My TV Show Recommendations

Sherlock Holmes-like cop drama. The Honourable Phryne Fisher is a wealthy, titled socialite / flapper, returning to her home in Australia after many years abroad. Upon arriving, she finds herself embroiled in a mystery and uses her natural curiosity, intelligence, and considerable and eclectic skills to solve it.

Discovering that she has a knack for solving mysteries, Phryne sets herself up as a lady detective, solving mysteries for anyone with a worthy case, all while fighting for the rights of women, workers, and the underprivileged by day, and loving as many fascinating men as she can meet by night.

Available on Acorn TV and non-US Netflix.

Hilarious comedy. 2 very different women in their '70s who don't like each other get dumped by their husbands so they can marry each other and the two women end up supporting each other. Hijinks ensue.

Musical comedy. Rebecca Bunch is a successful New York City lawyer with a ton of anxiety problems who spontaneously decides one day to quit her lucrative position and move across the country to California, where her old middle school boyfriend lives, because dating him one summer is the last time she remembers being happy. The question is, can she convince him to love her and get back together, or is she just a psychotic stalker with a penchant for sappy musical numbers?

Absurd comedy. Eleanor wakes up in an office waiting room, where she is told by an administrator (played by Ted Dansen) that she is dead and in the good place. But the description of Eleanor's life on earth in her file is not true. Now Eleanor has to figure out how to prevent anyone from finding out that she was actually a terrible human being so that they don't kick her out of the Good Place and send her to the Bad Place.

Surprisingly good drama. Bad guy from the Karate Kid movie, Johnny Lawrence, is all grown up now and re-opens his old dojo and starts teaching karate. But he's still a jerk. Daniel LaRusso is now a successful car salesman with a beautiful wife and kids who tries to stop Johnny from imposing the abusive values of Cobra Kai dojo on the next generation.

Thriller / mystery. Recently widowed when her husband was killed by a hit and run vehicle, Jen struggles to cope with single motherhood and latent anger issues. Until Judy appears in her life. The exact opposite of foul-mouthed, angry Jen, Judy is sweet and kind and a little bit hippie-dippy. But who is she? Where did she come from? And who killed her husband?

Cop drama with an undead twist. A promising young doctor gets attacked at a party on a boat, falls overboard, washes ashore, and wakes up dead with a craving for brains. Unable to tell anyone that she's a zombie now, she gets a job at the city morgue so that she can steal brains without anyone noticing. She discovers that she takes on the personalities of the brains she eats and also accesses some of their memories. When a murder victim comes in, she tells the investigating police officer that she's "psychic" and starts teaming up with him to solve crimes.

Supernatural cop drama. Lucifer, God's favorite son and angel who was cast out of heaven to rule hell, decides that he's done taking orders from an absentee father and abandons his underworldly administrative position for a life of luxury up on Earth. Where he meets Detective Chloe Decker and discovers that he rather enjoys helping her solve crimes even though she seems to be the only human on the entire planet who is immune to his charms.

Sci-fi thriller. Based on the novels, this dystopian landscape introduces us to a world where people can backup their brains onto discs in the back of their necks, so that if their body dies, they can be inserted into another body. But capitalism unevenly distributes this privilege, with the wealthy having custom-made bodies created at will, and poorer people are stuck with whatever bodies are available, including those of people who have their "stacks" removed or deleted as punishment.

Our main character is a super assassin type with a checkered history who is awakened in a new body and given an assignment he doesn't have a choice to reject.

Sci-fi. Episodic, not serial. Collection of stand-alone episodes exploring almost-current day scenarios of the dangers of technology. Each episode is our world, but with one fantastical technology available, and it explores the dark questions of how that technology can shape and possibly destroy society.

Action/thriller. Modern day, 8 people from around the world with no possible connection to each other discover that they are telepathically connected and now people seem to want to kill them. How are they connected, why these 8, and who are these other sinister people who seem to be the only ones who know what's going on?

Cop drama with a murderous twist. Dexter is a forensic scientist with the Miami police department. He investigates murders by studying the methods by which people kill, including a specialty in blood spatter patterns. All the better to hide his own serial murders. But it's OK because he only kills other bad guys!

