Television series

Plan B

Name: Plan B
Genre: Drama
Released: 2021
Cast: Julie de Bona

Other titles called Plan B: the 2021 film.

Plan B is a French drama about a mother who discovers a time-travel agency after her teenage daughter's suicide. It's not science fiction spectacle—it's an intimate, devastating exploration of grief, guilt, and the impossible desire to undo tragedy. Quiet and searching, it asks whether any second chance could ever be enough.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a slow, earnest look at a mother's guilt and self-absorption, and you don't mind a fantastical device carrying a serious emotional weight.

Skip it if you were hoping for a slick time-travel thriller, since the hook is a pretext for a quiet, talky study of grief that sits heavy on the chest.

What it asks of you: Six episodes of fifty-two minutes each, paced unhurriedly, so you have to sit with discomfort and let scenes breathe rather than wait for the plot to pull you forward.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Fleabag2016

A woman builds her life around deflecting pain with charm and control, until circumstances force genuine reckoning. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's series shares Plan B's understanding that humour and darkness coexist in how we survive.

But The British tone and theatrical asides won't land for everyone, and the protagonist's selfishness can feel exhausting.

MINDHUNTER2017

A methodical, character-driven series about obsession and professional collapse. Like Plan B, it's absorbed in how ambition and trauma reshape someone from within, refusing easy answers.

But The second season loses momentum, and the pacing demands patience. It ends unresolved.

Mare of Easttown2021

Kate Winslet as a detective unraveling a murder while her own life fractures. It shares Plan B's commitment to portraying intelligent women undone by forces they can't control or fix.

But Rural Pennsylvania drabness and a glacial pace will test your patience. The mystery itself is less important than the sadness.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Plan B

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Arrival2016

Both use time and communication as metaphors for grief. Both ask: if you could truly see your whole life at once, would you want to?

A linguist learns an alien language that rewires how she perceives time itself. Like Plan B, it's about the terrible gift of seeing your life differently—and what you'd change if you could.

But It's cerebral science fiction that moves slowly. If you want plot momentum or spectacle, you'll be frustrated.

The Affair2014

Multiple perspectives on a single tragedy, showing how the same events destroy different people differently. Its structure mirrors Plan B's exploration of how we rewrite our own stories.

But The constant narrative unreliability can feel gimmicky, and the characters aren't always likeable. It runs five seasons when three might have been enough.

Normal People2020

An intimate portrait of two people whose connection is both their salvation and their wound. Like Plan B, it understands that love and damage are inseparable.

But The sex scenes are frequent and unsimulated, which distracts some viewers. The pacing is deliberately slow.

The Leftovers2014

A series about people processing impossible loss. It shares Plan B's willingness to sit with grief without resolving it, and its conviction that sometimes there is no answer.

But It's relentlessly bleak and existential. Not a show you watch to feel better; you watch it to understand feeling worse.

Godless2017

A western where a woman rebuilds her life after violence and abandonment. Stripped of its genre trappings, it's about choosing to move forward when nothing can be undone.

But Only one season, and the plot sometimes sacrifices character depth. The western setting may feel incongruous with the emotional weight it carries.

Sharp Objects2018

A journalist returns to her hometown to cover a murder while confronting her own psychological unravelling. It understands how trauma compounds across time and how we become unreliable narrators of our own lives.

But The twist ending feels contingent, and Amy Adams' self-harm is graphic. It's shorter than you'd expect for the setup.

The Sinner2017

Each season excavates the psychology beneath a crime, digging into family damage and inherited pain. Like Plan B, it asks what circumstances and history truly drive us.

But The first season is strongest; later ones dilute the premise. Some threads resolve too neatly for a show about genuine damage.

A Ghost Story2017

Both fixate on a single person's inability to help someone they love, and the metaphysical torture of witnessing suffering you cannot stop.

A man, as a ghost, watches his widow grieve and move on, unable to communicate or intervene. It's a meditation on the unbridgeable distance between the living and the dead, and the helplessness of love.

But It's deliberately slow and uses an unconventional visual approach (a sheet as a ghost). Some find it precious rather than profound.

The Fountain2006

Both explore time-travel or time-bending as a metaphor for grief's refusal to accept linear causality. Both conclude that you cannot outrun death, only accept it.

Darren Aronofsky's ambitious, formally daring film about love across three timelines—past, present, future—and the impossibility of preventing loss. Visually stunning and emotionally devastating.

But It's willfully obscure and structurally fragmented. Critics remain divided on whether the ambition justifies the opacity. Aronofsky's maximalism won't suit everyone.