Each year thousands of TV shows air on multiple streaming platforms, out of which many go unnoticed and don’t receive the appreciation that they truly deserved. Imagine how many amazing TV shows you may have missed over the decade just because they never got popular. To narrow it down, a Reddit user, u/BluePinky asked, “What is a great TV show that never became popular?” and the Reddit community flooded the comments section with thousands of options. We have compiled the 15 most upvoted TV shows that never got the hype they truly deserved.
1) Awake
It was a show starring Jason Isaacs where he lived in two separate timelines. He was in a car accident with his wife and son, so — in one timeline — his son dies but he still has his wife. Then — in the other timeline — it’s his wife who dies, while his son is still alive.
When he goes to sleep he swaps between two timelines. He’s also a detective, and as the worlds sort of run parallel, and he uses information from one world to solve crimes in the other world.
The show only lasted 13 episodes but had some serious potential!
Posted by u/APartyInMyPants
2) Party Down
This show had an outstanding cast but some actors got roles in bigger movies and had to leave. Jane Lynch left to do Glee, Adam Scott landed his gig on Parks and Recreation, etc. So the show ended after only two seasons. To this day, it’s still one of my favorite comedy shows!
Posted by u/comeupoutdawatah
3) Salvage 1
Andy Griffith played the owner of a salvage yard who, in the first episode, managed to purchase a surplus of rocket engines from NASA. He used them to build his own rocket ship. You must be wondering why? Because there was valuable salvage in space. He successfully launched the rocket from his salvage yard, and also collected a dead satellite, returned it to Earth, and melted it down just as the government agents arrived too late to catch him in the act.
Posted by u/LockjawTheOgre
4) Almost Human
Karl Urban plays a future cop that doesn’t like that all detectives are assigned a robot partner. He gets assigned with a previous-generation model (played by Michael Ealy), and together they solve crimes and eventually become friends.
Posted by u/Ron_Fuckin_Swanson
5) Generation Kill
Many people haven’t heard of this show. This show was fantastic.
Posted by u/Beaver21Beaver
6) Happy Endings
A great little comedy that deserved better!
Posted by u/ErraticVole
7) Clone High
This show only lasted 13 episodes and had a hilarious run on MTV in the early 2000s.
Posted by u/misslemacintosh
8) Bored to Death
This show starred Zach Galifianakis, Ted Danson, and Jason Schwartzman. They had great chemistry and some hilarious dialogue.
Posted by u/ISmellTerrific
9) The IT Crowd
Not many people know about this show. The show is set in a London office centering around three staff members of its IT department.
Posted by u/CivilCJ
10) Pushing Daisies
It got canceled during the writers’ strike. It’s kind of old, but it remains one of my favorite shows of all time.
Posted by u/electricdeathrats
11) Eureka
It was a travesty that this one got stuck on the Syfy channel. If someone had put it on the right network and in the right time slot so people knew it even existed, I sincerely think it would have been HUGE.
Posted by u/SeattleTrashPanda
12) Dead Like Me
The main character gets killed in the first 10 minutes by a toilet seat that fell from an abandoned space station. Then she gets recruited as a ‘reaper,’ so her job is to basically separate people’s souls from their bodies after their death so that they can transition into the afterlife without the trauma of experiencing their deaths weighing on their eternal souls.
It also stars Mandy Patinkin in a supporting role! It was a great show.
Posted by u/Krishnath_Dragon
13) Grounded for Life
It was a very funny show. I haven’t seen it in well over a decade, but I still refer to the actors as ‘Uncle Eddie’ and ‘Sean Finnerty’ whenever I see them in anything else!
Posted by u/kwazykwoissants
14) Halt & Catch Fire
It’s a period of a prestige drama set in the early 1980s–’90s about the birth of personal computing, gaming, and the internet ages. The first season is not great, but the second is a little better, and the third and fourth seasons are about as good as TV gets.
It’s on Netflix now if anyone in the US wants to give it a go!
Posted by u/zazzlekdazzle
15) Galavant
It’s a great show. Basically just Monty Python meets a Broadway musical, and it’s so funny. It never got the love it deserved while it was on — it barely got a second season, and it ended on kind of a cliffhanger.
Posted by u/AlkalineSoul
Know about any other underrated TV show? Let us know in the comment section below!
Source: Reddit