ARTICLE AD BOX
"By the last season, I was asking myself, 'Is this the best show in television?'"
Here are some of the top-voted responses:
1. Overrated: Breaking Bad
Ursula Coyote / AMC / Courtesy Everett Collection
"It's good. Great, even! I enjoyed watching it and don't regret the time spent doing so. But if people didn't regularly reference and talk about it online, I wouldn't have thought about it much ever again. It was very entertaining and well made, but that's just not enough to make a lasting impression in my mind. It's not a masterpiece."
2. Underrated: Miracle Workers
TBS
"LOVE this show. Such a delightfully random cast (put Lolly Adefope in more stuff) and high-concept but lighthearted humor executed perfectly."
"Such a great show. I love how they anthologize it by going to a completely different series each season; the same actors are there, but the characters and plot are entirely new. Daniel Radcliffe as a preacher doing an interpretive live-action soft porn of the seven deadly sins was one of the best things I've seen in TV in years."
3. Overrated: This Is Us
Ron Batzdorff / NBC / courtesy Everett Collection
"It’s trauma porn — intense emotional sensations to get your weekly cry in — which is healthy, sure, but not the masterpiece everyone’s mom makes it out to be."
"Agree! It’s cheap emotional writing. My college writing professor called it 'dead dog writing.' Everyone gets sad when a good dog dies. As an author, your job is to make someone feel something without the dog dying, the kid getting cancer, etc."
4. Underrated: Galavant
Nick Ray / ABC / courtesy Everett Collection
"This was the show where I realized I didn't hate musicals as a genre. It's largely not a musical, but the musical numbers always had me rolling."
"It has the same energy as The Princess Bride. It's honestly a really fun show to watch with friends."
5. Overrated: How I Met Your Mother
Ricard Cartwright / CBS / courtesy Everett Collection
"Every episode glorifies Ted’s toxic behavior and makes it look romantic. I get so triggered watching that show."
"The character I truly couldn't stand was Lily. The shit she pulled was infuriating to watch, made all the worse by the fact that I felt she wasn't meant to be viewed in that light."
"Really stupid what they did with that final season."
6. Underrated: Pushing Daisies
Adam Taylor / ABC / courtesy Everett Collection
"Best description of Pushing Daisies I've heard is 'morbidly sweet.' Such a good show, probably time to watch it again."
"Art direction and set design were beautiful. So vivid."
7. Overrated: The Walking Dead
AMC
"They had the same loop of storyline repeated in every season: They run, they find shelter, they go out for food, someone gets bitten, they get overrun, and they have to find somewhere new. Rinse and repeat for like 10 seasons."
"The Walking Dead is basically a soap opera with zombies."
8. Underrated: The Knick
Mary Cybulski / Cinemax / courtesy Everett Collection
"It had such an incredible cast. One of those shows for which I actively searched out the actors once it wrapped. I’ll watch André Holland and Jeremy Bobb in anything! Chris Sullivan was sooo good with Cara Seymour."
9. Overrated: Friends
Paul Drinkwater / Warner Brothers / Courtesy: Everett Collection
"It’s not bad; it’s just bland and boring and unfunny."
"It’s the generic Wonder Bread of TV sitcoms. Bland, tasteless, and no nutritional value."
10. Underrated: Party Down
Starz! Movie Channel / ©Starz! Movie Channel/Courtesy Everett Collection
"I love Party Down because it has so many huge stars right before their peaks."
"Full of amazing, amazing people. Lizzy Caplan, Adam Scott (my first exposure to him — I've loved him ever since), Martin Starr, Jimmi Fuckin' Simpson, and Ken Motherfuckin' Marino. Fantastic cast."
"The most underrated comedy since Freaks and Geeks. Really excited for the reunion season being made right now."
11. Overrated: Grey's Anatomy
Scott Garfield / ABC / Courtesy Everett Collection
"The story is sooo thinned. Everything that could possibly happen to a group of people happened to them. It's like some Final Destination shit."
