This Is Mel Drake

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The 40 Best TV Shows to Watch Right Now

The 40 Best TV Shows to Watch Right Now

Get Hooked on These TV Shows (And Maybe Even Watch Them All)



Hi, I'm Mel. And I watch a helluva lot of television. So much so that I'm going to share with you a list of my favorite TV shows, just in case you're wandering into a Netflix or Hulu hole and might need some inspiration.

But First: Before We Get Started, Here Are a Few Things Worth Mentioning...

I have not seen every show ever made, but I've seen a lot. In fact, most shows on this list I started watching recently, and that's why they're my current favorites. If you prefer older TV shows like Will & Grace (an all-time personal fav) and The Golden Girls, sorry you won't find them listed here. I know those shows are great, too!

In addition, I deliberately picked television series that can be streamed and binged by the season.

Finally, if your current favorite program didn't make the cut, it's probably because I haven't seen it yet. Or maybe I watched it and didn't like it... It's difficult to say. In a nutshell, I tried to compile a list of TV shows that I enjoy and would recommend to my friends.

Anyway, without further ado: here are my current 40+ favorite TV shows that you can watch right now!

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Get Hooked on These 40 Best TV Shows

In alphabetical order and guaranteed to keep you glued to the screen

Photo credit:  Netflix

AJ and the Queen

What is it?  A drag queen (RuPaul) and a stowaway kid form an unlikely friendship crisscrossing the country snatching trophies while running from the bad guys.  

What's it all about?  Shantay, you stay.

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

American Horror Story

What is it?  An anthology from the horror genre that manages not to be too scary but keeps you glued to your seat as each tale weaves and winds its way.  

What's it all about?  A different story each season with a mix of new and old characters.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Avenue 5

What is it?  A satirical look at futuristic space travel fun-ship cruise style

What's it all about?  What can go wrong will go hilariously, yet dreadfully wrong.  2 words: Wet Suit

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

A Black Lady Sketch Show

What is it?  Think In Living Color but with an all-black female comedy cast for the 2020's.  

What's it all about?  It ain't always politically correct but it's correct.  

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

The Boys

What is it?  There's more than meets the eye when superheroes come to “save the day”.  

What's it all about?  Never thought it was possible to hate a “superhero” until now.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Amazon Prime Video

Photo credit:  Netflix

Cheer

What is it?  A raw and brutally honest look at what goes into the making of a 14x National Collegiate Cheer Champion, Navarro College.  

What's it all about?  Spill the tea, Monica! Who's making the mat?

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

What is it?  Sabrina Spellman gets very very dark as a magical teen who must choose between high school life and ruling the underworld in this comic-turned tv show.  

What's it all about?  Melissa Joan Hart and her talking cat Salem, would never.  . .   

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

The Comeback

What is it?  A mockumentary starring Lisa Kudrow as washed-up B-List actress, Valerie Cherish, who hilariously attempts to breathe new life into her career.  

What's it all about?  A star is reborn!????

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

Photo Credit: Netflix

The Crown 

What is it?  An in-depth look at Queen Elizabeth's rise to power and her complicated life within the monarchy. 

What's it all about?  Meg-exit doesn't seem so bad now, huh?  

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Dead to Me

What is it?  A cynical widow playing Nancy Drew, an unlikely best friend, and a plot-twisting secret makes for a great dark comedy.  

What's it all about?  Death has a way of bringing people together.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Desperate Housewives

What is it?  4 women. 4 lives.  4 secrets. 1 street.   

What's it all about?  Payton Place ain't got nothing on the women of Wisteria Lane. 

Streaming Service/Network:  Amazon Prime Video

Photo credit:  Netflix

Elite

What is it?  Uber-rich private school kids with too much time, money, sex, and drugs on their hands.  All wrapped up in a Spanish (dubbed for your pleasure) show.  

What's it all about?  Oh, did I forget to mention there's a new murder mystery each season too?  

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Entourage 

What is it?  Local NY boy, Vince, makes good and instantly becomes the next-big-thing actor.  To stay grounded, he brings his brother and childhood friends along with him to the City of Angels. 

What's it all about?  The epitome of true friendship.  

