A comprehensive guide to: television shows.

A definitive list of every show I have positive thoughts about.

I have always loved television. My entire childhood was basically a negotiation with my parents over how much television I could watch every day. I think we are really in the golden age of TV— there is so much to watch, such a variety of shows getting made, it is impossible to keep up.

Just a note about what I like: I generally prefer a drama over a comedy, I don’t really like horror or action, and I cannot care about superheroes. I don’t like animated adult comedies (sorry to Bobs Burgers, this is not my vibe), and I LOVE a teen drama.

There are two ways in which a television show can be “good.” It can be well made, well acted, prestige television. That is not the same thing as it being fun to watch. The first way is objective— does this show win awards? Is it critically acclaimed? The second way is subjective— do I enjoy this? Is it entertaining? A show needs to be good in one of these two ways, but not both.

The first incarnation of this newsletter was a giant list of television shows I had in a note on my phone that I shared with my friends. I stopped updating it when I started writing Consume-her Reports, and I have decided to bring it back and share it with all of you. So, here is a huge list of television shows that I have watched and would recommend. It’s organized by general vibe as much as possible, but a lot of these categories bleed together so I did my best. This goes back to shows I watched in high school, so this is a pretty comprehensive list. This is an absolutely insane amount of television, but I am nothing if not thorough. Definitely some recency bias here though. I’ve listed where it is streaming if it is original content and therefore will not bounce around to other services.

Excellence:

• The Americans: Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys play Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, KGB spies posing as everyday Americans in the suburbs of DC. One of the best multi-season dramas ever made, with a perfect ending.

• Fleabag (Amazon): Phoebe Waller-Bridge plays a 20-something young woman trying to navigate life, love, and healing from trauma. Genius.

• The Good Place: Very funny but also quite profound comedy about what happens when we die, “good” people and “bad” people, and humanity. A truly incredible ensemble cast.

• The Good Wife (Paramount+): Legal drama about Alicia Florrick, who has to return to her law career when her husband is wrapped up in a political sex scandal that lands him in prison. This show is so good.

• The Good Fight (Paramount+): A spin off, following Diane Lockhart from The Good Wife to a new law firm. Touches on current events better than any show on television. Stars Christine Baranski, icon.

• I May Destroy You: About a woman named Arabella who gets sexually assaulted, and how she deals with it. Written by and starring Michaela Coel, who is a genius.

• Insecure (HBO): Issa Rae and her friends are in their 20s and in LA.

• Mindhunter (Netflix): Follows the creation of the Behavioral Science Unit at the FBI, which developed criminal profiling to help catch serial killers.

• Normal People (Hulu): Miniseries, adaptation of the Sally Rooney novel, about Connell and Marianne who meet in high school and have an on and off relationship throughout their young adulthood. One of the best book to screen adaptations I’ve ever seen.

• Parenthood: Just a wholesome tv drama that follows the Braverman family. Feels like a predecessor to This is Us, from the creator of Friday Night Lights.

• Prison Break (season 1): The most addicting season of television I have ever watched. Each season is progressively less good, but still worth a watch overall.

• Sex Education (Netflix): A group of teens at a British high school navigate friendships, relationships, and sex. SO GOOD.

• Schitt’s Creek: Everyone has seen this by now but it’s just so good.

• Succession (HBO): Logan Roy runs a media empire, and his children fight over who will get to take it over. Rich white family power dynamics.

• Superstore: My favorite work place sitcom ever made, about a group of employees at a big box store called Cloud 9.

Serious Drama:

• The Bear (Hulu): A well known chef returns home to Chicago to run his family’s sandwich shop after his brother passes away.

• Big Little Lies: Rich white women in Monterey, California, get wrapped up in a murder investigation.

• Black Mirror (Netflix): Anthology series about the dangers and triumphs of technology in society, sometimes very dark. Highlights: Hang the DJ, San Junipero, Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too.

• Breaking Bad: Suburban dad finds out he had terminal cancer, becomes a powerful drug dealer, sells meth to save his family’s financial future.

• The Chair (Netflix): Sandra Oh becomes the first woman of color to head the English Department at a university.

• The Crown (Netflix): Fictionalized drama about the British royal family, starting with Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953.

• Defending Jacob (AppleTV+): Miniseries, detective in a small town has to deal with his son being accused of murder. Chris Evans!

• Dopesick (Hulu): Miniseries about the Sackler family, OxyContin, and the opioid epidemic.

• Friday Night Lights: Excellent teen drama about a small town in Texas and their fixation on high school football.  

• Euphoria (HBO): Teens going THROUGH IT.

• The Gilded Age (HBO): Rich people in New York in the 1880s. Downton Abbey adjacent.

• Greys Anatomy: The hospital drama I will never quit, the longest relationship I’ve ever been in.

