Entertainment
7 Forgotten TV Shows That Have Aged Like Fine Wine
Great TV shows need to strike a balance between being modern and relevant to the time in which they’re airing or being released, and having a certain timeless quality. The best TV shows have strong characters, resonant themes, and compelling storylines that can make them stand the test of time. Series like The Sopranos, Golden Girls, and Cheers still make for a fantastic watch and rewatch decades later, because viewers can still connect with the characters and their journeys.
While there are so many popular shows that have aged well, a lot of the shows that continue to get better with time remain underrated years after they’ve ended. Some of these shows have devoted fan bases but never gained widespread viewership, while others had more attention while they were airing, but are now only primarily remembered by their most devoted fans. These are the forgotten TV shows that have aged like fine wine.
‘Red Band Society’ (2014–2015)
Red Band Society is a teen drama that takes place entirely in the pediatric ward of a hospital. High school cheerleader and mean girl Kara’s (Zoe Levin) life is turned upside down by her heart condition, and she is suddenly admitted to Ocean Park Hospital for a residential stay. There, she meets and starts to bond with the other patients: longtime patients Leo (Charlie Rowe), Dash (Stro), and Emma (Ciara Bravo), brand-new patient Jordi (Nolan Sotillo), and her comatose roommate, Charlie (Griffin Gluck).
Unlike other teen dramas, Red Band Society is confined to one place, heightening the physical and emotional stakes. Every teen in the series is very sick, but they are also each other’s entire social lives at the moment, creating quite a bit of conflict between the group of them. Red Band Society sadly only got one season, but it is a strong one, with 13 episodes that show Kara and Jordi becoming essential members of the group while completely changing as people through their time at Ocean Park.
‘Kevin From Work’ (2015)
Kevin From Work follows Kevin Daly (Noah Reid), a normal and generally not-quite-happy guy who works in a dissatisfying office job. The only bright spot of his job is his work crush, Audrey Piatigorsky (Paige Spara). Kevin’s life is about to change, because he’s leaving for his dream job as a truffle and sea salt manager in Italy. On the night before his flight, Kevin drunkenly writes a letter to Audrey, confessing his love for her. The next day, though, the job falls through. Now, Kevin has to keep working beside Audrey, who has a boyfriend and now knows how Kevin feels about her.
Kevin From Work is a hilarious workplace comedy that pokes fun at rom-coms, carefully deconstructing Kevin’s ideas of the ideal romance over the course of its single season. The show plays around with Kevin’s frequent daydreaming, showing elaborate sequences like a fairy tale daydream with cartoon birds, and a spoof of an old black-and-white movie. Kevin From Work is a fun and silly show that really goes over-the-top with its humor, and it makes for an excellent watch and rewatch.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist follows Zoey Clarke (Jane Levy), a coder who’s very serious about her job and close to her family. Zoey’s father, Mitch (Peter Gallagher), has a neurodegenerative disease and is unable to speak. When Zoey gets an MRI to see if she might have his condition, there is an earthquake while she’s in the machine. Zoey leaves the doctor’s office with an unusual superpower: she can now hear the inner thoughts and feelings of the people around her through musical numbers that only she can see and hear.
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is a heartfelt dramedy with two seasons and a movie. Zoey starts the series focused on work, her family, and her best friend, Max (Skylar Astin). Through what she calls “heart songs,” though, Zoey’s world opens up. Framed like a procedural, each episode of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist shows Zoey hearing the thoughts of a different person and trying to help them with their emotional conflicts.
‘Totally Completely Fine’ (2023)
Totally Completely Fine is an Australian dark comedy series that follows a depressed and self-sabotaging woman in her early 20s named Vivian Cunningham (Thomasin McKenzie). Vivian and her brothers were raised by their grandfather after the death of their parents in a car accident. When their grandfather dies, all three siblings are surprised to learn that he’s left his beautiful waterfront home to Vivian. The catch is that the home overlooks a cliff that is a popular local suicide location, and Vivian’s grandfather has entrusted her with the responsibility of saving those who come there.
Totally Completely Fine kicks off when Vivian saves the life of Amy Matthews (Contessa Treffone), a runaway bride who goes to the cliff in a panic. She then moves in with Vivian, and she encourages a reluctant Vivian to keep saving lives like her grandfather knew she could. All the while, Vivian struggles with her own self-destructive tendencies, her fraught relationship with her oldest brother (Rowan Witt), and her lingering grief and guilt over her parents’ accident.
‘The Midnight Club’ (2022)
Amongst Mike Flanagan‘s more popular horror series on Netflix is The Midnight Club, an emotional and severely underrated teen drama with a horror twist. The Midnight Club follows Ilonka (Iman Benson), a teenage girl with terminal cancer. After having found stories of a girl with her illness decades before who seemed to have been magically cured, Ilonka goes to spend the rest of her days at Brightcliffe, a hospice center for dying teenagers.
Ilonka is there looking for a cure, but the rest of her new friends are at Brightcliffe because they’ve accepted their fates. She learns that they have a club where they meet every night to tell scary stories, but these stories are far from the only unsettling thing about Brightcliffe. In her search for answers, Ilonka starts seeing horrifying visions and hearing about intricate rituals, forcing her to determine how far she’s willing to go to fight death.
‘Faking It’ (2014–2016)
Faking It is a hilarious satirical teen comedy series that follows two extremely close best friends named Karma (Katie Stevens) and Amy (Rita Volk). They are practically invisible at their very progressive high school, but when they are mistaken for a couple, they are made instantly popular. Karma is thrilled at her newfound popularity, but Amy struggles to maintain their fake relationship as she begins to realize that she has real feelings for Karma.
Faking It is such a fun and silly show with wildly over-the-top humor, sharply funny and strange dialogue, and complex and nuanced characters. The show’s goofy comedy and wild premise are grounded in the very real story of Amy slowly coming to terms with her identity, and Karma being forced to examine her own insecurities and her desperate quest for popularity.
‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’ (2018–2020)
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power still has a devoted fanbase now, nearly six years after its conclusion, but it’s sadly been removed from Netflix and is currently unavailable to stream anywhere. The series follows Adora (Aimee Carrero), a young woman who’s been trained as a soldier for an evil army called the Horde for the entirety of her life. Adora is soon pulled to find a magic sword that transforms her into a Princess of Power called She-Ra. This leads Adora to realize that the Horde is evil, and to leave behind everything – including her best friend, Catra (AJ Michalka) – to join the rebellion and fight against the Horde.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is a clever series with thoughtful storytelling that slowly unravels over the course of its five seasons. These five seasons are full of nuanced and intentional character development, thoughtful explorations of themes of colonialism and imperialism, and a number of brilliant plot twists that are built up from the very beginning of the series. The show also has one of the best slow-burn romances ever, and a phenomenal ensemble of unique and lovable characters.
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