6 Perfect Drama Shows That Have Aged Like Fine Wine
Jennie Richardson is a TV Features and Lists Writer for Collider, and a graduate student pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing. In other words, she really loves stories.
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Great drama shows draw viewers in early on with high stakes (either physical or emotional), compelling storylines, and nuanced characters. They put their characters through difficult obstacles in each episode, leaving viewers to hope that somehow, these characters will be able to beat the odds stacked against them. There are a number of phenomenal ongoing drama series that meet this description, from Severance, to Pluribus, to Paradise.
What is particularly impressive, though, is when a drama series can stand the test of time. The very best drama series, anywhere from a couple of years to longer after they conclude, only get better with time. When considered as a whole, from their beginnings all the way to their finales, these shows leave a lasting impression and emotional impact. They also make for excellent rewatches, even with the prior knowledge of the twists that are coming. These are perfect TV drama shows that have all aged like fine wine.
'Breaking Bad' (2008–2013)
Breaking Bad starts out with a simple premise: High school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and told that he won't live for longer than two more years, and he's determined to make sure that his wife (Anna Gunn) and son (RJ Mitte) will be set financially after he's gone. Thus, with the reluctant help of his former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), Walt starts making and selling crystal meth. Over the course of five seasons, though, Walt's character arc takes him on the journey of becoming a full-fledged drug kingpin and antihero.
Breaking Bad was always excellent, but over a decade after its gripping and gut-wrenching conclusion, the series stands out as one of the greatest TV dramas ever made. