Gem's Blog

FAVOURITE NETFLIX TV SHOWS RANKED AND RATED… Part 1…

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I don’t know about you but Netflix has certainly been a salvation for me during the 2020 Quarantine Lockdown due to COVID-19. So, for this blog post I am going to countdown my top 20 show to watch on Netflix. Because there is 20, I have split it into 2 lots of 10. Number 1 being my most favourite and then working down to number 20 being my least favourite. I have then also ranked the show out of a total of 5 stars to show which are the best. Just because a show is near the top of the list doesn’t mean it’s a 5 star show (I know, everyone’s a critique right?) I let you know when the show ran from, how many seasons there were and how many episodes. Then I state an iconic quote from the TV show, give a quick blurb on it’s story and then talk a little about what’s good/bad about it and whether I recommend it. Then, finish with my favourite character and the best season.

So, here we go…

1. TEEN WOLF ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2011 – 2017. 6 Seasons. 100 episodes. “Be your own anchor”…

When an animal bite turns high schooler Scott McCall into a werewolf, he and his best friend Stiles soon face a new set of problems in their home town of Beacon Hills as secrets of supernatural nature are revealed…

Teen Wolf is probably one of, if not, my favourite TV show EVER! Whilst dealing with problems of high school, friendships and relationships, it also mixes in elements of mystery and drama with twists and turns that no viewers could have ever foreseen. This was the first ever show I watched through streaming in high school, and watching it for 6 years, growing up with the characters I felt I could relate to the problems they were facing. Minus evil alpha werewolves showing up to kill everyone, of course.

Whilst I would definitely recommend this show to anyone, a few of the later seasons get a bit lost and confusing, therefore, the 4 star rating.

Best Character- Stiles Stilinski. Best Season- Season 3.

2. THE VAMPIRE DIARIES ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2009 – 2017. 8 Seasons. 171 episodes. “Hello, Brother”…

When teen girl Elena Gilbert’s parents die in a car accident, her world spins even more out of control when a vampire called Stefan Salvatore shows up in her town of Mystic Falls. Whilst Stefan is seemingly good he holds dark secrets that will soon be revealed when his ‘bad boy’ brother Damon shows up…

Now, I was really late to the party when it comes to Vampire Diaries and only started watching it in 2017 after the finale episode ended. Considering I was such a big TwiHard fan back in 2008, I should have started this show years ago. I knew after the first episode that this show would fill a void that had been missing since Twilight.

I definitely recommend TVD for fans of the supernatural style and I rated it 5 stars as it has deep dynamic characters who really are put through the mill throughout the 8 seasons of the show, whilst keeping story lines interesting. The only thing is that no one ever stays dead in Mystic Falls or at least not for long…

Best Character- Caroline Forbes. Best Season- Season 3.

3. THE ORIGINALS ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2013 – 2018. 5 Seasons. 92 episodes. “Always and Forever”…

Set in New Orleans, Klaus Mikaelson is a 1,000 year old vampire/werewolf hybrid and along with his Mikaelson siblings they make up The Originals, the first ever vampires. But when an unexpected pregnancy is revealed, The Originals are confronted with their enemies, their history and themselves but will do whatever it takes to keep their family safe…

Halfway through Vampire Diaries, they created a spin-off show of The Originals from Klaus being the biggest villain of TVD in season 2 and 3. The story of the Originals was so interesting that they weren’t getting the time and growth in TVD due to already having a lot of main characters, so making a spin off show made sense. And it paid off because the show got 5 seasons. Some fans have even said that The Originals is better than TVD.

The show handles with more grown up themes, due to none of the characters being in high school and it portrays the values of family love, support and trust better than TVD did, but if you are fans of Vampire Diaries, then it is a definite must watch. You also don’t have to have seen Vampire Diaries to understand what’s going on in the show. If you loved both then you should also definitely check out Legacies, a spin off of the spin off.

Best Character- Klaus Mikaelson. Best Season- Season 4.

4. SHADOWHUNTERS ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2016 – 2019. 3 Seasons. 55 episodes. “All the stories are true”…

On Clary Fray’s 18th birthday, her world turns upside down when she learns that she is a Shadowhunter; a race of demon hunting warriors who are half human, half angel blooded. Based in New York, Clary learns that the Shadow World has been hidden amongst the human world her whole life, but only now will secrets of her past and who she is, come to light…

Keeping on the vampire and werewolf theme, Shadowhunters is yet another amazing supernatural show with interesting characters and storylines. This may be the only show that I started watching from when the first episode came out and introduced me to one of my favourite ships- Malec. Despite being similar to previous shows of the same nature, Shadowhunters also took on interesting and realistic portrayals of sexuality that gained them many awards.

