25 Netflix shows you could binge over the holiday weekend

9. The Shannara Chronicles

We’ll get this out of the way now: yes, The Shannara Chronicles comes from MTV. That’s that little yellow logo up there. Leave your judgments at the door, please and thank you, because this show actually is a pretty great post-apocalyptic fantasy series.

Yes, we said “post-apocalyptic fantasy series”. Remnants of what we’d recognize as our own civilization litter the landscape of this series, which is populated by elves, half-elves, humans, and more. The Shannara Chronicles follows the adventures of Wil, Eretria, and Amberle, who are, in fact, a half-elf/half-human, a human, and a full elf, respectively. In their world, a sacred tree called the Ellcrys actually holds a spell that keeps demons banished away to another world. Unfortunately, said sacred tree is not the healthiest anymore, which means the potential return of demons looms large over the world.

This series comes from the Shannara books by Terry Brooks, though it actually adapts the second book in his original trilogy, The Elfstones of Shannara. There’s some good character development, a little John Rhys-Davies (playing the king of the elves, before you think that he’s going to be a dwarf again), and one heck of a title sequence.

With a rating of TV-14, it’s safer for older kids and teens to watch than many other series on this list, and with just 10 episodes, it’s also an easily binge-watched series.