• Handmaids Tale (Hulu): BLEAK show based on the Margaret Atwood novel about a dystopian future America that relies on fertile women to reproduce after declined fertility rates cause a population crisis. Google content warnings before you dive in.

• It’s a Sin: Miniseries about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in England.

• Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu): Miniseries, adaptation of the Celeste Ng novel, a mother and daughter move to a small Ohio town and become intertwined in the lives of a family who lives there.

• Madam Secretary: Procedural drama about a woman who becomes Secretary of State.

• Maid (Netflix): Miniseries, based on a memoir, about trying to leave an abusive relationship and living in poverty.

• A Million Little Things: Follows a group of friends and their families after one of them dies by suicide, less earnest This is Us.

• Modern Love (Amazon): Anthology series that recreates stories from the Modern Love New York Times column.

• Mrs. America (Hulu): Anthology series about the fight to pass/against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.

• Ozark (Netflix): Jason Bateman and Laura Linney are parents who get caught up in money laundering for a drug cartel. Breaking Bad adjacent.

• The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix): Beth Harmon becomes a chess prodigy in the Cold War era.

• Sanditon: Adaptation of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel.

• Scandal: Second best Shonda Rhimes show, about Olivia Pope, a “fixer” in Washington DC. Off the rails, but juicy.  

• Sharp Objects (HBO): Miniseries, adaptation of the Gillian Flynn novel, about a reporter who returns to her small hometown to investigate unsolved murders.

• Station Eleven (HBO): A flu-like pandemic kills 99% of the world’s population, and 20 years later the people who survived are living in an entirely new world.

• This is Us: Wholesome family drama about the Pearson family.

• Victoria: PBS Masterpiece show a la Downtown Abbey, about Queen Victoria.

• The West Wing: Nostalgic (and outdated) political drama.

• Young Royals (Netflix): Swedish show about gay teens at a boarding school.

Fun Drama:

• All Rise: Legal procedural about a courthouse in Los Angeles.

• Bridgerton (Netflix): You know what this is, it is worth the hype.

• The Bold Type: A group of three twenty-something best friends who work at a teen vogue-esque magazine.

• The Carrie Diaries: A teen drama that is a prequel to Sex and the City.

• Crashing (UK version): A group of weirdos living in an abandoned hospital because the rent is cheap.

• Dickinson (AppleTV+): Anachronistic portrayal of Emily Dickinson coming of age and trying to be a published writer.

• Four Weddings and a Funeral (Hulu): Miniseries, loosely based on the rom com from the 90s, follows a group of friends through a year in their life.

• Emily in Paris (Netflix): Emily moves to Paris for a year for work and is an all around bad person with bad clothes, but the men are hot.

• Gilmore Girls: You know what this show is.

• The Great (Hulu): Campy, anachronistic take on Catherine the Great.

• Greek: Focuses on a group of college kids in fraternities and sororities.

• Good Trouble: A spin off from The Fosters (no need to watch The Fosters to follow along) about Callie and Marianna who move to LA and end up in a shared living situation.

• Harlem (Amazon): Insecure meets Sex and the City meets Younger.

• Heartstopper (Netflix): EXTREMELY CUTE British rom com about gay teenagers.

• Jane the Virgin: An americanized telenovela about Jane, who is saving herself for marriage but accidentally gets artificially inseminated and becomes pregnant.

• Love Life (HBO): Rom com series, each season has a new main character, each episode follows a significant relationship from their life.

• Lovesick: A man finds out he has chlamydia and has to notify all of his previous partners, bounces back and forth between present day and all his past relationships. Cute!

• Love, Victor (Hulu): A Love, Simon spin off about a group of high school teens.

• Never Have I Ever (Netflix): Mindy Kaling’s show about Devi, a high school student in a love triangle.

• Only Murders in the Building (Hulu): Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez try to solve a murder that happened in their apartment building.

• Sex and the City (HBO): Did not age well but is fun anyway.

• Sex Lives of College Girls (HBO): Four girls navigate their freshman year of college.

• Single Drunk Female: About a woman in her 20s who has a breakdown, moves home, and starts Alcoholics Anonymous.

• Somebody, Somewhere (HBO): Extremely heartfelt show about a woman struggling to navigate life after the death of her sister.

• Sort Of: Follows Sabi, a non-binary person, who is a nanny for a family with two kids.

• Special (Netflix): Ryan navigates life as a gay man with cerebral palsy.

• Starstruck: Jessie meets Tom on a night out and goes home with him, then finds out the next morning that he is a very famous movie star.

• Sweet Magnolias (Netflix): Hallmark movie adjacent about a small town and the people who live there.

• Ted Lasso (AppleTV+): Jason Sudeikis is an American football coach who moves to the UK to coach a soccer team.

• UNREAL: Fictionalized show about the making of a show like The Bachelor.

