I wrote recently about how I was thinking of cancelling one of my three streaming service subscriptions of Netflix, Disney Plus and Amazon Prime Video to save some money, as the cost of living crisis is squeezing my monthly budget like never before.
After some analysis I deduced that if I was to cancel one of those services it would be Amazon Prime Video, which for me was determined the weakest. However, if I am going to go ahead and cancel, then I'm going to make sure that I go out in a blaze of streaming glory.
Streaming glory for me means watching the best shows on the service and, for anyone else in my position, right here I list 3 of the very best TV shows that I think you owe it to yourself to watch before cancelling your Prime Video subscription.
Picard
There's genuine magic for a person like me who grew up watching Star Trek The Next Generation to see Captain Picard return to screen once more. Patrick Stewart is the best Star Trek captain (Kirk isn't even close!) and The Next Generation TV series and the Picard movies that followed it are Trek at its very best for me.
So when Picard came back in 2020 and then, for March 2022, returned again with its second season, I was so, so excited. The entire first season of Picard is available to stream now and new episodes in season two are streaming every Friday through March and beyond, so now really is a great time to jump into the show if you haven't already.
What's so good about Picard is that it has a largely different pace and tone than basically all previous Star Trek content, and is also super friendly to total newcomers, making it easy and interesting to watch. The entire first season is available to stream right now and, as aforementioned, the second season is dropping right now in March every Friday.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
If like me you spent a great deal of time getting thoroughly hooked on classic comedy-drama TV show Gilmore Girls, then you're going to love its writer's latest show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which is streaming right now on Amazon Prime Video.
The setting is late 50s Upper West Side Manhattan and the protagonist is Miriam "Midge" Maisel, a young upper-class Jewish housewife who discovers she's got a natural talent for stand-up comedy and proceeds to try to get into the industry. This is all set against a backdrop of her home life and a culture that doesn't accept women as stand-ups or indeed free to do many things in society.
It's mostly a life-and-times piece based around Maisel's family and friends, with the business and craft of standup at the time taking a secondary role, but it's very entertaining with some great characters and writing from Amy Sherman-Palladino. Three full seasons are available to stream right now with a fourth literally dropping weekly right now in March 2022.
The Boys
Seriously, you simply can't cancel Amazon Prime Video until you've watched The Boys, which is one of the most exciting and entertaining shows I've watched on the service to date.
The pitch is that, wait for it, imagine super heroes were real and that they actually weren't the good guys, with them using their incredible powers for selfish, corporate or nefarious purposes instead of getting cats out of trees.
Tonally this is very much inspired by the Watchmen series but is, if anything, weirder and a lot funnier. The cast is great, too, led by a anti-hero protagonist Karl Urban as well as Erin Moriarty and Jack Quaid. The real star performance, though, has to go to chief super hero baddie Homelander, as played by Antony Starr.
It's super bloody and violent, people swear left, right and center, and there's buckets of parody and social commentary, too. Basically, it's brilliant. Be sure to watch it before cancelling Prime Video or you'll regret it. Seasons one and two are available to stream right now, with a third coming down the line.
Bonus show to watch: The Legend of Vox Machina
Here we have a bonus show that I feel a lot of subscribers will enjoy, and especially if they're fans of D&D.
The Legend of Vox Machina is an animated TV series from the Critical Role D&D guys, with the show telling the adventures (and mis-adventures!) of a bunch of misfits turned mercenaries for hire, who really care more about getting paid and getting drunk than protecting the world.
Naturally, the world and its baddies have other ideas, with a 12-part series drawing Vox Machina into an epic quest. The show's funny, has strong action sequences and some good old fashioned zaniness. While maybe not a natural twenty, this show is a high roll.
