Unorthodox Fits Its Story Into Four Episodes, and Ten Other Short Series Do the Same

Four episodes in Berlin

Unorthodox has four episodes, which is all it needs to follow Esty, a young Jewish woman who escapes an ultra-conservative community and unhappy marriage ^[1]. She seeks refuge with her estranged mother in Berlin ^[1]. If you want a short series, this is the shortest one in this roundup.

Tear Along the Dotted Line runs six episodes and focuses on Zero (Zerocalcare), an Italian cartoonist ^[2]. Pluto is an eight-episode ONA that follows Europol robot detective Gesicht ^[1].

Mysteries and crime

In Bodies, a dead body suddenly appears in London in four different points in time ^[1]. Four investigators work to solve the case of the same body appearing in the same area ^[1].

Ripley stars Andrew Scott as Tom Ripley, a petty white-collar criminal in New York ^[1]. It is based on Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley and is shot entirely in monochrome ^[1].

Giri/Haji centers on Tokyo detective Kenzo Mori (Takehiro Hira), who travels to London to search for his presumably dead brother ^[2]. The brother's connection to a killing threatens to ignite a yakuza war back in Japan, and the series uses eight chapters to tell the story ^[2].

Period pieces and true events

The Queen's Gambit spans the mid-1950s and early 1960s and follows chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), who rises up the ranks while dealing with addiction ^[1]. An orphaned girl discovers, with the help of custodian Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp), a gift so extraordinary that the game becomes both an obsession and an escape ^[2]. The Collider list calls it a compact seven-episode run ^[2].

Godless follows outlaw Roy Goode (Jack O'Connell), who runs away from his abusive mentor and ends up in a town almost entirely populated by women ^[1].

In the Central Park jogger case of 1989, five teenagers of color were wrongfully accused of the assault and rape of Trisha Meili, who was out on a run ^[1]. When They See Us, created by Ava DuVernay, dramatizes the case by humanizing the Central Park Five ^[1].

Love, obsession and faith

First Love is set in late 1990s Japan and follows teenagers who fall in love and dream of a future together ^[2]. Adulthood, personal tragedies, and unexpected circumstances tear them apart, and the story takes nine episodes ^[2].

In Baby Reindeer, Donny (Richard Gadd) offers free tea to a distressed middle-aged customer, Martha (Jessica Gunning) ^[1]. Her obsession with him then becomes dark and unpredictable ^[1].

Midnight Mass has seven episodes ^[1]. It follows Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford), who has returned home after spending four years in prison, on the isolated religious setting of Crockett Island ^[1]. A mysterious priest, Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater), arrives there, and the strange events that follow begin to reshape the town's desperation, fear, and faith ^[2]. The seven episodes are slow-burning but never feel wasted ^[2].