If there’s one thing Netflix loves more than spending absurd amounts of money on one-off action flicks, it’s cancelling shows with small but dedicated audiences (according to their metrics, which, frankly, we still don’t totally understand). The fact that Netflix’s ‘ended’ series page on Wikipedia just keeps scrolling is a stark reminder that no show on the platform is safe. With that in mind, here are 7 underrated Netflix shows, you probably forgot about, either because of the passage of time or because, learning of a premature cancellation, you wrote the show off, never to return. Still, while a lot of Netflix shows don’t get to deliver complete arcs or a total ending, there is really still nothing like them.
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Netflix throws an absurd amount of money at its originals, and it seems willing to gamble at least a season on good popcorn TV — and even more, if you’re lucky. Some of the shows on here are fluff, while others are more substantive than ‘just’ popcorn, but they’ve all suffered from slipping off the algorithm’s — and therefore most Netflix users’ — radar. These are shows well worth a revisit and a reminder to the world that they existed, even if for just a moment.
Sense8
This is a show Netflix would only greenlight early in its content creation days (well, Apple might consider it nowadays), Sense8 united the sci-fi dreams and aesthetics of The Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski. Straczynski had done this before, of course, with Babylon 5, and he’d spent the years in between pitching more shows and writing notable comic books. For The Wachowskis, in many ways, Sense8, with its queer joy and love, was a key part of their coming out story as trans women. It’s a wild show, from start to finish, and even though it had a severely abbreviated run (just 2 seasons between 2015-2018), it seemed to have limitless potential. It seems to occupy a space in TV science fiction all its own, and the science was never really the focus. The relationships between the ‘sensates’, though, were. Of all the early Netflix shows, it’s the one worth giving one more watch to.
Frontier
Frontier (2016-2018) was a co-production between Discovery Canada and Netflix. It was a show that claimed to be a historical retelling of the fur trade in the late… 18th? early 19th? century? Historical accuracy and realism weren’t exactly Frontier‘s bag, ultimately; a pulpy sensibility brought to an era usually treated with accuracy and reverence, was. Frontier looked at Turn: Washington’s Spies and John Adams and even Outlander and said… we have Jason Momoa and all of Canada’s supporting actors, so we’re going to have fun with this.
Frontier might’ve even run a few more years, if Apple TV+ hadn’t wooed Momoa away with their own wacky show, See. Frontier had something for everyone; if you want sexy young Brits screaming at each other, you got that. If you want Momoa handsome and brooding and seemingly always injured, you got that. If you wanted to see two of Canada’s finest supporting actors play My Fair Lady with one of the young Brits and actually portray a gay couple while doing so… sure! Frontier lacked sense most of the time, but it never lacked sensation. That’s something at least.
Santa Clarita Diet
There aren’t enough horror sitcoms. And if the couple at the heart of it all are living zombie and suburban real estate mom Drew Barrymore and her devoted husband Timothy Olyphant (after his Justified run)… well, that makes sense! Santa Clarita Diet shocked at first for its ready handling of the gore that comes when you become an undead being who craves nothing but human flesh, but it quickly became clear that there was love under all the blood and guts. Santa Clarita Diet started in 2017, along with several other more comedic entries on this list, proving that Netflix could do comedy just as well as drama… maybe better, actually?
GLOW
GLOW ran from its glorious debut in 2017 to its wrongful cancellation mid-pandemic and mid-production in 2020. For loyal fans, it will never be forgotten, but considering audiences as a whole were deprived of a proper ending… its cultural cache over all might be slipping. But GLOW was one of the funniest, most feminist shows on TV during its run, and it gave Alison Brie far more to do than Community‘s Annie Edison did. It also let Betty Gilpin kick butt, and introduced us to a collective of character actresses with incredible range. It understood that sometimes, you have to fight fire with fire, especially if you’re a rag-tag band of glorious lady wrestlers.
Dear White People
When the 2014 film version of Dear White People debuted, it was a bit of a sensation. The Netflix series wisely continued the story of the original film (even if that meant recasting original stars Tessa Thompson and Tyler James Williams) and brought back director and writer Justin Simien, too. Winchester University was an ideal setting for a full season of comedy, and Dear White People got four in total, starting in 2017 and ending in 2021. Of the three 2017 Netflix comedies on this list, it’s the one that got the longest run. It was often funny and biting in the best ways, a true send-up of millennial campus life, an era that’s now long gone.
Maybe the series disappeared from cultural memory once thanks to a two year delay between its third and fourth seasons… and the fact that campus life wasn’t quite the same feeling after 2020. One can only hope Simien, who recently directed The Haunted Mansion remake, does get more chances to make comedies in the future. While he seemingly lost out on future Disney+ series Lando, he does have a Star Trek comedy in development.
Giri/Haji
Netflix has a lot of “one and dones” on its roster; while many of them are considered miniseries, Giri/Haji (2020) wasn’t one. A Japanese/British crime thriller, it was a co-production between the BBC and Netflix, and apparently… this initial team-up didn’t go very far. It was a dual language show, set in both London and Tokyo, and maybe it was just too much for the average Netflix viewer. Critics loved it, but that wasn’t enough. It is a thrilling show, led well by Kelly Macdonald and Takehiro Hira. One hopes it will always get some remembrance as a daring experiment done well, which just debuted during one of the toughest times for a global production to really take off.
Locke & Key
Locke & Key got the three seasons its creators wanted. It was often overshadowed by Stranger Things, and it might always be, but it was a compelling enough comic book adaptation for its time. It premiered right before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down, and that might have encouraged its survival. While a dark story, its young cast brought plenty of life to the mysteries of the first season, and it got better in its second season, even if the third and final season didn’t get rave reviews. For a story locked in development hell since 2010, it’s a remarkable survival story.
Are there any underrated Netflix shows you think we missed? Let us know in the comments!