Dramedy. An awkward teen son of a sex therapist divorced mother and therapist-author father struggles with unpopularity in high school, until the local rebel from the "wrong side of the tracks" starts booking him as a teen sex therapist for the other students for money. Suddenly, the awkward teen with no romantic experience is answering sex questions for the entire school.

Traditional sitcom. The Full House children are all grown up and the oldest, DJ Tanner, has kids of her own. Recently widowed, she moves her family back into her childhood home so that the family can rally around her and help raise the kids.

Traditional sitcom. A remake of the original 1970s show of the same name, with a modern update showing a Puerto Rican divorced mother of 2 dealing with stuff mom's deal with - working while parenting, dating, raising kids, racism, gender identities, misogyny, and teen sex.

Vintage-era cop drama. Agent Peggy Carter, who participated in the Captain America project in WWII, finds herself employed by the US as a secret agent for the Strategic Scientific Reserve, dedicated to fighting new atomic threats that have emerged after World War II and after Captain America disappeared on last, fateful mission. When her old friend Howard Stark (Iron Man's dad) is accused of treason and her own organization starts a man hunt for him, it's up to Peggy to clear his name.

Sherlock Holmes cop drama. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never liked the character he created and deeply resented his popularity. Consequently, the character of Sherlock Holmes is kind of a jerk. Doyle was trying to tell us that the sort of person who relies on "logic" is someone we should dislike, but for some reason, everyone loved his stories anyway. Over a century later, dozens of remakes have been made but they all have to work with this unlikable character. This imagining takes the Sherlock character into new realms, with Lucy Liu as Dr. Watson, not his sidekick and chronicler but a partner who can hold her own against the legendary Sherlock Holmes. Holmes and Watson team up together to solve crimes while we get a very different perspective on who they both are.

Sherlock Holmes-like cop drama. Cranky, abrasive Dr. Cal Lightman develops the theory of "micro-expressions" - tiny, quick, involuntary expressions that pass over people's faces that give away what they're thinking. Very loosely based on a real (but debunked) theory where Paul Ekman would analyze expressions from video, one frame at a time, whereas Lightman is able to read these expressions in real life as they happen with almost magical accuracy. The Lightman Group is a private business for hire that will detect people's lies and solve mysteries, sometimes even partnering with the police to solve crime.

Space Western. A motley group of characters with shady pasts are drawn and held together by their common distrust of the interstellar government and their home on the firefly-class space ship, Serenity. Taking odd jobs on either side of the law to survive, this unlikely family gets embroiled in politics, conspiracies, and danger when all they really want is to sail the skies in peace, doing jobs and getting paid for them.

But both the criminal underworld and the government have other ideas in mind for them.

Odd couple crime drama. Two brothers, one a decorated and successful FBI agent and the other a brilliant math genius and professor, who don't get along with each other because they don't understand each other. Until one of Don's FBI cases needs Charlie's mathematical expertise and brings them together.

Fast-paced political drama. Once neutral to the point of blandness and avoiding the challenging questions, a conservative newscaster finally loses his cool under the pressure of false neutrality and false "balance". After taking some time off when he yells at a student, he comes back with a new, take-no-crap attitude, changing the face of newscasting and the fate of his colleagues in a turbulent political US climate.

Odd couple crime drama. Forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan teams up with FBI agent Booth to investigate crime, loosely based on the real life and novels of a forensic anthropologist named Kathy Reichs. Agent Booth brings human remains to a federal science lab where Dr. Brennan "Bones" studies them to help solve their deaths.

Hard sci-fi, political drama. Humanity has touched the stars, and now inhabits Earth, Mars, and the Belt, splitting into 3 separate and unique cultures that clash with each other over priorities and resources, sometimes with fatal results.

One particular crew of space-farers finds themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that could end the human race. Can they save the galaxy?

This show has some of the most realistic hard science backing up its special effects and plot lines, but the story revolves around political drama and intrigue and does not go into the science except as exposition for the plot.

Amazon Prime