However, in 2018, the show was announced cancelled due to financial disagreements between Netflix and Freeform and therefore only has 3 seasons and 2 finale episodes. It ended way before it should have done and had so much more to explore based off of Cassandra Clare’s books. Nevertheless, the cast and crew still delivered an excellent finale and despite being shorter than other shows, still completely satisfying.

Best Character- Magnus Bane. Best Season- Season 2.

5. JANE THE VIRGIN ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2014 – 2019. 5 Seasons. 100 episodes. “Be Brave”…

Set in Miami, Florida, Jane’s life falls to pieces when she is accidentally inseminated by Rafael’s sperm and gets pregnant. The only problem? She’s engaged to someone else and she has never had sex…

The show is set up as an Americanised version of a Latin telenovela with twists and turns and so many unexpected events, you will have to keep watching until there is no episodes left to watch. I have binged the whole thing recently from start to end during the Coronavirus Lockdown and I cannot recommend this show highly enough. It deals with so many important issues as well as keeping audiences entertained, informed (can thank the narrator of the show for this), imagining and fantasising. It’s an amazing show that combines different genres of TV together with elements of magical realism, humour and drama and rolls it all into one. 10/10. I don’t know what I would have done during Lockdown without it.

Best Character- Rogelio De La Vega. Best Season- Season 1/2.

6. FRIENDS ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1994 – 2004. 10 Seasons. 235 episodes. “See? He’s her lobster…”

Set in New York, Friends is a classic sitcom that follows 6 single friends as they comically deal with jobs, love, relationships and other dilemmas of life…

Moving on to a few of Netflix’s sitcom shows, Friends was added to the streaming platform in 2017. I can honestly say that I had never seen an episode of Friends until it came out on Netflix. My friends had all grew up watching it on TV, but I didn’t want to watch random episodes on TV, I like to watch TV shows from start to end in order, the great thing about streaming platforms. When it was added to Netflix I was able to watch every episode in order. It took me 3 months to finish it, but can honestly say that the first time you watch Friends I found myself laughing my head off with every episode.

However, I couldn’t give Friends 5 stars as it hasn’t exactly aged that well when it comes to some jokes on the show being offensive to certain groups of people especially jokes on gender being sexist and homophobic. Although, the fact that every time I watch Friends I acknowledge that these jokes are inappropriate or cringe in today’s society, I think it’s good to show the social change from when Friends ended 16 years ago.

Best Character- Chandler Bing. Best Season- Season 3/4.

7. BROOKLYN NINE-NINE ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2013 – … 7 Seasons … 144 episodes. “NINE NINE!”…

Set in the 99th precinct of the NYPD in Brooklyn, Jake Peralta and his lovable colleague friends are a detective squad solving crimes and having fun doing it…

B99 is the first show on this list that is currently still airing, already renewed for an 8th season. I binged the first 5 seasons pretty quickly 2 years ago and would definitely recommend this show to fans of easy viewing sitcoms. Definitely a 5 star rating as unlike other sitcoms, it’s funny without being mean or offensive through jokes or stereotyping showing that comedy isn’t dead, with 7 seasons and counting.

Best Character- Jake Peralta. Best Season- ANY.

8. MODERN FAMILY ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2009 – 2020. 11 Seasons. 250 episodes. “Family is family.”…

Set up in a ‘documentary’ style in California, Modern Family follows three different families who are all related. They face the trials of life, love and family in uniquely comedic ways with one nuclear family, one step family and a gay couple with an adopted child. The show follows them through 11 years to see how they stay ‘one big happy family’…

Modern Family being added to Netflix is one of the best things that could have happened during Lockdown, along with Outer Banks and Disney plus. I used to watch this show years ago with my own family as it was one of the only things we could agree on to watch. It’s an amazing show, that is set up differently to regular comedy shows such as sitcoms. Through the documentary style you get the characters sitting down facing the camera and explaining what’s going on in each episode. I really do recommend Modern Family as a light hearted, feel-good, family comedy show that has been slightly underrated in the UK, due to only being available on Sky-One and Sky-Atlantic. But with Netflix now taking ownership hopefully it will reach many more audiences and gain more fans. I know its definitely been one of my TV highlights that’s sparked joy during Lockdown.

