There’s a lot going on in the world right now–and when we say “a lot,” we mean an overwhelming amount. It’s hard not to look at your phone or turn on the news and be instantly bombarded by heavy news both here and abroad. Sometimes your mind just needs a distraction in the form of a feel-good, entertaining show. After all, why watch Black Mirror when we’re basically living the real-life version of it? From comedies about vampires living in Staten Island to reality shows with heart, here are 15 shows to binge that will make you laugh, smile, and escape into someone else’s story. They won’t solve the world’s problems, but at least they’ll give you a temporary break from them.
The Good Place
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What started as a show about four dead people who ended up in what they thought was the Good Place actually revealed itself to be a commentary on ethics, what we owe to each other, and what truly makes someone a good (or at least better) person. And between the laughs, moral philosophy lessons, and delicious Ted Danson giggles, the message was this: Whether you’re a garbage person from Arizona (Kristen Bell), a Molotov cocktail-loving doofus from Florida (Manny Jacinto), a spoiled namedropper socialite (Jameela Jamil), a paralyzingly indecisive moral philosophy professor (William Jackson Harper), a not-a-girl but not quite a robot (D’Arcy Carden), or a literal demon (Danson), we all have the capacity to become better versions of ourselves.
Parks and Rec and The Office are also equally binge-worthy, feel-good, ensemble cast comedies. And it’s no coincidence that The Good Place’s creator Mike Schur was involved in both (he was a writer/producer for the former and a co-creator of the latter). If you ever need a quick pick-me-up, just put on an episode, literally any episode, of one of these shows. (Watch it on: NBC.com or Netflix)
Great British Baking Show
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The Great British Baking Show (or The Great British Bake Off, as it’s known in Britain) is one of those rare competition shows where you want everyone to win. Twelve amateur bakers compete by making cakes, breads, and pastries in a large tent in the English countryside. They have to complete three different challenges—a Signature Bake, Technical Bake, and Showstopper—and are tasked with European creations like biscuits, towers of macarons, bread sculptures, and Victorian tennis cakes.
The contestants have varied backgrounds but are all skilled bakers, and the best part is they help and encourage each other in the kitchen and seem genuinely surprised and grateful anytime they win a challenge. It’s still a competition, but it feels convivial. The earlier seasons featured judge Mary Berry, AKA the sharp-tongued grandmother we all wish we had, but the more recent seasons still have that delightful, British charm. (Watch it on: PBS or Netflix)
Nailed It!
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If you’ve ever tried to bake some beautiful recipe you saw on Pinterest and just tremendously failed, this show is for you. Three amateur bakers compete by trying to create elaborate cakes and confections that are way too complicated for their skill levels. The result is a set of desserts that are messy, falling over, unrecognizable, and in some cases, barely edible. The show never takes itself too seriously and despite the disasterpieces that are presented (always with the proud exclamation of “Nailed it!”), the judges’ feedback is given and received all in good humor. The sight of the baked creations is funny in and of itself, but it’s host Nicole Byer’s hilarious commentary and exuberant, uncontained laughter that will keep you chuckling the entire show. (Watch it on: Netflix)
Schitt’s Creek
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This comedy started on Canadian Pop TV and slowly gained steam through word of mouth, and eventually a Netflix deal that made it too easy to binge episode after episode. It’s a classic fish-out-of-water tale, if the fish were the Rose family, forced out of their life of luxury and excess and moved into a motel in Schitt’s Creek, a small town that patriarch Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) bought as a joke. Over the seasons, the family not only adjusts to small-town life, but actually embraces it, all without abandoning their signature idiosyncrasies and style. Between David (Dan Levy) and Alexis’s (Annie Murphy) adult sibling bickering, Moira’s (Catherine Hara) dramatic flair and insane wig collection, and Johnny’s straight man just trying to hold it all together, this binge-worthy show is wacky, funny, and most of all, kind-hearted. (Watch it on: Netflix)
What We Do in the Shadows
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This mockumentary-style show features four vampires and one human familiar (basically a servant to one of the vampires) living in Staten Island. Three of them (Nandor, Lazlo, and Nadja) are “traditional” vampires, as in they can turn into bats and have powers, while the unassumingly named Colin Robinson is an energy vampire, who is unaffected by daylight and feeds on people by boring or angering them. Despite living for centuries, they are woefully inept at navigating the modern world, which makes for hilarious and absurd episodes. The show is based on the movie of the same name written by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, two New Zealanders who have more than their share of quirky comedies under their belt. (Watch it on: Hulu)
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
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After being rescued from a cult’s underground bunker, Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) emerges to a world she hasn’t been apart of for 15 years. But as the name suggests, Kimmy is unbreakable. Co-created by Tina Fey, the show has the same screwball comedy, blink-and-you-miss them jokes, and eccentric characters as her other creation, 30 Rock. Kimmy is like a child in an adult body who approaches everything with effervescent, contagious wonderment, and she’s balanced out by her roommate Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess), an overly dramatic struggling actor whose own laziness is his biggest obstacle, Lillian (Carol Kane), their hipster-hating landlady, and Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski), a rich Manhattan socialite who hires Kimmy as a nanny. (Watch it on: Netflix)
