Jessica Jones, Santa Clarita..and Resurrection: Ertugrul!

Note: after coming up with the ideas for which shows I wanted to write about, I completely ran out of time to actually write about them! So I reached out to my friend Feyza Ogutcu for emergency assistance in drafting this. As always, she saved my skin! We hope you enjoy this list of the Top 3 Underrated Shows on Netflix! In the off-chance this post earns something, it'll be divided equally!

Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones is an American superhero series created, produced, and written by Melissa Rosenberg who has worked in very successful projects such as Twilight, Dexter, and the O.C. The production was made by Marvel Television. Created for Netflix, the series is based on the Marvel Comics character Jessica Jones.

Krysten Ritter stars as the main character Jessica Jones with the other characters Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, and Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth.

The series premiered in 2005 but had some break between the seasons. The second season was released after three years and the show was canceled with the third season in 2019.

In the series, Jessica Jones is a woman with rough edges who had to end her brief superheroine career after escaping from Kilgrave who is a mind-controlling villain. With haunted memories of her terrifying experiences, Jessica tries her best to rebuild her life and career as a private investigator. In Hell’s Kitchen agency in New York City, she deals with cases about people with different abilities by using her extraordinary talents.

Jessica Jones has superhuman strength but she is emotionally a wreck. Having PTSD triggered by a series of traumatic past events contributing to her bad state of mind: the sexual abuse of Kilgrave, the car accident that killed her family, and the violence she had while being in a coma after which she gained her superpowers. The audience witness and share her past by flashbacks and some parallel cases she investigates. The past never passes for Jessica and it is a burden that leads her to become a hard-drinker. While she tries to overcome her shattered life, she finds strength from her best friend, her employer, and a charming bartender. But when she starts a case about a missing girl with some hints of mind-control, everything begins to turn into a mess. She concludes it is Kilgrave and she must come out and stop him.

Most of the audience thinks that Jessica Jones is a very unusual kind of superhero story. She is both victim and hero in the series, but a different one. She never wears a cape, or a mask or anything. Also, she doesn’t try to save the city, even Jessica doesn’t regard herself as a hero. As she killed someone, she is not innocent and doesn’t pretend to be. But she still wants to wipe some bad guys out.

The first season of the series received great reviews from critics. The season got a rating of 94% out of 80 reviews, with an average rating of 8.24/10 on Rotten Tomatoes. After the first season, the site’s critical consensus expressed that the show builds a sophisticated drama evolving around an alluring antihero and that the show might be Marvel’s powerful TV franchise. Even though the ratings start to slightly fall after the first season, the other seasons were able to raise interest among the audience as well.

Santa Clarita Diet

Santa Clarita Diet is an American horror-comedy series starring Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. Victor Fresco serves as the showrunner and one of the executive producers on the series alongside Barrymore, Olyphant, Tracy Katsky, Chris Miller, and Ember Truesdell. Nancy Juvonen is also a producer.

In Santa Clarita Diet, Joel (Olyphant) and Sheila (Barrymore) are high school lovers who have turned their love into marriage. They are a real estate agent couple living in the L.A suburb of Santa Clarita with their teenage daughter Abby (Liv Hewson). They are a middle-class family, maintaining their lives in a controlled way; they pay attention to what they eat, drink, wear. It is a family with goals.

One day, when they are showing a house to potential buyers, Sheila throws up a huge amount of vomit and a strange red flesh. After that incident, Sheila begins to change both in her personality and also physically. A neighbor suggests that she may have become a zombie which the family confirms soon. The zombification of Sheila changes their simple lives dramatically. They now have to hide the situation of Sheila who needs human flesh as her new diet without attracting the attention of the neighbors or the authorities, especially their next-door cops. The couple, who suddenly drowned into a mess of murders and lies, are trying to normalize their lives again, but it is doubtful if they can be successful.

After this point, the aim of Sheila Hammond and her husband Joel Hammond in life will be to kill the bad people who deserve to die and thus provide food for Sheila. Most of the audience agrees that, in the Santa Clarita Diet series, the funniest and entertaining scenes of the series are when Sheila is hungry and wants to eat.

