1. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Year: 1993-1999
Cast: Avery Brooks, Rene Auberjonois, Terry Farrell, Cirroc Lofton, Colm Meaney, Armin Shimerman, Alexander Siddig, Nana Visitor, Michael Dorn, and Nicole de Boer
Genre: Adventure, Sci-Fi
Rating: TV-PG
Runtime: Season 1-7: 176 episodes
Created By: Rick Berman, Michael Piller
Trailer: Watch here
There’s no doubt that Star Trek is having another fantastic Renaissance with a handful of shows spanning styles and tones, and while you’re enjoying the haunting Picard and hilarious Lower Decks, you should make time to return to the greatest Star Trek series of all time. Set on a space station jointly administered by Starfleet and Bajorans — who were previously brutally occupied by Kardassians — the show took the typical Trek formula and cast of characters but had room to let their stories breathe because they weren’t constantly rocketing off to a new planet to meet new aliens. As such, it had a lot to say about Colonizing, freedom fighters and terrorists, religious faith, and duty, yet still found some time to play baseball, too.
2. Billions
Year: 2016-present
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Damian Lewis, Maggie Siff, David Costabile, Condola Rashad, Asia Kate Dillon, Kelly AuCoin, and Corey Stoll
Genre: Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-6: 72 episodes
Created By: Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Andrew Ross Sorkin
Trailer: Watch here
What whip-smart series about prosecuting the super-rich for fraud just got a new injection of relevance? This one! Koppelman, Levien, and Sorkin’s original series offered a hip jab against the uber-wealthy, treading that balance beam that allows us to salivate in envy at the lifestyle while deeply, deeply wishing they would get taken down. Based on several real-world fraud cases, the inciting storyline focuses on U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhoades’ attempt to nail charming hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod for doing a bunch of illegal stuff in order to make and secure his billions. Unsurprisingly, the minds behind Ocean’s 13 and Rounders inject an incredible sense of cool alongside the twisting back stabs and reversals of massive fortune. Watch it for the clever drama, but be sure to take notes on some hot restaurants to check out for your next NYC visit.
3. Dexter/Dexter: New Blood
Year: 2006-2013/2021-present
Cast: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Julie Benz, Erik King, Lauren Velez, David Zayas, James Remar, C.S. Lee, John Lithgow, Julia Stiles, and Jimmy Smits
Genre: Crime Drama, Mystery, Thriller, Dark Comedy, Police Procedural
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-8: 96 episodes/Season 1: 10 episodes
Created By: James Manos Jr./Clyde Phillips
Trailer: Watch here
Dexter Morgan is a blood splatter technician/serial killer in Miami who loves his sister, excels at work, and kills people with decent regularity. The good news is that he was brought up with a moral code, so he sticks with murdering murderers. The police don’t seem too enthusiastic about that as an excuse, so he’s under constant threat of being discovered by the very people he shares a breakroom with. This series hit hard when it premiered, and it continues to shock, particularly because of its aggressive performances and ability to place Dexter in impossible situations that he juuuuuuuust manages to squeak out of. Most of the time. It eventually went delightfully off the rails, and the revival series New Blood clearly decided that staying grounded was overrated. It remains a guilty beach read in TV form.
4. The Chi
Year: 2017-present
Cast: Jason Mitchell, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Jacob Latimore, Alex Hibbert, Tiffany Boone, Yolonda Ross, and Armando Riesco
Genre: Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-5: 50 episodes
Created By: Lena Waithe
Trailer: Watch here
It’s easy to accidentally binge shows these days, but it’s genuinely difficult to stop watching The Chi. The series from Waithe and Common is a web of daily lives on the South Side of Chicago all affected in different ways by a dramatic series of events. It doesn’t feel quite right to call it a drama because it encompasses the totality of human experience through the eyes of its ensemble — from risky first loves to challenging jobs to the struggles of poverty and a lack of good choices. With fantastic performances throughout, the show is deeply humane and finds incredible joy in each of its vibrant, compelling characters.