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO + Amazon Prime Video

Euphoria 

What is it?  Wow! Where do I start?!  Teenage angst, drug addiction, an angry football player, and a new trans friend.  After a nearly fatal drug overdose, Rue struggles to get her life together while navigating adolescence.

What's it all about?  If you've seen the cult classic movie “Kids”, multiply that x 10.  

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

Photo Credit: HBO

Game of Thrones

What is it?  Families and kingdoms fight to the death for the ultimate control of the Iron Throne.

What's it all about?  “Winter is coming”

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

Gossip Girl

What is it?  In NYC's Upper East Side, nothing escapes the watchful all-knowing eye of the Gossip Girl blog.  

What's it all about?  Come for the fashion, stay for all of the unbelievable backstabbing drama.  XOXO- Gossip Girl

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Greenleaf 

What is it?  Every family has secrets.  These secrets are just becoming harder to bury for a southern Megachurch Pastor Greenleaf and his family.  

What's it all about?  What is done in the dark will eventually come to light.

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Photo Credit: The Verge

Hacks

What is it?   Deborah Vance, an iconic Las Vegas comic, is not too thrilled about being paired with an entitled, outcast 25-year-old comedy writer tasked to update her show. But, as they say, the only way to get better is to work with the best.

What's it all about?  Did the job listing mention hazing?

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

The Handmaid's Tale

What is it?  An adaptation of the Margaret Atwood book of the same name- Fertility enslavement, a 2nd United States Civil War, and a new government that goes by the name of Gilead has formed.  And that's all in the first episode. . .  

What's it all about?  “Praised Be, Bitch!”

Streaming Service/Network:  Hulu

Hunters

What is it?  Nazi hunters in late 1970's NYC righting all the wrongs of the Holocaust by any means necessary.

What's it all about?  Stay until the last episode because I guarantee you a plot twist like you never expected.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Amazon Prime Video

Photo Credit: HBO


Insecure

What is it?  Issa Rae brings her web series, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl to HBO.  

What's it all about?  Navigating life, love, and friendships in modern-day Los Angeles as a struggling college grad.  

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

Ja'mie:  Private School Girl

What is it?  Mean girls reincarnated through Ja'mie, a self-centred queen bee private school girl. Move over Regina George.

What's it all about?  Within the first 15 mins, you'll forget Chris Lilley is a man.  He nails it!

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

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Killer Inside:  The Mind of Aaron Hernandez 

What is it?  You already know how the story ends, but take a closer look at the childhood of Aaron Hernandez and the events leading up to his infamous murder conviction and subsequent death.  

What's it all about?  Holy sh*t! That beautiful man was bat sh*t CRAZY!

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Killing Eve

What is it?   Eve is a bored MI5 spy who is desk-bound. Villanelle is a talented couture-wearing assassin who is unpredictable yet darkly funny.

What's it all about?  Killer Devil wears Prada fashion meets cat & mouse spy vs. spy game

Streaming Service/Network:  Hulu

Locke & Key

What is it?  Following their father's untimely death, 3 kids move to a mysterious home with reality-defying magical keys.  

What's it all about?  If only the “Anywhere” key existed.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Photo Credit: TV Line

The Mandalorian

What is it?  In the world of Star Wars, some bounty hunter is after something and blah, blah, blah.  

What's it all about?  Let's be honest, we are all just here for our dose baby Yoda.  Cuteness overload x 1000.

Streaming Service/Network:  Disney Plus+

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

What is it?  Taking charge of her life, Upper West Side wife, Midge Maisel opts for a life as a stand-up comedian.  

What's it all about?  She cusses, she swears and she's a feminist in 1950's NYC.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Amazon Prime Video

McMillions

What is it?  This is what happens when you mix the McDonald's Monopoly game and the mob. 

What's it all about?  Please speak clearly into the mic and define the term “winning”.  

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

Photo Credit: Netflix

Money Heist

What is it?  The Professor, a criminal mastermind, has a clever plan for the biggest robbery in recorded history -- the Royal Mint of Spain and recruits 8 highly skilled criminals to help.

What's it all about?  Always bet on the Professor, Bella Ciao!

