11 binge-worthy Netflix originals to end the year right

Ultraviolet: Season Two – December 19

Ultraviolet is a Polish crime series about a citizen’s initiative of amateur detectives who use their skills to solve crimes that the police cannot. They take a personal interest in cases and work together to bring criminals to justice. A woman joins the initiative when she witnesses a stranger’s death under suspicious circumstances. The police either don’t believe her or are covering something up.

Either way, she becomes obsessed with finding answers and believes she has found her purpose as she works with Ultraviolet to uncover the truth. The police obviously discourage her from pursuing the case on her own, since she has neither the skill nor the authority and may actually be obstructing the investigation without her knowledge. But this is television, and if the cops aren’t corrupt they must be lazy or incompetent, forcing the civilians to take matters into their own hands. It looks gritty, dark, fast-paced, and like lots of fun.

Twice Upon a Time: Season One – December 19

This French-language time travel drama sees a man receive a mysterious package in the mail that gives him the ability to travel to the past and fix his doomed relationship. There isn’t much information about this series or a trailer yet, but it sounds like a pretty interesting premise. The only clue to its style or tone is a graphic found on the Netflix website: a simple diagram of a box with directional arrows and a danger sign.

I like its simplicity and scientific mystery. The series stars Gaspard Ulliel as the heartbroken man in question. He’s a pretty well known French actor who I know best as the young Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal Rising (2007). The series is four episodes long, so despite the lack of information on the show, it’s not a huge time commitment to take a chance and check it out.