Lara Zarum

Because the identity of each famous participant is kept secret until the contestant is voted off the show, “The Masked Singer” can’t rely on the spectacle of their star power. (Host Nick Cannon, along with the celebrity panelists that include Jenny McCarthy and Robin Thicke, are low-wattage at best.)

That’s where costume designer Marina Toybina comes in. A four-time Emmy winner, Toybina got her big break working on Britney Spears’ 2007 music video, “Piece of Me,” and has since collaborated with other A-list pop stars, including Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus. And remember when Katy Perry was famously upstaged by two anthropomorphic dancing sharks during her 2015 Super Bowl halftime show? Toybina deserves much of the credit for the joy that Left Shark brought to our lives.

Toybina spoke to The New York Times about her knack for idiosyncratic animal outfits and creating full-body costumes that won’t suffocate the person inside. (Hint: hidden fans.) These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: If you saw what I was wearing right now you’d probably die. I work from home.

A: Girl, I just had a newborn. I’m in, like, two robes. I feel you.

Q: You seem to have carved out a niche for yourself as a creator of elaborate viral animal costumes. First, the infamous sharks for Katy Perry’s Super Bowl halftime show, and there were a couple of designs you did for Pink’s 2018 tour that involved some very realistic animal masks that look somewhat like the ones on “The Masked Singer.”

A: Somehow, they’re all coincidences. Going back to the Super Bowl, that was a pretty incredible experience. It was the first time I’d ever dealt with puppetry, so we had to figure out how to start from scratch and learn the entire process day by day. Then in the beginning of last year, I did the costumes for Pink’s tour, and the idea was to have this very avant-garde forest scene where it’s like, half human, half animal. So there were masks involved there, which was like my trial-and-error before “The Masked Singer.”

After designing Pink’s tour, two months later I got a call from one of the producers of the show and she sent me the original concept. I watched a few episodes, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, we just did this.” Everything I’ve learned in the past five, 10 years led me to figure out how to do this show.

Q: So you don’t have a secret animal fetish.

A: No, not at all! To be honest when I got the call I was just like, “What is happening with all these animals?”

Q: The costumes almost reminded me of Julie Taymor’s animals in the Broadway version of “The Lion King” — it’s almost just a suggestion of the animal, rather than a literal rendering.

A: The idea was always to combine the elements of fashion with costume. So the costume part of it becomes the mask, and the fashion part of it became the outerwear. It wasn’t so literal. The deer that I created almost looks like a soldier. We put a lot of details into aging the jacket and creating the elements of this character.

Every character had some sort of world that they lived in. I’m such a big fan of movies, and the one thing I haven’t really done in my career is film. I was able to introduce everything that I was inspired by — “Donnie Darko” and “Edward Scissorhands” had a huge influence on the rabbit costume. The whimsical side of Narnia had a little bit of an influence on the lion and the unicorn.

Q: How did you conceive of the designs for the show? Did you first come up with the costumes and then the contestants chose which ones they liked? Or did they have more input?

A: All the artwork was done before the casting, and once we were working with the casting, the producers and I we were able to figure out which 12 we wanted to keep. From there it was more collaborating, letting some of the cast members possibly choose their own costume or us hearing who’s being cast and thinking, “This would be a perfect costume for this person.” Somehow it just magically worked, even though it was trial and error.

Q: It sounds like you have really good karma!

A: Usually when you sketch a 2D design, you do a lot of alterations to it when you start building the costume. If you look at the original sketches for the show versus the costumes that are onstage, we barely had any changes. I think it gave our celebrities, the famous behind-the-mask personas, a little bit of freedom to play around and become these characters because what they saw on paper is exactly what they look like onstage. It almost became like an inner-child experience for a lot of these people, an alter ego — to go out, cover their faces and become this character and truly have fun with it. I think that’s what made this show come to life.

Q: How do your designs differ from those on the Korean version?

A: The one difference is how anime some of the [Korean-designed] masks were. I wanted to bring something that was a little bit more of a 360[-degree] mask that really hid our talent and embodied all these characters. A lot of the Korean elements had this extravagant mask and extravagant shoulder piece but then everything else was kind of toned down. We created fuller costumes, head-to-toe characters.

One of my favorite designers is [Alexander] McQueen, and I made sure the lion and the unicorn had this couture-y drape work that you don’t even see anymore. I think both fashion and costuming, the art of it is slowly going away. You see more and more digital work in film, in music videos. It was important for me to design this show the old-school way. It was important to do it all by hand.

