Best Amazon Original Series

They’re selling you stuff. They’re flying drones. They’re employing a bunch of hip gentrifiers on the West Coast. They devour competition like school of piranha. Amazon is growing ever more intimidating, and they also happen to make television shows. Good shows. Amazon studio's original shows arewell-made, push boundaries, and captivate our attention. Below, we have compiled our favorite Amazon original shows.

Titus Welliver, Hollywood’s golden child who has figuratively the best name ever, is Harry (you guessed it) Bosch, a salty LAPD detective who shoots a suspect he’s been tailing for grabbing something out of his pocket. The show follows the fallout of that incident. The scene is replayed twice as flashbacks (a little different every time) and asks viewers if it’s ok to shoot at people who might have a gun in their pocket. The jury’s still out on that one. Back in 2014 before this show was a show, it was a pilot. Amazon asked its Prime Video subscribers to watch it and provide feedback. They then developed the show based on those comments. Look, we don’t want to fling poop, and the concept certainly worked wonders with Bosch, but we really hope that this does not become the model for television production. We state this wish with one big caveat: if it brings back Firefly, then everything will be cool and the world will know peace.

Ron Perlman, the only man who could beat Jay Leno at a chin contest, plays Pernell Harris, a crooked judge who suffers a life-changing breakdown and now believes that God wants him to change his ways and moonlight as a vigilante. The show is a real Ronald Reagan Cold War program: it has an ok premise, and the technology developed in the production will one day be used to fight malaria in sub-Saharan Africa (look it up nerds), but the execution is lacking at moments.

No, that is not a working title that just happened to be better than every other suggestion, the show is actually based on a Philip K. Dick alternative history novel in which the bad guys won WWII and the whole world is divided between Japan and Germany. According to Amazon Studios’ VP Roy Price, this pilot was the most-watched in Amazon’s history. Set in 1962, a cast of more or less equally weighted characters played by a cast of lesser-knowns (Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Joel de la Fuente, DJ Qualls (who you might recognize from Breaking Bad or Big Bang Theory)) must negotiate one evil, fascist world. The opening credits features undoubtedly the most terrifying rendition of Rogers’ and Hammerstein’s “Edelweiss” ever played.

Hey, it’s a comedy! Joe Dinicol (of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Karan Soni (of Deadpool) play two dating app developers in an undisclosed city in California in search of investors. The show was not renewed for a second season. Our man Ray Price expressed regret: “Unfortunately you have to make tough decisions… I’d love to figure out something else for Betas.” Keep an eye out for those lunchboxes, superfans, they’ll be available for next day delivery if you sign up for a new Amazon Prime account, or something.

Hey, it’s a comedy that actually works! Garry Trudeau of "Doonesbury" (the comic strip) writes, and John Goodman acts (along with Clark Johnson, Mark Malloy and Mark Consuelos). Together, they make a super watchable comedy about four Republican Senators living in the same Washington D.C. house. Based on the actual house occupied by Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Representative George Miller (D-California (not the righteous filmmaker)), Trudeau took the artistic license of making them all Republicans. Mark Consuelos, by the way, is a former soap opera star married to Kelly Ripa. Yeah, what? If one couple were to save the world from the brink of destruction, it would have to be either those two, Jay-Z and Queen Bey, or Tim McGraw and Faith Hill.

Just like Netflix, Amazon Studios provides a safer venue for audio visual artists to birth their risky brainchildren. The baby of Jason Schwartzman, Roman Coppola (yes, Francis Ford’s kid), and Alex Timbers is named Mozart in the Jungle. Gael Garcia Bernal (Rosewater) and Lola Kirke star, Bernadette Peters and Malcolm McDowell support. Rodrigo becomes the new, creative, enfant terrible, hip conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and this young oboe player who busks in Washington Square Park for a living auditions. I wonder if she’ll make it?! What follows is a toned-down Jason Schwartzman acid trip of a television show.

OMG, a webisode online TV series thing won an Emmy!! Seriously though, Transparent is legitimate. Is that what you wanted, Roy Price? Are you happy now? Jeffrey Tambor, we kneel at your feet. If you haven’t heard, he plays a transitioning man in an already dysfunctional family. The writing/acting is super on point. Funny people like Carry Brownstein and Tig Notaro show up from time to time. If you haven’t jumped on board already, it’s freaking 2016, meaning it’s never too late. Trans culture is the new frontier of what is accepted by the liberal-minded but still shat on by social conservatives. Seriously North Carolina? Don’t you dare tread on me/human identities. Good on you, Amazon, for venturing into previously unknown territory. Angry that the trans lead is played by a straight white guy? Creator Jill Soloway thought of that one. To staff her show, she employs a “transformative action program,” where she favors trans folk over non-transgender others. Appeased?

You’ve heard this one before: tennis player home from his sophomore year at college works at a country club over the summer. Set in the 1980s, the color palate is positively pastel. Jennifer Grey (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and 2010 Dancing with the Stars victor) appears, as does Richard Kind (Mad About You), as does Paul Reiser (uh Diner, helloo). Melissa Maerz of Entertainment Weekly put it best, writing, “It’s sometimes hard to tell if Red Oaks is a clever dissection of old, reactionary sex comedies, or if it’s just a reactionary sex comedy itself. B+.”

Four college buddies (Steve Zahn, Michael Imperioli, Ben Chaplin, and Romany Malco) are traveling in Belize when they witness crazy violence. After 10 episodes, they’re still in Belize. All the humans—critics and viewers alike—loved it. As executive producer Shawn Ryan explains via Twitter: “Mad Dogs was originally intended to be a closed 10 episode limited series. Many critics pointed out that this wasn’t the kind of concept destined for an extended multi-season run, and that’s right. But in order to get Season 1 made, Amazon wanted to know that future seasons might be possible. Chris Cole and I said we thought there could be but we should have that conversation on if and how after the season was over.” Good on ya Ryan, I’m sure our guy Roy was crushed.

Gortimer Gibbons is a kid and he lives in a suburb sprinkled with magic and fantastic stuff. Also, there’s some live-action animation mixed in there. As far as we know, this is Amazon studio's only programming for kids, and it’s sweet. More risqué than your average Disney Channel 22 minutes, yet less insane than Adventure Time, Gortimer Gibbons should be coupled with french fries and pizza. “Much of what’s likeable about the series,” writes Brian Lowry of Variety, ”stems less from the particulars than from its general tone.” You said it Brian. As of the writing of this article, one may sign up for one month of Amazon Prime for free. For those looking to drop off the edge of the earth onto their couch, let these words be the twistings of the Oracle at Delphi: view wisely.