10 binge-watchable series that won’t insult your intelligence
I bet it’s happened to you, too. After clicking through hundreds of options on your favorite streaming platform —series and movies whose descriptions make them sound like they were written by and for 14-year-olds—you give up in disgust and watch something else that insults your intelligence like My 600-Lb. Life or, worse yet, cable news.
I no longer despair when I can’t find something that sounds like it’s worth my time. Instead, I choose a vintage American or new (to me) international TV series that my regular viewing partners—my wife, dachshund and Jack Russell terrier—and I can binge-watch for hours on end.
There is a distinct joy in discovering, or rediscovering, great television. Whether it’s catching up on a brilliant series you missed the first time around, or revisiting a show you originally watched one weekly episode at a time decades ago, streaming changes everything. Being able to dive straight through back-to-back episodes lets you truly immerse yourself in the writing, acting, and production of a show that has withstood the test of time. An added bonus: It’s easy to remember what happened in the last episode because you watched it ten minutes ago.
My viewing partners and I have invested hundreds of hours exploring these shows, and I guarantee you will love them (unless you are one of those people who won’t watch violent shows, in which case I suggest re-runs of Captain Kangaroo if you can find them.) Here is my curated list of ten memorable series. Some are iconic American shows, some are international gems that will be completely new to American viewers. All are welcome alternatives to the drek coming out of Hollywood these days.
I’ve put them in reverse order. My list is entirely subjective, but this is my blog, so there.
Now, if I could just find where I left the remote…
10. Friday Night Lights
Seasons: 5 | Episodes: 76
Where to watch: Paramount+ (Or stream on Amazon Prime if you are willing to pay for it, which you should be)
People in small Texas towns live and breathe high school football—reason #2758 not to move to one like Dillon, the fictional town portrayed in this series. FNL is the story of the town’s high school team and its super-conscientious, well-meaning coach (Kyle Chandler) who has to juggle duties to his team, fans, local politicians and family. It is remarkably sweet and, at times—especially during tense games—thrilling. This reviewer who grew up in a small town loved it.
9. Borgen
Seasons: 4 | Episodes: 38
Where to watch: Netflix
Birgitte Nyborg, the leader of a minor political party, unexpectedly—almost accidentally—becomes the first female prime minister of Denmark. Because she represents a fringe political party, she knows little about governance or behind-the-scenes political machinations, but episode by episode, becomes accomplished, confident, and, like all politicians, ruthless in order to hold on to power. As her career flourishes, her family disintegrates —her husband leaves, her teenager has a breakdown. How she balances all these demands is the core premise of the show. I was fascinated to see how the Danish media holds politicians’ feet to the fire to demand accountability. Journalists over there apparently have to work for a living.
(Suggestion: Watch Borgen in its original Danish language. You say you don’t speak Danish? Choose English captions so you can hear the script in the voice of the actors who delivered it. I refuse to watch dubbed TV. It’s too distracting.)
8. Better Call Saul
Seasons: 6 | Episodes: 63
Where to watch: Netflix
BCS is a prequel to the show listed further down (Breaking Bad), so perhaps you should read that description then come back to this one. BCS follows a struggling, small-time, ambulance-chasing lawyer, Saul Goodman, as he transforms himself into a morally bankrupt defense attorney who will someday represent the protagonists of Breaking Bad. Bob Odenkirk, who once wrote for Saturday Night Live, plays Saul.
7. Breaking Bad
Seasons: 5 | Episodes: 62
Where to watch: Netflix
After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Walter White, an ordinary high school chemistry teacher, turns to manufacturing and selling meth to secure his family's financial future. Alongside his former student, Jesse Pinkman, Walter slowly and surely descends deep into the criminal underworld, transitioning from a mild-mannered family man into a drug kingpin. The writing is superb. So is the acting: Bryan Cranston as teacher-turned-meth-maker Walter White, Anna Gunn as his wife who is horrified when she eventually discovers what he’s up to, and Aaron Paul as Jesse.
Fun fact: Jesse was supposed to die at the end of the first season but Paul impressed the directors so much that he became central to the plot, appearing in every episode while earning co-star status and three Emmy awards.
6. Fauda
Seasons: 5 | Episodes: 58
Where to watch: Netflix
Fauda is Arabic for "chaos," which ensues in every episode of this seat-of-your-pants Israeli thriller (produced before the horrific events of October 7). An undercover team of the Israeli Defense Force is assigned to infiltrate the West Bank to stop terrorists before they can strike. There’s fanaticism on both sides of the fence as characters are blown to bits, stabbed, tortured, mowed down by Uzis, and beheaded. This series helps American viewers understand why the ongoing war in the Middle East will never truly end. Lior Raz, who plays Doron, the IDF protagonist, is a master actor. You’ll feel his pain, rage, sorrow, and loss. Another standout is Shadi Mar’i, who plays Walid, a wildly intense Palestinian whose star is ascending until … well, you’ll have to see for yourself, if you can stomach the violence. (Watch it in the original Hebrew if you understand it. If not, use the English captions)
5. Slow Horses
Seasons: 5 | Episodes: 30 (so far)
Where to watch: Apple TV+
Britain’s MI5 is the equivalent of our CIA. Slow Horses is a darkly humorous espionage series populated by people who work in MI5’s dumping ground, Slough House. Its agents have made career-ending mistakes but, for various reasons, haven’t been fired. Under the “leadership” of their drunken and brilliant boss, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), the spies who have wound up at Slough House somehow manage to save the U.K. from ruination every season. A new season begins next month. Once all those episodes are available, I’ll renew my Apple TV+ subscription, watch them, then cancel it for the fifth or sixth time a month later. (Apple TV+, IMO, isn’t worthy of the Apple brand name.)
