Miniseries are mostly book adaptations and a few of the nominees are adapted books. We also see a new trend. More and more miniseries are based on true stories. I personally think some of the biggest contenders are to be divided in this subcategory. But nothing is certain, and we have ten very strong nominees in this category. And those nominees are:
American Horror Story
For nine years Ryan Murphy has been reigning over the channel FX with American Horror Story. Every season has a new scary story full of blotched characters and unexpected twists. This year he went back to the eighties, to an era of aerobics, bright colours, summer camps and serial killers. American Horror Story: 1984 is exactly the kind of thing you can expect and nothing is wrong with that.
Read the reviews that written about American Horror Story.
Black Mirror
Last Christmas we were treated to the interactive television film Bandersnatch. A few months later the show returned with a short, but memorable season. We saw how two gamers found love in an unexpected way. We saw Andrew Scott taking hostage of a social media platform. And we saw Miley Cyrus become a virtual pop star. Alas, Charlie Brooker made sure we did not get bored.
Read the reviews that written about Black Mirror.
Catch-22
Satire about World War Two. We do not get to see it that often. Still, Hulu scored a hit with it. In Catch-22 a soldier gets frustrated because of the bureaucracy within the US army and it gets him into some bizarre situations. Catch-22 had some big names like Hugh Laurie and George Clooney and was based on Joseph Heller’s novel from 1961. Still, this series proves that some themes can be timeless.
Chernobyl
It happened a few years before I was born, but one of the biggest disasters from Russian history cannot be unseen by slightly older viewers. Last spring HBO brought a dramatized reconstruction of the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl. It showed in an excellent way how hunger for power can lead to deadly consequences. And how innocents suffer from this in multiple ways.
Les Misérables (2018)
Some stories have been adapted countless times. One of them is Les Misérables, Victor Hugo’s novel from 1862, about a released prisoner trying to get his life back. Still, the BBC miniseries from early 2019 manages to surprise. With Dominic West and David Oyelowo as charming leads this adaptation manages to respect the source material, but also gives a modern-day twist.
Love, Death & Robots
This animation series may be the most bizarre series in this list. Like Black Mirror, Love, Death & Robots tells a new story with new characters every episode. The storylines go in every direction and every episode has its own style. You won’t get bored with this.
Read the reviews written about Love, Death & Robots.
The Terror
In its second season the Terror, subtitled Infamy, shows what real fear means. Where season one took place during a polar expedition, a Japanese-American society during World War Two is the set now. Don’t expect the kind of jump scare horror. Expect the kind of horror that crawls under your skin and drives you mad.
True Detective
Five years ago HBO started to broadcast the ground-breaking True Detective. It was unclear for a long time if a second season would be made; the story had been finished. Eventually True Detective was turned into an anthology series and season two was announced. Was it any good? It wasn't. This disappointment was the reason we had to wait so long for season three. Luckily it was worth the wait and we got a wonderful season led by a very strong performance by Mahershala Ali.
Unbelievable
A serial rapist was active in Denver and Seattle between 2008 and 2011. One of the victims was not believed when she reported the crime and this led to huge frustrations. Two journalists wrote an award winning article about this in 2015 and last year Netflix used it as a basis for the miniseries Unbelievable. Unbelievable questioned the American legal system. The fact that police officers do not take sexual violence seriously leads to more suffering for the victims. And in an effective way Unbelievable shows this.
When They See Us
Like Chernobyl and Unbelievable, When They See Us is based on a true story. And the fact that this really happened makes it very heavy. Five teenagers are falsely accused and sentenced for raping a woman in Central Park, New York. It leads to lawsuits that took decades. It shows the failing of the American juridical system and how racism is still present in society. These poignant themes and fantastic acting can make this miniseries a big contender.
If you do not agree with our nominees, you can always use a wildcard.
