The Quarantine Stream: 'Pet Stars' Is Exactly What You Need Right Now

(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a series where the /Film team shares what they've been watching while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.)The Series: Pet StarsWhere You Can Stream It: NetflixThe Pitch: A docuseries that follows Colleen Wilson and Melissa May Curtis as they run Pets on Q, a talent agency for pets. Yes, really, that's it. It's delightful.Why It's Essential Quarantine Viewing: I don't know about you, but I find myself more and more often turning to harmless, simple entertainment these days. Don't get me wrong: I still watch serious stuff. But as I seek out distractions from the hell that is reality, I find comfort in shows like Pet Stars. It's not intellectually challenging. It's not even particularly great. And that's fine. It made me laugh and it showed me cute animals, and sometimes that's enough.

Coming in at only five episodes (note to Netflix: order more ASAP), Pet Stars focuses on Colleen Wilson and Melissa May Curtis as they seek new animal clients for their LA-based animal talent agency Pets on Q (I had no idea talent agencies even existed for pets until watching this show). This gives the show an excuse to travel from one animal-centric spot to the next – there's a doggie spa, a competition for the world's ugliest dog, a dog surfing competition, and so on (yes, the show is very dog-heavy, sorry cat-lovers – if it helps, there is an episode where a cat is featured briefly; there's also a lizard if you're into that sort of thing).

Watching the various animals show up is fun in itself (my particular favorite was a talking parrot named Wazzu, simply because there's a moment where he says "Wazzu" and it somehow seemed to me to be the funniest thing I had ever seen in my entire life). But what makes the show really work is the fact that Wilson and Curtis are genuinely funny.

Shows like this can collapse if the humans are duds, but Wilson and Curtis have unique personalities – Wilson is the younger entrepreneur who seems suspicious of new age-y things like pet spas, while Curtis has "fun mom" energy and seems up for anything – and they play off each other nicely. I expected to watch the show only for the animals but I found myself wanting even more of Wilson and Curtis's antics. Per this article, the two women first met when they worked at a bank and bonded over animals, and now they're living the dream and starring in a Netflix show, so never give up, kids.

But let's get real – the real stars of Pet Stars are the pets. Obviously. It's in the title. And if you're a fan of animals, and watching animals be cute and do cute stuff, then you really can't go wrong here. I'm actually annoyed that Netflix only released five episodes of this thing – that's barely a full season! Give me five more, Netflix. I need to laugh. I need to escape. I need to be distracted. Please, help me. Give me more Pet Stars.