TV Recommendations
| TV Show | Year/s | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Don't Trust the B in Apt 23 | 2012-2014 | I love self-aware sitcoms, and this one is super fun. Highly recommend! |
| Scrubs | 2001-2010 | Is this a "Good" show? I honestly don't know. It has a lot of really funny moments but a lot of dumb ones too. I never watched it beginning to end, it was just on when I came home from school, so I've got a fond nostalgia for it, though I will never rewatch it, and didn't finish it. |
| Parks and Rec | 2009-2015 | Another one I never finished, but when it was good, it was very good! Certain episodes are top notch. |
| Baby Daddy | 2012-2017 | This is a comedy but I watched it for the romance. It's a really good romance. The show outside of that isn't great so if you can find a youtube playlist of all of the romance scenes that would work, but if you want some nice background noise this is a good show to have on. |
| Santa Clarita Diet | 2017-2019 | Whimsical cannibalism?? Timothy Olyphant and Drew Barrymore?? It's like someone made this show just for me. My only complaint about it is that it's a little bit bloody/gory but it helps that you're not meant to be scared of it. |
| Derry Girls | 2018-2022 | This is a comedy about a group of girls and a boy growing up in 1990s Northern Ireland. It's very good. |
| Hart of Dixie | 2011-2015 | This show is like an updated Gilmore Girls in tone, and it has a great romance in it. Plus I just think Rachel Bilson is fun to watch. |
| Miracle Workers | 2019-Present | This is such a fun comedy anthology series. Daniel Radcliffe is great in it and so is Geraldine Viswanathan. It's super quirky and weird though, and I don't know anyone else who watches it. |
| The Good Place | 2016-2020 | Another show that I didn't finish, but when it was good, it was really good. |
| Bob's Burgers | 2011-Present | I tend not to watch much animation, especially not western animation like this, but I think what sets this show apart is that ultimately they're making fun of things from a place of love, not a place of meanness or cruelty. It's also a lovely portrait of a silly family. |
| Legends of Tomorrow | 2016-2022 | This is a superhero show, so some might say well it's not a comedy. I beg to differ. This might be the best comic book inspired show that I've ever seen, because it isn't afraid to be just as goofy as the source material. It's very silly and fun and weird, and delightful. It's hard to believe it existed at the same time as super serious superhero movies because it's a much more fun approach than they were. |
| Superstore | 2015-2021 | A funny and very accurate portrayal of working retail. |
| Dickinson | 2019-2021 | This is a story about Emily Dickinson but it's also weird and wacky and funny. I love when shows are historically inaccurate on purpose, it's fun. |
| What We Do In The Shadows | 2019-Present | Sometimes this show can get a bit too zany for me but I've enjoyed it a lot, especially Guillermo. |
| Abbott Elementary | 2021-Present | Fun, wholesome, just an all-around nice time. |
| Our Flag Means Death | 2022-Present | I sometimes forget that I actually really like this show, because the fandom is incredibly annoying about it. It's a romantic comedy about pirates. |
| TV Show | Year/s | Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Blood and Water | 2020-Present | This is a crime drama set in a fancy private school in South Africa. I like it because it reminds me of some of the schools I went to, and I really enjoy learning about South African culture through this show as well. It's also fun - the actors are very talented and the central mystery is compelling, though the main character is kind of selfish sometimes. Then again, she's a teen, most teens are. |
| Sort Of | 2021-Present | Not only is this the only show I know of with a genderfluid South Asian main character, it's also very touching and emotional and GOOD. |
| The Cleaning Lady | 2022-Present | This is a crime show with a great central romance but also a lot of really interesting things to say about immigration. I'm frankly shocked it's been on for so long, I really thought it would get cancelled. |
| Leverage | 2008-2012 | A classic silly crime show, it's classic for a reason. Well, at least I think it's a classic |
| Gilmore Girls | 2000-2007 | This show was definitely not always good, and it got worse as it went - in the reunion show both Lorelai and Rory were downright mean and rude - but when it was good it really hit the spot. |
| Bones and Castle | 2005-2016 | The years are approximate, both of these shows are roughly the same concept, and I don't know if they're good, but they had some good episodes and they're great shows if you want to turn off your brain for a while. |
