Dubai’s weather might be losing its sizzle (halleluja!) but Netflix is turning up the heat with some big releases this month. From returning seasons of gripping dramas to funny new sitcoms to addictively good reality TV you’ll love to hate, we trawled to Netflix UAE’s library so you don’t have to. Imagine having decided on what you’re watching before your dinner gets cold?! You’re welcome. Here are the 10 Best Netflix Shows in Dubai you need to watch this month.
1. Dubai Bling
You know your city has arrived when it has its own reality show on Netflix. A spin-off of the American series Bling Empire, Dubai Bling has got tongues wagging around town because it’s so bad it’s good. This bilingual show follows a group of our city’s jet-setting glitterati as they bicker, scheme and splurge millions on impulse buys of Bulgari jewellery like it’s a bag of chips and are picked up by dates in helicopters. Net worth is no yardstick for pettiness because hey, the rich are people too with emotions, fistfights (coffees are thrown and hair is pulled). Dubai Bling ranks high on the drama metre, is chockful of jaw-dropping views of Dubai, and stunning fashion, sprawling mansions and luxury supercars, offering a glimpse into the lives of influencers, heiresses, socialites, fashion designers, real estate moguls and DJs, some of whom are household names such as radio presenter Kris Fade.
2. The Crown
This 5th season of the Emmy Award-winning drama series that follows the life of the British Royal family will be a bittersweet watch as the titular character around whom the show centred, Queen Elizabeth II, has passed away. The fictional world of The Crown is slowly catching up to real-life counterpart but the longest-serving British monarch is still alive here and portrayed by Imelda Staunton. This 5th and penultimate season delves straight into a troubled era in the lives of the Windsors, with the public sentiment turning against them in 90s with people questioning the monarchy’s relevance and Prince Charles is seen champing at the bit to divorce Princess Diana, which means scandal for Buckingham Palace. While we know how it all plays out, this fictionalised version of history is still a thrill to watch for its tightly-written script and impeccable acting.
3. Blockbuster
It’s been a while since an original ensemble comedy series has trotted out of the Netflix stables and Blockbuster has us excited for multiple reasons. Seasoned sitcom stars Randall Park (Louis Huang in Fresh Off The Boat) and Melissa Fumero (Amy from Brooklyn 99) helm this clever comedy that pits digital vs analog – Timmy Yoon played by park is a movie buff who one day finds out that the Blockbuster Video outlet he’s managing is the last VHS-rental store in America. Timmy and his staff, who’re also his friends, then band together to keep their store running. A generous dose of nostalgia for pre-Netflix life and feel-good hijinks of a workplace comedy make this the light-hearted marathon watch we all could use.
4. Wednesday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q73UhUTs6y0
You’re already blasting Christmas carols on the radio, we know, but it’s time to breakout the Halloween pumpkins for this one last spooky thrill from Tim Burton featuring the most iconic goth character of all times, Wednesday Addams. Jenna Ortega is young Wednesday Addams, pigtailed, gaunt and rebelliously morbid child full of woe in this Netflix adaption. She’s enrolled into Nevermore, an academy for oddballs and weirdos with supernatural capabilities. In typical boarding-school life genre (hey there, Harry Potter) Wednesday finds herself at the centre of mysteries, finding acceptance, hunting down a monster and more. Some stellar casting including Catherina Zeta Jones as the statuesque Morticia Addams, Luis Guzman as Gomez and an appearance by the OG Wednesday Nina Ricci makes this sinister delight we can’t wait to be sucked into.
5. 1899
History and supernatural mystery blend together in this new German multi-language series from the creators of the hit show Dark. This is the premise: an immigrant ship headed to New York encounters mysterious happenings. Immigrants of European origins leave London aboard a steamship for a new life and better future in New York. Before they can get to the other side of the pond that is the Atlantic Ocean, they run into a another emigrant ship drifting out in the ocean. A horrific series of mind-bending events follow.
6. Khakee: The Bihar Chapter
Gritty Indian crime dramas are the norm of the day and this fresh one slices into the seedy underbelly of the Indian state of Bihar. A righteous cop battles corruption, gang wars and a drug lord, his arch nemesis in this action-packed cop drama by director Neeraj Pandey, the same mind that created acclaimed Hindi film ‘A Wednesday’. The show is an adaption of author Amit Lodha’s bestselling novel ‘Bihar Diaries: The True Story of How Bihar’s Most Dangerous Criminal Was Caught’.
7. Manifest
Flight 828 and its band of death-defying passengers have taken off the runway for their fourth and final season. Will we finally know where the Motengo Air flight vanished on that fateful day, reappearing out of thin air 5 years later? The Stone family and the cohort of fellow survivors will resume their hunt for the truth in this mystery drama that caught the imaginations of viewers when the previously NBC series was added to Netflix. This final outing is split into two parts, with part 1 already streaming and part 2 scheduled for a later date. Expect shocking twists and turns characteristic of the show plus the added suspense of a killer hunting down passengers, Cal Stone vanishing and retuning 5 years older and more clues to surviving the “death date”.
8. Dead To Me
This darky comedy’s final season will see Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini reprise their roles of grieving strangers-turned-bffs Jen Harding and Judy Hale. Seasons 1 and 2 saw Jen and Judy’s friendship being tested with lies revealed, murders covered and a hit and run. The friends have survived the accident, reveals the trailer of season 3 but will they survive being outed as the murderers of Judy’s ex-boyfriend and overall toxic man Steve Woods? Not if his twin brother Ben can help it. Trying to stay one step ahead of the police, raising Jen’s two kids and keeping her business floating while having each others backs are at the heart of this comedy about female bonding and friendships.
9. Ancient Apocalypse
What’s stranger than fiction? Facts. Facts about unsolved mysteries, to be precise. Journalist Graham Hancock takes it upon himself to scour the ends of the world hunting for evidence of lost pre-historic civilizations that have been relegated to the label of myths and urban legends. The trailer to the show’s holding it’s cards close without giving away much about except that Hancock’s quest will date as far back as the lost Ice Age. Graham Hancock is known to have published 12 books that outline in detail his theories, which have been criticised as pseudoscientific, about an advanced human society that existed during the Ice Age. This speculative documentary seems to be right up the alley for history buffs, conspiracy theorists, and the rest of us who fall in the intersection of that Venn diagram.
10. Big Bang Theory
Joining the ranks of comfort watches such as The Office, Friends and Seinfled is Chuck Lorre’s brainy comedy that became a cult hit with nerds, jocks and every category of social popularity when it hit the airwaves in 2007. It also gave television one of its most iconic idiosyncratic characters, socially inept genius Sheldon Cooper who has the emotional range of a ruler. All 12 seasons of this comedy show have been added to Netflix UAE, so you can immerse yourself in hilarious misadventures of geeky physicists and roommates Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstader and their pals Raj Koothrapali and Leonard Wolowitz as they bumble through life, love and interactions with their beautiful next door neighbour Penny; their only connection to normalcy. You’ll clock in laughs and pick up on complex Physics concepts simultaneously. Bazinga!