Scrolling through 12 streaming platforms but still can’t find something to watch? You’re not alone. Our television columnist Michel Ghanem, a.k.a. @tvscholar, watches over 160 seasons of television each year and he is here for you. Perhaps you’re in the mood for a hidden gem sitting undiscovered on a streamer, or a show with mysteries so tantalizing we can’t stop thinking about it. It’s all about carving out time for the shows that are actually worth your time, or “appointment viewing.” Fire up that group chat because we’ve got some unpacking to do.
After a year covering all kinds of series, from FX’s Say Nothing to AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, we’re bumping Big Boys up to the top of your list for 2025. Two seasons of Channel 4’s comedy starring Dylan Llewellyn are now available on Hulu (its third season, coming later this year, will be its last). This charming, very queer, and unexpectedly tender college story based in the 2010s shouldn’t be slept on.
What show should I prioritize this month?
I can’t stop talking about Big Boys, a semi-autobiographical story from creator Jack Rooke, who writes and narrates the series. We’re only halfway through the 2020s, but looking back on the 2010s already sparks warm feelings of nostalgia for me. In the era of chunky belts, skinny jeans, and, as Troian Bellisario reminded us recently, cultural optimism, the world felt more or less like it was moving in the right direction. It was a tender decade, and we’re seeing more of it onscreen lately: Sean Wang explores the depths of AIM messages in his excellent coming-of-age film Dìdi, and Peacock’s underrated romantic dramedy Everything I Know About Love includes a very Urban Outfitters–core soundtrack. I am welcoming Big Boys with open arms into the 2010s canon.
Where can I watch it?
If you’re in the U.K., it’s on Channel 4. Otherwise, in the States, you can catch it on Hulu.
How much time will I need to catch up?
There have only been two seasons so far, with six 23-minute episodes each. That means you could polish this one off in a single afternoon.
What’s it about?
I had the too-real experience of finally seeing my own millennial experience represented in Big Boys. Llewellyn, whom you might recognize from Derry Girls, plays Jack, an awkward, gay college student. The story begins in 2011, when Jack is grieving the loss of his father while also exploring his closeted sexuality, despite feeling his dad’s spirit looking over him (“Poor bloke didn’t even know I was a gay, and now he could see me bash ’em out over look-alikes of Cantona,” Jack remarks in the pilot). After a gap year spent grieving with his mom (Camille Coduri) in Watford, he leaves for college to the fictional Brent University.
I felt some uncanny parallels between myself and Jack. We both began our undergraduate degrees in 2012 on a journalism scholarship, at schools where we experienced plenty of firsts (first gay club, first Grindr misadventure, first gay kiss). I can’t say I’ve sipped a bottle of poppers, which Jack accidentally does in the first season, but I did drink from whatever I could find at freshmen parties, where I made friends I’ve kept to this day. Jack’s friends are his straight roommate Danny (Jon Pointing), a “mature” student in his mid-20s who is dealing with his own mental-health struggles, and Corinne (Izuka Hoyle), a studious feminist who joins their trio as the friend most likely to introduce them to seminal texts by bell hooks (complimentary).
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Big Boys reminded me of Netflix’s Sex Education. It shares a similar witty and warm sensibility, just focused on the college years. In the second episode of Big Boys, Jack meets Yemi (Olisa Odele), his guide into the college campus’s LGBTQIA+ club who gives him the gay 411 in a Mean Girls–esque sequence: “You’ve got your bears, big hairy blokes; your twinks, they tend to be quite dull,” he patiently explains to the newbie. Big Boys follows characters a few years older than the teens on Sex Education, but accurately reflects the very second adolescence that many queer people experience once they finally get the chance to explore romantic relationships on their terms in college.
In some ways, Big Boys is also indebted to Fleabag. Phoebe Waller-Bridge got viewers more familiar with voice-over narration and the occasional breaking of the fourth wall (years after it was unsuccessfully attempted in the first season of Sex and the City). And of course there are the pre-Fleabag British dramedies that Big Boys is inspired by: Russell T Davies was already blazing a path with his various queer creations like Queer As Folk, Cucumber & Banana, and there was Billie Piper’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl. But I like to think of Fleabag as a turning point, which created a runway for dramedies from the U.K. like I Hate Suzie, Back to Life, and Big Mood to thrive across the pond.
Okay, I watched it and I want more! What can I check out next?
A third and final season of Big Boys is thankfully in production, but if you’re already looking for the next thing, you might like The Dry, an AMC+ series about a dysfunctional family dealing with alcoholism; Such Brave Girls, Kat Sadler’s Hulu/A24 production about two queer daughters of a narcissistic single mother; or Daisy May Cooper’s Rain Dogs. (All of these, along with Big Boys, have been nominated for BAFTAs.) You can expect a very British sensibility, a surprisingly tender story about grief, gay-and-straight male friendship, and mental-health story lines that punch way above their weight. Plus, it’s actually funny.