Television has changed so much since 2000 that the best shows from this era barely seem to belong to one category. Cable dramas became richer and stranger, streaming changed how people discovered stories, and comedy learned to sit comfortably beside grief, shame, ambition, and failure. The result is a period where television started feeling bigger, riskier, and more personal.
Still, the reason people return to great shows has stayed the same. Give viewers characters they can argue about, worry over, forgive, and doubt, and they will keep coming back long after the final episode. That is especially true for the six shows released between 2000 and now on this list. Let’s find out how.
6
'Better Call Saul' (2015–2022)
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In Better Call Saul, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) practises law out of a nail salon’s cramped back room. Court-appointed work barely pays, and getting through the courthouse parking barrier becomes another argument he cannot afford. You want somebody to give this man a chance. Then he stages a billboard rescue to advertise himself, and trusting him becomes complicated. The maddening part is that Jimmy can do the work. He notices elderly clients being overcharged and digs through discarded paperwork to prove it. He just keeps reaching for a dishonest shortcut.
Chuck (Michael McKean), the brother he dutifully cares for, doubts he will ever change. Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) sees reasons to keep believing. Both have a point, which makes Jimmy’s hunger for his brother’s approval hurt even more. It is infuriating how much you can love someone this exhausting.
5
'Fleabag' (2016–2019)
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Fleabag (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) is appallingly good company. She runs a struggling London café, makes disastrous sexual decisions, and keeps interrupting conversations to reveal what she actually thinks. She makes the glance before an insult almost as funny as the insult itself. You start waiting for her to look over.
That habit becomes uncomfortable when The Priest (Andrew Scott) notices it. She wants his company, and he keeps catching her withdrawing from it. Suddenly the private jokes expose how much grief she cannot discuss. The smirk arrives, disappears, and leaves an expression she would rather keep hidden. The romance is agonising because being understood is precisely what she wants and precisely what she keeps preventing. She is easy to love for trying anyway. Even when she makes it horribly awkward.
4
'Succession' (2018–2023)
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Succession begins with Media billionaire Logan Roy’s (Brian Cox) children discussing his replacement while he’s in hospital. That tells you plenty about the family. Then the old bastard recovers, and the promotion they were imagining becomes something he can promise, withdraw, and offer to somebody else. Logan's mere presence alters everybody’s behaviour. Kendall (Jeremy Strong) rehearses the confidence of a future chief executive, Roman (Kieran Culkin) fidgets and makes filthy jokes, Shiv (Sarah Snook) wants to believe she understands her father better than her brothers do. Put them around a dinner table and watch how quickly an ordinary remark becomes a test of loyalty.
The horrible pleasure is recognising how much of this they understand. They know he manipulates them. They still want to be chosen. So they betray one another, return for reassurance, and spend fortunes arranging meetings where somebody’s dad can humiliate them again.
3
'Mad Men' (2007–2015)
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Mad Men is a masterclass in selling a perfect American illusion. The plot kicks off with Don Draper (Jon Hamm) calmly explaining exactly what people want. He makes advertising executives believe a cigarette brand or a slide projector has something to do with their deepest private feelings. Then he goes home to Betty (January Jones) and the children, and ordinary honesty seems beyond him. Don has a prestigious job in 1960s Manhattan, a beautiful suburban house, and an identity he cannot afford to have examined. The whisky poured during office hours feels less glamorous once you notice how often he needs it.
And Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) begins as Don’s secretary, only to realise she can do the creative work the men congratulate themselves for. God, you want her to get that first assignment. Then you want her to be paid properly for it.
2
'The Wire' (2002–2008)
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The Wire follows Baltimore detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), who wants to investigate a drug organisation properly. His superiors would prefer that he stop making their lives difficult. He hardly makes himself easy to support.
The resulting investigation occupies a police basement, where names must be matched to faces and pager messages deciphered before intercepted calls can become usable evidence. Every breakthrough takes work. Recognising a voice doesn’t mean you can prove who it belongs to, and the bosses are already asking when you’ll be finished. Meanwhile, Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) demands discipline from the people selling his drugs, and Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) keeps disrupting business by robbing them. The show understands everybody’s immediate problem so thoroughly that even a brief conversation can make you anxious. What gets me angry is how often good police work becomes an inconvenience to the people supposedly responsible for demanding it.
1
'Breaking Bad' (2008–2013)
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Walter White (Bryan Cranston) gets lung cancer and decides to cook meth so his family will have money when he’s gone. Former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) knows the business. Walt knows chemistry and immediately starts issuing instructions in their RV.
Within two episodes, a dealer is locked to a basement post and acid and human remains have fallen through Jesse’s bathroom floor. Walt specifically told Jesse to use a plastic container. That detail is horrible and absurdly funny. The teacher was right, and being right has become completely inadequate. Meanwhile, Walt has to answer his wife’s questions without alerting his DEA brother-in-law, Hank (Dean Norris). The show makes the next ordinary conversation feel almost as dangerous as the drug deal. You keep wanting Walt to admit he cannot handle this. Then Cranston gives him that first unmistakable pleasure in asserting himself, and you realise how badly he wants to continue.
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