Q: Does anyone ever complain that their costume is too heavy or difficult to move around in?

A: Of course — you know, a costume is a costume. The difference between the stuff you buy at the store and a costume [is] you are going to have weight. You are going to have extra protection, extra seams, extra material, extra linings. But we were able to adapt different ways for the costumes to be removed so they can breathe. Everything from the way they were constructed was considered — breathing mechanisms, putting fans inside of masks, putting fans inside of the monster costume. Just making sure that we can circulate oxygen.

Q: Do you have a favorite costume?

A: It’s hard to choose one but as far as intricacy I think the lion would probably be the one that took the longest to figure out, and a lot of heart and soul went into that one.

Q: What is your ultimate career goal as a designer?

A: My biggest dream is to do film. I would absolutely love to work with someone like Tim Burton. Looking at movies like “Mary Poppins [Returns]” or “The Nutcracker [and the Four Realms],” that’s something I would love to do.

Q: So, a trippy adaptation of a beloved classic.

A: If these characters on the show could be part of Marvel, that would be amazing.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/arts/television/masked-singer-costume-designer.html" id="5d0ffef4-f61a-302c-aca1-29bbb3891b4d">The New York Times</a>.

A peacock, a hippo, a monster and a unicorn each take to the stage, performing choreographed moves while belting pop tunes like “Don’t Stop Me Now” and “Oops ... I Did It Again.” No, you didn’t eat one too many edibles. You’re watching “The Masked Singer,” Fox’s new competition series that pits 12 extravagantly costumed celebrities against one another. An adaptation of a South Korean series called “The King of Mask Singer,” the American version debuted earlier this month to an audience of mor...

Those Wild 'Masked Singer' Costumes? She Designed Them

Perhaps nowhere has that format proved more tenacious than on CNBC’s “Deal or No Deal,” which returned for a new season Wednesday after a nearly 10-year hiatus, and features 26 female models in matching high heels and short, skintight dresses. It’s a formula that helped make “Deal” a prime-time hit when it debuted on NBC in 2005.

That was 13 years ago. But in 2018, as the culture continues to grapple with the way women have been disregarded and sometimes abused by Hollywood and its machers, “Deal” and shows like it raise an awkward question: Is this a convention whose time is up?

Series like “Deal” encapsulate the paradox of the modern game-show modeling gig: On one hand, it offers a stiletto-heeled foot in the door for many young women who aspire to careers in entertainment — Meghan Markle and Chrissy Teigen, among others, got their starts on “Deal or No Deal.”

Vanna White, who has been turning letters on “Wheel of Fortune” since 1983, has shaped that gig into a long, multifaceted career. “I’ve turned what I’ve been a part of for 36 years into other things, and I don’t feel any lower than Pat Sajak,” she said, referring to her male co-host. “I feel equal to him.”

On the other hand, it is unclear whether those advantages are worth the broader message it may communicate in the #MeToo era.

“I do feel it’s a bit tone deaf,” said Nicole Martins, a professor at Indiana University Bloomington who focuses on media and body image. “These women are used as eye candy, and it reinforces the idea that these women should be appreciated for how they look.”

Things have changed since the days of “Barker’s Beauties” on “The Price Is Right,” named for the show’s older male host, Bob Barker. Yet, despite profound changes in television, hot girls in heels holding and gesturing to objects have remained a staple of contest programming.

The earliest television game shows, like the popular “Queen for a Day” in the 1950s, featured models posing in fur coats and gowns and holding prizes next to wide grins. Carol Merrill, the model on the original run of “Let’s Make a Deal,” from 1963 to 1977, said she grew up watching shows like “Queen for a Day.”

“I’d see the gals and they’d be holding the products close to their faces and smiling into the camera,” she said, “and I really never knew their names.”

That began to change while Merrill was on “Let’s Make a Deal.” That show’s host, Monty Hall, said her full name each time he called on her, making her the first game-show model to become a household name. Although Merrill didn’t wear a microphone, hearing her name over and over piqued the audience’s curiosity.

“We got letters saying, ‘Can she talk, even?'” Merrill said. In response, the writers planned a kind of gag for the show’s 2,500th episode: Hall asked Merrill a couple of questions, and Merrill finally spoke. And spoke.