5. Reno 911!
Year: 2003-2009
Cast: Cedric Yarbrough, Niecy Nash, Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, Carlos Alazraqui, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Mary Birdsong, Ian Roberts, and Joe Lo Truglio
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-8: 124 episodes
Created By: Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney-Silver
Trailer: Watch here
It’s a comedy miracle that this weird, wonderful parody of Cops exists. Throughout seasons of the most taboo jokes possible, the underlying philosophy of the series is that these Reno cops are profoundly inept. It’s the comic well from which all the funny stuff flows, and the cast nails it straight to the ground every time. It’s outrageous and singular, and fans of Party Down and I Think You Should Leave who, somehow, haven’t checked this out should spare some binge time to connect with their comedy ancestors. Beyond its peerless humor, this Comedy Central show pulls off the impossible of having every cast member be the MVP of every episode.
6. The Good Wife
Year: 2009-2016
Cast: Julianna Margulies, Matt Czuchry, Archie Panjabi, Graham Phillips, Makenzie Vega, Josh Charles, and Christine Baranski
Genre: Legal Drama, Political Drama
Rating: TV-14
Runtime: Season 1-7: 156 episodes
Created By: Robert King, Michelle King
Trailer: Watch here
The Kings’ drama series is an institution ripe for a rewatch (or long overdue for you to see). Jumping off the cliched image of the humbling politician admitting to an affair to a packed press conference with his trapped doting wife holding his hand as a measure of public support, the show featured a woman who refused to play nice. After her husband is jailed for a sex scandal-tinged corruption charge, Alicia Florrick emerges from being a stay-at-home mother to rejoin the ranks of litigation to provide for her two children. The Good Wife deftly jumped between Florrick’s personal woes and the weekly courtroom challenges she faced with courage and smarts, all while touting an impressive list of guest stars and recurring actors.
7. NCIS
Year: 2003 –
Cast: Too many, including Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perrette, David McCallum, Cote de Pablo, Sean Murray, Brian Dietzen, Diona Reasonover, Wilmer Valderrama, Rocky Carroll, Katrina Law, Gary Cole
Genre:
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 21 seasons
Created By: Donald Paul Bellisario
Trailer: Watch here
Somehow, the little JAG spin off transformed into a juggernaut of Naval investigative crimes. The procedural bent of the series is second to the cast, which is what keeps viewers tuning in even when beloved characters depart — and most of them have, including Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Abby Sciuto — although Timothy McGee and Jimmy Palmer are still hanging tight. Of course spin offs of this spin off have arrived over the years, and soon, NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Tony And Ziva will pile on, too.
8. Frasier
Year: 1993-2004
Cast: Kelsey Grammer, Jane Leeves, David Hyde Pierce, Peri Gilpin, John Mahoney, and Moose The Dog and Enzo The Dog
Genre: Sitcom
Rating: TV-PG
Runtime: Season 1-11: 264 episodes
Created By: David Angell, Peter Casey, David Lee
Trailer: Watch here
Yes, you hear the blues a’callin’. It’s inevitable. The pull of one of the most successful sitcoms of all time was, inexplicably, about a posh psychiatrist doling out radio advice in Seattle. The Cheers spin-off found a winning formula in affably pompous Frasier butting heads Odd Couple style with his domestic beer-swilling, retired cop father. Naturally, his effete brother Niles and dad’s daffy line-in physio Daphne are key to the mix, as well as his deadpan genius producer Roz. It’s difficult to see the show working without any of them because they made up a bizarre family that squabbled, had each other’s backs, and occasionally got into vaudeville-esque hijinks. A welcome antidote after watching so much TV-MA.
9. Nathan For You
Year: 2013 – 2017
Cast: Nathan Fielder
Genre: Reality/Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Seasons: 4 (25 episodes)
Created By: Nathan Fielder
Trailer: Watch here
Before Nathan Fielder truly unsettled the world with The Rehearsal‘s higher (and even more awkward) stakes full of manipulation, he warmed up with this assortment of satirical pranks. At times, this series is so cringeworthy to watch that, well, it is hard not to look away from the small-business scenarios. Yet Fielder keeps viewers hooked despite any discomfort, and it’s worth doubling back for a refresh of this deranged yet innovative series.
