The 5-word plot: Familial violence shocks gated community.

Pro: The pulpy mysteries at the root of the show make this the streaming equivalent of a page-turning beach read.

Con: Everything it does well here is done better by other shows. This is a visceral watch that ultimately isn't that intellectually stimulating and deserves a few eye-rolls along the way.

#8. The Rain

The 5-word plot: Survivors rebuild after deadly virus.

Pro: It has a pretty decent virus-genre storyline, which tends to be a crowd-pleaser. The pace of the plot is extremely quick.

Con: This is pretty melodramatic and the dialogue can be cringeworthy. It's also one of those infuriating tales where characters act like idiots and cause their own trouble.

Things You Didn't Know About Batman

3 Things You Didn't Know About Batman Our idolized caped vigilante has been close to our hearts for many years, and will be for many more to come. Although lacking superpowers in comparison to his allies, the ever growing hero will never lose our support. But do we know as much about the hero as we think? Get ready for 3 things you didn't know about Batman. Batman was an extra While Arkham's Knight is arguably the most loved superhero to date, he was introduced in a less than conventional way. His first debut was in DC Comic's Detective Comics in 1939. To put it into perspective he was introduced in issue #27 of the series. After his character gained traction from being featured in the following issues, Batman was given his own comic in the following year where other notable characters such as Joker and Catwomen were debuted. And while most of his fans don't want to believe that he was initially just a supporting character in one of DC's projects, we ...

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