“I talked and I talked, like I am now,” she said, “and they went away to a commercial and they came back and I was still talking.”

For as long as game shows have existed, so has the tendency of many to reinforce gender stereotypes. Early entries like “Queen for a Day,” “Supermarket Sweep,” and “Missus Goes-a-Shopping” confined female contestants to the role of homemaker, competing to win a cart of groceries or a new baby crib. Invariably these shows were — and for the most part, still are — hosted by authoritative men in suits.

Elana Levine, a professor of media studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has studied the sexualized role of women in American television, sees the persistence of the game-show model as a bow to nostalgia. As these programs reboot for new generations, the models are a comfortingly consistent feature.

“But game shows are about winning money or commercial goods, and the figure of the spokesmodel is very much part of that,” Levine added. “She’s kind of on display as another product.”

On “Deal or No Deal,” that display is ostentatious. At the top of each show, its host, Howie Mandel, greets the throng of models: “Hello, ladies!” The women reply in singsong unison: “Hi, Howie.” Each “briefcase girl” holds a case containing a dollar amount between $1 and $1 million, which she reveals at the contestant’s request.

The models themselves often have a more positive perspective, and their role is generally more evolved than it once was. In the updated “Deal or No Deal,” they interact more with the contestants than in the previous version, and when they speak, their full names and Twitter handles appear on-screen.

Mahogany Lox, a model on the revival, said the producers encouraged the women to be themselves. A singer and a DJ (her grandfather is the Motown founder, Berry Gordy), she released a single last month titled “No Deal.”

“They want your personality to shine and for you to connect with the people,” she said.

Game-show fixtures like Merrill and White helped popularize the idea that a TV model could be more than just a pretty face. Officially, White is Sajak’s co-host on “Wheel of Fortune.” But she faced derision early on for the perceived simplicity of her job.

“I was put down quite a bit for that in the beginning,” she said.

That role has been a mostly silent one. (When White published a memoir in 1987, she called it “Vanna Speaks!”) But White has used the visibility to her advantage, building her status as a public personality and pop-culture celebrity. That has included lucrative spokeswoman jobs for companies like Spring Air mattresses and Lion Brand yarn, which designed for White — an avid knitter — her own line.

Historically, the game-show-model format has exposed glaring inequalities, both on-screen and off. Kathleen Bradley, who in 2014 published a memoir about her experiences on “The Price Is Right,” became the first long-term African-American game-show model when she was cast — in 1990.

But despite her 10-year presence on the show, she and her fellow models were never offered proper contracts, working week-to-week. "Price” and Barker were accused of sexual harassment and workplace discrimination in multiple lawsuits in the 1990s. (Barker has denied the accusations.)

The former “Price” model Gwendolyn Osborne-Smith said there was a sea change in the dynamic between host and model when Drew Carey replaced Barker in 2007. She recalled being present during an interview when Carey was asked what he wanted the models to be called, now that they were no longer “Barker’s Beauties.”

“And he said, ‘They’re not mine,'” Osborne-Smith said. “'They’re their own people, and you can call them by their names.'” The models felt freer to be themselves during interviews after that, she said.

By 2010, the models of “Price” were wearing microphones on set — with Carey, they became more like a sitcom ensemble, bantering with the host and the contestants. In 2012, the show hired its first male model, and it now has two regular male models, James O’Halloran and the former NFL player Devin Goda.

Bradley said she welcomed the changes. “They have incorporated the models much more into the show, which is great,” she said. “I like how they have them speak.”

Mike Richards, the executive producer of “The Price Is Right,” said his biggest challenge was to balance respecting the tradition of a long-running series with making a show that felt current.

“I’ve been on the show 10 years now,” Richards said, “and everything we’ve done is threading that needle, whether it’s changing the set, the lighting, the prizes, new games, redoing old games, how the models and the announcer are used. We the producers don’t take any of it for granted.”

Levine, the Wisconsin media professor, argued that the tradition’s value was not self-evident.

“This is the way game shows have been for a long time,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it’s not still really sexist, and really troubling that this is the way for a young woman to establish herself.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/arts/deal-or-no-deal-models.html" id="411d47d5-2e01-34c6-a1b8-3deebab79238">The New York Times</a>.

Heels and Nostalgia: Uneasy Mix in a New Era?

Game shows are as old as television, and for as long as they have existed, producers have decorated their sets with beautiful women who don’t say much but just might make your dreams come true.