Best Character- Phil Dunphy. Best Season- ANY.

9. STRANGER THINGS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2016 – … 3 Seasons … 33 episodes. “Friends don’t lie”…

When young Will Byers goes missing, his 3 best friends uncover the mystery of the Upside Down in their small town of Hawkins, Indiana in the 1980’s. Where a secret scientific lab are working to keep hidden, experiments, supernatural monsters, forces and a strange girl that’s broken free…

Maybe one of Netflix’s most famous, popular and iconic shows, Stranger Things has had great success on the platform with 3 seasons so far and a confirmed season 4 in the works. Way back in 2016 I heard a buzz about this new show on Netflix called ‘Stranger Things’ that everyone was raving about. Bare in mind my family had only just recently bought a subscription to Netflix so we weren’t really up to date on the platform and the shows included on it. However, I had a TED day this one day and I was home alone and thought why not try it? So I watched the first episode. And lets just say I barely moved for 8 hours until I had finished season 1. It was the first ever show that I watched the entire first season in one day, although probably possible because there was only 8 episodes, each an hour long. But still, I barely slept that night from having my mind blown and thinking “what the hell did I just watch?”, and “why can’t I stop thinking about it?” and “when is season 2?”. However, it is a hard show to explain so all I will say, is make sure you watch it.

Best Character- Eleven. Best Season- Season 1.

10. OUTER BANKS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 2020 – … 1 Seasons … 10 episodes. “Pogues for life”…

On the island of Outer Banks, life is split into two. The wealthy Kooks live on the north side in Figure Eight and the working Pogues live on the south side in the Cut. During the summer, John B and his friends JJ, Pope and Kiara plan to have a good time, all the time. But that may not be the case when John B discovers clues for a legendary treasure hunt left by his father who disappeared 9 months ago…

Probably the best new show I’ve watched in a long time, especially on Netflix, Outer Banks is a really great summer show that I watched during Lockdown. This show was recommended to me by one of my best friends and I trusted her judgement so I gave it a go and i’m so glad I did. It’s the perfect show to watch during Lockdown as it gave me hope and excitement to finally get back out in the world and have an adventure with my friends. That being said it made me sad that I couldn’t see my friends for a while but the show definitely made me excited to see them again and hopefully go on holiday with them when we next can.

The show itself is filled with adventure, humour, excitement and drama as secrets of the island are revealed. I also liked the subtle hints of other famous popular culture tropes embedded within Outer Banks, such as the dynamics between Sarah Cameron and John B, a wealthy Kook ‘princess’ and a poorer Pogue outsider. This relationship going forward seems to resemble the ‘wealthy girl, poor boy’ trope such as Jack and Rose in ‘Titanic’ and Ally and Noah in ‘The Notebook’. With the show already renewed for a season 2, it will be interesting to see what happens next…

Best Character- JJ. Best Season- Season 1 (so far…)

End of Part 1. Come back to see Part 2.

Gem x

SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS YOU COULD CREATE…

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In my last post, I demonstrated my step by step process and guide to how I go about making music playlists on Spotify. Now, I have some recommendations on some playlists you could create for yourself as well as some essentials that I created and the odd song examples from my playlists that I recommend. I’m going to categorise these by theme so easy to understand.

TIME OF DAY

Morning- Rise and Shine – ‘Shake It Off’ by Taylor Swift, ‘Wide Awake’ by Katy Perry.
Night- Chilled and Sleep – ‘You’ by Switchfoot, ‘Heart of Stone’ by Iko, ‘Look Out’ by James Vincent McMorrow.

EVENT

Christmas– ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey. (obviously 😉)
Halloween– ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson. (what else?!)
Birthday– ‘It’s My Birthday’ by Will.i.am and Cody Wise. (replayed on repeat every birthday)
Lockdown Quarantine – ‘Someday We’ll Be Together’ by Diana Ross and The Supremes.

SEASON/ WEATHER

Summer- ‘Island in the Sun’ by Weezer, ‘Shiny Happy People’ by R.E.M., ‘Shine’ by Mondo Cozmo, ‘Have a Nice Day’ by Stereophonics, ‘Mr Blue Sky’ by Electric Light Orchestra. (or anything with sun or summer in the title).
Rainy Day- ‘The Lightning Strike’ by Snow Patrol, ‘Dreams’ by Fleetwood Mac, (I also recommend The Script, McFly, Ben Platt and Bruno Mars songs with ‘Rain’ in the title).
Sunset Chill- ‘Cornelia Street’ and ‘False God’ by Taylor Swift, ‘Love Song’ by Lana Del Rey.

