a The six shows here also prove how many different shapes prestige television can take. A half-hour comedy can be emotionally devasta
a
The six shows here also prove how many different shapes prestige television can take. A half-hour comedy can be emotionally devastating. Animation can become one of the sharpest studies of depression ever put on television. A spy drama can turn marriage into an intelligence operation, while a corporate family saga can make a shareholder meeting feel like combat. This is television operating with almost no wasted potential.
6
‘Fleabag’ (2016–2019)
Fleabag follows a newborn woman in London dealing with grief, sex, family tension, money problems, and the collapse of a friendship she cannot stop carrying around. Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) speaks directly to the audience, turning us into the one place where she can be comical, dishonest, cruel, embarrassed, and completely exposed without having to explain herself to another person. What initially feels like a comic device gradually becomes part of the emotional architecture of the show.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge adapted the series from her one-woman stage play, and the compact twelve-episode run is a huge part of its precision. The first season hides pain underneath speed and sarcasm, while the second complicates that defense through Fleabag’s relationship with the Priest (Andrew Scott). Her glances toward the camera become increasingly essential once somebody finally notices them. That minuscule shift changes the meaning of a habit the audience has accepted from the beginning. Fleabag is filthy, tender, selfish, generous, and painfully observant about people who know exactly what they are doing and still cannot stop. Twelve episodes are enough to leave a bruise.
5
‘BoJack Horseman’ (2014–2020)
A washed-up sitcom star trying to become culturally relevant again sounds like standard Hollywood satire. BoJack Horseman turns that premise into a six-season study of addiction, depression, fame, childhood damage, accountability, and the exhausting question of whether understanding your own behavior actually helps you change it. BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett) lives in a world of talking animals and absurd entertainment-industry jokes, yet his emotional problems are treated with unusual seriousness.
That contrast gives the series extraordinary range. “Fish Out of Water” communicates almost entirely through visual storytelling. “Free Churro” spends nearly an episode inside one eulogy. “The View from Halfway Down” turns mortality into something genuinely frightening after years of jokes about death and self-destruction. Diane Nguyen (Alison Brie), Princess Carolyn (Amy Sedaris), Todd Chavez (Aaron Paul), and Mr. Peanutbutter (Paul F. Tompkins) also develop lives that refuse to revolve entirely around BoJack, which keeps the show from mistaking one damaged man for the whole universe. It can be hilarious for twenty minutes and then land on one observation that stays uncomfortable for days. Anyone who dismisses it as the gloomy horse cartoon is missing one of the best character studies television has produced.
4
‘The Americans’ (2013–2018)
The Americans centers on Philip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell), two Soviet intelligence officers living undercover as a married couple in suburban Washington during the Reagan era. Their children believe they are ordinary American parents, while their next-door neighbor Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) works in FBI counterintelligence. Espionage creates the immediate suspense, but the real story develops inside a marriage that began as an assignment and slowly became much harder to separate from genuine love.
Disguises, dead drops, surveillance routes, coded messages, and false identities always carry a personal cost. Philip becomes increasingly uneasy about the work, while Elizabeth remains more committed to the ideology that shaped both of them. Their daughter Paige Jennings (Holly Taylor) eventually forces the family secret into the open, turning political loyalty into a parenting crisis. The series also understands that undercover work creates victims who may never realize they were part of an operation, especially through Philip’s relationship with Martha Hanson (Alison Wright). The Americans rewards patience with one of television’s most complete marriages. Every lie has history behind it.
3
‘The Leftovers’ (2014–2017)
Two percent of the world’s population disappears without explanation in The Leftovers, leaving everyone else to live with an event that refuses to provide meaning. The series begins in Mapleton, New York, where police chief Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) struggles with his fractured family while groups like the Guilty Remnant build entire belief systems around the Sudden Departure. The mystery sounds enormous, but the show becomes more interested in what unexplained loss does to the people who remain.
That decision gives The Leftovers its unusual emotional power. Nora Durst (Carrie Coon) lost her husband and two children in the same instant, which makes ordinary conversations about grief feel almost insulting around her. Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston) keeps trying to interpret catastrophe through faith. Kevin increasingly doubts his own mind as reality grows less stable around him. The second season’s move to Jarden expands the world without discarding the intimate pain underneath it, and the third turns questions about belief, love, and acceptance into something almost impossible to categorize. The series never cheapens its central mystery by pretending one answer could heal everyone. Give it time to find its rhythm and it becomes fiercely personal.
2
‘Better Call Saul’ (2015–2022)
Better Call Saul begins before Saul Goodman exists. Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) is a struggling Albuquerque lawyer trying to build a legitimate career while living in the shadow of his respected older brother Chuck McGill (Michael McKean). His talent for persuasion is obvious, but so is his instinct for shortcuts, performance, and bending rules whenever the truthful route feels too tardy. The show follows the gradual construction of Saul alongside the criminal world involving Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), and the Salamanca family.
Its brilliance lies in how carefully consequences accumulate. Jimmy’s relationship with Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) gives the series its emotional center because their chemistry makes their worst decisions understandable long before those decisions become frightening. Chuck’s resentment toward Jimmy also cuts deeper than a uncomplicated sibling rivalry because both brothers understand each other’s weaknesses with surgical precision. The cartel material runs on a different frequency, yet Mike’s methodical professionalism and Nacho Varga (Michael Mando)’s desperation eventually connect that world to Jimmy’s in ways that feel inevitable rather than engineered. Better Call Saul turns paperwork, parking booths, conference rooms, and minuscule ethical compromises into gripping television. Patience here is rewarded generously.
1
‘Succession’ (2018–2023)
Succession follows the Roy family as aging media mogul Logan Roy (Brian Cox)’s dwindling health turns the future of Waystar Royco into a war among his children, executives, investors, and political allies. Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) wants the throne badly enough to destroy himself chasing it. Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) believes intelligence should compensate for confined corporate experience. Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) hides insecurity behind cruelty and jokes. Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) has money, distance, and ambitions that somehow remain completely his own. Every family gathering doubles as a business negotiation, and every business decision carries decades of family damage underneath it. Greg (Nicholas Braun) is a gem of a naive cousin and so is Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), Shiv’s husband.
The writing understands power at a microscopic level. Who sits closest to Logan can matter. A compliment can be a trap. A delayed phone call can change somebody’s standing inside the family before a board vote ever happens. Kendall’s repeated attempts to escape his father’s control become more painful because he keeps reproducing the same instincts he hates. Shiv and Roman are equally edged until affection, fear, or ego enters the room. Even the comedy comes from recognizable behavior rather than relief from the drama. Succession makes extraordinarily wealthy people look powerful and emotionally starving at the same time. Four seasons never dilute that contradiction, which is why the show already feels like one of the defining dramas of its era. And never forget — you can’t make a Tomlette without breaking some Gregs.
Succession
- Release Date
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2018 – 2023-00-00
- Network
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HBO
- Showrunner
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Jesse Armstrong
- Directors
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Andrij Parekh, Lorene Scafaria, Robert Pulcini, Shari Springer Berman, Adam Arkin, Kevin Bray, Becky Martin, Adam McKay, Matt Shakman, Miguel Arteta, S.J. Clarkson
