The 25+ Best TV Shows on Paramount+
Photo Courtesy of Comedy Central
Paramount+ is no small startup—it’s the premium streaming arm of Paramount (formerly known as ViacomCBS), a media megacorp that owns networks like CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime, BET, Comedy Central, and more. Like Max, Paramount+ is not just a collection of TV properties, but also movies, news, and sports from the company’s vast empire. It’s also a rebrand of CBS All Access; basically, if you liked CBS All Access (and/or subscribed to it), you can tumble into Paramount+ and see all of your favorites.
However, to offer you a little guidance, we’ve curated a list of the best shows to check out, including a few groupings of series (including classic TV, nostalgic programming, and more), which is why we made the list 25+. Because who doesn’t love a Plus, apparently? It’s also worth noting for sports fans that Paramount+ carries various games, tournaments, matches, etc. from around the world (the list includes: NFL, NCAA college football and basketball, Masters, PGA TOUR, The PGA Championship, UEFA Champions League, Serie A, UEFA Europa League, National Women’s Soccer League, and AFC Asian Cup).
In the U.S., Paramount+ has two pricing tiers: The Paramount+ Essential plan (formerly known as Essential) features limited commercials and will only set you back $5.99 per month. Meanwhile, the Paramount+ with Showtime subscription is the service’s ad-free tier and will cost you $11.99 per month. However, we did not include any Showtime programming on the list since it requires the additional cost to view. The app is currently available on all major carriers, including Apple products and Android, Chromecast, FireTV, Roku, Samsung, Vizio, Xfinity, as well as Xbox and Playstation.
Detroiters
Created by: Zach Kanin, Joe Kelly, Sam Richardson
Stars: Sam Richardson, Tim Robinson, Pat Ver Harris, Lailani Ledesma
The key to Detroiters is its sincerity, which shines through almost every episode without any kind of smugness or self-congratulations. Sam Richardson (Ted Lasso, Veep) and Tim Robinson (Saturday Night Live, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson) genuinely love each other, and their families, and their advertising company, and most of all their city. (It’s Detroit. Detroit, Michigan. That’s where they’re from.) The tone gets dark at times, and Tim and Sam occasionally act petty or vindictive, but there’s almost none of the cynicism and mean-spiritedness so often found in comedy today. When they’re making illicit purchases in a back alley at night with Tim’s sanity-challenged father, they’re not buying drugs, but fireworks. When Sam unintentionally becomes a gigolo, it takes him a while to realize it, and he’s convinced he’s in love with his only client. When they accidentally run over prospective client Jason Sudeikis, it gnaws at them until they inevitably let Sudeikis run them over as penance. Without this sweetness, Detroiters would probably still be funny, but it wouldn’t be as charming or as powerful. —Garrett Martin
Review
Created by / Stars: Andy Daly
No half-hour comedy has ever broken my heart quite like Review, or even come close. Perhaps that’s why Andy Daly’s brilliant, pitch-black Comedy Central series didn’t make it past an abbreviated Season 3—the show parlayed its silly, meta premise into a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. If that reads as overblown, then you, like too many people for Comedy Central’s liking, clearly have not seen Review. The show, in which fictional TV show host and “life critic” Forrest MacNeil (Daly) reviews viewer-submitted experiences with a zeal that can only be described as catastrophic, is the story of a good but woefully misguided man, undone by his own desperate search for meaning. To its adoring audience, Review will likely be remembered as the most inimitable show Comedy Central has ever aired. —Scott Russell
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Created by: Michael Dante DiMartino Bryan Konietzko
Stars: Zach Tyler Eisen, Mae Whitman, Jack DeSena, Jessie Flower, Dee Bradley Baker, Mako, Grey DeLisle, Mark Hamill
Don’t be put off by M. Night Shayamalan’s clunky 2010 live-action adaptation. This richly animated TV series merges the wild imagination of Hayao Miyazaki, the world-building of the most epic anime stories, and the humor of some of the more offbeat Cartoon Network originals. Following the exploits of the Avatar, the boy savior Aang who can control all four of the elements—fire, water, earth and wind—the series is filled with political intrigue, personal growth, and unending challenges. Spirits and strange hybrid animals present dangers, but so do the people who seek power for themselves. This is one you’ll enjoy watching with your kids or on your own. —Josh Jackson
Evil
Created by: Robert King and Michelle King
Stars: Katja Herbers, Mike Colter, Aasif Mandvi, Kurt Fuller, Marti Matulis, Brooklyn Shuck