EMOTION

Happy- Smile playlist- ‘Uptight (Everything’s Alright)’ by Stevie Wonder, ‘I Lived’ by One Republic, ‘You Get What You Give’ by New Radicals.
Confident- YOU’VE GOT THIS playlist- (this is my fave playlist for those with anxiety out there) ‘Breathin’ by Ariana Grande, ‘Keep Holding On’ by Avril Lavigne, ‘I Love Me’ by Demi Lovato, ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey or Glee Cast, ‘Look At Her Now’ by Selena Gomez, ‘Be Okay’ by Oh Honey, ‘Hold On’ by Wilson Phillips, ‘I’ll Be Okay’ by McFly, ‘The Climb’ by Miley Cyrus.

ERA OR DECADE

80’s- ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police, ‘Time After Time’ by Cyndi Lauper.
90’s- ‘Out of Reach’ by Gabrielle, ‘Torn’ by Natalie Imbruglia, ‘No Scrubs’ by TLC.
2000-2010 Nostalgia- ‘Year 3000’ by Busted, ‘Sk8er Boi’ by Avril Lavigne, ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ by McFly, ‘Wannabe’ by Spice Girls, ‘…Baby One More Time’ by Britney Spears. (Because these two are my era, there are so many songs I could say, so I’ll just mention a few key artists)
2010-2020- Taylor Swift, One Direction, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Ariana Grande, Lady GaGa, Little Mix, Drake, Rihanna, P!nk, Bruno Mars, etc…….

EXERCISE

Car- ‘Viva La Vida’ by Coldplay (aka the BEST motorway song), ‘Life is a Highway’ by Rascal Flatts.
Run/Gym- ‘Physical’ by Dua Lipa.

TASKS

Cooking- anything that you like to jam out to is great for cooking, just nothing too distracting like rock music you start air guitaring to, you don’t want to lose a finger whilst slicing onion…
Cleaning- ‘In Too Deep’ by Sum 41.
Shower- Basically anything Whitney Houston, Celine Dion or Mariah Carey for the shower. I think we all like to pretend we are amazing singers who sold out Wembley Stadium in the shower. Nope? Just me? Okay, moving on…

FILMS

Disney & Pixar- ‘Circle of Life’ ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ by Elton John, ‘You’ve Got A Friend in Me’ by Randy (the all-time classics really.)
Disney Princesses– ‘Reflection’ by Lea Salonga, ‘Colours of the Wind’ by Judy Kuhn, ‘Part of Your World’ by Jodi Benson.
RomComs- ‘Suddenly I See’ by KT Tunstall, ‘Kiss Me’ by Sixpence None the Richer.

TV SHOWS – Can include any songs played in the TV shows you watch.

MUSICALS – Les Misérables, Hamilton, Waitress, Wicked, Mean Girls, Carrie, Dear Evan Hansen, Six, Rent, Cats, Hairspray, Heathers, Mamma Mia, Grease, Dream Girls, Funny Girl, Pretty Woman, Little Shop of Horrors, Rocky Horror Show…

GENRES

Pop
Rock
Country
Can include any artists that consist of that particular genre.

Favourites – consisting of your all-time favourite songs and favourite artists. Great playlist for the days you need a pick me up.

Current tunes – I like to have this playlist consisting of my top 100 songs that I’m into at the moment, over time I sift songs in and out of the playlist to keep it current to my likes.

And there you have it! Those are a lot of the playlists that I have created that might interest you as well. With so many playlists to choose from, follow or create yourselves. You really can’t go wrong with choosing what music to listen to next, might even say you have too much choice.

Once again, go forth and make your music manageable!

Gem x

HOW TO MAKE A PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY.

I always find creating new playlists on Spotify a good way of sorting out your music library. Especially if you are a massive music fan like me, who enjoys many music genres. Putting my earphones in and listening to my Rise and Shine playlist on Spotify is the FIRST thing I do every morning and tend to listen to my Chilled or Sleep playlists before bed, as well as many other playlists throughout the day. Therefore, with music making up such a big part of my everyday life, making a playlist for certain emotions, times of the day or events needs to be an efficient and easy process for me to do.

That’s why for this blog post I am going to go through a step by step guide of how I go about creating a new playlist on Spotify and also include some helpful apps, websites and resources on searching or discovering new music that can help you in the creation process.

