I hesitated to put Orb very high on my own list due to worries about recency bias, but it really was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. I started it because, I mean, look at my username. A show about astronomers studying heliocentrism in 15th century Poland sounds like it’s tailor made for me. But it’s even better, because it’s not actually about astronomy. It’s about the anonymous contributors to history, whose names and faces were never recorded, and yet were instrumental to building their era, and by extension every era afterward.

Near the end of the show, a certain character makes reference to the fact that “when the people of the past or future gaze across the span of time, they’ll merely see us all as people from the fifteenth century.” Indeed, he feels that “we, who happened to live in this day and age, even if we hated one another enough to kill, are comrades who built an era together.” Even if your name won’t survive over the next five centuries, you still have laid a brick in the foundation of history.

Idunno, I can write a three page essay about this show, and it still wouldn’t capture all of my thoughts and feelings. It’s the easiest 10/10 I’ve given a show since Standalone Complex. Truly the only valid criticism of it is that it is physically difficult to watch if your room isn’t pitch black. They gotta go back and turn the brightness up on some scenes.