Evil moved to Paramount+ from CBS ahead of its third season, but we still can’t believe the same network that airs, like, 50 different versions of NCIS ever aired this meditation on evil from the same people who brought you The Good Wife. Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) is a forensic psychologist who becomes something of a believer when she meets priest-in-training David Acosta (Mike Colter) and tech expert Ben (Aasif Mandvi) and they begin to investigate the inexplicable. The always creepy (in the best way) Michael Emerson is also on hand as Leland Townsend, a mysterious character who epitomizes the title of the series. Truly, my only complaint about this drama, which gets better with each passing episode, is that may be too creepy for me. The show produces the kind of scares that stay with you long after the lights go out. —Amy Amatangelo
Nathan for You
Created by: Nathan Fielder, Michael Koman
Stars: Nathan Fielder
For two seasons, Nathan for You was something warped, uncomfortable, and ultimately refreshing. Ideas like “Dumb Starbucks” went viral, making it increasingly difficult for Fielder to use relative anonymity to convince his “clients” to go along with his disturbingly effective ideas. It wasn’t totally original TV, but there did seem to be a certain sincerity under it all, Fielder doing his best to never exploit the people he helped for the benefit of a good joke, hoping that somehow, at the very least, he could drum up attention for the suffering businesses. But the third season of Nathan for You is something so much more sublime: Over the course of eight episodes, Nathan contrived a fake exercise program replete with a fake creator to dredge up free labor for a moving company, created a sound-proof box for imprisoning children while their parents have sex in hotel rooms (which he tested with a porn star orgy), and devised a way for a dive bar to allow smokers inside through turning a typical night of patronization into an experimental bit of theater—all the while transforming each client interaction into a desperate bid to make a friend. It’s even in “Nail Salon/Fun” that Nathan finally admits he doesn’t have many friends, even though he’s actually a really fun guy to hang out with, so he concocts a plan to scientifically validate he’s an entertaining human, which of course involves stealing the urine of his new friend and suggesting on a lark they go get blood drawn together. It’s all so much more than cringe-worthy faux-documentary pranking; in Season 3, Nathan for You stumbled into the sublime, taking to task the pathetic, empty human connections at the heart of even the most basic tenets of capitalism. —Dom Sinacola
Joe Pickett
Developed by: John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle
Stars: Michael Dorman, Julianna Guill, Sharon Lawrence, Paul Sparks, Mustafa Speaks, David Alan Grier
Joe Pickett might just feature my new favorite TV family. The Picketts are one part Little House on the Prairie and one part Far Cry 5. They’re as ready and willing to strike up a cowboy song during a prairie picnic as they are to pick up the nearest rifle, shotgun, or hunting knife to defend kith and kin. They take their lead from patriarch and show namesake Joe Pickett, a hard-luck Wyoming game warden who loves his family, his job, and the wild animals that roam Yellowstone’s peaks and valleys, in that order. (Cowboy hats off to the prop and VFX department for bringing realistic emus, eagles, and elk to life—or death—without involving real animals.) The only things Joe hates about his job are the bureaucracy, the meager pay, and members of the seedy underbelly of nearby Saddlestring who will go to unimaginable lengths to consolidate their wealth and power. Not on Joe’s watch.
Based on the novels by C.J. Box, Joe Pickett scratches the Western itch without the grimdark drama of similar shows, offering up a balance of vengeful violence and wholesome family values in equal measure. Put it on your must-watch Dad TV list. —Dave Trumbore
Ghosts
Developed by: Joe Port, Joe Wiseman
Stars: Rose McIver, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Brandon Scott Jones, Richie Moriarty, Asher Grodman, Rebecca Wisocky, Sheila Carrasco, Danielle Pinnock, Roman Zaragoza, Devan Chandler Long
Based on the U.K. series of the same name, the delightful Ghosts is a bona fide hit for CBS. But if you’re an elder Millennial, you could be knocked over with a feather to learn this is one of TV’s best series. And yet, don’t sleep on it. Ghosts follows a young couple, Samantha and Jay (Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar), who inherit a large country estate that is, turns out, filled with ghosts only Sam (after she goes through a near-death experience) can see and hear. These ghosts aren’t scary though, they’re mostly friendly and occasionally annoying in their demands to smell bacon or have Sam turn on the TV. They also make for a fantastic comedy ensemble. Comprised of a small percentage of those who have died on the estate’s property from the beginning of time, the ghosts rule the roost: Bossy Revolutionary War soldier Isaac (Brandon Scott Jones), kind Boy Scout leader Pete (Richie Moriarty), pants-less Wall Street bro Trevor (Asher Grodman), uptight lady of the manor Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky), certified hippie Flower (Sheila Carrasco), flamboyant jazz singer Alberta (Danielle Pinnock), deadpan Lenape tribesman Sasappis (Roman Zaragoza), and the oldest of all the ghosts, Thorfinn (Devan Chandler Long), a Viking.
