Entertainment
7 Underrated Fantasy Shows Worth Watching Over and Over
Great fantasy shows always make for an excellent first-time watch. They draw viewers in with epic world building, complex ongoing storylines that slowly entangle over the course of the series, and nuanced characters that are easy to root for. Watching a fantasy show for the first time is an unforgettable experience, because it usually includes shocking plot twists, exciting reveals about the lore of this world, and suspenseful storylines that see the main characters going up against a major villain.
While many fantasy shows are enjoyable upon first watch, it takes a truly amazing series to get viewers to come back and rewatch. Some fantasy series have such rich and complex lore, that fans will want to go back and rewatch to see how later plot twists were hinted at and built up early on. Other fantasy series are cozy and sweet, and they make for excellent rewatches for fans looking for a mental vacation. These are the underrated fantasy shows that are worth rewatching over and over.
7
‘Every Witch Way’ (2014–2015)
Every Witch Way is a severely underrated Nickelodeon series about a teenage girl named Emma Alonso (Paola Andino) who moves to Miami with her father (Rene Lavan) and starts school at the strange and mysterious Iridium High School. At the same time that Emma is adjusting to this major change, she learns that she is a witch – just like her late mother was. Being a witch is enough of a handful on its own, but there is reason to believe that Emma is the Chosen One, and a number of witches around her are planning to try to steal her powers during the upcoming Eclipse.
Every Witch Way has surprisingly complex lore for a kids’ show, with compelling additions to the existing lore around witches, as well as the introduction of multiple new species of magical being. Each season of Every Witch Way sees Emma struggling to find a balance between her life as a teenage girl, and the weight of being a witch who is very likely the Chosen One. She deals with villains who are threats to her powers, but she also still has to find time for her friends and her schoolwork.
6
‘What We Do in the Shadows’ (2019–2024)
What We Do in the Shadows is a hilarious mockumentary series about three regular vampires, one energy vampire, and their familiar – who all live together in a Staten Island mansion. They are being recorded by a documentary crew, giving an exclusive look into the ever-day (after)lives of some of the most powerful and dangerous beings in the world. Despite the vampires’ initial orders from the Baron (Doug Jones) to take over some of the world, they get up to surprisingly mundane activities that keep them too busy to conquer anything.
Each episode of What We Do in the Shadows sees the vampires getting up to random and strange shenanigans, from the most ordinary, to the most bizarrely specific. They attend a neighbor’s Superbowl party, deal with spam emails that they’re convinced are cursed, and awaken the spirits of their ghosts. What We Do in the Shadows takes existing vampire lore and runs with it, adding on to make it even funnier, weirder, and less glamorous than ever before.
5
‘Galavant’ (2015–2016)
Galavant is a laugh-out-loud funny musical fairytale that tells the story of a once-great knight named Galavant (Joshua Sasse). After his true love, Madalena (Mallory Jansen), left him for the evil King Richard (Timothy Omundson), Galavant’s life completely fell apart. He has since given up on seeking glory as a knight, and spends all his time wallowing. Even when the desperate Princess Isabella (Karen David) asks Galavant to help her save her kingdom from King Richard, he still has no interest in doing anything – that is, until she tells him that Madalena regrets leaving him.
As Galavant goes off on a quest to take down Richard with Isabella and his trusty squire, Sid (Luke Youngblood), he unknowingly sets off on a path into a trap. As it turns out, Richard blackmailed Isabella into tricking Galavant. If she can successfully bring Galavant to Richard so that he can kill him, then Richard will let her parents live. As for Madalena, she is way more interested in the possibility of gaining power and more fortune than she is in either Galavant or Richard.
4
‘School Spirits’ (2023–Present)
School Spirits is a supernatural teen drama that follows Maddie Nears (Peyton List), a teenage girl who has suddenly gone missing. Maddie’s body is nowhere to be found, but her ghost is trapped in her high school, along with the ghosts of everyone else who has died there. The thing is, Maddie can’t remember how she died, and she has no idea what really happened to her. With the help of her new ghost friends and her best friend, Simon (Kristian Ventura) – the only living person who can see and hear her – Maddie investigates her death, starting with looking into everyone who had reason to want her gone.
School Spirits starts out as a grounded teen drama with compelling speculative elements, and soon becomes a truly horrifying and brilliant horror series. School Spirits has deep and complex lore that is built up and hinted at from the very start of the series, and the show slowly entangles its biggest secrets with each passing season. School Spirits makes for the perfect rewatch, because fans will pick up on little details and hints at later plot twists that they couldn’t have picked up on the first time.
3
‘The Good Place’ (2016–2020)
The Good Place follows Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a selfish woman who has just died in a bizarre grocery cart crash. Eleanor knows that she was just a “medium person,” but she wakes up in the Good Place, where she knows she doesn’t belong. As it turns out, Eleanor has been mistakenly sent to the Good Place, where her own mistakenly-assigned house, soulmate, and incorrect memories are waiting for her.
Eleanor soon realizes that she was supposed to be sent to the Bad Place, but she will do anything to avoid getting sent there. She asks her mistakenly-assigned soulmate, former Ethics and Moral Philosophy professor Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper), to teach her how to be a good person. As Eleanor learns about ethics for the first time, she starts to become less selfish, which also leads her to start questioning whether she even deserves to stay in the Good Place. The Good Place is a cozy and hilarious series that also has a number of shocking plot twists, and it truly gets better with each rewatch.
2
‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’ (2018–2020)
She-Ra and The Princesses of Power is a severely underrated and clever retelling of the story of Princess Adora, AKA She-Ra. At the start of the series, Adora (Aimee Carrero) is comfortable in her position as a soldier for an evil army called the Horde. Adora feels called to a magical sword, though, so she disobeys orders to go find it. As it turns out, the sword can transform Adora into a Princess of Power called She-Ra.
Through this new power and the people she meets while finding it, Adora decides to turn her back on the Horde and dedicate herself to taking the evil army down with the help of the rest of the Princess Alliance. At the helm of the Horde, though, is Adora’s ex-best friend, Catra (AJ Michalka). Over the course of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power‘s five seasons, Adora works hard to rally the princesses up and defeat the Horde, no matter the cost. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is a brilliant and emotional series that tackles a number of heavy themes with nuance and care, and that slowly builds up to the reveal of a number of mindbending plot twists over the course of its run.
1
‘Pushing Daisies’ (2007–2009)
Pushing Daisies is a delightfully cozy procedural that takes place in a fairytale world. Ned (Lee Pace) is a piemaker who can wake the dead with a single touch. When he’s not running his pie shop, Ned uses his power to help Private Investigator Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) solve murders. When Ned’s latest case is the murder of his estranged childhood sweetheart, Charlotte “Chuck” Charles (Anna Friel), he finds that he can’t bring himself to touch her back to being dead like he usually does with the murder victims.
Thus, Ned and Chuck re-enter each other’s lives almost two decades later, even though she will die again for good if he ever touches her. Each episode, Ned, Emerson, and Chuck solve outlandish and bizarre murders together. All the while, Ned tries to keep things running smoothly at his pie shop with the help of his best waitress, Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth). Oh, and Ned is keeping one more major secret: when they were kids, he accidentally killed Chuck’s dad with his powers, and she has no idea.
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