Married At First Sight is long gone. I'm A Celebrity is all but a distant memory. And with Farmer Wants A Wife off the table for another year, we have nothing to fill our after-work schedules. Rude!
But never fear! If you've found a sad gap in your evenings between your favourite shows airing, it's time to dig through this treasure trove of underrated TV shows to yank out some real diamonds.
From UK comedies to trashy American thrillers and quirky Australian family shows, we've rounded up some TV shows that deserve way more attention than they get — as recommended by the Mamamia team.
My Mad Fat Diary.
This show is SO DAMN GOOD and is criminally under-loved. Okay, people that know it LOVE it, but I'd hazard a guess that a lot of people outside of the UK have never heard of it.
Think of this series as the lovechild of Skins and Derry Girls. Barbie star Sharon Rooney plays teenager Rachel 'Rae' Earl, fresh out of spending four months in a psychiatric hospital because of mounting mental health and body image struggles.
Set in Lincolnshire in the UK in the mid-1990s, Rae attempts to make a new circle of friends, reconnects with her best friend, Chloe, and soon falls for a boy. This love story will give you all the teenage feels.
You can watch My Mad Fat Diary on Stan.
If you enjoy this show, I'd recommend Fresh Meat next (another truly underrated British comedy).
The Family Law.
Created by Aussie icon Benjamin Law, The Family Law is a coming-of-age comedy based loosely on Law's 2010 book of the same name. The series aired between 2016 and 2019 and found a cult following for its hilarious dialogue, uniquely Australian perspective and portrayal of a messy Chinese-Australian family living on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
The series is told through the eyes of 14-year-old Benjamin, who must navigate family politics with his parents Jenny and Danny, eldest sister Candy, older brother Andrew and younger sisters Tammy and Michelle, along with exploring how his gay identity and race intersect with the other facets of his upbringing.
You can watch The Family Law on SBS On Demand.
If you enjoy this show, I'd recommend Please Like Me next.
Tell Me Lies.
Okay, just hear me out. This show is low-key trash but so damn addictive.
Tell Me Lies is an American drama television series based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Carola Lovering. The series came out in 2022 and a second season is coming, so now is the perfect time to hop on this trash train.
Starring Grace Van Patten and Jackson White (who are now dating irl!), the series time-jumps back to 2007 at a fictional Upstate New York school. The 10 episodes chronicle a toxic romance between college freshmen Lucy Albright (Van Patten) and mysterious junior Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) over the course of eight years.
If you've ever had experience with a f**kboy or a damaging relationship, this series will bring up a lot of triggers so tread carefully. But after randomly stumbling upon this show while scanning Disney Plus, I was hooked from the first episode.
You can watch Tell Me Lies on Disney Plus.
If you enjoy this show, I'd recommend The Sex Lives of College Girls next.
Crashing.
If you've been struggling to fill the Fleabag-shaped hole in your heart ever since Phoebe Waller-Bridge's two-season masterpiece simultaneously delighted and devastated you — big same!
But alas, the next best thing is Crashing, an unhinged British comedy series starring, written and created by Waller-Bridge. This six-episode series from 2016 was the predecessor to Fleabag and also starred future Bridgerton leading lad, Jonathan Bailey.
The quirky show revolved around the lives of six twenty-somethings who are living together in an old hospital in an attempt to avoid London's sky-high rental prices. Most of the drama revolves around Waller-Bridge's Lulu who rekindles a romance with her old friend Anthony, even though he happens to now have a girlfriend.
You can watch Crashing on Netflix.
If you enjoy this show, I'd recommend The Duchess next.
The Other Black Girl.
This limited series will have your jaw hanging on the floor with every cliffhanger episode.
The Other Black Girl is an American thriller series based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Zakiya Dalila Harris. The series sticks closely to the book, as Sinclair Daniel portrays the protagonist Nella Rogers, a people-pleasing editorial assistant at a publishing house who is tired of being the only Black woman at her company when Hazel-May McCall (Ashleigh Murray) is hired.
They strike up a friendship but all is not what it seems and after a string of strange occurrences, Nella begins to question not just her workplace but her new pal, Hazel.
You can watch The Other Black Girl on Disney Plus.
If you enjoy this show, I'd recommend Little Fires Everywhere next.
The Other Two.
Speaking of other shows, this is the best comedy in recent years and if you haven't seen it, now is the time to get on board. The Other Two is an American sitcom about two dysfunctional millennial siblings — aspiring actor Cary (Drew Tarver) and former dancer Brooke (Heléne Yorke) — who struggle to support their 13-year-old brother Chase's overnight fame.
Starring Molly Shannon as their messy mother, The Other Two is hysterically funny and with three seasons to watch (we were robbed of more!), this critically acclaimed series will keep you laughing for hours.
You can watch The Other Two on Binge.
If you enjoy this show, I'd recommend Hacks next.
Cruel Summer.
File this under teen thrillers will a generous sprinkling of oh-my-god-I-am-afraid.
Cruel Summer is an American teen anthology television series, with season one focusing on two teenage girls in the mid-1990s and the aftermath of an event that would transform a fictional town in Texas.
Olivia Holt plays Kate Wallis, a popular teen who goes missing, with questions raised over the involvement of Jeanette Turner (Chiara Aurelia), the school's nerd who has replaced Kate in the popular group since her disappearance.
It's pure teen angst and like all good twisty thrillers, the script is truly flipped halfway through. The soundtrack and fashion are so deeply rooted in the '90s that you'll have PTSD just thinking about the state of your eyebrows back then. But it works so damn well! The second season offered another teen mystery but was based in the early 2000s.
You can watch Cruel Summer on Prime Video.
If you enjoy this show, I'd recommend One Of Us is Lying next.
Dear White People.
This series is part teen comedy and social commentary, part true crime investigation, but with a whole lot of sexy college drama in between.
Based on the 2014 film of the same name and set in an Ivy League institution, Dear White People follows several Black college students with every episode typically revolving around one character's journey.
The show's leading lady is Logan Browning's Samantha White, a film student who starts a radio podcast on campus titled, Dear White People, to discuss race relations, the post-woke era and racism on campus through a humourous and irreverent Black lens.
The series premiered in 2017 and aired its fourth and final season in 2021. Run don't walk!
You can watch Dear White People on Netflix.
If you enjoy this show, I'd recommend Insecure next.
Happy bingeing!
Feature image: Disney Plus/Netflix/Stan.
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