Throughout the years, I came across several TV shows that I really liked and then found out they were not that popular and they weren't able to create a following (which mostly led to their cancellation) but I thought that viewers shouldn't lose the chance to come across good TV because of a network or a cable's bad markting strategy or a bad time slot so I came up with a list of TV shows that I consider to be at least good and not that well known I would like to recommend.
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10. Kingdom (2014–present)
Interested in a show with MMA? Did you know there's a pretty decent TV show about it? Alvey Kulina (Frank Grillo) runs a MMA gym in California and raises his two sons (Nick Jonas and Jonathan Tucker) to be fighters. He struggles to keep his gym running and when an excellent ex-fighter, Ryan Wheeler played by Matt Lauria, is released from prison, he puts aside his feelings towards him since he is an ex-boyfriend of his now girlfriend and asks him to train and fight again, which would bring his gym lots of publicity.
And don't be alarmed by the fact that one of Jonas brothers is in it. He's actually pretty good in it and no, nobody turns into a song.
9. The Fall (2013–2016)
Before there was Fifty Shades of Grey, there was The Fall starring Jamie Dornan as a cold serial killer killing young women in a really pervy ways (seriously, Jamie, fire your manager... how do you keep getting these pervy roles?).
The show also stars the amazing Gillian Anderson as a detective and it is a match made in heaven. I cannot tell you much about the series since I am still just watching. I might add more information after I finish the series.
So far I can tell it is very interesting. This show's serial killer is not your everyday psychopath who just hates women, he has a family with kids and seems to lead a very happy life yet in his free time he kills women. What a catch he is for his wife, huh?
8. Da Vinci's Demons (2013–2015)
A TV show made by a guy (David S. Goyer) who wrote the legendary screenplay to Blade and then Batman begins? Yeah, you want to see that. It's a look into the life of the greatest genius in history.
We follow him during his younger years when he is aware of his genius, now he has to only convince of it other people around him so he can shape the future of art and technology into what we know it to be today.
It's a great atmosphere of beautiful Florence, adventurous storylines and an amazingly written fun character of Leonardo, the inventor and always curious arrogant artist that aimed to change the world.
7. The Killing (2011–2014)
Possibly one of the best whodunit, because, I guarantee, you will not be able to guess correctly who killed Rosie Larsen, a 17 year-old sweet girl who was found in the trunk of a submerged car, up until the very end.
It shows a very realistic portrayal of a police investigation because it lasts two entire seasons to solve the first murder, and deals with the grieving family with amazing performances that make you feel their hopelessness and anger.
Mireille Enos plays Sarah Linden, a detective who tends to get too close to her cases, who is about to retire and be with her teenage son, when Rosie's body is found. She joins a young starting detective Stephen Holder and together they are trying to solve the case while they develop an honest friendship.
One thing about The Killing, it's not fun. I mean it, it's sad, brutal and gutting and the same time absolutely amazing. The atmosphere is very quiet and dark and the only thing that screams are the revelations and clues that the detective duo comes across during their investigation leading to mafia, Indian reservation, underage escort service and the mayor himself.
Mireille Enos is an acting force and I truly mean it, I have never ever seen an actress like that. She is beyond amazing. You will not see one second of acting, she just is being the character. There seems to be no distinction between her and the character itself. She reminds me a lot of Jennifer Lawrence's earlier work. Her acting is so subtle and realistic it will make you list her in your mind as one of the best realistic actresses (is that even a thing?) out there.
6. Salem (2014–2017)
Everybody know the events of Salem witch trials. A bunch of innocent women were accused of witchcraft and ended up hanging.
This TV show takes an inspiration from the historical events and puts a fun spin on it - what if real witches ran and manipulated the trials and had innocent people die to cover their tracks for them?
And this is initially the show... You watch the witches manipulate the religious self righteous men of blind faith that then harass and even torture innocent people. The show is very dark and scary and I wouldn't recommend watching it alone at night.
The witches have one goal, to allow the Devil to enter the world and destroy it so they can build a new paradise and it's now Mary Sibley, a poor town's girl, who gives up her baby in order to receive great witch powers and wealth in the town of Salem, who might succeed in this plan in which many witches before her failed to execute. This becomes a little bit difficult for Mary when her old love, the father of her child who she thought was dead, comes back to Salem and can't recognize the woman Mary has turned into.
It has a really great writing, acting and awesome theme song by Marilyn Menson.
5. UnREAL (2015–present)
This is behind the scenes of a Bachelor or Bachelorette-like reality TV show. But don't be alarmed, I have never watched Bachelor or Bachelorette and, still, I am obsessed with this show and find it to be absolutely captivating.
This show is mainly about the producers manipulating the show's Bachelor and his suitresses into doing what they need them to do in order to make the show. The main character is Rachel, an ex-producer of the reality show, who went psycho from producing the last season and got fired and is now back to produce the new season on a request of the show showrunner, a very demanding heartless bitch of person who has awesome one-liners. Rachel has to deal with the rest of the crue behind the camera, manipulate the bimbos, the feminists and the douchebags in front of the camera and at the same time keep her sanity and cling onto her sense of morality.
The critics called this show a show without a hero. Everybody is a bad person here, yet you keep watching them because what they are doing is so forbidden and unacceptable (manipulating other people and treating them like puppets) in our society that it is most thrilling and entertaining to watch them do it and get paid for it.
