We’re deep into summer – and the annual television dead season. What better way to use those extra evening hours, freed up by the series breaks of Game of Thrones and House of Cards, by the wait for new episodes of Broadchurch and for Doctor Peter Capaldi, than to plunge into TV’s cloudier waters? Every week in the Observer New Review our home viewing critic, Guy Lodge, delves into the reaches of Netflix, Blinkbox and other streaming services to dredge up gems. This week, we thought we’d go further and give the best of the under-the-radar TV that’s out there an extra shill, pointing you towards some worthwhile shows that don’t get the attention they might. Missing Girls (months away from a third-series return)? Can’t bear it that Breaking Bad is over (for ever)? There are potential replacements out there.
The good stuff doesn’t only come slickly packaged, via production houses. Really good telly is always worth paying for (some of the shows listed here require a £5.99-a-month subscription to Netflix, or for individual episodes to be streamed via Amazon Prime Instant Video, iTunes or wuaki.tv) but we’ve also included some of the excellent shows that are made independently and are available for free viewing online.
A caveat: the programmes recommended here are all of US origin. This is not to say that there isn’t brilliant British-made TV or that there isn’t any undervalued domestic stuff waiting to be streamed (the E4 comedy PhoneShop was recently added to Netflix and is worth watching in full right now if you haven’t). But in terms of what’s out there, lurking under the mainstream crust, we kept coming up with Americana. The Americans make a lot and make it well.
Now the shows, with nudges based on what they might remind you of. Don’t expect to re-emerge for a while – probably at some point in the autumn, just in time for the new series of The Fall.
If you liked Breaking Bad, you might like…
AMC’s drama about a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher, launched on a career in crystal meth production, came to an end after five series last autumn. Viewers (mostly on Netflix in the UK) mourned.
… High Maintenance
In 10-minute blasts, High Maintenance introduces us to vivid New York types – professionals, artists, fakers, fools, the stressed, the struggling – the only link between them, episode to episode, their liking for getting stoned. The characters all share a weed dealer, played by Ben Sinclair, an actor and film-maker who created High Maintenance with Katja Blichfeld in 2012.
Blichfeld is an award-winning casting director, crucial to the success of this independent, made-for-web show as she was able to scoop talent she’d auditioned for mainstream shows such as 30 Rock and use them in High Maintenance.
As a result, the performances here are about as strong and consistent as you’ll see, allowing vivid stories about big-city life and big-city pretension to be told in compact episodes.
Though short, each feels like a potential feature – watch all 13 episodes for free at helpingyoumaintain.com, but probably clear a space in your day for it. Once you start, you’ll want to plough through.
… Justified
Spicy, Elmore Leonard-inspired crime drama, starring Timothy Olyphant as a Kentucky sheriff who’ll do shocking things (execution, say) to uphold a shaky sense of justice in his hometown. Violent from the first scene of the first episode, there are four series to munch through on Netflix; series two is particularly thrilling.
If you liked Girls, you might like…
Lena Dunham’s nimble comedy about a gang of New York sarkies broadcasts to (whisper this) tiny audiences on HBO and Sky Atlantic. Still, Girls has rammed itself into the culture, original and already much imitated. Returns for series four in 2015.
… Wainy Days
Independently made comedy about an improbably successful lothario in New York, played by creator David Wain. Credible guest stars have included Elizabeth Banks (who got in on this cult show early), Rosemarie DeWitt and Jason Sudeikis. Watch five series’ worth of shorts at davidwain.com/wainydays.
… Looking
Three gay friends – staunch Paddy (Jonathan Groff), randy Dom (Murray Bartlett), chaotic Agustin (Frankie J Alvarez) – work and lunch and get laid in contemporary San Francisco. Different Sex in a Different City? Though the similarities are there, Andrew Haigh’s HBO comedy-drama is too good for that reduction.
In tone, Looking is closer to Girls, zeroing in with affecting precision on the romantic and sexual particulars of a modern social group, its funny parts more likely to bring on impressed snorts than belly laughs. Over a near flawless first season – it broadcast in the UK on Sky Atlantic in January –the trio’s lives are fleshed out in dense half-hour episodes, beautifully shot.
Supporting characters, including Lauren Weedman as straight best friend Doris, and the duo who distantly duel for Paddy’s affections, Richie (Raúl Castillo) and Kevin (Russell Tovey), enrich the stew. Stream it online at wuaki.tv (it’s a hefty £13.99 for the series, but still worth it).
If you liked Friday Night Lights, you might like…
The intricacies of American football were made palatable in NBC’s coming-of-age drama that ran for five years until 2011. … Lights’ initial UK broadcast on ITV2 was patchy, but it later charmed a broad streaming/DVD crowd.
… Nashville
Watch this on Blinkbox not just because it stars the marvellous Connie Britton, who brought such invaluable grit and gumption to the dearly departed US football drama. On second thoughts, watch this mostly because of Britton, since she is mistress of all she surveys in this smart, snappy soap set in and around America’s pleasingly bitchy country music scene. She plays Rayna Jaymes, the Reba McEntire-style queen of the industry, with nasty wit and flinty resolve; Hayden Panettiere (below left) is the winsome ingenue (think Taylor Swift with extra moxie) poised to swoop as Rayna’s star fades. Two seasons in, it’s still bouncing along with salty southern-fried dialogue and truly terrific music – Elvis Costello is among the contributing songwriters, while Britton boasts great twangy chops atop everything else. All in all, it’s easily the best thing writer-creator Callie Khouri has put her name to since winning an Oscar for Thelma Louise.
