Our Highest Rec is when the staff proposes something they find underappreciated, undervalued, or underrated. It's an excuse for us to push our opinions on you.

Commentators and critics, in the wake of TV’s Golden Age, have become prone to discussing the television medium as the new ideal for “longform storytelling.” The idea is that filmmakers want to tell longer, more complex, more probing stories than the traditional three-act movie structure allows, so they have jumped over to television to satisfy their creative impulses. If the past year on Netflix is any indication, the same goes for non-fiction filmmakers.

Longform journalism is by no means trendy. When we go online and read things, we like them in lists and we like them in the mold of “explain it like I’m five.” That’s not a condemnation; that’s a concession. In a world saturated with information, we appreciate it when things can be simple and easy and quick. Giant, lengthy, slightly-too-short-to-be-a-book journalism pieces don’t contain the incentive they once had. For those willing to put in the work, there is tremendous, valuable work being done by old-school reporters online, but in 2016 those pieces aren’t going to have the type of audience they used to have even a decade ago. It’s not the material—what is an information age if not a period of peak learning potential—so it must be the form. Words are hard. TV is not. Cue the rise of the docuseries.

Netflix has long been a sneaky-great hub for documentary films—the service hosts the likes of Jiro Dreams of Sushi, The Imposter, and Dear Zachary, not to mention ESPN’s outstanding 30 for 30 series—but its early forays into non-fiction, while acclaimed, never struck streaming gold. The Square and What Happened, Miss Simone? were each nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, but they never pervaded far beyond critical circles. It wasn’t until Making a Murderer broke the bubble late in 2015 that Netflix became a specifically sought-after source of real-life narrative. People started going online to stream documentaries. Longform had a new hub.

Netflix wanted non-fiction that fit its consumption model. That is to say, it wanted to capitalize on the Making a Murderer phenomenon by giving us chunkable stories, bite by bite, until we had an entire meal of satisfying narrative. Single movies weren’t enough. Those had been appetizers, and the company’s pivot to docuseries—all-you-can-eat buffets in this unwieldy metaphor—would manifest itself in some truly delicious works of art. Fittingly, one such work was Chef’s Table; the other is Last Chance U. They are both better than Making a Murderer, and they both provide compelling examples of longform journalism in the docuseries format. They are two of the best things you can find on Netflix.

Chef’s Table, like the food it showcases, serves the satisfaction in succinct, exquisite bites. Each episode profiles a chef at one of the world’s greatest restaurants, and what stands out is the level of artistry both in front of and behind the camera.

The show is mouth-watering to look at. Chef’s Table is beautiful in a joyous, surprising way. The cameras zoom in on the skin of the ingredients, the smoldering depths of ovens, the swishes and swirls of the techniques. Food is shown from angles we’ve never had the perspective to consider—who knew salmon was ridged in such a symmetrical, unnatural, perfect way? or that beef fat sizzled with so much color? This is a show that loves what it does with food, and the craftsmanship of the filmmaking reveals a rich passion that heightens, complements, and glorifies the culinary subjects it presents.

The human subjects of Chef’s Table are not meant to be seen as simply “great cooks.” They are treated, in both production and presentation, as artists. They don’t have culinary points-of-view so much as they have culinary missions, or obsessions, or crusades. The interviews they give are consistently deep and revealing, and after a few episodes it becomes harder and harder to ignore that, yes, while their answers are in part the product of professional interview tactics, these are just brilliant people. That word almost feels taboo—too many things are called ‘brilliant’ or ‘genius’ today—but it’s otherwise hard to describe what it’s like to sit and listen to people talk about something they are “the best in the world” at doing. Chef’s Table gives you that experience every single episode. It’s inspiring. It’s moving. It’s jaw-dropping. The season two premiere might make you cry. Don’t call it a cooking show. This is artful, journalistic movie-making.

As awash as Chef’s Table is in triumph, it might be fair to say that Last Chance U stands as its troubling, yet equally successful, foil. Last Chance U follows the East Mississippi Community College football team—a junior college dynasty—for one season. It has the recipe of a classic sports doc, but the ingredients create something deeper, richer, and ultimately more complicated and reflective. Last Chance U is great because it walks a delicate tightrope perfectly, balancing human drama, stern conviction, and celebratory homer-ism with dexterity and grace.

In this series, you don’t always want to root for EMCC, and that automatically puts it in rare sports-coverage territory. Last Chance U presents its titular school as a narrow-minded, desperate, phantasmal halfway house. These men aren’t at East Mississippi for an education. The understanding is that the student-athletes will do just enough to stay academically eligible, stay on the football field, and hold out hope that they will be vultured by a prominent Division I program (the SEC is a particularly coveted destination). Most of the players have the football chops—EMCC beats its opponents by 40 or 50 on the regular—but the tension comes in the classroom. By the end of this, you won’t just be thinking about the team’s on-field success, you’ll be thinking about their academic standards, their lives after football, the system they find themselves in, and the coach they play for. Last Chance U dials in on a smalltown community, but the characters are huge and memorable and complex. Expect to embark on some “where are they now” Google-sessions when it’s over.

Most impressively, the documentarians behind Last Chance U come across as complete professionals. The angles to be found here come from natural cause-and-effect, not manipulative editing. The emotional stakes never veer toward underdog extremes on one end or vogue football condemnation on the other. This is honesty without earnestness. The agenda is geared toward truth, and that proves the most effective strategy in mobilizing conversation and thought about this strange, specific subject. Last Chance U is ugly and violent at times, but it doesn’t step on anyone’s throats. To do that would deny someone the chance to speak.