| Law and Order: SVU | 1999-Present | Another show that you definitely should turn off your brain for, but it's addictive and some of the romances are great too. |
| Mindhunter | 2017-2019 | Cancelled too soon, this is a historical crime show that deals with human behavior and it's fascinating to watch. |
| Reservation Dogs | 2021-Present | I wasn't sure if I should put this under comedy or drama, but I think it leans heavier towards drama. It's a great show about a group of Native American kids growing up on a reservation and having adventures. |
| Shameless (US) | 2011-2021 | I stopped watching this show after a few seasons because I couldn't deal with one more bad thing happening to those kids, and I heard that I made the right choice, but for the seasons I did watch, it was good. |
| My Mad Fat Diary | 2013-2015 | This show is dear to my heart and made me cry more than once. It's about a teenage girl growing up and dealing with a lot of normal teenage problems but it's done with more sensitivity than most shows especially when it aired. |
| Friday Night Lights | 2006-2011 | This is one of my absolute favorite shows. I kept telling people, I hate football, but this show is about more than that. It's really really good. |
| Pitch | 2016-2017 | Another show cancelled too soon, this is about the first female pro baseball player and it's GREAT and I'm really mad that it got cancelled. |
| Veronica Mars | 2004-2007 | The third season was bad, the second was mediocre, but the first season was great and I still think that the pilot was one of the best I've seen in terms of getting a ton of information to the viewer without it being too confusing. This show is about a teenage detective, in case you didn't know, it's like a noir. |
| Rectify | 2013-2016 | I don't remember that much about this show - I need to rewatch it, but I remember that I really enjoyed it so I'm recommending it anyway. |
| We Are Lady Parts | 2021 | This is a fun show about a group of Muslim girls who start a rock band. |
| 911 and 911: Lone Star | 2018-Present | Okay I know a lot of people watch this show for the characters but I will freely say I watch this show for the wild 911 calls. I don't care about what's going on in the character's lives. I'm here for the dumbest weirdest shit that's probably based on true 911 calls. And usually, most of the time, this show delivers. |
| Alexa and Katie | 2018-2020 | This is a kid's show, but it's about two best friends, one of whom has cancer, and it's surprisingly good. I really enjoyed it. |
| Bloodhounds | 2023 | This is only the second kdrama I've ever watched beginning to end and I really liked it! It's about two young boxers who band together to take down an evil loan shark company. |
| Yellowjackets | 2021-Present | This show is about a girls' soccer team that gets stranded in the woods when their plane crashes, and there's CANNIBALISM. Also great casting. Fantastic actresses. |
| The Bear | 2022-Present | A show about a dysfunctional family and a fancy restaurant. It's really good, and I love Ayo Edebiri in it. |
| TV Show | Year/s | Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Below Deck | 2013-Present | This is a fun reality show because it has a lot of drama but the cast is working and doing a job, so it's not just rich people messing around, or when it is, the cast is serving them so they are also irritated as the viewer is. I will say that there are a lot of weird dynamics regarding sex and gender, so certain seasons I would recommend avoiding if that is a trigger. |
| Real Housewives of Salt Lake City | 2020-Present | Every single cast member of this show is literally insane and it's so entertaining to watch. One of them is a cult leader who married her step-grandpa, and she's not even the craziest one. |
| Catfish | 2012-Present | I was in college when this started airing, and stopped watching soon after because it started to get kind of boring, but I started watching it on Youtube again recently - basically the whole series is on there - and it's got some pretty classic episodes. It's good background noise. |
| TV Show | Year/s | Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Reign | 2012-2017 | This show is historically inaccurate in the best way. There's defenstration.The Queen's ladies in waiting are wearing dresses they definitly got at Anthropologie, dancing to instrumental renditions of Beyonce. It's a fun time. |
| Halt and Catch Fire | 2014-2017 | This is a show that takes place during the beginning of computers - not the beginning of computers in general, but when they were starting to become as ubiquitous as they are now. Lee Pace is very handsome in it, and Mackenzie Davis is very beautiful in it. |
