11 Netflix Originals to keep you away from the July heat
Photo: Free Rein, Season 2. Image courtesy MATT SQUIRE/NETFLIX
Free Rein: Season Three (July 7)
This young adult series follows a teenaged girl from LA who spends a summer in England and forms a mysterious connection with a horse. It sounds pretty cheesy and maybe the most stereotypical tween girl-centric plot ever, but Free Rein is among Netflix’s most popular young adult series on offer. While it seems that Free Rein utilizes all the most predictable tropes of horse related teen dramas, including stock characters and generic life lessons, many reviewers make special note of the one dynamic and unconventional choice made by the series: the black female lead.
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As a Horse Nation reviewer noted, the equestrian world has a diversity problem, so choosing a woman of color for the lead in an equestrian drama is a bold and likely intentional move. This simple choice opens up the world of horses to young girls who perhaps never considered it an option because of their race, which is groundbreaking enough to make Free Rein an important and unique series, despite its otherwise conventional plotting.
Family Reunion (July 10)
This is a new sitcom about a family struggling with the transition from Seattle to their new home in Georgia. The most interesting part of this new series is that it is Netflix’s first African American family sitcom and stars names like Tia Mowry (The Game), Loretta Devine (Boston Legal), Richard Roundtree (Shaft), and Anthony Alabi. The series is a multi-generational comedy, aimed to harken back to the days of the African American sitcoms of the 90s like Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and with the first all-black writing room, a sense of cultural authenticity.
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And while clearly a comedy, Family Reunion doesn’t shy away from pressing racial, political, and social issues as well as the generation gap when it comes to issues of parenting and moral values. While Netflix struggles with sitcoms in general, perhaps this one will finally bring the streaming service success in this genre. It sounds fresh, unique, and authentic while still offering a sense of nostalgia for the seminal shows from which it owes its inspiration.