10. Chappelle’s Show
Year: 2003-2006
Cast: Dave Chappelle, Charlie Murphy, Donnell Rawlings, and Paul Mooney
Genre: Sketch Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-3: 28 episodes
Created By: Dave Chappelle, Neal Brennan
Trailer: Watch here
The GOAT that was too good to last. At first glance, there’s nothing groundbreaking about the structure of the sketch series. Dave Chappelle would do some standup and introduced some pre-recorded sketches to a clapping audience — but that standup, and those sketches, changed television. From Charlie Murphy‘s hilarious tales of Hollywood life to the Racial Draft to a very different look for Wayne Brady, Chappelle’s Show dared to push boundaries and go where other shows simply weren’t even thinking about going.
11. Twin Peaks
Year: 1990 – 1991 & 2017
Cast: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Mädchen Amick, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn
Genre: Mystery/Crime drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 2 seasons (30 episodes) & 1 bonus season (18 episodes)
Created By: Mark Frost, David Lynch
Trailer: Watch here
The David Lynch creation’s long-lasting cult status and critical acclaim eventually sparked a third-season continuation/revival, but everything goes back to FBI Agent Dale Cooper’s ultra-quirky investigation of who, exactly, killed homecoming queen Laura Palmer. As it happens, everything about this Washington town is somehow even more quirky and f*cked up than Cooper himself. TV became a lot more experimental in the wake of this show, and even though Season 2 did not sit as well with fans, the revival more than made up for any shortcomings.
12. 1923
Year: 2022-present
Cast: Helen Mirren, Harrison Ford, Brandon Sklenar, Julia Schlaepfer, Jerome Flynn, Darren Mann, Isabel May, Brian Geraghty, Aminah Nieves, Michelle Randolph, and Timothy Dalton
Genre: Western
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1: 8 episodes
Created By: Taylor Sheridan
Trailer: Watch here
It’s impossible to turn on Paramount+ while escaping Taylor Sheridan. He’s the Shonda Rhimes of the streaming channel, spinning off massive successes off his massive successes. 1923 is just one of them — a branch from the Yellowstone universe taking us back to bust decade Montana where the Dutton family weathers economic downturns, prohibition, conflicts at the local Catholic boarding school, and men who want to do them harm. If you want to understand how good this show is, just take a look at the cast list. Ford and Mirren are fantastic, and while it was meant to be a one-off, a second season was ordered because fan response was so strong.
13. The Curse
Year: 2023
Cast: Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 1 season, 10 episodes
Created By: Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie
Trailer: Watch here
There are cringe comedies and then there’s Showtime’s The Curse, a limited series about a married pair of alt-HGTV home flippers gentrifying their New Mexico neighborhood via eco-friendly monstrosities and calling it philanthropy. Created by two masters of squirm – Benny Safdie and Nathan Fielder – the show is a voyeuristic exercise that tests fans’ capacity for second-hand embarrassment as its main characters, the affluent Asher (Fielder) and Whitney (a shockingly unlikable Emma Stone) bulldoze the soul of their small, impoverished community with just a few reality TV cameras and a staggering amount of white privilege. It’s the best, most uncomfortable TV show you’ll watch this year.
14. Avatar: The Last Airbender
Year: 2005 – 2008
Cast: Dee Bradley Baker, Zach Tyler Eisen, Mae Whitman
Genre: Animation/Adventure
Rating: TV-Y7-FV
Seasons: 3 (62 episodes)
Created By: Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko
Trailer: Watch here
This Nickelodeon series will appeal to many generations and revolves around the four nations that represent the four natural elements: water, earth, fire, and air. Special beings known as the Benders can control their own particular element, but all four elements can be mastered by the Avatar. In this series, a tribe discovers that the missing Avatar is among them, and now, Aang must use his abilities to truly become the master that he was intended to be.