| Black Sails | 2014-2017 | Pirates!! This show is so so good and it has a lot of LGBTQ representation as well, some of my favorite romances ever. I will say that in the first season there are some episodes where a main character is raped, and I wish that storyline could be erased because besides that it is very good. |
| Anne with an E | 2017-2019 | Another fun retelling of Anne of Green Gables. I like the Canadian one too, it's not on this list but I recommend that and this one as well. I think they complement each other nicely. |
| The Great | 2020-Present | This is a historical comedy set in Russia about Catherine the Great. It's more comedy than anything else, and the two main actors do a fantastic job. |
| The Alienist | 2018-2020 | A crime drama set in the 1890s in New York City where three people try to solve the murders of a serial killer targeting children. It deals with psychiatry and criminal profiling at the birth of those areas of study. |
| Call the Midwife | 2012=Present | A long-running historical series about British midwives throughout the 1950s and onwards, what I like about this show is that the storylines and characters develop to become more diverse as London itself became more diverse with immigration during that time period. The show WILL make you cry, both happy and sad tears. |
| Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries | 2012-2015 | A fun murder mystery show, this has one of the best slow-burn romances I've seen in a while. Also Miss Fisher is spunky and flirtatious and very fun. |
| TV Show | Year/s | Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer | 1997-2003 | BtVS means a lot to me. It was the first show I watched where I seeked out the fandom and made friends from it, and I have those friends to this day. It has flaws, of course, but I really like it. It's about a girl and her friends fighting vampires and monsters. |
| Teen Wolf | 2011-2017 | Another show that isn't good, I didn't finish it, but it's on here just because of how much I love Scott McCall. He's perfect. |
| Carnivale | 2003-2005 | Magic and mystery in a dust-bowl era travelling circus. What's not to like! |
| Pushing Daisies | 2007-2009 | This is a whimsical show about a man who can bring dead people back to life by touching them. He uses this skill to solve murders, and he's played by Lee Pace so he's beautiful. The show itself is so aesthetically appealing as well. He is a PIEMAKER! |
| Shadow and Bone | 2021-Present | The show is based on a book series, and some of those books are definitely better than others, but in my opinion the cast of this show really elevates it, and I think that mixing and matching the book plots together really made the show a lot more enjoyable. It is YA fantasy, so some of the tropes are what you'd expect from that. |
| Emerald City | 2016-2017 | This show was cancelled too soon! It's extremely beautiful to look at, and it's a retelling of the Wizard of Oz books. It's only got one season though. I've seen it twice! |
| Interview with the Vampire | 2022-Present | There's nothing else like this on TV. Based on the book by Anne Rice, this show is really, really good. It's about gay vampires!! All three of the main actors are bringing their 110% and it's so delightful to see. |
| Shadowhunters | 2016-2019 | This show is very CW, it's based on Cassie Claire's YA fantasy books, it's not 'Good', but it's got a really dramatic and fun to watch gay romance in it that is what's gotten me to put it on my list. |
| The Walking Dead | 2010-2022 | Zombies! I stopped watching this show as soon as I heard they were killing off one of my fave characters. This show was very uneven, I don't ever plan to finish watching it, but it had some great character dynamics. |
| Carnival Row | 2019-2023 | I'm not finished with this show yet, but I still feel comfortable putting it on here. I watched the first season and need to rewatch before I watch the second season because there were so many years between, but it's about a star crossed romance between people on opposite sides of a war. |
| Lucifer | 2016-2021 | Lucifer is so fun. It's a crime procedural with a great romance, and Lucifer is literally the devil. I don't usually like Christianity based shows but this one is fun enough I don't mind. |
| TV Show | Year/s | Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Firefly | 2002-2003 | Another show that means a lot to me because of when I watched it, and how it got me into fandoms and friendships, is this good on it's own? Not sure. But it makes the list anyway. It's a one season space western with jokes that might not hold up upon rewatch. |