As Sam and Jay work to establish a B&B, the ghosts both help and hinder the process in earnestly funny ways. The charming CBS series is not quite as cozy as the UK’s version, and features a few early hallmarks of American sitcom formatting that can feel heavy-handed, but when it hits, it really hits. Best of all, Ghosts is typically family-friendly enough for everyone to enjoy. —Allison Keene
Frasier
Created by: David Angell, Peter Casey, David Lee
Stars: Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, Jane Leeves, John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin
Watch the Original on Paramount+
Watch the Revival on Paramount+
The beloved sitcom Frasier owes its existence to the beloved sitcom Cheers, as the spinoff sees Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier Crane relocate from Boston to Seattle in an attempt to start over after his divorce. But while many classic sitcoms are paeans to blue-collar family life, Frasier was the odd show that made cultural elites and eggheads somehow seem like lovable characters to a mass audience. Both Frasier and his brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) could be infuriatingly snobbish, but audiences soon found that when their petty jealousies were directed at each other, they could also be hilarious. The show quickly became an off-hand representation of the idea of “smart comedy” on TV, but it was also still a sitcom full of relationship humor. Viewers waited a hell of a long time in particular for the long-teased relationship between Niles and Daphne (Jane Leeves) to finally come to fruition (seven full seasons). Frasier, on the other hand, was never really lucky in love, but he was always better as a semi-depressed single, turning his probing mind on himself. There is a reason it ran for 11 seasons and became one of the most successful spinoffs in TV history. And perhaps that’s why it returned in 2023.
In the revival, Frasier returns to Boston to be a guest lecturer at Harvard University where his old friend Alan (Nicholas Lyndhurst) is a tenured professor and his nephew David (Anders Keith) is a student. Much to his chagrin, Frasier’s son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott) has forgone a Harvard education in favor of being a Boston firefighter. Rounding out the cast are Toks Olagundoye as Olivia, the head of Harvard’s psychology department, and Jess Salgueiro as Freddy’s roommate Eve. The through-lines and similarities to the original series are pretty direct: David is Niles; Freddy is Martin; Alan and Olivia together are Roz; and Eve is Daphne. But here’s the thing: the show totally works. The comedic beats, witty repartee, and comedy of errors-pratfalls and misunderstandings are all still there. —Jim Vorel, Kaitlin Thomas, and Amy Amatangelo
Corporate
Created by: Pat Bishop, Matt Ingebretson, Jake Weisman
Stars: Matt Ingebretson, Jake Weisman, Anne Dudek, Adam Lustick, Aparna Nancherla, Lance Reddick
For everyone who’s had a soul-crushing job where they can almost feel the walls closing in on them. For those who’ve sat in the office parking garage on Monday mornings and wondered if this would be the week that their guilt over their company’s environmental and/or human safety conditions finally broke them enough to quit their mid-level executive gig. For all the HR people who nod as workers blubber about unfair conditions, but who secretly know their mission is to protect the business at all costs. For the two Yes Men who know only one of them is actually needed on the payroll. For these people and more, creators Pat Bishop, Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman’s Comedy Central series is for you (and not at all for your human steroid of a CEO). —Whitney Friedlander
Survivor
Created by: Charlie Parsons
Hosted by: Jeff Probst
Survivors ready? Stream! There’s never a bad time to watch Survivor, one of the most famous reality competitions of all time. Host Jeff Probst lures Americans to a location far from their home, forcing them to live off of rice and canteen water for just over a month. All the while, they battle on another in two or three tribes full of strangers, going head-to-head in physical and mental mini-games that protect them from Tribal Council. But Tribal Council is inevitable: One way or another, they’ll be forced to sit around the fire and spew all the gossip around camp, eventually tasked with voting one person out of the game. There are some beloved characters, some villains, and some complete weirdos in the 40+ seasons of Survivor that have aired over the past 20+ years. Each season is a true gem, full of twists, bizarre drama, and extreme strategy. —Fletcher Peters
The Good Wife
Created by: Robert King, Michelle King
Stars: Julianna Margulies, Matt Czuchry, Archie Panjabi, Graham Phillips, Makenzie Vega, Josh Charles
Are network dramas supposed to be this good? Julianna Margulies stars as the title character, Alicia Florrick, who (in a storyline ripped from many, many headlines) is subjected to public humiliation when her husband, Peter (Chris Noth), the district attorney of Chicago, is caught cheating with a prostitute. The scandal forces Alicia back into the workforce, and she takes a job with her (very sexy) old law school friend Will Gardner (Josh Charles). But Alicia is not your typical “stand by your man” woman, and The Good Wife is not your typical show. The brilliance of the series is that it deftly blends multiple and equally engaging storylines that both embrace and defy genre conventions. Each episode is an exciting combination of political intrigue, inner-office jockeying, family strife, sizzling romance, and intriguing legal cases. The series features a fantastic array of guest stars, and creates a beguiling and believable world where familiar characters weave in and out of Alicia’s life just like they would in real life: You’ll be fascinated by Archie Panjabi’s mysterious Kalinda Sharma, delighted by Zach Grenier’s mischievous David Lee, marvel at Christine Baranski’s splendid Diane Lockhart. And, witness the transformative performance Alan Cumming gives as the cunning Eli Gold. But the real reason to stick with the series is to partake in the show’s game-changing fifth season. Many series start to fade as they age, but The Good Wife peaked late in its mostly glorious seven-season run. —Amy Amatangelo