… The League
Spiky comedy (five series on Netflix) about six chums who compete, furiously, in an American football fantasy league… Wait! Don’t run away! It’s pacy, funny and, like Friday Night Lights, requires little to no knowledge of the sport.
If you liked Curb Your Enthusiasm, you might like…
Larry David’s masterpiece (well, with Seinfeld), Curb…
broadcast on HBO in the US and Channel 4 here. Eight series of the mockumentary came to an end in 2011, though there are hopes it might return.
… Bitter Party of Five
Five jobbing TV actors (Mary Birdsong, Romy Rosemont, Tricia O’Kelley, Greg Cromer and Jason Antoon – they met making a failed Roseanne Barr sitcom together) sit around a table where they get lightly sloshed on cocktails and interview peers who’ve had more success than they have. Martin Short, Allison Janney and Community’s Yvette Nicole Brown were interrogated in three of the 15 episodes to date (watch them free at blip.tv/bitterpartyof5). Everybody plays a ramped-up and slightly more poisonous version of themselves and the result is a wincingly cruel takedown of the acting industry. A veteran actress is quizzed mercilessly about her first job, voicing a cartoon called Treehouse Trolls Forest of Fun and Wonder. Quality TV drama stalwart Stephen Root is asked primarily about Robocop 3. Tricia O’Kelley, who likes to ask interviewees whether their violent death would help her get more work, is a particular revelation.
… Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee
Seinfeld’s Jerry Seinfeld picks up a comic – Ricky Gervais, say, or Sarah Silverman – in a car and together they get coffee. Then they make each other laugh for about 20 minutes. It works! Watch free at comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com (start with Chris Rock).
If you liked The Good Wife, you might like…
Julianna Margulies-led drama about the wife of a philandering politician who turns herself into a kick-ass criminal lawyer. Its devoted fans will get a new, sixth series soon.
… Suits
Corporate law may not sound as sexy as the criminal kind – it’s just rich people arguing with one another to make other rich people even richer, after all. But if you find a smarter, snappier or better-dressed law drama than this one, we’ll eat our affidavit. Harvey Specter is his firm’s closer, a man of both charismatic brilliance and woeful empathy who negotiates Wall Street’s shark-infested waters with a self-satisfied smile and great hair. When he hires a young genius – and fraud with no law degree – as his associate, he’s cast in the unfamiliar role of mentor and protector.
It’s a high-stakes buddy dramedy with three-piece suits, classic cars and plenty of pop-culture references, not to mention, thanks to Gina Torres, one of the best badass female bosses on TV. Michael Clayton meets The Mentalist, plus some of the cleverest comebacks since Aaron Sorkin went all Newsroom on us? Don’t even try to resist.
If you liked Game of Thrones, you might like…
Swords. Sex. Severed heads. Showing to a modest audience for its first episodes in 2011, the HBO adaptation of George RR Martin’s multi-novel saga has grown over three years to become nothing less than a worldwide obsession. Sky Atlantic holds the broadcasting rights in the UK; Thrones returns for a fifth series next spring.
… Vikings
This hasn’t yet matched Game of Thrones for narrative scale or sophistication, but is swiftly establishing itself as a superior specimen in the increasingly popular bracket of beardy historical drama. This 8th-century saga of warring Norse warriors, written by Michael Hirst (Elizabeth,The Tudors) and on Blinkbox, is trash with intelligence and conviction; whatever liberties it takes, one senses it knows it’s taking them. Australian actor Travis Fimmel is the hulkish young Viking looking to claim new territory. Katheryn Winnick his estranged warrior-wife, and Gabriel Byrne the iron-fisted ruler who resents the young buck’s initiative. And so the enjoyable power struggle ensues, with all the clanging sword fights, intense glowering and elkskin accessories you could possibly ask for.
… Archer
Comic-book fantasy, albeit one with the brash humour of Family Guy, about a spy in the 60s. Archer has a small, cult following on Netflix, where there are five series of the FX-made show to view. Start with the brilliant first series episode Skytanic.
If you liked Mad Men, you might like…
Matthew Weiner’s 60s-set drama about advertising and adultery (and really a lot of other things) is tantalisingly close to ending. Half a dozen episodes, then Don and the rest ride into the 70s without us.
… F to 7th
Ingrid Jungermann directs, co-writes and stars in this series of free-to-view shorts about “internally homophobic” lesbian, Ingrid. Aside from a New York setting, there are no obvious parallels with Mad Men, except a certain similarity in style (offbeat scenes are left to play out in their own time) and the focus on a character obsessed by self-definition.
Ingrid is both fascinated and repelled by lesbian minutiae: the word “dyke”, Ellen DeGeneres, posture. Jungermann is a compelling lead; much of her time on screen is spent in silence, flinching, stuttering, swallowing, as the (mostly awful, mostly hilarious) people she encounters in each episode paint her into corners. Renounce being a lesbian, her mother tells her, “and I promise I won’t ever ask you to do anything for me ever again”.
In episode six, co-writer Stewart Thorndike shows up as a bashful gynaecologist to make what is surely one of the most appalling come-ons in screen history: if you don’t watch all 16 episodes (free at fto7th.com), make sure you see that one.
If you liked Mad Men and House of Cards, you might like…
Audacious political drama starring Kevin Spacey and the brilliant Robin Wright, together the Underwoods, an ambitious and legitimately terrifying Washington power couple. Netflix subscribers wolfed down two series of House of Cards (the first in 2013, the second in February) and will get a third batch of episodes next year.
… Boss
Don’t get too attached to this drama starring Kelsey Grammer about a powerful Chicago mayor in decline – Boss was cancelled after two series, in 2012. Well worth watching on Blinkbox, though, to see Frasier at his best since Frasier.