From The Comeback to Station Eleven, there are certain TV shows that deserve to be classics, but hardly anyone has heard of them. Shows like Seinfeld and Breaking Bad and M*A*S*H are rightly considered to be masterpieces that everyone has at least heard they need to watch.
But not every must-watch TV show is lucky enough to become a beloved classic. Shows like Girls5eva and The Returned deserve so much more attention.
Crashing
From Seinfeld to Louie, we’ve seen plenty of semi-autobiographical sitcoms where a famous standup comedian plays a version of themselves. But Pete Holmes’ show Crashing is different, because it goes back to a time before Pete was famous, when he was still starting out, so we get a fresh perspective on the comedy scene.
In Seinfeld, Louie, Maron, Mulaney, and every other show like this, the title character is already successful. But in Crashing, we see Pete go from an open-miker to a barker to a college comic, and we see just how hard it is to hone your craft and make it as a comedian.
Possessed
A lot of great K-dramas have caught on and become international hits, but Possessed remains an underappreciated gem. It’s a curious blend of comedy and supernatural thriller in which a detective teams up with a psychic medium to vanquish the ghost of a murderer. The acting is incredible, the music fits the tone perfectly, and the romance between the central characters rings true.
Superstore
Superstore should be in the same conversation as The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It’s just as hilarious, just as feel-good, and just as bingeable as any of those shows, but it doesn’t have nearly as many fans. As a workplace comedy set in a big-box store, Superstore is both a delightful ensemble sitcom and a razor-sharp satire of soulless corporate America.
With a lovable will-they-or-won’t-they couple and a supporting cast with no dead weight, Superstore is the ultimate comfort show. But it also has a subversively dark and edgy sense of humor for a brightly lit network sitcom; it touches on timely political issues, it’s full of outrageous, out-of-pocket one-liners, and there’s a running gag involving a local serial killer severing feet.
Girls5eva
Girls5eva is both a love letter to cheesy late-‘90s/early-2000s pop music and a perfect comedic vehicle for women of a certain age, who are rarely given the opportunity to lead a TV show. More than 20 years after their brief initial success, the eponymous girl group reunites and attempts to launch a comeback when one of their songs is sampled by a popular rapper.
The central quartet is brought to life by hilarious actors — especially Paula Pell as the brash, no-nonsense Gloria — and the show switches seamlessly between self-deprecating humor and uplifting drama. Both Peacock and Netflix canceled Girls5eva prematurely, but it’s a great show that’ll hopefully find an audience yet.
The Knick
Most medical dramas are set in a nice, clean, modern hospital with the benefit of all the life-saving surgical technologies that have been developed over the years. But the creators of The Knick asked, what if we went back to the early 20th century when medical science was still very crude and primitive?
Set in a fictionalized version of New York’s Knickerbocker Hospital, The Knick stars Clive Owen as a renowned surgeon who spends his days ingesting cocaine and his evenings passed out in a Chinatown opium den. The Knick is a delightfully grisly surgical thriller, but it also touches on social issues like racism and class warfare.
Hello Ladies
Stephen Merchant brought the disastrous dating stories from his standup comedy into the sitcom format with HBO’s brilliant but short-lived Hello Ladies. Merchant plays an awkward Englishman bumbling his way through the glamorous L.A. dating scene, humiliating himself at every turn despite his best efforts.
Hello Ladies only lasted for one season, but it was a really promising debut outing. Merchant is one of the best in the business when it comes to capturing a painfully mundane slice of life and leaning into the cringe. Hello Ladies is a really funny show, but it’s also a poignant look at how hard it is to be single.
The Returned
Adapted from the movie They Came Back, The Returned is set in a small French mountain town. One day, a bunch of its residents return home to find that they’ve been dead for years, and everyone they know has since moved on with their lives.
Like Twin Peaks, it’s both a chilling supernatural thriller and an engaging small-town soap opera. The setup is deeply disturbing, but you get swept up in these characters’ lives, regardless of the paranormal activity that envelops them.
Poker Face
Peacock has quietly canceled Poker Face after two seasons, and it’s a real shame, because it’s one of the greatest shows on the air. It’s a modern update of the Columbo formula, opening each episode with a murder and then following an intrepid sleuth’s quest to solve it. It’s not a whodunit, it’s a howcatchem.
But the sleuth in this case is no standard detective. Charlie Cale is just a happy-go-lucky drifter with an uncanny ability to tell when somebody is lying. It was the perfect role for Natasha Lyonne, combining biting wit and one-liners with real pathos and loneliness, and it’s a crime that she only got to play her for two seasons.
Somebody Somewhere
Bridget Everett is known for her provocative, loud-and-proud, cabaret-inspired standup comedy, but her HBO series is a much subtler, more humanistic look at everyday life. Somebody Somewhere picks up after a middle-aged woman has moved back home to take care of her dying sister. Her sister has passed away, and now she’s caught in a limbo between two different lives.
Somebody Somewhere is a beautiful show following the ups and downs of a bunch of people’s lives. It accurately reflects the mundane flow of real life as its characters navigate the foibles of grief and friendship and romance.
Mr. Inbetween
Scott Ryan expanded his movie The Magician into a series with Mr. Inbetween. It’s a pitch-black comedy about a hitman-for-hire with a complicated personal life. Ray Shoesmith is a freelance crook living in the suburbs of Sydney, doing the dirty work for various gangsters without batting an eye, and he’s also a loving single father.
That conceit alone would’ve been enough to get plenty of dark laughs out of the show, but Ryan went a step further. Mr. Inbetween works beautifully as a comedy, but there’s also a healthy dose of drama. It takes Ray’s relationship with his daughter and his childhood trauma and his care for his terminally ill brother seriously. He’s not an archetype; he’s a real human being.
