Staycation selects: All the new shows worth staying in for this summer
Whether you’ve got a stacked social calendar this summer or you’re staring down a hellishly humid stretch of deadlines with no vacation on the horizon, a few shows still manage to make staying in the smarter move. You can stream them on your phone and head to the park if the weather cooperates, or you can keep the blinds drawn, the air conditioning blasting, and the beer cold. Either way, the list below runs through the new series that earned their place on the radar this season, starting with the one that slipped in at number eleven.
11. Strange Angel
June 14, CBS All Access Created by Mark Heyman (Black Swan) and based on George Pendle’s book of the same name, Strange Angel is inspired by the true and storied life of Jack Parsons. The blue collar worker started out as a janitor, began the discipline of American rocketry, and even became a disciple of occultist Aleister Crowley. There’s a lot to unpack in his story and this Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) executive produced series looks to be doing it with intrigue and panache. Premiered on CBS All Access (now Paramount+) in June 2018. Two seasons, 17 episodes total, canceled November 2019. Starring Jack Reynor, Bella Heathcote, Peter Mark Kendall, Greg Wise, Rupert Friend.
Where to Watch Strange Angel Today
Paramount+ carries the full run as the direct successor to the original CBS All Access platform. Viewers who prefer ownership can rent or buy episodes through Amazon Prime Video and several other digital storefronts. The service also offers offline downloads for travel or spotty connections, which keeps the series accessible long after its original run ended.
The Real Jack Parsons Legacy
Parsons co-founded Aerojet and supplied early propulsion work that helped shape what became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His Pasadena circle mixed rocketry experiments with science-fiction writers and occult practitioners, giving the 1930s and 1940s Los Angeles scene a strange double life. That overlap between laboratory notebooks and ritual robes still surfaces in later histories of both aerospace and alternative spirituality.
Critical Reception and Audience Response
IMDb users rate the series 7.0 out of 10 based on more than 2,800 votes. Reviewers praised the show’s willingness to juggle historical fact, technical detail, and occult lore without sanding down any of those edges. Some critics noted the pacing could feel uneven, yet the same ambition that drew complaints also kept the story from settling into standard prestige-drama territory.
The series never returned for a third season, so the seventeen episodes stand as a complete, if compact, portrait of a man who helped launch rockets and courted chaos in equal measure. For anyone compiling a summer watch list that values real-world eccentricity over tidy fiction, the show still delivers a distinctive entry point into both mid-century science and the stranger corners of American mythmaking.