The Masked Singer
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Okay, so seeing a giant banana, fluffy pink monster, or rhino (not just any rhino, but one dressed in a pilot outfit for some reason) belting out tunes on stage is weird. But it’s hard not to be entertained and at least a little impressed watching the performers sing and do legit dance moves in these outrageous costumes. The idea behind The Masked Singer is to vote on singers based on their voices alone. In general, the judges are terrible at guessing who the singers are behind the masks, but that’s half the fun. With a range of talent that has included T-Pain, Kelly Osbourne, and legends like Patti LaBelle and Chaka Khan, every unmasking is a surprise. (Watch it on: Fox or Hulu)
Fleabag
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Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one-woman show-turned TV show only has two seasons to binge, but what a glorious two seasons they were. Waller-Bridge plays a woman only known as Fleabag, who is funny, cringey, and damaged. She constantly breaks the fourth wall, almost as a vehicle for saying the things you shouldn’t say aloud directly to the audience. In season 2, come for Waller-Bridge but stay for two words: Hot Priest. (Watch it on: Amazon)
Queer Eye
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Netflix’s reboot of the Queer Eye series has the same premise as the original Bravo series—giving personal and lifestyle makeovers—but with a new Fab Five (Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk, and Jonathan Van Ness). Over the four seasons, the group has traveled from Georgia to Japan and helped people from all walks of life—a fireman, farmer, trans man, and a few women, as well. The quintet exudes fun, acceptance, and positivity, and they’re all about finding solutions that each guest is comfortable in. The show’s message is that we are more alike than we are different, and an internal transformation is just as, if not more, important than an external makeover. Keep tissues nearby because every episode will make you cry happy tears. (Watch it on: Netflix)
The Bold Type
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The Bold Type is basically the anti- The Devil Wears Prada. The show takes place at fictional women’s magazine Scarlet, where you can meet your BFFs, solve problems (or have a good cry) in the fashion closet with said BFFs, and work for a supportive Editor-In-Chief who actually wants to see you succeed. It’s an idealized version of media for millennials for sure, but it’s a fun one. The show isn’t just about great fashion (though there is plenty of it) but it also addresses issues around racism, workplace harassment, responsible tweeting, and finding your way in the world. (Watch it on: Freeform)
Broad City
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As twenty-something women in New York, Abbi (Abbi Jacobsen) and Ilana (Ilana Glazer) do not have their ish together. That’s why they find themselves in situations like hallucinating on meds post-wisdom teeth surgery, developing jazz-singer alternative personalities while drunk, dating their own doppelganger, and dealing with bed bugs or a hoarder roommate. But no matter how ridiculous their (self-created) shenanigans, their best friendship and admirable dedication to each other’s nonsensical plans never waver. By the fifth (and final) season, the dynamic duo were finally (kind of) on their way to adulthood. Yaas, queens. (Watch it on: Comedy Central or Hulu)
Love on The Spectrum
A twist on the traditional dating show, this Australian reality series follows young adults who are on the autism spectrum as they try to navigate the world of dating and relationships. Love is complicated no matter who you are, but Love on the Spectrum allows you to see it through a different lens. The show also brings education and awareness around autism, directly from people who have it. It’s funny, heartwarming, and honest—everything you want to see in a show about finding love. (Watch it on: Netflix)
Indian Matchmaking
One of everyone’s favorite Netflix shows to binge lately seems to be Indian Matchmaking, a series about arranged marriages. The orchestrator behind the potential marriages is Mumbai’s top matchmaker, Sima Taparia, who explains that in India, they don’t say arranged marriage—there is marriage and love marriage. Because marriages are unions between two families, involving money and reputation, parents are heavily involved in the process, and that’s where the matchmaker comes in. Her clients are a number of Indians and Indian-Americans, and while Taparia helps filter potential partners across a varied list of preferences (in the first episode, client Aparna’s criteria includes “not the funniest guy in the room” and “should know Bolivia has salt flats”), ultimately the success of the matches comes down to personal connection. (Watch it on: Netflix)
In the Dark
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The CW is no stranger to addictive, soapy, over-the-top dramas, and In the Dark is no exception. Drunk, messy, blind, antiheroine Murphy works at a guide dog training school run by her parents (“She doesn’t do anything except eat candy bars and take naps,” one colleague says). After she discovers the dead body of her drug-dealer friend in an alley and the body disappears before police show up, she decides to try to solve the case herself, with the help of her guide dog, Pretzel. Is it believable? Probably not. But it definitely makes for entertaining, binge-worthy TV. (Watch it on: The CW)
Dead To Me
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Jen (Christina Applegate), a wine-chugging, Type A, widowed real estate agent, and Judy (Linda Cardellini), an artsy, glass half full, free spirit, are unlikely friends and even unlikelier partners in crime. But a series of events and deaths in otherwise idyllic Laguna Beach permanently intertwine the lives of these characters. Applegate and Cardellini are excellent in their roles both separately and together as two women who are just trying not to drown in a mess of their own creation, and the show is darkly funny. It’s about death, grief, loose ends, female friendship, and yes, plenty of wine. (Watch it on: Netflix)
Which of these have you seen? Tell us your favorite shows to binge in the comments!
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