The best TV shows you’ve never heard of

If, after the last few weeks of lockdown, you’ve run out of things to watch, then it’s time to try something more unfamiliar. Here our editors pick some lesser-known masterpieces.

Ever since the coronavirus pandemic left much of the world in lockdown at home, television has been a great source of solace for populations around the world. But while our first port of call may have been either trusted classics or splashy new launches, many of us are now finding ourselves running out of options for what to watch. So, if you are finding your viewing inspiration is flagging, here are 10 brilliant and lesser-known shows that will provide perfect binge-watching material:

Missions

Set in the not-too-distant future, this tense French sci-fi drama series imagines the first ever manned mission to Mars, Ulysses 1, which launches with a billionaire on board alongside an all-European crew including psychiatrist Jeanne Renoir (Hélène Viviès), signed up to monitor her colleagues' mental health. The series begins with the ship just about to hit the red planet after a 10-month voyage – however  the crew first receive the disappointing news that they’ve been beaten by a rival US mission, then a distress message. And things only get more confused when they land and discover an unexpected survivor. Available on Shudder/Amazon Prime Video. (EM)

Get Shorty

Anyone who dismisses TV adaptations of films would do well to seek out FX’s excellent Fargo, or TNT’s new small-screen version of Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer and reconsider their position. It can yield great results, as also seen in EPIX’s three-season riff on the 1995 John Travolta-starring gangster comedy Get Shorty, itself an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel. Here Chris O’Dowd takes on the lead role as Miles Daly, a now-Irish heavy working for a Las Vegas loan shark who seeks a career change when his family tell him he’s unsafe to be around. So he approaches film producer Rick Moreweather (Ray Romano), who has the means for him to get his good script – which Miles brings to him literally soaked in blood – off the ground. Available on EPIX/Amazon Prime Video in the US and Sky Atlantic/Now TV in the UK. (EM)

Loudermilk

Possessing both heart and a caustic humour that will appeal to fans of shows like Community and BoJack Horseman, this sitcom starring Office Space’s Ron Livingstone as a substance-abuse counsellor has the feel of a weird little web series: it is somewhat rough around the edges, much like the flawed characters it follows, but none the worse for that. Former music critic and recovering alcoholic Sam Loudermilk (Livingston) leads support group Sober Friends. But while Sam may be well-practised in advising those around him, he discovers that the person who needs the most work is himself. Supported by his best friend and sponsor, Ben (Will Sasso), he goes through relapses and has to face up to his bad behaviour. The result is an unusually honest portrayal of addiction that is also very funny. Available on Amazon Prime Video. (EM)

Enlightened 

Over the last few years, TV’s journey towards relative gender enlightenment has led to a host of difficult and complex female protagonists filling up our screens – and not before time. But back in the dark days of the early noughties, no-one quite knew how to handle this brilliant HBO comedy-drama and its maddening, idiosyncratic, bold, brave heroine Amy Jellicoe: a frazzled white-collar drone turned new-age convert turned corporate whistleblower, played by Laura Dern, who may be the actress of the moment right now but has never bettered her performance here. What begins as a black workplace comedy turns, slowly but surely, into a much more profound study of what it means to be good. After two seasons of low ratings, it was unceremoniously cancelled, but nearly a decade on, it remains astonishing and, when we’re evermore saturated in things to watch, its concision may be a blessing in disguise. Available on HBO Go/Amazon Prime Video in the US and Sky Go/Now TV in the UK. (HM)

The Midnight Gospel

If you’re looking for a break from reality, then you couldn’t get a show more transcendent than this deeply trippy new adult animation, co-created by Pendleton Ward, the man behind the equally surreal but more kids-targeted Adventure Time. The premise here is that we follow a bright-eyed young chap called Clancy on various philosophical adventures, as he teleports to a different simulated world each episode, where, in the guise of an avatar, he has an extended intellectual discussion with one of its citizens, delving into such concepts as death, suffering, and the self. These centrepiece conversations are taken from the podcast of the show’s other creator Duncan Trussell, in which Trussell interviews notable figures about their ways of being, and are accompanied by incongruously action-packed animated scenes at once beautiful, funny and disconcerting. The result is somehow both mind-bogglingly fantastical and perfect for a time in which many of us have turned inwards. Available on Netflix. (HM)

