Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj (2018-20)

Gone too soon. Netflix has had a bad week, first pushing the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender to walk away and now canceling Hasan Minhaj just as he is getting into the groove of things. Despite the very expensive looking set, he was never quite as polished as his fellow Daily Show alumni Colbert, Oliver or Bee. But he is young, charming and Asian American. He was hitting the target demographic with culturally specific content, and frankly cooler references than you're going to find on Last Week Tonight. He actually shined brightest in his off-the-cuff Deep Cuts web exclusives. He is a natural comedian interacting with an audience that doesn't need the culturally specific jokes explained to him. He never did quite figure out what to do with his hands. Hopefully this now frees him to do something new.

Unorthodox (2020)

Unorthodox is an extraordinary Yiddish-language drama about a young Hasidic woman from the very insular Satnam ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Consigned to an unhappy marriage and a community that does not support her as an individual, she escapes to Germany where her exiled mother lives.  German Nazis, of course, are the raison d'etre of the Satnam community, arising as a reaction to the Holocaust, turning inward to find solace in Judaism and repopulate the Jewish race. The heroine Esty learns to find her solace in secular music (and in the fitting ending, Jewish music). That tension between cosmopolitan, diverse, and secular modern Berlin and her former life in Williamsburg is a driving force. It's a well researched look at a community that is loathe to air its dirty laundry.