In 2018, Netflix announced a major expansion of its comedy slate — including releasing 47 specials from a globe-spanning roster of comics in a single day. The trends in stand-up specials have continued apace this year, including extremely pregnant comics baring (and bearing) it all, and popular sets that may or may not qualify as stand-up comedy. It’s a lot! Here’s a little something to help you sift through the most recent crop.

‘Adam Sandler: 100 Percent Fresh’

If you grew up quoting Adam Sandler’s ’90s comedy albums like “They’re All Gonna Laugh at You!” and “What the Hell Happened to Me?,” you’ll probably swoon over his latest special, the comedian and actor’s first new hour of stand-up since 2004. “100 Percent Fresh” is Sandler at his best, combining frat-boy crudeness with tender vulnerability alongside hilarious song sketches (“My kid’s only got one line in a play,” he rages in a grunge-style tune).

The hour splices together different performances from a variety of venues, often cutting from one to the next the second a bit veers in a different direction and ends on a twist. “100% Fresh” also includes the tear-jerker tribute to Chris Farley that Sandler recently performed on “Saturday Night Live.”

‘Ellen DeGeneres: Relatable’

True to its name, Ellen DeGeneres’ triumphant return to stand-up opens with an extended riff on just how relatable she is, her nearly-half-a-billion-dollar net worth notwithstanding. “Yes, I’m enjoying it,” she cops, and she’s just charming enough that you don’t begrudge her a cent. (All right, maybe I begrudge her a couple hundred mil.) DeGeneres doesn’t exactly shy away from the spotlight — her syndicated talk show is in its 16th season — but “Relatable” finds her opening up about her breakthrough success in the ’80s, coming out in the late ’90s and the perils of fame. Her thesis is that despite differences in gender, sexual orientation or income, we’re all essentially the same. And yes, she dances.

‘Amy Schumer: Growing’

In “Growing,” Amy Schumer’s second stand-up special for Netflix, the comic’s maturation as a performer is evident — particularly in her facial expressions, which often add a visual punch line to her jokes. Schumer, newly married, is hugely pregnant in the special, and she’s as open about the physical realities of pregnancy as she was about her former life as a prolific party girl.

Since abandoning her brilliant Comedy Central sketch series “Inside Amy Schumer,” Schumer has gone from America’s foremost single gal to something more complicated. The scale of her fame has inevitably dislodged her underdog persona, and accusations of joke-stealing and white-girl cluelessness have dogged her for years. But “Growing” is a refreshing return to form for Schumer, particularly after a few years of mostly bland Hollywood blockbusters.

‘Demetri Martin: The Overthinker’

Demetri Martin is a self-referential, think-y kind of comic, and “The Overthinker,” as the title suggests, is the epitome of his shtick. A voice-over track of Martin’s inner monologue sporadically interrupts his set, a running self-commentary on the performance. (He uses the narration sparingly enough that it doesn’t get annoying.) On the surface, neither Martin nor his act appear to have changed much: He’s still incorporating visual gags like his signature flip-chart bit, still posing seemingly unanswerable questions and wordplay conundrums — and, at 45, he still looks like he could plausibly live in his parents’ basement. But it’s a testament to Martin’s joke-writing skills that, 20 years into his career, he can still find new and surprising ways to turn the most granular observation into a punch line.

‘Comedians of the World: Mae Martin’

Netflix was all over last year’s Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, taping dozens of half-hour specials for its international series “Comedians of the World.” Nearly 50 comics representing 13 regions are featured, including the Canadian-born, London-based Mae Martin. In her special, Martin tells the story of her childhood obsession with Bette Midler and her growing realization that she has an addictive personality. The set — which also deals with Martin’s entry into the comedy scene as a young teenager, an early drug habit and dating both men and women — seems to have at least partly inspired a new comedy series Martin is creating for the British channel E4, which will co-star Lisa Kudrow as her mother.

‘Iliza Shlesinger: Elder Millennial’

One of the first comics to tape a Netflix special way back in the olden times of 2013, Iliza Shlesinger filmed “Elder Millennial” in a retired aircraft carrier in Alameda, California. (“I do a lot of USO tours,” she explained.) Like Schumer, Shlesinger uses her new special to reflect on her changing priorities now that she’s no longer a single 20-something. Newly engaged, Shlesinger dispenses advice on sex and dating, which is delivered at a rah-rah empowering pitch even as it hews pretty close to traditional standards and gender roles. Still, Shlesinger has a habit of changing course just when you least expect it, and she backs up her observations with some killer impressions.

