Da Vinci's Demons Season 3

If you want a drama that takes its characters as seriously as its plot, Da Vinci's Demons Season 3 is available on and right now. The 1-season run is exactly the right length for what it is doing. An 8/10 rating says what the writing already makes obvious: this one works. Watch it for Tom Riley — one of the stronger performances out there right now. Start it whenever you need something guaranteed to land.

Part of the current wave of titles people are actually watching, Da Vinci's Demons Season 3 earns its spot. The writing in Da Vinci's Demons Season 3 treats its characters as people first, plot devices second. Leonardo da Vinci's world comes crashing down when the city of Otranto is torn apart by an Ottoman invasion. On the battlefield, the Turks use da Vinci’s own weapons against him… the designs for which were stolen by someone he trusted. This betrayal will haunt Leo long after the battle is decided, as will the deaths of loved ones lost in the fighting. Tom Riley and Laura Haddock lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was aired in 2015. Da Vinci's Demons Season 3 resists tidy resolutions in a way that respects how messy real consequences actually are. It rarely drops the ball, and when it does, it recovers fast.

Da Vinci's Demons Season 3 is what you recommend to people who say they do not really watch much. It rewards viewers regardless of what else is in their watch history. A contained run means every episode is doing real work. Tom Riley's work here is the kind that gets referenced in career retrospectives. It makes everything else feel thin by comparison.