Network: Netflix
Season Premiere: December 26, 2018
Watch it on Netflix: Teenage friends Alexa and Katie are pumped for their first year as high school students. Unfortunately, things take a turn for the tragic when Alexa starts undergoing treatment for cancer, putting strain on their struggle to fit in with the demanding adolescent landscape – a sitcom with heart. Freshman year is a war zone for any teen. Discovering what is and isn’t cool, fashion trends you need to follow, and finding out that there are some kids you just should not mess with are commonplace anxieties in the life of an average high schooler. Add in the factor of a potentially terminal illness, and Alexa & Kate begin to feel even more like outsiders than before. Perhaps this sitcom premise is a little more ill-judged than we’re used to. After all, this is Netflix’s first new multi-camera sitcom since The Ranch and, though films like 50/50 and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl have managed to beautifully fuse comedy with tragedy, a cancer-based sitcom in the style of The Big Bang Theory isn’t filling us with optimism. That said, Alexa & Katie’s first season received some favorable reviews and was renewed for a second season almost instantly, so perhaps there’s some magic there – even if “friendship is the best medicine” is the most sickening tag for a show this year.