15. Star Trek: Picard
Year: 2020-present
Cast: Patrick Stewart, Allison Pill, Isa Briones, Harry Treadway, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Jeri Ryan, and Brent Spiner
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-3: 30 episodes
Created By: Akiva Goldsman, Michael Chabon, Kirsten Beyer, Alex Kurtzman
Trailer: Watch here
Undoubtedly one of the best of the modern Star Trek spin-offs, Picard has gone through a serious evolution from dropping the old salt into a wild new adventure with artificial intelligence to leaning fully into the nostalgic possibilities for reuniting the crew of the USS Enterprise. Stewart is as compelling as ever, imbuing the legacy role with even more gravitas now that Picard is an elder statesman constantly considering his regrets and mortality. The rest of the cast is also running at full warp, and the third season is a pure gift to Next Generation fans. But you don’t have to take my word for it!
16. Yellowjackets
Year: 2021-present
Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Sophie Nelisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Christina Ricci, Sammi Hanratty, Juliette Lewis, and Sophie Thatcher
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Psychological Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1: 10 episodes
Created By: Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson
Trailer: Watch here
In 1972, the Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 plane crashed in the remote Andes, and the survivors were forced to resort to cannibalism as a means to survive the inhospitable climes until they could be rescued. Yellowjackets asks what would happen if the plane had been filled with teenage soccer players. Jumping back and forth between the wilderness and the present day, the series is a taut thriller tinged with the unfolding mystery of what really happened out there when the girls’ plane went down. Is it as simple as they made it sound in the press, or does it get a lot stranger? (Hint: you already know the answer.) Anchored by rock-star performances by Lynskey and Lewis and Ricci and the young crew, it’s earned its spot as a TV phenomenon for good reason.
17. A Gentleman In Moscow
Year: 2024
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Genre: Drama, History
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 1 season, 8 episodes
Created By: Ben Vanstone
Trailer: Watch here
Based on a novel by Amor Towles, this darkly funny drama sees Ewan McGregor playing a mustachioed Russian aristocrat under house arrest in a luxury hotel filled with an eclectic array of permanent and temporary guests. McGregor’s Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is banished to the hotel’s attic, witnessing the Bolshevik Revolution play out before him as he befriends a young girl and indulges in a bit of political scheming on the side.
18. Freaks and Geeks
Year: 1999-2000
Cast: Linda Cardellini, John Francis Daley, James Franco, Samm Levine, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Becky Ann Baker, Joe Flaherty, and Busy Phillips
Genre: Coming-Of-Age, Comedy, Drama
Rating: TV-14
Runtime: Season 1: 18 episodes
Created By: Paul Feig
Trailer: Watch here
In a kinder world, this series would have become the 1990s version of The Wonder Years and run for a dozen seasons. Instead, its single season launched most of the major comedy stars of the 2000s and remains a cult classic worshipped by Millennials who saw themselves and their disaffection reflected in the army surplus jacket-wearing Lindsay and the gawkish nerd Sam. The siblings struggled navigating their high school cliques, and the mortification that comes with either being at the bottom of the food chain or not quite fitting in anywhere. A previously underseen masterpiece that has thankfully not been forgotten.
19. Tulsa King
Year: 2022-present
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Andrea Savage, Martin Starr, Jay Will, Max Casella, Domenick Lombardozzi, Vincent Piazza, Garrett Hedlund, and Dana Delaney
Genre: Crime Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1: 9 episodes
Created By: Taylor Sheridan
Trailer: Watch here
Sylvester Stallone portrays a mafia capo who’s not swimming with the fishes. However, he might as well be on Mars in this Taylor Sheridan-created series that takes him to Route 66 and the land of the Golden Driller. Tulsa’s experiencing a hotspot-like effect these days in the midst of Reservation Dogs and following Watchmen, and it’s quite a joy to see Stallone as the mobster-straight-out-of-prison who’s dropping a “nice little place you got here” in a weed dispensary. Stallone has a blast here with 1980s-style one-liners that could put the Sly and Arnold movies of yesteryear to shame.
