11 Underrated Shows You Can Actually Finish In A Weekend

This Australian rom-com follows two strangers whose lives are thrown together after an incident involving a flashed boob and hitting a stray dog. Yep. It’s wacky, but it’s wonderful. If you love Aussie humor, you’ll adore this. Plus, it was created by and stars real-life husband-and-wife Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, so their on-screen chemistry is fantastic.

The commitment: 2 seasons (with a third dropping July 27), 8 episodes each, ~3.5 hours per season

Bridget Everett is SO good in this dramedy about a cynical woman who returns to her Kansas hometown following the death of her sister. She’s always felt like an outsider there, but she ultimately finds community when she least expects it. It’s honestly such a heartfelt journey, so it’s criminal that the show — which holds a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes — got canceled after its third season.

The commitment: 3 seasons, 7 episodes each, ~3.5 hours per season

It took me a minute to get into this Aussie crime comedy series, but it wasn’t long until I was totally hooked. Set in a small Tasmanian town, it sees two wildly mismatched female detectives investigating murders. You wouldn’t think a crime show would be this funny, and yet it is. You’ll fall in love with Kate Box and Madeleine Sami as odd-pair Dulcie and Eddie. Oh, and Season 2 has “the other Hemsworth brother,” Luke!

The commitment: 2 seasons (so far), 8 episodes + 6 episodes, ~13 hours total

I don’t even know how I stumbled upon this, because you hardly ever hear anyone talk about it. A total shame! It’s such a sharp series. In the comedy, a geeky Gen Z biochemical engineering Ph.D. student named Amina becomes the reluctant lead guitarist of an all-women Muslim punk band in London. It’s riotous and joyful, and the songs alone (case in point: “Voldemore Under My Headscarf”) are worth the watch.

The commitment: 2 seasons, 6 episodes each, ~25 min

Chalk another win up for crime comedies! Here, two pampered Pakistani-American brothers discover — upon their father’s death — that the convenience store patriarch had been using his empire as a huge drug smuggling ring. Hilarity ensues as they try to figure out their place in the seedy criminal-front underworld. I’m personally obsessed with Poorna Jagannathan as the family’s terrifying auntie-consigliere. The show has been called Schitt’s Creek meets Breaking Bad, and that’s pretty accurate.

The commitment: 2 seasons, 10 episodes + 6 episodes, ~8 hours total

Listen, I’m going to start this with a disclaimer: This series ends with a massive cliffhanger because it was canceled (prematurely!). So, if you can’t handle that going in, skip to the next one on the list. I hope you don’t, though, since Extraordinary deserves all the fanfare it can get. In a world where everyone gets a superpower at 18, Jen is 25 and still waiting on hers. In fact, she’s the only person on earth who doesn’t have one. It’s such a clever twist on the typical superhero tropes, and genuinely just a fun, raunchy, surprisingly poignant comedy.

The commitment: 2 seasons, 8 episodes each, ~3.5 hours per season

You’ll never catch me turning down anything starring Merritt Wever, who plays one of the leads in this neo-Western miniseries. Set in an 1880s New Mexico mining town run almost entirely by women after a disaster kills most of the men, it also sees Michelle Dockery as a badass frontier mom and Jeff Daniels in the most unlikable role you’ll probably ever see from him.

The commitment: 1 season, 7 episodes, ~7.5 hours total

I feel like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s ties to the movie version of this show may have kept some people from tuning in to this excellent series so far. If you’re one of those people, here’s your sign to change that now. Donald Glover and Maya Erskine step into the title roles as two lonely strangers assigned to pose as a married couple for spy missions. They’re both incredible; the action is jaw-dropping... just a solid watch.

The commitment: 1 season, 8 episodes, ~6.5 hours total

I know you know I know that you don’t want to pay for another streaming service, but hear me out. BritBox is worth it. You’ll tap into a wealth of British humor you didn’t even realize was out there for the watching! Perfect example? This hilarious series about a menopausal woman named Linda who decides to ditch all the invisible labor she does at home and reclaim her life by riding off into the forest on a motorcycle. It’s smart and funny, full of heart, and features some excellent embedded feminist social commentary.

The commitment: 2 seasons, 6 episodes each, ~3 hours per season

With Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen as leads, it’s obviously going to be funny. Here, they play former best friends who reconnect in midlife and, well, pretty much make each other’s lives gloriously worse before they get better. It’s so rare to see a show that fully focuses on adult friendship between the sexes — catch up on the first two seasons now since it’ll be a minute before Season 3 drops.

The commitment: 2 seasons, 10 episodes each, ~5 hours per season

I’m still a little bummed out that this nostalgic, female-forward series got orphaned… twice. So, we only got three seasons, but they’re good ones — Sara Bareilles, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Busy Philipps, and Paula Pell nail it as a one-hit-wonder ‘90s girl group reuniting in their 40s. The original songs? Fire. The jokes? Rapid fire. It’ll leave you wanting more in a good way.

The commitment: 3 seasons, 6-8 episodes each, ~11 hours total