While stuck at home in quarantine, I have made my way around many of the shows and movies on Netflix. At the current moment, the streaming platform has many different options and new releases for their audience to choose from. One show that I recently enjoyed was Spinning Out.

   The show follows Kat Baker, a professional figure skater in her 20s who has suffered from a terrible accident. While skating at a competition, Kat fell from the air while performing a jump and cracked her skull open on the ice. After the incident, it appears that her skating career is over since she can no longer perform the jump that sent her to the hospital due to anxiety.

   Just as Kat accepts that her skating career is over, she gets an offer from Dasha Fedorova, the coach of another professional figure skater Justin Davis. Justin is a pair skater who is in need of a new partner. Kat accepts the offer knowing that this is her only chance to skate anymore.

   The ten episode series portrays the pair’s journey to competing at Nationals. Along the way, Kat must learn to skate with another person and overcome her fear of the jump that sent her to the hospital. Kat also struggles with a fragile mental health and the pair each have their own difficult home lives.

   At first sight, the show appears to only be a romantic drama, but Kat’s underlying mental health issues make a big appearance. Personally, the episodes in which Kat’s mental health was at its worst were extremely hard to watch. Although slightly upsetting, I think the topic is important to discuss because of how many people struggle with mental illness these days. The show allows for those who may not have an illness to see how challenging life can be for those who do.

   By the end, I thoroughly enjoyed the show and had a lot of respect for Kat and everyone else who deals with mental illness. I would recommend this show to anyone who is interested in figure skating, romantic dramas or simply needs a new show to watch while in quarantine.