| The Expanse | 2015-2022 | This is a show set in space and it's about the ends and beginnings of wars and planets, it's on a grand scale. But ultimately what drew me into it were the dynamics between the main characters, and that's why I'd recommend it. |
| Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 2022-Present | I never could get into star trek, and I had almost given up, but this show is so fun and has a great cast. I highly recommend it whether you're into star trek or not. |
| Killjoys | 2015-2019 | Suuuper fun! This is about bounty hunters in space! |
| Ms. Marvel | 2022 | Ms. Marvel is a superhero I followed because she's South Asian, and it was so easy for them to screw up this show because of the high expectations I had going into it, but I think it's a good, fun show, and everyone involved did a great job. |
| Severance | 2022-Present | A show where the premise itself is about how crazy and awful working in an office can be. It had me riveted. I need to know what the goats are for!! |
| Lost in Space | 2018-2021 | This is a remake of the show and movie, and I had a great time watching it. Adventures in space! But I got into an argument with a friend about whether plot or characters are more important, so I will say that if you prefer a plot, this isn't the show for you. Great characters though! |
| The Last of Us | 2023 | This is about zombies and it centers around a girl who is immune, and the man who becomes her father figure and protector. I never played the video game this is based on, but I really liked it! I hear some wild stuff happens in the second part that I'm not going to like, but until then, I recommend it. |
| For All Mankind | 2019-Present | Another alternate history story, this one has gotten a little more uneven as it goes, but I'm still compelled. It's about how the Russians got to the moon first, so the Americans decided to allow people who were not just white men to join the program. A glaring issue is that though other things in history are different, people are still homophobic. I don't know why they decided to do that. It's interesting though, and if you watch it on Apple TV there are little shorts before each season that talk about how history is different and how it's the same. |
| Nikita | 2010-2013 | I believe this is also a remake, but Maggie Q is amazing and it's so fun to watch her kick ass and be beautiful. |
| Sense8 | 2015-2018 | I don't love this show because I don't like some of the choices they made - specifically the one where everyone cared about Christmas despite not all being Christian. Or if they were all Christian, why were they? Eight people from completely different parts of the world? Anyway this is about people who turn out to be connected and are able to go in and out of each other's bodies. It's a cool concept and it's fun to watch. |
| The Gifted | 2017-2019 | A story set in the X-Men universe! I love anything to do with superpowers, so I loved this. They're on the run! |
| Timeless | 2016-2018 | This is an alternate history story! I love those! A group of three people go back in time to different places and periods to try to stop a bad guy who wants to mess up history. I like that this show acknowledges how different periods of history were harder for people who were not white men. |
| Altered Carbon | 2018-2020 | I watched the first season twice, and never saw the second season LOL. It's about a man who is put into a new body so he can go solve a crime, and it takes place in the future. |
| Jericho | 2006-2008 | This is a small show that I don't think anyone watched but I find it really enjoyable. Basically, a disaster happens and a small town is cut off from the rest of the world and they have to find a way to survive and thrive on their own. |
| Smallville | 2001-2011 | This show is a classic for a reason! Superman - Lois and Clark. I watched the first four seasons, and then just a Lois and Clark supercut for the last few seasons, but I had a fun time and I recommend it if you like Superman. If you don't, you might not be interested in this though. I went in liking Clark from the beginning. |
| Roswell: New Mexico | 2019-2022 | Aliens! Romance! What's not to like! I had fun. |
| TV Show | Genre | Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Fight For My Way | Romance, Slice of Life | This is a best friends to romance story. I really like it because the silly teasing that the leads do doesn't go away once they get together. It's also really nice to see a story about people trying to make it where none of them are fancy rich CEOs or heirs to companies or anything like that. |
