1. Elementary
If you’re in the proceedings, give Elementary a try. Though the show is a CBS version of Sherlock, the dynamic between Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu’s gender-swapped Dr. Joan Watson is good, and the case-of-the-week framework makes this an easy series to watch in the amount that best suits you. It’s not as beautiful as Sherlock or as serialized as many other shows on this list, but sometimes you just want a good procedure — a bit-sized mystery with a beginning, middle, and end in one hour. If that’s what you’re in the mood for, Elementary can deliver the goods.
2. The Last Man on Earth
Most people actually don’t imagine the destruction of the planet to be an amusing scenario; luckily, the makers of The Last Man on Earth weren’t dissuaded. The show finds comedy in the catastrophe, watching a man called Phil Miller (Will Forte) who wanders through the deserted town of Tucson after a virus epidemic, crushing humanity. Eventually, he meets a partner, Carol Pilbasian (Kristen Schaal), but their personality characteristics make living together problematic, to say the least. The Last Man on Earth is an odd show, and yet a sharply crafted show, making it the sort of creative comedy that seldom comes along.
3. The Terror
The AMC horror series The Fear is one of the greatest horror shows of the last few years, full-stop, but it can also cater specifically to the history buffs. Based on Dan Simmons’ novel of the same name, the first season gives a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s lost voyage to the Arctic between 1845 and 1848, in which all the men on two ships died awful deaths. The episode opens with the two ships trapped in the ice struggling to cross the Arctic, and then we watch the men as they combat mutiny, starvation, and some sort of supernatural beast that seems to kill them off one by one. It’s like Master and Commander, by way of The Thing, with a heavy dose of cannibalism thrown in for good measure. It’s awesome and comes to a true conclusion by the end of the first season when the series was eventually confirmed to be an anthology.
4. Better Things
The era of the subversive sitcom begins with Better Stuff, a grim, caustic satire about getting older and raising children. The show follows Sam Fox (Pamela Adlon), a wrestling actress raising three children by herself in Los Angeles. Sam juggles her efforts to advance her career and to have fun with her duty to her children, each of whom poses her own particular difficulties. Adlon and co-creator of Louis C.K. Previously operated on the weird comedy-drama Louie, and Better Stuff reveals a similar mean streak, narrowing in the bleak, depressing facets of parenthood that most sitcoms skim over.
5. Vikings
History (Network) blends chronological precision with the spectacular action of Vikings, a dramatized portrayal of the prolific figure of the Scandinavian folklore, Ragnar Lothbrok. Vikings follow the actions of the clever Ragnar (Travis Fimmel) as he becomes the most powerful monarch of the Viking Age of Europe, or at least as he is portrayed by the history books and the Nordic sagas. The show has gained a lot of praise during its run so far — and without the gratuitous nudity typical to most cable epics — it has earned multiple Emmy awards for both effects and production.
6. The Act
The Act is a Hulu original series that dramatizes true crime stories that are so out-of-the-wall they’re impossible to believe. For its first season, the show would take a deep dive into Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her girlfriend, Dee Dee, whose story gained fame after the release of a viral, mind-boggling Buzzfeed long read on the situation. Starring Joey King and Patricia Arquette as a daughter/mother couple, The Act follows Gypsy’s discovery that she is a survivor of her mother’s abuse — a Munchausen-by-proxy scenario that may sound familiar to those watching HBO’s Sharp Objects — and tries to flee, leading to a divisive scheme.
7. Killing Eve
Killing Eve is a spy tale, a mystery of murder, a spellbinding drama of characters, and a gloriously evil comedy. It’s all coming together to make one of the most delightful and captivating series of the year, starring Sandra Oh as a bored, desk-bound MI-5 agent, and Jodie Comer as a beautiful, enigmatic, and totally unhinged foreign assassin Villanelle. The two women’s fates will soon be entangled, and their cat-and – mouse game is something like two cats circling each other on the European level. The series comes from the writer and star of Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and is based loosely on the novels by Luke Jennings, Villanelle. It refreshingly places women in positions that are typically reserved for men, or at least where one man will generally be involved.
8. Firefly
Before he was the genius behind Marvel’s movie universe, Joss Whedon was known for making unforgettable TV shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. Although the latter only lasted for one season before it was eventually canceled and later revived with the film Serenity, it was followed by a vicious cult. The science-fiction series is set only after an interplanetary civil war between the occupied inner system worlds and the outer planets, where civilization parallels the American West. The series is well known for its cast of likable characters, including Nathan Fillion’s Mal Reynolds, captain of the ship and potentially the coolest space thief since Han Solo.
9. Castle Rock
Castle Rock pays tribute to the master of horror, Stephen King, by telling tales in his created universe, inhabited by his famous, often notorious characters, places, and supernatural powers. This is not a mere wink-and-nudge kind of salute, but rather an original tale that sounds like it originated from the pages of the King’s own novel. Long-time fans of King’s work will find themselves doing double-duty by attempting to keep track of all the plot and character comparisons while still keeping up with the amazing mystery at the heart with Castle Rock. More casual fans may just find that they really enjoy all the little hints and comparisons, and eventually decide they’d like to dive into King’s collected works a little bit more. This is a win-win. Showrunners Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason certainly know how to make a King’s tale, and J.J. Abrams is no slouch when it comes to unpacking a mystery item.
10. The Great
Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult are starring in this humorous, genre-bending drama about the rise of Catherine the Great from a dull underdog to the Russian Empress. An anti-historical split through 18th-century Russia will make Chekhov flush and throw his vodka down. It’s a fictionalized series that taps into some of the most simplistic, silliest, and most superficial features of its iconic protagonists, which makes a lot of fun. Fanning’s Catherine is delightfully intense and idealistic with a hint of sadism towards her depraved, dopey husband Peter III.