• Virgin River (Netflix): If a Hallmark movie was a multi-season television show, about a woman who moves to a small town to be a nurse.

• The White Lotus (HBO): A bunch of crazy rich people vacation for a week in a luxurious island resort, someone dies.

• You (Netflix): Penn Bagdley plays a crazy stalker psycho dude who falls in love with girls and then does a bunch of creepy stuff.

• Younger: Sutton Foster gets divorced and has to lie about her age to get a job, befriends Hilary Duff, enters love triangle with hot men, very fun.

Funny but Dark:

• Dead to Me (Netflix): Jen’s husband dies in a hit and run and she is determined to figure out what happened, and she meets and befriends Judy at a support group.

• The End of the F***ing World (Netflix): It is impossible to explain the plot of this, just trust me.

• Get Even: Pretty Little Liars meets Gossip Girl at an English boarding school for girls.

• Made for Love (HBO): Hazel is desperate to escape her marriage to a tech billionaire who has put a chip in her brain.

• The Afterparty (Apple TV+): A group of people attend their high school reunion, one of them is dead by the end of the night. Each episode is from the perspective of a different character and in a different genre. Very good murder mystery!

• You’re the Worst: Gretchen and Jimmy date and fall in love, have depression, do lots of crazy stuff with their weird friends.

Trashy Drama:

• Anatomy of a Scandal (Netflix): British legal drama about a PM who gets caught up in a sexual assault scandal.

• Cruel Summer: The popular girl goes missing, they find her a year later, she blames her classmate, chaos happens.

• Gossip Girl (original): Has not aged well but. It’s still on the list.

• The OC: The original teen drama/a foundational text.

• One of Us is Lying (Peacock): Five high school students go into detention, only four come out alive.

• One Tree Hill: Chad Michael Murray circa 2007, what more needs to be said?

• 90210: Reboot of the 90s classic. Insane storylines but fun.

• Desperate Housewives: Rich lady chaos!  

High Quality Comedy:

• Abbott Elementary: excellent workplace sitcom that takes place in an underfunded elementary school.

• American Vandal (Netflix): Fake documentary style show where high school students try to solve a very serious crime: who drew penises on all the cars in the parking lot?

• Derry Girls: Follows a group of high school girls as they live in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

• Girls5Eva (Peacock): A girl group from the 90s reunites and tries to make a comeback.

• Grace and Frankie (Netflix): Their husbands are lifelong business partners who leave them…for each other. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are icons.

• Grand Crew: Sitcom about a group of friends who hang out at a wine bar. Extremely funny.

• Hacks (HBO): An older woman comedian hires a young assistant to help her write relevant jokes.

• Loot (AppleTV+): A woman divorces her billionaire husband and decides to take a more active role in running the charity organization in her name.

• The Mindy Project (seasons 1-4, Hulu): Mindy is a doctor and her personal life is a mess.

• New Girl: This show was my entire personality in 2011.

• The Other Two (HBO): The funniest show on tv right now.

• Parks and Recreation: This is better than The Office.

• Pen15 (Hulu): Genius portrayal of being an 11 year old girl.

• The Righteous Gemstones (HBO): A ridiculous televangelist family does a lot of crazy stuff.

• Rutherford Falls (Peacock): A small town struggles to confront its history of colonization.

• Search Party (HBO): Hilarious, WEIRD, cannot describe the plot.

• Schmigadoon! (Apple TV+): A couple gets stuck in a town where everyone behaves as if they are in a 1960s musical.

• Shrill (Hulu): Based on Lindy West’s memoir, Aidy Bryant works at a magazine and wants to change her life without having to change her body.

• Veep (HBO): Top tier television comedy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the Vice President.

Low Quality Comedy:

• Baby Daddy: Ben is surprised when his ex-girlfriend leaves their baby on his doorstep.

• How I Met Your Father (Hulu): Reboot of How I Met Your Mother, extremely corny but once you get to know the characters it is easy to get invested.

• Young and Hungry: Emily Osment is a private chef for a rich guy.

True Crime- Fictionalized

• American Crime Story: Each season is a different story, all of them are good.

• The Act (Hulu): The story of Gypsy Rose, a young girl tortured by her mother, who had Munchausen by Proxy.

• Dr. Death (Peacock): True story of a surgeon who kills several people, based on the podcast, stars Pacey from Dawson’s Creek (a plus).

• The Dropout (Hulu): Theranos/Elizabeth Holmes story.

• Escape at Dannemora (Showtime): True story of two men who escaped from prison.

• Landscapers (HBO): a British couple finds themselves at the center of murder investigation, based on a true story. Olivia Colman!

• Law and Order: True Crime: Miniseries about the Menendez Brothers.

• Manhunt: Unabomber: I mean. It’s about the Unabomber.

