The Flight Attendant (Season 1): A
Cassie (Kaley Cuoco, Big Bang Theory) spends a wild night in Thailand with a guy she just met, gets blackout drunk, and then wakes up in the morning beside his body - he's been murdered. Fearing wrongful incarceration in a foreign country, she makes the terrible choice of fleeing the scene and hiding her involvement with that man. Her life quickly spirals out of control as she tries to cover her tracks and evade pursuit while also searching for answers.
Cassie is the ultimate hot mess. The more stressed out she gets the more she drinks. The more she drinks, the more she fucks up. The more she fucks up, the worse things get, so basically she is just slamming down vodka every chance she has. But her character has a real growth arc as well; there's a lot of fucked up shit in her past that she's suppressing and eventually comes to light. Add to that some endearing personality traits and we've got an interesting and complex character. In fact all the characters are really well-done and very memorable.
The Flight Attendant is very engaging from the start. With it being common for me to try various shows and then quit once nothing interesting has happened after ten or twenty minutes, it was refreshing to be pulled in by a solid story right away. It's very binge-able as well, with each episode ending on a cliffhanger.
I just finished binge-watching Season 1, thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone. I'll start Season 2 tomorrow! Find it on HBO.
New Rating Metrics
As a side note, let me mention that I have adjusted my rating system. In the past my ratings were based on a blend of objective quality and subjective enjoyment, but I've now decided to weight things more heavily in favor of subjective enjoyment. Here's my new system.
| Grade | Meaning |
|---|---|
| A | Excellent - I thoroughly enjoyed and actively recommend to anyone with similar tastes in entertainment. |
| B | Good - not a must-watch, but fits the bill if you're looking for something entertaining. |
| C | Adequate - take it or leave it. I watched the whole thing and did not regret the time spent, but I won't be urging anyone else to watch. |
| D | Disappointing - frustrating, trite, and/or boring. I maybe didn't finish watching it. |
| F | Eff this - just a train wreck. |
I decided to make a change when I assembled a list of my must-watch Netflix shows and noticed I had a mix of A's and B's. I realized that any show I consider to be must-watch deserves to be a top-shelf A.
While a number of my old B's would get promoted to A's in this new system, some former B's and C's would also get pushed down a level.