The series premiered on February 3, 2017, and lasted for 3 seasons with 10 episodes each. The show was canceled on April 26, 2019.

The first season of the show received generally positive reviews from critics. The season got a rating of 78% out of 73 reviews, with an average rating of 7.17/10 on Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s critical consensus states that the show has an excellent cast, pleasing plot which serves frequent laughs but the amount of gore might not appeal to everyone’s taste. The following two seasons received positive ratings and reviews as well. Although some of the audience find it weird, shocking, and subversive they state that it’s one of the best comedy shows these days which makes you laugh out loud while disgusted at the same time. People who already watched the series and really into it, warn the potential audience: just do not watch it while you're eating.

The involvement of Drew Barrymore into the show clearly excite the audience as she had not been on TV since 1992. Actually, when she received the script of the show, she was considering to completely quit acting to concentrate on her life and family. But she loved the script so much that she couldn’t turn down the role.

The series title "Santa Clarita Diet" is a pun on the notorious fad diet South Beach Diet. The creators intentionally chose the name. The diet of Barrymore in the series consists mainly of human meat. But as Barrymore is vegetarian, the human remains were made out of various food including gummy bears, apples, pasta and moistened cake.

It seems that despite the gross-out humor, Santa Clarita Diet quickly draws you in.

Resurrection: Ertugrul

Have you ever heard the Turkish version of Game of Thrones? It is a Turkish historical epic series called Diriliş: Ertuğrul or Resurrection: Ertugrul. The premiere of the show was first aired on Turkey’s public tv channel TRT 1 on December 10, 2014. The series takes place in the 13th century and it revolves around the life of Ertuğrul Bey of Muslim Oghuz Turks, a famous warrior whose son - Osman I - would eventually found the Ottoman Empire.

The first episode has topped the ratings of TRT, the show became the most-watched show of that day. It also shook social media and some users compared it to the Game of Thrones series of the USA. Lots of people on social media celebrated the show for its great and precise portrayal of the Ottoman history. The hashtag #Diriliş became a trending topic in Twitter short after the first minutes of the first episode.

The thing people were so drawn into the show was not only because of the cool costumes, horses, and the historical atmosphere. The show encouraged patriotism, chivalry, justice, honesty, dignity respect for elders, and lots of cultural aspects of the ancestors which Turkish people are proud of. The creators of the show didn’t know the show would have international success. As soon as the show was broadcast on Netflix, millions of people around the world became a fan. It has become so popular that even the sales of some costumes boomed.

The show, originally created for the Turkish audience had a great impact on the rest of the world in a short time. There are tons of historical series and shows available but Resurrection: Ertugrul showed people manners, goodwill, and strong characters. Another point the audience mentioned that the show has no intimate scenes even when couples show their affection. Completely PG-rated so children of any age may watch the show with or without an adult.

Even though Muslim woman has always been portrayed as facile, weak and obedient in most shows or movies, in this show they have the power and they don’t hesitate to show it. Both men and women have some special talent as warriors, healers, mystics, scholars, and leaders fighting to bring justice. Of course, there are also some plotters as well.

The show is based on the history of Oghuz Turks. The mission of Ertugrul is to find a peaceful and permanent homeland for his tribe: Kayı. During his mission, Kayı tribe has to fight against the Mongols, Crusaders, Byzantines, and also even enemies of his own people.

The show also has some Muslim aspects, showing prayers, Quran, and praising. Also, there are some characters who are famous in Islam like Ibn Arabi. A Sufi and scholar from Andalusia who later becomes Ertugrul’s guide. But these features of the show don’t appeal just to Muslims. Many people around the world appreciate the finding of Sufism-Islamic mysticism and become interested in the ideology.

There are a total of 150 episodes within 5 seasons, with a duration of 2 and a half hours for each episode. It has a high IMDb audience rating of 7.7

The original series lasted 150 chapters. But on Netflix has more than 450 episodes.

The show was followed by Kurulus: Osman (2019) “Founder: Osman" and the sequel series focus on the life of Osman Bey, the son of Ertugrul Gazi and the founder of the Ottoman Empire.

Sincere thanks again to Feyza Ogutcu for drafting this at the last minute; we're in this contest together!