Vacation: Our three favorite short series to watch to stay cool

Whether you're camping, in a hotel, at a holiday club, at your in-laws' house or at work, summer doesn't have to be excluded from your TV viewing schedule.

New releases are rather rare between June and September, but we suggest you catch up on three "must sees" , one season at a time, so that you're up to date when the new school year starts and no longer be the one who missed out on three phenomena.

1. “Bref.2” on Disney+

It was the flagship series of early 2005, six episodes launched with the duo Kyan Khojandi and Bruno Muschio at the helm.

Thirteen years after the end of the first season on Canal+, the duo returns to the stage with the more or less autobiographical story of Kyan Khojandi who recounts, with humor, sincerity and insight, his life, his depression, his romantic, friendly, family and professional struggles with a gallery of supporting roles, each one as well written as the next.

It's funny, cathartic, touching. A treat.

2. "Chernobyl" on HBO Max

Well, we're on what we call an emotional rollercoaster because going from Bref.2 to the Chernobyl tragedy requires some serious neck-scratching.

In five episodes, this HBO production, released in 2019, takes us back to the nuclear disaster that struck the Ukrainian nuclear power plant, then located in the USSR. It also takes the Soviet authorities time to come to terms with the tragedy unfolding on the ground.

A series about bureaucratic slowness, the cult of secrecy, and lies, all carried by an exceptional cast (Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, and Emily Watson). Among series with only one season, Chernobyl is easily at the top.

3. “The Studio” on Apple TV+

Seth Rogen's madness in ten episodes.

Behind and in front of the camera, the Canadian actor offers a chaotic dive into the daily life of a major Hollywood studio, with episodes in sequence shots, where many personalities play their own roles (Ron Howard, Ari Aster, Martin Scorsese, Dave Franco, etc.) and follow Matt Remick (Seth Rogen), young boss of a Los Angeles studio confronted with current events in the seventh art (artificial intelligence, positive discrimination, MeToo, falling budgets, oversized egos, etc.).

Black humor galore and a true ode to cinema.