‘Brené Brown: Call to Courage’

OK, this one is not strictly a stand-up special. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston who studies shame and vulnerability; she’s known for her best-selling self-help books and her viral 2013 TED Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability.” “Call to Courage” is essentially an hourlong motivational speech, but the very funny Brown employs a lot of the tools of comedy to engage her audience. Like a stand-up, she uses personal anecdotes to make universal observations about how fear and shame can cripple us. She’s good at dramatizing her inner monologue, and at making the audience feel as if she’s one of them. And like pretty much all the other comedy routines on this list, Brown’s speech is a form of therapy for the masses, in which we watch someone expose themselves for our own catharsis.

This article originally appeared in <a id="5094df8d-bafe-36c2-aa5d-ee778ee66a2f" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/arts/television/netflix-comedy-specials.html">The New York Times</a>.

7 recent Netflix comedy specials that are worth your time

For many comedians, a Netflix special has supplanted the traditional late-night talk show set as the big ticket to success. The streaming service’s global presence helps comedians build fan bases all over the world, which keeps them busy with live shows in far-flung locations.

And there’s much more on the horizon: The streaming site has production deals with not only Barack and Michelle Obama, but also with some of TV’s most powerful creators, including Ryan Murphy, Marti Noxon and Kenya Barris. Then there’s the steady flow of (often foreign) Netflix originals that are bought by the streaming service postproduction — “Bodyguard,” for example, was created by the BBC.

It’s a lot to keep up with. If you’ve fallen behind, here are some recent Netflix originals that are worth checking out. Whether you’re looking for a new reality dating show, an irreverent comedy or a broody British thriller, there’s a little something for everyone on this list.

‘Russian Doll’

It’s rare for a new show to garner as much universal adoration as this dark comedy did when it had its premiere in early February. Created by Leslye Headland (“Bachelorette), Natasha Lyonne and Amy Poehler, “Russian Doll” stars Lyonne as a New Yorker stuck in a loop of dying and coming back to life at the same time and place — in the bathroom at her 36th birthday party. Funny, cleverly structured and a little melancholy, the series turns out to be a surprisingly poignant meditation on repressed trauma and self-actualization. And even if all that weren’t true, it would still be worth the watch for Lyonne’s tough-as-nails Nadia, a true original, just like the woman who plays her.

‘Sex Education’

Teen sex comedies typically rely on gross-out humor: sticky substances turning up in inopportune places, badly timed cases of mistaken identity, drunk kids doing things with people they don’t really like. But this British series, starring Asa Butterfield as a 16-year-old transfer student and indomitable Gillian Anderson as his sex-therapist mom, is different. It’s certainly not prudish — the opening scene alone is testament to that. But despite the nudity and explicit sex scenes, “Sex Education” is an earnest, sweet coming-of-age (no pun intended) story, featuring excellent performances from Butterfield and Anderson, as well as supporting players Ncuti Gatwa and Emma Mackey.

‘Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj’

Following his excellent standup special, “Homecoming King,” the comedian Hasan Minhaj returns to Netflix with this political variety show. (You could call it a “late night show” but, well, that designation makes less and less sense in the age of streaming.) “Patriot Act,” now in its second season, is like a cross between “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.” Like the latter series, “Patriot Act” structures its episodes by subject, allowing Minhaj to dive deep into a topic — like immigration enforcement in the United States, predatory drug pricing or the rise of Amazon — for 20 minutes at a time. The episodes aren’t numbered, so you can pick and choose which issues appeal to you. And the wide-eyed, hyperaware Minhaj is an energetic and charismatic host. Enjoy.

A taut, six-episode thriller (bless the British), “Bodyguard” features former “Game of Thrones” star Richard Madden as the title character, a veteran named David Budd who is assigned to protect a Conservative member of Parliament, Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes). Budd is a tough-guy hero who looks good in a leather jacket, but he’s not made of steel, and Madden makes sure the strain of his job shows plainly on his face. When it had its premiere in Britain last year, “Bodyguard” became the BBC’s most-watched drama since 2008, and Madden won a Golden Globe earlier this year for his performance as the tense, trauma-addled Budd.

