Best TV Shows on Netflix

While we won't spoil the recently-released second season of Stranger Things, we can say that Netflix's popular nostalgic fantasy series has already been renewed for a third season. So break out the stove-top popcorn and sit down for the addictive tales of Dustin, Mike, Lucas and Will, the four youths who keep finding themselves in the center of supernatural predicaments. Marvel at the wondrous abilities of Eleven, laugh at the dry wit of police chief Jim Hopper and find the joy in Winona Ryder's over-the-top performance.

While day-drinking lothario Don Draper may think that the Sterling Cooper ad agency revolves around him, Mad Men is more than just its lead. The show also tells the tales of Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway (a creative and an office manager, respectively) who are fighting to climb the ladder of an industry run by men. And while we only saw Don's daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka) sporadically in the first three seasons, her dramatic arc as a child seeing the worst of her parents, turns her into a regular for the rest of the series.

The original UK The Office mainstreamed Ricky Gervais’ awkward, uncomfortable humor, while The Office diluted it (some), layered in one of sitcom’s greatest romances (for four seasons, anyway), and surrounded Steve Carell with a remarkable, quirky supporting cast. The first four seasons still stand as the best workplace comedy in American sitcom history, even if the final four seasons were increasingly mediocre — though the series did redeem itself in the end.

Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) realizes she can't escape the mistakes of her past when she winds up in a minimum-security women's prison on a drug smuggling charge. Granted, it's not all bad, as she befriends the quirky inmates and reflects on the bizarre backstory that brought her there. Both funny and insightful, Orange is the New Black is one of the most popular Netflix original series.

Ryan Murphy’s horror anthology on FX is an unpredictable tour-de-force that, when it sticks its landing, is one of the best shows on TV. The series chronicles truly terrifying, mind-warping plots across multiple seasons, connecting some, ignoring others. What grounds these outrageous storylines involving haunted hotels, murder houses, insane asylums, cults, and covens is the cast, most notably Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, and Evan Peters. Murphy relies on their visceral portrayals of individuals unhinged to sell this whacky, nightmare-inducing rollercoaster and sell they do.

Currently, the highest-rated scripted series on cable television, The Walking Dead is an up-and-down show. When it’s good, it’s phenomenal; when it’s not, it can be a slog (especially in the earlier half of the series, when Frank Darabont was showrunner). Greg Nicotero does fantastic FX work, and the series is particularly compelling because no one — no matter how high they are listed in the credits — is safe from the zombie apocalypse, and the showrunners seem to relish in killing off cast members (other than the almighty Rick Grimes). Some of the binge-watching value, however, is lost because it’s so difficult to avoid being spoiled to plot points of one of the most talked about series on TV. Nevertheless, unlike almost any television drama, up until the sixth season, The Walking Dead improved with age, Beware of the cliffhangers, however, in season six, and a precipitous fall off in quality thereafter.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective comes to life for the 21st century in Sherlock. When Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman) returns from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, he takes a room with the brilliant but antisocial Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch). Together, the two must solve bizarre, complicated murder mysteries, protect state secrets and even undermine a criminal empire.

If you were concerned about technology being a detriment to privacy, sanity and human relationships, then the sci-fi thriller series Black Mirror will only serve to confirm your worst fears. While its first episode, the sexually explicit "The National Anthem" only needs the present day's social networks to upend the United Kingdom, later episodes — such as "Fifty Million Merits" and the Jon Hamm-starring "White Christmas" — predict how future advances in in-app purchases, reality TV and privacy filters will stunt our future. The series won two Primetime Emmy awards in 2017 for its San Junipero episode, and "USS Callister," the first episode of its fourth season, proves that the show hasn't run out of insane mind-bending ideas.

The long-running Showtime series understands better than any other drama on television what it’s like to be poor in America. Set in Chicago, Shameless follows the lives of the Gallagher family as they struggle beneath the poverty line to make ends meet. The family is afflicted with alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, poor decision-making skills, and the kind of terrible luck that so often follows poor families, but they’ve also got each other, their resilience, and a determination to break the cycle, but in Shameless, impoverishment is the boogeyman that always comes back, hilariously and heartbreakingly.

Who killed Laura Palmer? This mystery lies at the heart of Twin Peaks, a small-town drama from visionary filmmaker David Lynch. Kyle MacLachlan plays FBI investigator Dale Cooper as he explores the quiet town of Twin Peaks, looking for clues to a brutal murder of a prominent figure in the community. The show is clever and eerie, but features the hallmark Lynch humor and surrealism.