• The Staircase (HBO): Dramatization of the true crime doc, about a man named Michael Peterson who is charged with his wife’s murder.

• Unbelievable (Netflix): Horrific story about a woman who is raped and not believed by law enforcement.

• Under the Banner of Heaven (Hulu): Based on the book, about mormons and murder.

• Waco: About the FBI raid of the Branch Davidian’s compound.

• When They See Us (Netflix): About the five young men wrongly convicted of the rape of a jogger in Central Park.

Crime Fiction:

• Broadchurch: Follows Olivia Colman and David Tennant as detectives investigating the death of a young boy in a small English town.

• The Flight Attendant (HBO): Chaotic murder mystery.

• Mare of Easttown (HBO): EXCELLENT, gripping murder mystery.

• SAFE: Man tries to figure out what happened when his teenage daughter goes missing.

• The Undoing (HBO): Another chaotic murder mystery, this one with Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman.

• White Collar: Crime procedural starring Matt Bomer as a con man who gets caught and agrees to help the FBI in order to avoid prison.

Documentary:

• Allen v Farrow (HBO): Documents Mia Farrow and her relationship with Woody Allen, his abuse of Dylan, and their custody battle.

• The Clinton Affair: Covers Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and the fallout.

• Dogs (Netflix): Just a bunch of stories about dogs *cries*

• How to Fix a Drug Scandal (Netflix): About a scandal in drug testing labs in Massachusetts that brought into question thousands of drug convictions.

• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (HBO): About true crime author Michelle McNamara's obsession with finding the East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer.

• I Love You, Now Die (HBO): About Michelle Carter, who was charged with murder after coercing her teenage boyfriend into killing himself.

• Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (Netflix): Ew.

• Leah Remini- Scientology and the Aftermath: Disturbing stories from people who have left Scientology.

• LuLaRich (Amazon): WILD series about LuLaRoe and multilevel marketing.

• The Keepers (Netflix): About abuse within the Catholic church.

• McMillions (HBO): About the man who rigged the McDonalds monopoly game.

• On Pointe (Disney+): Follows students at the School of American Ballet in New York.

• Song Exploder (Netflix): Based on the podcast, each episode a musician discusses how they made one of their hits.

• The Staircase (Netflix): About a man on trial for murdering his wife.

• Surviving R. Kelly: Documents R. Kelly’s gross abuses and the numerous people who failed to stop him.

• The Vow (HBO): About NXIVM, a “self help group” that was actually a sex cult.

• The Way Down (HBO): About Gwen Shamblin Laura, creator of the Weigh Down Workshop.

• Wild Wild Country (Netflix): About the Rajneeshpuram community (cult) in Oregon.

Good Reality TV:

• The Amazing Race: Teams of two race around the world and do ridiculous tasks, winner gets $1 million.

• Blown Away (Netflix): Glass blowing competition show.

• The Great British Baking Show: Wholesome baking competition.

• The Great Pottery Throwdown: Wholesome pottery competition.

• The Mole (2022, Netflix): Group of people complete missions to win money, one of them is purposefully trying to sabatouge the group, they have to try to figure out who it is.

• School of Chocolate (Netflix): Wholesome pastry and chocolatier competition.

• Selena + Chef (HBO): Selena Gomez has a bunch of famous chefs teach her how to cook over zoom.

• Songland: Unknown songwriters pitch songs to famous artists, work with famous producers (Ryan Tedder, Shane McAnnally, Ester Dean), artist picks one song to release.

• Survivor: The original reality competition show, this is still good and you should tune in.

Trashy Reality TV:

• Are You the One: 10 men and 10 women get put in a house and have to figure out who matchmakers have determined to be their “perfect match,” if they get all 10 pairs they split $1 million.

• The Circle (Netflix): sort of Big Brother but everyone is in their own apartments and can only communicate via a social media called The Circle.

• DCC: Making the Team: Documents the months long training camp process of trying to make the most competitive NFL cheerleading team.

• FBoy Island (HBO): Three girls, 12 “nice guys” and 12 “FBoys.”

• The Hills: The best reality show ever made, I said what I said.

• Indian Matchmaking (Netflix): Follows a prolific match maker who arranges marriages and several different people looking for a spouse.

• Love is Blind (Netflix): People date through a wall and then get married a month later because, of course.

• Married at First Sight: People LEGALLY MARRY literal strangers and then have six weeks to see if they actually like each other.

• The One That Got Away (Amazon): Six leads are visited by people from their past to see if they are ~Meant To Be~

• Selling Sunset (Netflix): made by the creator of The Hills, 25% real estate and 75% rich people drama.

• Too Hot to Handle (Netflix): Hot horny people can’t have sex for a month or money gets deducted from the prize pot.

• Twenty-Somethings: Austin (Netflix): Basically The Real World. Strangers move into a house in Austin.