Summary
This downloadable PDF lesson plan for English teachers helps C1 students discuss TV shows. This ESL class material includes vocabulary, grammar, and speaking activities to review and recommend series like a pro, making it a perfect addition to your lesson library. This advanced English lesson equips students to discuss TV shows with sophistication.
Activities include a warm-up on viewing habits, vocabulary matching for critical reviews, a listening comprehension task based on a YouTube video, and an idiom gap-fill. The lesson culminates in a speaking activity where students pitch their favorite shows to their classmates, using the newly acquired language and grammar structures to give compelling recommendations or critiques.
Activities
- Warm-up and vocabulary: Students begin by discussing their TV viewing habits. They then learn and practice advanced vocabulary for describing shows, such as "gritty," "ensemble cast," and "slow burn," through a matching exercise.
- Video comprehension: Learners watch a YouTube review of new TV series and answer detailed comprehension questions about the plot, themes, and the reviewer's opinions, enhancing their listening skills for authentic speech.
- Speaking practice: The lesson concludes with a dynamic speaking task where students prepare and deliver a pitch for a TV show. They must use target vocabulary and grammar, including inversion for emphasis, to persuade their peers.
We're two-thirds the way through 2025 and Netflix has released waves of brand-new original series. And quite a few of them are worth a watch as you'll see in today's video as we cover all the brand-new shows that dropped on Netflix from May to August 2025.
Welcome back everyone. I'm Matthew, this is CineGold. Let's take a look at our first pick which I think is one of Netflix's most underrated shows this year.
I've been looking for someone I could depend on. You can count on me. Yay! Let's go kill things.
Our first show is called The Waterfront, and it's Netflix's attempt to create another backwater drama in the same vein as Ozark or Yellowstone. The Waterfront is set on the North Carolina coast where a family's generations-old fishing empire is crumbling, forcing them to make some desperate decisions.
The Waterfront didn't initially impress me but the more I watched it, the more it set its hooks in. You get this overwhelming feeling that I've seen this before, but honestly it gets a lot better. The gritty family crime saga definitely had me entertained.
There's excellent acting across the board too with Topher Grace surprisingly making for a great villain. I had a lot of fun with this series but I guess there just wasn't enough viewers because unfortunately it has already been cancelled. Sad.
Next up is a kind of strange dark comedy thriller type series. It's called Sirens, and it's about a woman who tries to save her sister from her unsettling, cult-like new employer.
Sirens is another show that didn't blow me away with the first episode but something just kept drawing me back to it. There's a heavy mystery vibe, with quite a lot of questions that need answering and with a steady revealing of answers, it was always pretty interesting.
It's got an all-star cast too, with great performances from Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon and plenty of others. It was a pretty short and sweet five episodes too, so yeah, Sirens was definitely worth the watch.
Netflix is packed with mystery thrillers right now, and I love those shows as much as anyone. But sometimes it's refreshing to find something great in a completely different genre. A good example of this is the dramedy series The Four Seasons which is an adaptation of the old 1981 movie of the same name. It's kind of a cozy series about long-term relationships: both romantic and friendly.
The ensemble cast is really great: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Will Forte, Colman Domingo. It's legitimately funny at times, as well as quite introspective. I was also happy this had short 30 minute episodes instead of the usual hour-long ones. The Four Seasons was a very solid series in my opinion and luckily it has already been greenlit for a second season.
And like I said, there are plenty of mystery thrillers. One of those which might not be the best, but I'll call it a hidden gem is The Survivors.
Everything changed that day when two young men drowned. But there was another life lost.
The Survivors is an Australian series that takes place in a coastal town where a man returns after years away only to find the residents still blame him for the tragic deaths of three young people.
The haunting, atmospheric coastal town is definitely one of the best things about this series. And there's also a murder mystery at the heart of the story in which almost every character feels like a suspect. The Survivors is a bit of a slow burn but it was definitely worth the watch for its very emotional and atmospheric story.
If you like action, there's a decent Korean series called Mercy for None. It's about a former gangster whose brother dies forcing him to go on a quest for revenge.
Mercy for None definitely has some John Wick in its DNA with one man taking on huge waves of enemies. It's very much a Korean series though, so if those are not your thing, this probably won't change your mind. But Mercy for None is definitely pretty violent with some excellent action scenes. A solid choice for action fans.
And definitely one of the most popular and best series to drop on Netflix this year is Dept. Q.
How about how your best friend was shot in front of you? And you think that it's your fault. Is this some new kind of therapy?
Dept. Q is about a brilliant but emotionally scarred detective who is assigned to lead a newly formed cold-case division after surviving a brutal shooting.
Easily the biggest standout in this series is the performance of Matthew Goode. His obnoxious but lovable character Carl Morck was really excellent. There's a lot of other great things about Dept. Q as well: the Scottish setting, the dark, moody tone, the other characters such as Salim and Rose, and of course the twisty mystery at the heart of the story.
Dept. Q was a big Netflix hit having already been greenlit for a second season and I think it's a must-see for detective, mystery and crime drama fans.
Next up is a Nordic noir series that came out of Denmark. It's called Secrets We Keep and it's about an au pair who goes missing in an affluent Copenhagen neighborhood, causing suspicions to arise about who could be responsible.
Secrets We Keep was really a lot better than I expected it to be, with a well-paced mystery and eerie tone. I really liked the choral score as well that you'd hear throughout this series which really added to the mood and emotional impact. Secrets We Keep was definitely a well made Nordic noir series that I think a lot of mystery fans would enjoy.
The next series is unfortunately in the US only at the moment, but it's easily one of Netflix's most scandalous series of the year. It's called The Hunting Wives and it's about a Boston woman who moves to East Texas with her family but falls into a deceptive and even deadly clique.
The Hunting Wives is definitely gonna be a love it or hate it type series. I honestly didn't think it was gonna be for me but I gotta say I got pretty hooked. It's very soapy and over-the-top with the characters committing all types of shocking and immoral behavior.
It feels like the kind of show you could have only watched on HBO a decade ago with tons of nudity and a high production value. There's no official word on a season 2 for The Hunting Wives at the moment but I would say the odds are highly likely and hopefully it can get spread to other regions as well.
And last but not least is the new murder mystery series Untamed.
The sky is really talking tonight. What's it saying? That bodies will fall like the stars.
Untamed takes place in Yosemite National Park where a woman falls off El Capitan setting off a murder investigation.
Untamed didn't turn out quite as good as I hoped but it was still worth a watch for a few reasons. One of course is Eric Bana, who was always an excellent actor but we just don't see that much anymore. And the Yosemite-based setting was probably the best thing about this series with some stunning landscapes and just the feeling of being out in the wilderness.
Untamed may not be the most mind-blowing murder mystery you'll ever see but it's still worth queuing up for fans of the genre. And if you did enjoy it you'll be happy to hear it's already been renewed for a second season.
That is the best Netflix shows from May to August 2025. If you missed part one, January through April, you can check that out with this video. And once again that's it for me today everyone. I will see you again soon.
Vocabulary focus
The lesson introduces advanced adjectives like 'gritty', 'introspective', and 'unsettling' for describing shows. It also covers key terms suchs as 'ensemble cast', 'slow burn', and 'saga'. Idiomatic phrases like 'set its hooks in', 'blew me away', and 'in the same vein as' are practiced in context to help students sound more natural when giving reviews.
Grammar focus
This lesson concentrates on using inversion for emphasis, a key feature of advanced and formal English. Students learn to restructure sentences starting with negative or limiting adverbials like 'Rarely...', 'Not only...', and 'Under no circumstances...'. They practice this sophisticated structure through a sentence transformation exercise.