20. Ghosts
Year: 2022 –
Cast: Rose McIver, Richie Moriarty, Danielle Pinnock, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Brandon Scott Jones
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 1-3; 42 episodes
Created By: Joe Port, Joe Wiseman
Trailer: Watch here
Inheriting an estate? Good. Inheriting an estate filled with spirits? Not so great. Fortunately, these ghosts aren’t spooky at all, even if they happen to have an arrow through their head or even be headless. This is a straight-up comedy, and it’s more entertaining than it might sound at first description.
21. Californication
Year: 2007-2014
Cast: David Duchovny, Natascha McElhone, Madeleine Martin, Evan Handler, Pamela Adlon, and Madeline Zima
Genre: Comedy Drama, Sex Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-7: 84 episodes
Created By: Tom Kapinos
Trailer: Watch here
Hank Moody is an alcoholic writer who is super sad that his trenchant niche novel has been converted into a wildly popular (and soulless) movie. He’s also having a rough time with his ex-girlfriend/love of his life marrying a fancy Los Angeles publisher and his teenage daughter pulling away from him because of his terminal inability to make good choices. Aided by his deplorable agent, Hank tries to clean up his life, but it’s not exactly a linear process. Sophisticated and filled to the brim with sex and excess, David Duchovny rocked the role with a constant stream of devil may care vibes and the wink of a possibility that this slime ball was somehow redeemable.
22. Æon Flux
Year: 1991-1995
Cast: Denise Poirier, John Rafter Lee, and Julia Fletcher
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Avant-Garde, Experimental Sci-Fi
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-3: 21 episodes
Created By: Peter Chung
Trailer: Watch here
Part of the Liquid Television lineup back in the day, Aeon Flux was the show you watched before you knew what the F in WTF stood for. Æon Flux is a Barbarella-like secret agent who wears a black bikini and heavy weapons, hailing from a city of nihilism and anarchy in perpetual war with a rigid totalitarian city. Flux’s eternal mission is to bring the city down by targeting its ruler. A glorious cyberpunk ballet, the cartoon series was unique in its German Expressionistic look and its gutsy experimentalism. All of that was sanded down for a questionable live-action film starring Charlize Theron, which never stood a chance of bringing the gonzo world of this weirdo show to full fruition.
23. Detroiters
Year: 2017-2018
Cast: Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Season 1-2: 20 episodes
Created By: Tim Robinson, Sam Richardson, Zach Kanin, Joe Kelly
Trailer: Watch here
Tim and Sam are both morons, but they’re the very specific brand of morons you’d expect Tim Robinson (I Think You Should Leave) and Sam Richardson (Veep) would play. It’s a crying shame this absurd comedy gem didn’t catch fire, but we were lucky enough to be blessed with two seasons where Tim and Sam run an ad agency for local businesses, designed heartfelt and strange commercials that would fit well in the Be Kind Rewind universe. That’s the loosest of concepts, meant to act solely as a vehicle for two of the brightest (and oddest) comedic minds of our era to run rampant through a world of normies.
24. Evil
Year: 2019 –
Cast: Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, Aasif Mandvi
Genre: Crime drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 3 seasons (45 episodes)
Created By: Michelle King, Robert King
Trailer: Watch here
Some The X-Files flavor is on display here, this time with a skeptical psychologist joining a Catholic priest-in-training while they dive into alleged demonic possessions and other such unexplained mysteries inside the church. Can logic or the supernatural eventually prevail as official explanations, or why not both? It’s a dynamic that never gets old.
25. Halo
Year: 2022-2024
Cast: Pablo Schreiber, Kate Kennedy, Natasha Culzac, Bokeem Woodbine, Joseph Morgan, Natascha McElhone
Genre: Sci-fi/Action
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: Seasons 2: 17 episodes
Created By: Kyle Killen, Steven Kane
Trailer: Watch here
Even with the supremely talented Pablo Schreiber in the lead role, this confusing game-adaptation effort faded away in a haze of Master Chief sex scene memories. At least Megan Thee Stallion gave this franchise a twerking-related moment that will never be forgotten, too.