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

If you're looking for a good detective drama, then this high-glam period procedural should do the trick. A vehicle for one of Australia’s great actresses, Essie Davis – best known for her more serious roles in the likes of The Babadook and The Slap – it sees her as a sharp-witted, very modern and always fabulously-costumed flapper cracking murder cases in 1920s Melbourne. Full of breezy vim, and one-liners as dry as the cocktails, it’s irrepressible fun, while also possessing a strong social conscience, having dealt with issues from abortion to anti-Semitism. Available on Acorn TV in the US and Netflix in the UK. (HM)

Pushing Daisies

Another series cut short well before its time, this whimsical, supernatural comedy-drama lasted two series in the late noughties. If you didn’t see it first time around, it’s worth digging out now: it remains wonderfully unique, at once the sweetest and most morbid show you have never seen. At its centre is Ned (Lee Pace), a piemaker who has an even more powerful ability than baking delicious pastry treats – with one touch he can bring the dead back to life and with a second one, send them back to death. This power comes in handy when he is solving crimes with private eye Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), waking people up, asking a few questions, and re-dead-ifying them in the space of a minute. After those 60-seconds elapse, however, if the dead are to stay alive, another life nearby has to be taken in return. With its saturated colours, sweet love story between Pace and Anna Friel as his reanimated first love, and ensemble of eccentric side characters, there is plenty to lift the spirits. Available on CW Seed in the US and Amazon Prime Video in the UK. (LW)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

This three-season animation may have originally been produced for Nickelodeon but dismiss it as a kids' cartoon at your peril. With a carefully constructed universe, inspired by a variety of Asian cultures and martial arts, it possesses a level of detail and lore on a par with the Lord of the Rings. For the uninitiated, the world of Avatar is divided into four nations corresponding with the four natural elements – earth, water, wind and fire – with each inhabited by both laypeople and benders, who can control their native element. Tasked to keep balance among the kingdoms is the Avatar, who is able to bend all the elements; however, as the story picks up, the last reincarnation of this special being has been missing for 100 years, allowing the Fire Nation to conquer the rest of the world with their destructive powers. With a high-stakes plot matched to a lovable bunch of misfit characters, there’s more than enough entertainment here to sweep you through the show’s 61 episodes. Available on Netflix in the US and UK, and Amazon Prime Video in the UK. (LW)

Lovesick  

This delightful romantic comedy, began life under a very different, and inauspicious, title: called Scrotal Recall, it ran for one series on Channel 4 in the UK in 2014, before being picked up by Netflix, rebranded and commissioned for two more. It all begins when Dylan, a ruggedly handsome but seemingly directionless romantic, is diagnosed with the sexually-transmitted infection chlamydia, and has to cycle through his sexual history, speaking to his previous partners and ill-fated one night stands to let them know he’s infected, while working out who he got it from. Starring the charming Johnny Flynn (Emma), Antonia Thomas (Misfits, The Good Doctor) and Daniel Ings (Black Mirror, Sex Education), Lovesick is escapist yet relatable, with laugh-out-loud yet nuanced writing. Available on Netflix. (AC)

Pure 

OCD isn’t your usual comedy source material, but it makes for rich and darkly funny material in this superb adaptation of British author Rose Cartwright’s memoir of the same name. Charly Clive is Marnie, who ups and leaves her life with her parents in rural Scotland and heads for a new life in London. Marnie has pure OCD, which manifests itself as intrusive, graphically sexual thoughts that strike her at the most painful and inopportune moments. We follow her as she attempts to make friends, hold down a job and adapt to life in the big city while living with OCD. Clive’s performance is brilliant, and the funny, thoughtful and sometimes extreme writing was meticulously researched. Available on Netflix and All4. (AC)

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