12. Underrated: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Lisa Rose / The CW Network / courtesy Everett Collection
"Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was better than it had any business being. Netflix kept suggesting it to me, and I was like, 'Ew, no, please stop,' but then one day, I was really stoned and was like, 'Fuck it, show me what you’ve got.' And boy howdy, I’m so glad I did. It’s funny, smart, a little soapy – which I appreciate when you want action that doesn’t feel life or death – and then BOOM, amazing depictions of mental health struggles and toxic parenting. I have literally discussed the song 'Maybe She’s Not Such a Heinous Bitch After All' with my therapist on multiple occasions.
Is it cheesy? Yes. Is it good? Yes. Should you give it a try? Yes."
13. Overrated: Lost
Mario Perez / ABC / Courtesy: Everett Collection
14. Underrated: The Middle
Mchael Ansell / ABC / courtesy Everett Collection
"The show was on for nine seasons, but I feel like no one ever talks about it. Coming from a lower middle-class family myself, it was super refreshing to finally see a family portrayed that wasn’t well-off. It was also absolutely hilarious with quirky but lovable characters that still felt authentic. I saw so much of my own life in that show, and I still rewatch it when I need a good laugh or pick me up."
"YES. It was one of the rare shows that managed to KEEP GETTING BETTER for the entire length of its run, which is amazing given how long it ran."
"I also loved that Sue Heck is allowed to be a normal, awkward teenage girl. She's not hyper-sexualized like so many other teenage girls on TV."
15. Overrated: Downton Abbey
ITV
"Besides the bizarrely repetitive storylines of each character (accused of a murder they didn't commit, servants for no reason undermining and backstabbing each other, and love interests constantly dying), you have Mary. She is the most unlikable character on the show, always being horrible to everyone and doesn't really apologize. She is despicable. So frustrating that no one calls her on her bullshit. I actively rooted against her to the end. Not to mention the aristocratic apologism. I was hoping for a servant uprising since Episode 1."
16. Underrated: The Great
Ollie Upton / Hulu / Courtesy Everett Collection
"It's...great! Hilarious and charming and occasionally a true story."
"Amazing! Shakespearean plot and drama with modern humor and writing! I remember looking up the actual history to find out what the differences were and reading something about how the writer essentially took a few real names and events from history, and then just had at it and wrote whatever he wanted."
"I like to describe it as Downton Abbey meets It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."
17. Overrated: The Big Bang Theory
Sonja Flemming / CBS / courtesy Everett Collection
"It's thought of as a sitcom for nerds, but it isn't. It's a sitcom for people who think nerds saying something nerdy is a funny joke. The show doesn't invite the audience to laugh WITH the characters as they make clever jokes that nerds will relate to. It invites the audience to laugh AT the characters for making nerdy pop-culture references. There's nothing nerdy or clever about the show's 'jokes'. The mere fact that the characters are nerds at all IS the joke."
18. Underrated: Halt and Catch Fire
Tina Rowden / AMC / courtesy Everett Collection
"Halt and Catch Fire is one of those rare ensemble casts where all the actors are equally talented, and they all get perfect character arcs that feel completely natural and real. Lee Pace and Mackenzie Davis are gonna get most of the accolades, but Scoot McNairy and Kerry Bishé are IMO the gems here. 'Who Needs a Guy' is possibly the most perfect episode of any TV show to ever air. I sat in silence staring at the TV for probably 5–10 minutes after it was over, just completely blown away at what the writers and actors had done."
"By the last season, I was asking myself, 'Is this the best show in television?'"
19. Overrated: Money Heist
Netflix/Antena 3 / Courtesy: Everett Collection
"This show drives me wild. They want to set up an elaborate, long-term heist that requires everyone to work together and be professional...so they use a bunch of horny idiots with no impulse control."
20. Underrated: Derry Girls
Channel 4
"No one ever mentions Derry Girls. I think it's funnier than half the stuff popular right now."
"100% the best show I’ve watched this year. It is my comfort show that I put on when I just need to feel happy for a bit. I love Northern Ireland, too, so it’s extra lovely for me."
Which show do you think is totally overrated or way underrated? Sound off in the comments below!
Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.

4 years ago
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