One fundamental thing that is important to human beings is the ability to gather new knowledge. However, the mere task of gathering knowledge can appear to be boring, that is where the edutainment industry comes in, providing new information in the most entertaining way possible.
However, when the lines between edutainment contents and pure entertainment contents get blurred, then what you get is most likely information dramas. This is a list of five series that fulfil both the needs to be entertained and gain new knowledge at the same time without being edutainment programs. What happens at the end of each season or episode is that you feel smarter or knowledgeable as well as thoroughly entertained than you felt before you started watching the series.
1. Suits
As its name insinuates, is a legal drama. It started running in 2011 and is about a fictional law firm whose name changes as organizational politics changes. It focuses on Mike Ross, a young college dropout who has a photographic memory and is passionate about the law and helping people. The series shows how he gradually becomes almost indispensable to his firm as he excels at his work. It teaches how to make smart arguments and deals. It deals particularly with contract laws, company laws and laws relating to business. It also helps with character development by teaching how to know when someone is lying and how to spot loopholes in a story. It is perfect for inspiring the next generations of lawyers, particularly those already studying law or preparing to study it.
2. Royal Pains
The series started in 2009 and ended in 2016. It was about a young doctor, who after being wrongly blamed for the death of an important person, becomes the outcast of the medical world. When he saves someone at a party in Beverly Hills, he soon becomes a ‘concierge doctor’, travelling with rich people and helping them through difficult medical situations. ‘Royal Pains’ teaches unorthodox ways to deal with certain medical situations. It also teaches advanced first aid procedures as well as character building traits of never giving up.
3. Scandal
Scandal is an American political thriller television series that talks about the inner workings of the white house. The series has a hypothetical America with hypothetical secret agencies and government personnel. It is focused on a powerful black woman who is referred to as the “fixer”. She affects almost every political decision the country makes as she helped the president get into his position and she has a complicated relationship. She also helps socialites who are in trouble by manipulating situations to fit her good (mostly for the right reasons). It teaches believing gut instincts and refusal to believe things are always what they seem. It also teaches a bit of forensic science and how to cut deals that favour you best.
4. Grey’s Anatomy
Grey’s Anatomy: This is also a medical drama but is set in a hospital in Seattle. It is intertwined in the personal lives of doctors, particularly Dr. Meredith Grey. It is about different medical issues that are brought into the hospital and how the doctors manage their relationships as they spend a lot of time in each others company. It teaches how to diagnose certain medical issues and new medical lingo. It helps you grow your vocabulary and understand how to manage personal relationships in the workplace.
5. How To Get Away With Murder
: When a law professor who teaches a compulsory law course for first-year law students “How to get away with murder” selects 5 of the brightest students in her class, she never considers they could actually get entwined in an actual murder case. However, when the seemingly unrelated murder of another student on campus leads to the death of the professor’s husband and one of the student’s girlfriend, it becomes messy. All of the five students, the professor and two of her staff are eventually aware of the murders, who perpetuated them and how they happened. They, however, manage to escape getting caught for any of the murders. The series that is in its 4th season teaches how to answer interrogations even when wrong without getting caught. It also teaches how to clean up a murder scene, forgiveness and how to find loopholes in the law that can be used to your benefit.
It would be great to know if you have any other series that should have made this list, just comment below.