Spotify Link- https://www.spotify.com/uk/

STEP 1: WHAT’S THE PLAYLIST?

So firstly, what’s the playlist? Decide on your theme for the playlist- what is it for? What is the mood and feel of the playlist? What genres of music would be best for this? Maybe have a few of these ideas in mind when clicking that new playlist button on Spotify.

Is it a happy playlist? Is it for a specific event? Does it involve certain artists?

These types of questions could help you deciding where to go next whilst looking for music and artists to include.

My next blog post following this one will look at the themes of playlists and some essential playlists that I have created that you might also want to, so if you are struggling for ideas then stick around for that to help you on Step 1.

STEP 2: TITLE OF PLAYLISTS.

Once you’ve got an idea for your playlist, then the next thing to do is to create a title for it. Something punchy, short and memorable is definitely ideal. This is because if like me you have just over 100 playlists that you’ve created on Spotify, its best to keep it short in order to scroll down the alphabetic bar to find the playlist easily.

Also, if you are familiar with emojis on your phone or tablet devices, wherever you are making the playlist on, I do recommend using them. Like I said if you have quite a few playlists on Spotify, it can make it a lot easier to find the playlists you’re looking for by adding an emoji at the end of the title that represents it.

E.g. Christmas playlist – *Santa emoji*, Rainy day playlist- *umbrella emoji*, Car playlist- *car emoji* and so on…

STEP 3: FIND MUSIC TO ADD.

Got the theme? Got the title? Great! So, the next thing is to find music to actually add to your playlist.

You might already know exactly what kind of music you want in your playlist; it might involve a certain artist or a certain genre of music. However, if you are struggling for music to include, then there are some certain resources and ways to discover new music to add to your playlists that I have found quite helpful.

Artists scroll through- Firstly, I find scrolling through the artists you are following useful, to see if any of your favourite artists stand out to you and some of their songs you might want to add to your playlist.

Spotify inspiration- Spotify already have a lot of pre-made playlists on there, so if you

are making a playlist for say a party, then search party playlist into Spotify and that might give you some inspiration for the type of

music or artists you might want to add to your own playlist.

Shazam- The app ‘Shazam’ is a good way of discovering new songs that you hear and you don’t know the title of the song or the artist. Do you ever find yourself in a shop and wishing you knew what song was playing? Are you ever watching a TV show or film and wish you knew what song that is? Then this app is definitely a necessity. It uses hearing technology to identify the song and artist, whilst also saving all of the songs that you have ‘Shazamed’ and makes you playlists off of the artists you like. I have found it really useful and time efficient in discovering new music especially from all of the TV shows I watch.

Shazam app.

Shazam.

Shazamed songs.

Shazam link- https://www.shazam.com/gb/apps

TuneFind.com- speaking of music in TV and movies, I have found the website TuneFind.Com useful as it tells you every song used in a TV show and film, including what scene it was used in and which episode and season of the show. This can be helpful if you don’t always have your phone on hand to use the Shazam app, just remember the scene the song was used in and go to this website to discover the song. This site can also be essential if you are making a playlist based on a TV show, film, character or ship pairing. For example, whilst watching a show on Netflix such as The Vampire Diaries which has 8 seasons (took me 6 months!), TuneFind was really useful to collate together my favourite songs from the show.

TuneFind.com

Shazam TVD.

TuneFind.com Link- https://www.tunefind.com/

YouTube- YouTube can also be helpful discovering songs if none of the other resources work or won’t help, then you could type lyrics into YouTube and the song will come up, or type the lyrics into Google, there are always ways of discovering music you want and need. Also, with so many edits and fan-cams on YouTube of TV shows and characters, this can also help you discover songs that remind you of fiction.

YouTube music.

YouTube playlists.

Recommended- Once you have added a few songs to your playlist, Spotify have added a new feature where at the bottom of your own created playlist they will show you recommended songs to add to it, based off the artist, genre and theme of your music already added in the playlist. This is good just to add a few extra songs to your playlist that would work well with the music you’ve already included.

STEP 4: FINISH AND SAVE PLAYLIST.

You’re done! Now the only last thing to do is to save your playlist and make it public for others to see, or keep it private for yourself.

Go forth and make your music! 😊

Now I’ve gone through the process of how I create my music playlists, my next blog post will be descriptions on my own personal favourite playlists that I have created and any essential playlists you should have in your own library. As well as recommendations for other playlists you could create. So, check out my next blog post if that might be something that interests you!

Gem x