So here’s a new thing I want to try when I’m not exactly feeling up to doing Short Summaries of every movie, TV show, and video game I experience! Recent Roundup will be even shorter and more informative looks at new things I’ve seen and played.

Let’s start with three TV series: The Boys, Chernobyl, and Frontier.

The Boys

Network or Service: Amazon Prime Video

Episodes: 8

Starring: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, and Dominique McElligott

IMDb Synopsis: A group of vigilantes set out to take down corrupt superheroes who abuse their superpowers.

What I Found: A really solid first season of a show that’s a total foil to any Marvel or DC stories we’re currently getting in various mediums. We are not supposed to root for these superheroes. Some of them are broken and barely clinging to their fame, while others are conniving, greedy, and downright villainous. The fun part is that the protagonists, the so-called Boys, are far from decent citizens themselves. The season finale left me more excited for a follow-up than most things do these days.

A Recommendation: The same creative team that brought you The Boys — Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg producing and Garth Ennis writing the comic book it’s based on — are also behind Preacher on AMC. If you like Preacher, you’ll feel right at home with The Boys, and vice versa.

Chernobyl

Network or Service: HBO, HBO Go, HBO Now

Episodes: 5

Starring: Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Paul Ritter, Jessie Buckley, and Adam Nagaitis

IMDb Synopsis: In April 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics becomes one of the world’s worst man-made catastrophes.

What I Found: A harrowing, haunting depiction of one of the most serious disasters in human history. I was born after the USSR was dissolved, so this miniseries is perhaps the closest thing I’ll have to experiencing the Chernobyl explosion itself, for now. The event happens in the first episode, and the remaining four focus on every single aspect of the fallout. While the line between fact and fiction is often blurred, this miniseries is just so excellent in its acting, writing, and score that it’s stayed with me long after I finished it. It’s the ultimate cautionary tale, to say the least.

Frontier

Network or Service: Netflix

Episodes: 18

Starring: Jason Momoa, Greg Bryk, Kyle M. Hamilton, Alun Armstrong, and Landon Liboiron

IMDb Synopsis: Follows Declan Harp, a half-Irish/half-Cree Native-Canadian outlaw who is campaigning to breach the Hudson’s Bay Company’s monopoly on the fur trade in Canada.

What I Found: Three uneven seasons of great action, sweeping locales, and some good acting. As someone who isn’t familiar with the fur trade in Canada during the late 1700s, it would’ve been nice to get a sense of the bigger picture and have a better idea of the effects this trade war had on the area and associations between different peoples, not just the business side of it. Frontier doesn’t develop many of its characters or the relationships they have with each other, which is always a shame. But hey, Jason Mamoa is just so damn charismatic, and he sells the fight scenes and revenge plot pretty well, so this show was entertaining on that level.

A Recommendation: So two other historical shows, while not taking place in the same time period as Frontier, are both available on AMC, and they’re underrated and fantastic. Check out Turn: Washington’s Spies and Hell on Wheels instead. They’re simply of a higher quality overall.