The first COVID-induced lockdown (2020 does seem like ages ago now) saw us scramble for content on OTT platforms since movie halls were off limits. It’s also the time that many of us discovered the charms of a mini-series – perfect for an all-nighter or a weekend binge that doesn’t disrupt your WFH schedules on a weekday. All this without the anxiety of waiting for a whole year to know what happens next on your favourite multi-season OTT series. And Disney+ Hotstar has been the go-to for the critically acclaimed ones.
In 2020, Chernobyl, which put the world’s worst nuclear disaster in the spotlight, and I Know This Much Is True, where Mark Ruffalo stars in two roles as identical twin brothers, were the most popular mini-series among Indian audiences on Disney+ Hotstar.
Here we have picked three mini-series that wowed critics and were popular with audiences in the second half of 2021:
Mare of Easttown
A masterclass in acting, this is arguably Kate Winslet’s career-best performance and fetched her the second Emmy award of her career. It was one among a whopping 16 nominations for this seven-episode crime drama set in a small town near Philadelphia. Winslet plays Marianne ‘Mare’ Sheehan, a detective investigating a murder while coping with ghosts from her past. She insisted on speaking in a ‘Delco accent’, a version of Philadelphia English and a particularly difficult accent to learn. This well-written drama is masterly suspenseful but it’s difficult to imagine if it would have worked without what Winslet brought to it.
Dopesick
Tom Hanks described Beth Macy’s non-fiction book Dopesick as a “deep and deeply needed look into the troubled soul of America”. Beth Macy collaborated with Danny Strong for the eight-episode show that premiered in late 2021 and won Michael Keaton a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Miniseries this year. This disturbing account takes the viewer into the deep underbelly of America’s opioid crisis with a particular focus on OxyContin that devastated many communities across the US in the late 1990s and 2000s.
Impeachment: American Crime Story
Sarah Paulson’s brilliant portrayal of Linda Tripp reinforced Tripp’s legacy as one of America’s most hated women ever. Tripp was an American civil servant who played a key role in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal when she secretly recorded phone calls about Lewinsky’s relationship with the then president. Impeachment is the third season of the true-crime anthology series which previously focused on the OJ Simpson trial in the first season and the assassination of Gianni Versace in the second). Impeachment, which first premiered in September 2021, covers the events that lead to the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998. This series was originally supposed to hit television ahead of the US Presidential election in 2020 but was delayed due to the pandemic.