4. The Tudors
Seasons: 4 | Episodes: 38
Where to watch: Paramount+
Over the years, we’ve watched this one three times—but then, we’re Anglophiles. The Tudors is the stranger-than-fiction story of Henry VIII, from the moment he realizes he’s sick and tired of his queen, the dowdy Catherine of Aragon, until his death. By that time, he has wed five more women, executed two of them, and broken with the Vatican, turning England into a torture chamber for Catholics who refuse to convert to his newfangled Church of England. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Henry. Your first impression will be that he’s too young and thin, but he grows, literally and figuratively, into the role. And here’s something to think about: If people were allowed to behead spouses they no longer wanted, there would be fewer divorces.
3. The Bridge
Seasons: 4 | Episodes: 38
Where to watch: MHz Choice (Suggestion: Subscribe for as long as it takes you to watch all four seasons, then drop it. We do that all the time when a streaming platform is showing something we want to watch but its other offerings don’t appeal to us.) You can also pay to watch it on Amazon Prime.
Every season of this Nordic crime thriller begins when a corpse is discovered on or near the bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark, making it impossible to determine the country in which the murder occurred. This forces Swedish detective Saga Norén to team up with her Danish counterpart to track down the killer. Sofia Helin’s performance as the quirky and possibly on-the-spectrum Saga is well worth investing 38 hours of your time. The finale is brilliant—as creative and memorable as the finale of Bob Newhart’s second series. Newhart. Writing this paragraph has made up my mind for me: I’m going to watch it again (using captions of course).
I would have ranked the following as a tie for #3, but my wife says the second-best show we have watched is...
2. Mad Men (Tie)
Seasons: 7 | Episodes: 92
Where to watch: HBO Max (formerly known as Max, HBO Now, HBO Go, and plain old HBO. These people need to get their shit together and settle on a brand name once and for all.) Also available on AMC+.
As a creative type who worked for Manhattan ad agencies from the late seventies to mid-nineties, this series about folks working for a Madison Avenue agency between 1960 and 1970 is right up my alley. We watched it unfold every Sunday night for years and just finished binge-watching the entire series night after night on (whatever HBO was calling itself last month). Its characters are spot-on. I worked with latter-day versions of each of them, including:
The troubled creative genius, Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), with enough baggage to sink the Queen Mary.
The smarmy account guy, Pete, who will do anything to advance his career, including pitching an airline whose plane crash killed his father.
The copywriter, Peggy, who has worked her way up from the secretarial pool but is frustrated her career isn’t going anywhere just as the women’s movement is getting underway big-time.
The redhead with a Mae West body (Joan) who manages the office and for years has been having a torrid affair with a married partner. (I worked in an office managed by a redhead with a Mae West body who, for years, carried on a torrid affair with one of the married partners. Her name was—I kid you not—Joanne).
I disagree with my wife’s assessment of its #2 ranking. My pick for the second-best series we’ve watched is …
2. The Sopranos (Tie)
Seasons: 6 | Episodes: 86
Where to watch: HBO Max
We watched this series episode-by-episode when it first appeared on HBO twenty-seven years ago and often couldn’t remember from week to week who was who and what was what so I never truly understood why critics raved about it. Binge-watching back-to-back episodes changed my mind: The Sopranos belongs near the very top of any list of American TV series. Tony Soprano (the late James Gandolfini) is a New Jersey Italian-American mob boss struggling to balance his crime family’s activities with those of his own dysfunctional family—his wife, mother, son, daughter, uncle, sister, and nephew. To cope, he begins seeing a psychiatrist. The result is a show that’s violent, sad, funny, and strangely touching—your emotions, like Tony’s, are constantly under assault. The Sopranos features some of the most memorable characters in television history. My favorite (other than Tony) is his sister, Janice (Aida Turturro). Here’s a link to a youtube clip from a dramatic (and ultimately hilarious) scene in which Tony is putting her on a bus after her fiancé’s corpse (she killed him in a fit of rage) was run through a meat grinder. Gandolfini and Turturro must have collapsed into each other’s arms with laughter after filming it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRDBHZEF-Ak
1. The Americans
Seasons: 6 | Episodes: 75
Where to watch: Hulu (Also available for purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+)
Judy, Rupert, Russell and I are unanimous on this one: The Americans is the best series we’ve ever watched, so good I wrote an entire blog post about it shortly after we finished binge-watching it for the second time. Here’s a link to that post but don’t click it until you read the last three paragraphs. https://www.tomdryden.com/blog-2-1/the-best-television-series-you-never-watched
Don’t say you never got anything from reading my blog. I’ve just handed you a whopping 656 hours of viewing pleasure. If you spend two hours a night watching these shows, it’ll take you 328 days—almost a full year—to finish.
By that time, hopefully, your favorite streaming platform will have wised up and produced something adults who have the IQ and attention span to read something this long will actually want to watch.
But I’m not holding my breath.