Streaming Service/Network: Netflix

Orange Is the New Black

What is it?  Fair-haired business executive Piper Chapman's past life as a drug runner has finally caught up with her when she's convicted and must serve time in the penitentiary.

What's it all about?  Everyone's got a story.

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Ozark

What is it?  Meet Marty Byrd, a married father of two who becomes caught in an endless web of money laundering for the Mexican cartel in the Ozarks.

What's it all about?  Small towns are full of big secrets

Streaming Service/Network: Netflix

Peacemaker

What is it?  Peacemaker is a dimwitted, somewhat bigoted superhero adversary who is reconsidering his commitment to achieving peace at any cost, no matter how many people or aliens he has to kill.

What's it all about?  Hellooooo, comedic toxic masculinity!

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

Photo Credit: HBO

The Righteous Gemstones

What is it?  A ridiculously fun comedic romp with the Gemstones, a televangelist megachurch family, who will stop at nothing (and I mean nothing) to fight to keep their religious empirical house of cards intact.

What's it all about?  Each character is even crazier than the next.  Enjoy.  

Streaming Service/Network: HBO

*BONUS: If you like The Righteous Gemstones, then you'll love Vice Principals. Why? Because the same hilarious cast is in both series.

RuPaul's Drag Race

What is it?  A gorgeous runway battle royale to snatch the ultimate crown but to do so, each queen must prove they have the most Charism, Uniqueness, Talent, and Nerve.

What's it all about? To win, "you betta werk!"

Streaming Service/Network: Paramount network & VH1

Scandal

What is it?  The mother of all bad bitch shows, Olivia Pope and company are the clean-up crew for DC's politicians and the POTUS.

What's it all about? It's handled.

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Schitt's Creek

What is it?  A vapid mega-rich family loses their fortune and is hilariously forced to live in the (aptly named) town they bought as a joke.  

What's it all about?   Cathrine O'Hara + Dan & Eugene Levy = Comedy Solid Gold!  They really are up “Schitt's Creek” without a paddle

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Photo Credit: Insider

Stranger Things

What is it?  80's retro sci-fi serving you feathered hair, aliens, secret government experiments, and friendship.

What's it all about?   Thank god for Eleven.

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

Succession

What is it?  When greed, envy, and wealth are a family business.

What's it all about?  Sibling rivalry like you've never ever seen it before.

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

Photo Credit: HBO

True Blood

What is it?  Sparks fly when vampire Bill comes to the rescue of Sookie Stackhouse.  

What's it all about?  Vampires and fairies and werewolves, oh my!

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO + Amazon Prime Video

Vice Principals

What is it?  This is what happens when 2 second-rate high school Vice Principals join forces to take down the new Principal at their school.

What's it all about?  Hell hath no fury as 2 Vice Principals scorned.  

Streaming Service/Network:  HBO

*BONUS: If you like Vice Principals, then you'll love The Righteous Gemstones. Why? Because the same wacky cast is in both series.

Weeds

What is it?  Nice innocent Nancy Botwin is a rich suburban housewife who just so happens to sell marijuana in order to keep her lavish lifestyle afloat after her husband's untimely passing.  

What's it all about?  Nice Nancy's not as innocent as she seems.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Showtime + Netflix

Photo Credit: Netflix


The Witcher

What is it?  A monster hunter for hire lives by an unexpected moral compass of his own.  

What's it all about?  Try hard not to get mesmerized by the beauty that is Henry Cavill- The Witcher.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix

You

What is it?  Poor lonely Joe works in a bookstore and is a hopeless romantic.  There's only one problem, people keep disappearing and dying.

What's it all about?  There's always more fish in the sea.  

Streaming Service/Network:  Netflix


Thank You

As you can see, I love watching tv. This list is a great place to start when you're looking for your next TV show obsession.

If you have any suggestions of shows that I missed or wanna chat tv, please feel free to leave them in the comments below or tweet me @thisismeldrake!

I can't wait to hear from all of you and get more recommendations for my future lists. In the meantime, enjoy these 40 best TV shows on TV right now!

-XOXO (as always)

Mel D.

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*Originally published in March 2020 and updated February 2022, this post has been updated by Mel Drake to add new tv shows and images that weren't included in the original post. The post was also updated with structural and grammatical changes as well.

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