| Twenty Five Twenty One | Romance, Coming of Age, Friendship, Sports | This is a story about a champion fencer in the 90s. There's a really good romance but it's mostly coming of age for the main character, played by Kim Tae-Ri who is a superstar. |
| Revenge of Others | Thriller, Found Family | I really liked this story, I think the actors all did a really good job, but I'm not sure I like how quickly it ended. I think it needed more episodes. But this was really interesting, about a girl who switches schools to find out if her brother's suicide at that school really was a suicide or if it was a murder, and if so, who did it. This drama does have a lot of really heavy topics and needs content warnings. |
| Worst of Evil | Crime, Noir, Drama | All four of the leads are so beautiful in this! It's a short crime drama about a cop couple who go undercover and seduce people to take down a drug ring. It's dark, but thematically, not lighting wise which I appreciate. |
| Perfect Marriage Revenge | Revenge, Soapy, Romance | It's about a woman who's treated awfully by her whole family, but then she dies and comes back to life a year before and has a chance to exact revenge and live her life on her own terms. Extremely over the top and silly but a really fun time. |
| Extraordinary Attorney Woo | Comedy, Drama | Everyone seems to have seen this one. It drags a little in the middle, but it's a cute show about an autistic lawyer. |
| Bloodhounds | Crime, Thriller, Drama | This is about two boxers who become best friends and fight to take down an extortion ring. It's a little inconsistent due to the main female lead leaving halfway through, but otherwise it's a fun time. |
| Moving | Action, Romance, Superpowers | The K-Drama that got me into K-Dramas. This is an actiony show about people with superpowers but it has not one, not two, but three of the best romances I've ever seen on TV. Highly recommended. |
| Healer | Romance, Mystery | Healer is the oldest Kdrama I've seen so far, and the romance was fantastic - very Clark Kent/Lois Lane. I admit I skipped some of the non-romance scenes, but the romance was good enough that I still rank this quite high. |
| Daily Dose of Sunshine | Slice of Life | This is a quick show about a nurse who works at a psychiatric ward in a hospital. I love the main actress and couldn't get into her other shows so I'm happy that this one is good. Content warnings though. |
| A Good Day to Be a Dog | Romantic Comedy | This is a show about a woman who is cursed. Once she kisses someone, she will turn into a dog every night for a month and then even forever unless she can get the person to kiss her again. Of course, the person she kissed is terrified of dogs due to childhood trauma. This one definitely lost a little bit of steam once she broke her curse, but it was still a fun time. |
| Mr. Park's Marriage Contract | Revenge, Soapy, Romance | This is like a less intense version of Perfect Marriage Revenge. It is about a woman from the past who comes to present day and enters a fake marriage but of course they fall in love for real. I had fun, it wasn't a masterpiece but it was enjoyable. |
| Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha | Comedy, Romance, Drama | This was like Gilmore Girls or Hart of Dixie where it takes place in a small town and everyone is up in everyone else's business. I wasn't completely charmed by the main characters, but one of the side characters played by Lee Sang-Yi was fantastic. I only had seen him in Bloodhounds before and this was a different kind of character, but equally lovable. When will he be a romantic lead? |
| Twinkling Watermelon | Drama, Comedy, Romance | This was a charming, heartwarming story about a young musician whose parents and brother are deaf. He goes back in time and becomes friends with his parents and tries to get them together. It's very silly and over the top and pretty delightful. It's also family-friendly, this would be a good show to watch with your parents or siblings. |
| A Shop For Killers | Action, Thriller | I'm gonna be mad if this show doesn't get a second season! It's about a girl whose mysterious uncle dies and leaves her with a web of John Wick-esque criminal factions fighting over her. It's a really fun time, even though it's very short. |
| My Dearest | Historical, Drama, Romance | The lead guy in this is really good at yearning. I also learned about Korean history, and I liked how the main girl was kind of rude and mean sometimes. It added depth to her character. This was a very dramatic show though, with multiple cases of amnesia, so it isn't for everyone. |
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