‘Salt Fat Acid Heat’

Based on the 2017 book by Samin Nosrat (who has a column in The New York Times Magazine), this charming, four-part docuseries explores the four essential elements in cooking. “Salt Fat Acid Heat” is part travelogue, part instructional guide. Viewers tag along as Nosrat jets from Italy to Japan to Mexico, and back to her home in California, learning from the locals about how to achieve culinary perfection. On this show, good cooking doesn’t require following a recipe to the letter. Instead, it requires knowledge of how certain ingredients and processes can produce mouth-wateringly good food. Nosrat’s enthusiasm is infectious, making the show a must-watch for foodies and anyone who longs to be a competent, intuitive home chef.

‘Derry Girls’

Another British show, “Derry Girls” is set in Northern Ireland in the ‘90s, during the Troubles. This sprightly comedy follows a high schooler, Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), her daffy cousin Orla (Louisa Harland), and her friends Michelle, Clare and James (Nicola Coughlan, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell and Dylan Llewellyn). The threat of violence permeates the series: James, Michelle’s newly arrived English cousin, is forced to attend their all-girls’ Catholic school out of concerns for his safety were he to go to the boys’ school. And yet the show’s creator, Lisa McGee, keeps it in the background, focusing instead on the characters’ more typical day-to-day teenage concerns. Siobhan McSweeney is a standout as the Catholic school’s deadpan head nun.

‘Dating Around’

Anyone else miss “Blind Date,” the early-'00s dating show that let viewers squirm watching first dates? Netflix has just the show for you. Each episode of “Dating Around” centers on one hopeful New Yorker as he or she goes on a series of first dates, and don’t let the sleek production fool you: The show may look more polished than earlier iterations of dating reality TV, but the dates range from sweetly awkward to I-want-to-tear-my-eyeballs-out-but-I-can’t-stop-watching excruciating. There are no on-camera testimonials here — you have to judge for yourself (with the help of some cheeky editing) what each participant thinks of his or her date. As glam as the establishing shots may look, the show is as awkward as New York dating really is.

‘The Haunting of Hill House’

This loose adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s famous 1959 horror novel was one of several spooky Netflix offerings to debut around Halloween last year. Its creator, Mike Flanagan, takes some liberties with the source material, setting his version in the present day. He also centers the 10 episodes on the Crain siblings, who have been haunted for years by their brief childhood stay at the creepy Hill House. The show goes back and forth between past and present, with varying results. It’s hard to make those jump-out-of-your-seat scares stretch for the series’ 10 hours, and there are times when you might wish that a ghost is just a ghost, not a metaphor for lingering childhood trauma. But for horror fans, or Jackson acolytes, “Hill House” is good for some spine-chilling thrills.

‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’

Another of Netflix’s ‘Ween ’18 originals, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” is the long-awaited star vehicle for Kiernan Shipka, who played Sally Draper in “Mad Men.” If you grew up watching the series “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” starring Melissa Joan Hart, be warned: On “Chilling Adventures,” the Archie Comics character gets the dark-teen-supernatural-drama treatment. It has more in common with The CW’s “Riverdale,” both of which were developed by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. The series opens on the eve of Sabrina’s “dark baptism” (which, let’s be honest, is basically a werewolf bar mitzvah), and treats its lead character’s unusual circumstances as a way to explore the tricky balancing act of growing up female.

“You” first debuted on Lifetime, back in September 2018. The psychological thriller, based on the novel by Caroline Kepnes, struggled to find an audience, and the network canceled it after one season. But when it landed on Netflix in December, “You” became a bona fide hit, and its second season will be produced by Netflix. Following a bookstore owner named Joe (Penn Badgley) who stalks and, eventually, woos an aspiring young writer and grad student named Beck (Elizabeth Lail), “You” is both frothy and sharp. Cleverly, the show makes Beck just as absorbing — and in some ways, as slippery — as Joe. It’ll tie your stomach in knots, in a good way.

This article originally appeared in <a id="35f699ae-0e73-4306-b01a-31ed874f96dd" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/arts/television/netflix-originals.html">The New York Times</a>.

10 recent Netflix originals worth your time

Netflix was already home to a dizzying amount of content before it committed to churning out 1,000 original series, films and specials in 2018.

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Lara Zarum

Articles written by the author

Those Wild 'Masked Singer' Costumes? She Designed Them

Heels and Nostalgia: Uneasy Mix in a New Era?

7 recent Netflix comedy specials that are worth your time

10 recent Netflix originals worth your time