4. Banshee (2013–2016)
I always kind of wondered why this show never became a big hit... When it started, it got a lot of positive recommendations from the critics, online blogs and even IMDb.com, yet it never became something people would really notice.
It's a really fun show about an ex-con accidentally turned sheriff who doesn't care much about law and paperwork, doesn't go far for a punch and screws everything that moves, yet he is the one who tries to bring justice as a sheriff in a little town filled with lots of crime.
It was produced by a True Blood showrunner Alan Ball (Oscar winner for American Beauty) and it had a great premise: A sheriff comes to a small town for a new job to be the sheriff there and when he arrives, he goes to a bar where he is unfortunately killed and a fresh ex-con sees an opportunity in this and assumes the identity of the dead sheriff and poses as such in the town to be close to the love of his life, a daughter of a mafia boss in hiding who now has a new family, who he sat for in the prison for fifteen years.
As a fake sheriff he has to deal with many issues in the town but mainly he has to deal with the leader of the area's underground, who is ex-Amish gone mafia, and with his former mafia boss, who wants him dead and he also has to deal with his police staff who keep questioning his unusual methods of conducting police work.
It has amazing truly brutal fight scenes, great actors and characters and very interesting scenery. The atmosphere of a little town with Amish community and an Indian reservation are amazingly depicted and, somehow, fit really very well within the little town filled with crime.
3. Sense8 (2015–2018)
This TV show is very expensive gem from NETFLIX. It shoots all around the world, provides depictions of many different cultures and touches you on a indescribable level. This show makes you feel stuff. It's fun, interesting, very human and it makes you feel connected, alive and accepted regardless of your own difference.
Sense8 is about very different eight people who, to some extant, share their experience in a world. They can see and communicate with each other from two different parts of the world, they can access each other mental or physical skills and share them when needed. It's as if they are sharing one mind.
When these eight people begin to discover their connection, an evil organization is trying to hunt them down. It's a really cool show and NETFLIX is an asshole for canceling it while developing so much of new unwatchable crap. But they were nice enough to let the Wachowski sisters (The Matrix creators), who make the show, do a proper goodbye episode, which is still yet to come.
2. Hannibal (2013–2015)
Bryan Fuller's three seasons long take on one of the most famous psychopath in literature, film and TV. It's tonally very different from the movies - it is way more classy and incredibly intelligent in its use of dialogue and imagery, very dark, quiet (but not at all boring) and thrilling... as if you are Hannibal's next meal and you wait in quiet, dark and fear not knowing when he's going to strike.
Hugh Dancy plays Will Graham, a troubled detective able of deep levels of imagination which he uses to imagine exactly how killers commit their murders, only it has very negative effects on his psyche and that's why he is being helped by the doctor Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen), a psychiatrist, who also happens to be a soulless cannibal trying to sway Will to become a murderer himself.
Together they are on a search for several killers and after all revelations, they are hunting each other.
1. Dirt (2007–2008)
Seriously, if you should watch ONLY ONE TV show from this entire list, I cannot recommend this awesome TV show enough... It stars Courteney Cox and believe me when I say that you could not tell that this same actress EVER played in a shitcom sitcom. Her acting is incredibly raw, intelligent and aggressive, just as the character of Lucy demands. Lucy is a tough editor of a popular tabloid magazine called 'Dirt' who will do ruthlessly absolutely anything to publish a scandalous celebrity story.
Seriously, when you watch her, you will join a small group of people on the internet bitching about how she was not only robbed of her Emmy nomination but even an Emmy win. And yes, I'm telling you, she is that good in it.
If that's not enough for you, it is amazingly written, it has very original interesting characters and the drama itself is amazing (there's death of a pregnant celebrity, drugs, mafia, sex dungeons, people being kept hostage by a pissed off former child star, ...).
The real stand out of this TV show is Lucy's relationship with her main photographer Don, who she met and worked with since college. Don is a socially awkward schizophrenic who is the only person Lucy has a true bond with.
The writers created stories for the celebrities within the show inspired by the real celebrities and their scandals. I remember they did Channing Tatum's admission of being a former striper, Alec Baldwin's mean phone message to his daughter, David Husselhoff's drunken eating a burger on the floor video leaking and so on. The entire second season is inspired by Paris Hilton-like celebrity and dealing with her crap.
It was created on at that time not that well known cable called FX and the pilot was shot by the king of today's thriller, David Fincher.
If you are a pop culture geek, you have to see the show because it is quite interesting to see how tabloids operated before the popularization of online magazines and social media.
Unfortunately, the show was cancelled after only two seasons due to the writers' strike.
So, that's it for today. I hope I managed to mention a show you didn't know which you would like to see. How about you? Any recommendations?
Thanks @johnxw for this post, I’m always looking for really good new television shows. Most of what’s out there is rubbish. The only one I’ve seen from this list is Salem, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There’s a few on this list I’ll have a look at.
If you’re looking for an underrated (in Australia anyway), yet excellent show, have a look at Animal Kingdom. I loved it!
Thanks again.
Thanks, @steveblucher, for your reply! You are right, they make so much tv shows and it seems they don't even care about the content, they just try to produce more hours than their competitor... Thanks for the tip! I'll check it out.