I’m going to date myself, but remember when you scheduled your free time around TV? You and your family would rush home to catch your favorite shows, such as Roseanne or America’s Funniest Videos? Remember the disappointment you felt when you missed that week’s show? Kids today will never understand the pain of waiting for re-runs.
Thanks to DVR and Netflix, no one has to wait anymore. These inventions made TV schedule around YOU. Now you have time to check out all the behind-the-scenes facts and extras for each of your binge-worthy shows along with the newest episodes.
If you haven’t checked out those special features yet, though, here are 10 facts about today’s hottest Netflix shows to pique your interest.
10. Stranger Things
Photo Credit: Harpers Bazaar
Millie Bobby Brown initially didn’t want to cut her hair short for the show. The creators ended up inspiring her with pictures of Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road – which was a great call cause Theron looked totally badass.
9. Black Mirror
Photo Credit: Cosmopolitan
In case you don’t know, Black Mirror is an anthology series, like Room 104 or The Twilight Zone.
In the infamous first episode, an English politician is blackmailed into…ahem…making love to a pig. Apparently, writers had a hell of a time determining which unforgettable sex act the politician would commit. Show creator Charlie Brooker explained, “We went all around the farmyard. At one point, we were thinking of a giant wheel of cheese.”
Horrifying.
8. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Photo Credit: Elle
The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a darker version of the 1990s hit series Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
The show knew that they needed to get the tone right, or they could face a backlash for the way religion is treated, so, for authenticity, real pagans work on the show’s production staff.
Said production designer Lisa Soper, a pagan, “None of this is made to offend. This is the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, who doesn’t exist, in the town of Greendale, which doesn’t exist. Myself as a pagan, I think it’s funny, I think it’s great.”
7. The Haunting of Hill House
Photo Credit: This Is Insider
The show was shot like a movie. Instead of episode to episode, the cast and crew pushed through filming at least 3 episodes at a time.
“We shot it like we were doing a 10-hour movie,” explained Flanagan, the show’s director. “We cross-boarded it like a movie. We would do blocks of three episodes at a time, all cross-boarded around each other. So, it felt like we were making five movies, back-to-back. It was exhausting.”
6. GLOW
Photo Credit: The Things
The Netflix hit GLOW is based on a behind the scenes imagining of the TV cult classic, The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
Alison Brie, the lead (and also one of the best characters on the show), was not originally asked to audition. They didn’t feel she “had the chops” to pull off any of the roles. But Brie’s persistence paid off, and her multiple audition requests ended up scoring her the starring role.
5. Ozark
Photo Credit: Mentalfloss
How do you make a show about laundering money if you haven’t committed the crime yourself? This was the question the creators of Ozark needed to answer. So they brought in the pros: The FBI
“We had an FBI agent who investigates money laundering come and sit down with us for a day so we could pick her brain,” writer Chris Mundy said. That’s some solid due diligence, right there.
4. BoJack Horseman
Photo Credit: This is Insider
BoJack Horseman is an animated satire about a horse making it as a Hollywood actor (and also so, SO much more). Show creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg told Rolling Stone that he had drew inspiration from past animated masterworks, including The Simpsons, Daria, Archer, Animaniacs, and Pixar.
“[The Simpsons] is such a titan of the format,” said Bob-Waksberg of his primary inspiration. “It’s so influential in so many ways. One of the best compliments I ever got on BoJack was, ‘That whole season felt like a long, sad episode of The Simpsons.'”
3. House of Cards
Photo Credit: Ranker
Now that the show that started it all is going into its last and final season, it’s interesting to know that there was a chance it might never have been made. Ironically, the show only got off the ground because they managed to snag their lead actor. “Kevin was our ONLY choice,” said Beau Williman, the show’s creator. “And if [he] said no, we might not have done the show. There can only be one Underwood and it’s Kevin!”
I wonder if he feels the same way now…
2. Orange is the New Black
Photo Credit: Tickld
Laverne Cox, the trans actress made famous by the show, looks a lot like her twin brother – so much so that creators brought him in to portray Cox’s character in a series of flashbacks from before she started transitioning.
1. Santa Clarita Diet
Photo Credit: The Verge
This show follows the travails of a suburban California family, the matriarch of which is accidentally zombified – which means she can only eat human remains to stay fed. However, in some truly twisted irony, Drew Barrymore (who plays the zombie-mother) is a vegetarian.
Now, go get your binge on!
