The 10 best miniseries I watched in 2017

Like so many, I have gradually shifted my movie-watching habits: from theater to cassettte to Blu Ray disc and now to streaming - so much so that we finally dropped Netflix dvd subscription (and added Filmstruck, for access to the Criterion Collection). The greatest thing about streaming of course is the opportunity to watch a miniseries at one's own pace and convenience. As the year ends, we bid adieu to Last Chance U, we welcome the new arrival of The Crown 2, and we wonder: Can House of Cards and Transparent survive without their stars? Can Stranger Things survive as the kids grow older? Will Godless resurrect? That said, here are notes on the 10 best miniseries I watched in 2017:

American Crime 3

As in each season, #3 was not about a single “American Crime” but about several crimes; the plot strands - death and murder in migrant labor camp, runaway teen addicted to Rx, mistreatment of a Haitian nanny - coincide in time and place but have only slight overlaps until the final episode, when all the main characters enter a courtroom where some will confess, others begin a trial. It's as if one were to look at everyone in a courtroom on the same day and ask: What are your stories? What brought such different people to the same place?

The Fall

One of the best police procedurals about a serial killer, this one on the loose in Belfast; in an unusual twist, there’s no mystery (to us) about the killer’s ID. The 3-season series holds our interest throughout with a nice balance of nuance, conflict (between devious killer and shrewd, super-cool though flawed police detective Jillian Anderson), analysis, and action.

Fargo 3

Season 3 of Fargo, a comic romp in the darkest manner that plays out among the seemingly kindly and innocent people of great Midwest, maintains its quirkiness right to the end. The characters, except for the lead, detective Gloria played by the excellent Carrie Coon, are cartoonish versions of, by turns, evil incarnate and bumbling naivete. The plot, though the gears click, is ludicrous - a blood-bath of brutal killings and finance schemes - yet it keeps us involved all the way, alternately laughing and hiding our eyes.

Fauda

This 12-part Israeli series maintains its pace, tension, and moral ambiguity right up to the end - a great ensemble piece with strong writing and plot and character development, good acting by all the leads - Israeli and Palestinian both - good production values, including the haunting score and the use of street locations, and a story line that offers some insight on the complexity of combating terrorism while trying, against the odds, to remain ethically superior to one’s antagonists.

Genius

This NatGeo 10-parter does a great job in examining Einstein’s personality without undue hagiography: We see his intellectual genius of course and we see his thoughts emerging through the early years of disgrace and disappointment (still incredible that he could not get a university job and wrote his breakthrough papers on relativity while he was a clerk in the patent office!), his struggles against anti-Semitism, particularly in Germany but also in the scientific community at large, and mostly his troubled relationships with family, with women, and especially w/ his first wife.

Mindhunter

This fact-based Netflix series about a small team of FBI agents and outside experts who interview some of the most notorious killers in custody picks up in intensity and the stakes are raised as the season progresses. The interviews - in which Agent Holden pushes his subjects to the breaking point - are incredibly intense and highly consequential, as the team gradually learns more about how to use the info they’re compiling in order to try to solve on-going cases - not all of which turn out perfectly, to the great credit of the series.

The Night Of

This terrific 8-part HBO series is about a young man accused of a murder and held throughout his lengthy trial on Riker’s Island, an experience that transforms him into a thug, whether he was guilty of the murder or not (though the 1^st episode depicts the events of “the night of” the killing, there is much ambiguity about what actually occurred). This series seems to be a loosely based on the experience of the wrongly imprisoned Kalief Browder, subject of another mini-series, Time.

Occupied

A smart, taut, and frighteningly realistic Norwegian series, Occupied is about a Russian occupation of Norway and the rise of a resistance force within the country. The characters are complex and multidimensional, the villains are suitably loathsome yet somehow also human and vulnerable, the alliances are ever-shifting and tricky, and the action scenes keep you always on edge

The Vietnam War

Whether you lived through the Vietnam era or not, it’s still powerful and moving to see the many news clips, war photography, plus contemporary interviews with those involved in many facets of the Vietnam War, including several North Vietnamese veterans. Ken Burns has outdone himself; there is nothing in this series of the saccharine tone in his famous Civil War series; this series is much more dynamic, nuanced, and provocative, worth anyone's time - everyone's.

Wanted

The Netflix (via Australia) two-season series Wanted has flown completely under the radar, but we found it completely entertaining and engaging right through the end of Season 2: The two women on the run, initially because they witnessed a botched mob hit involving drugs and a crooked cop, are a great pair, very different, both odd, each smart and brave in her own way. We like them both from the outset, and they’re not superheroes, just wily and courageous and all their decisions seem to work out, at least up to a point.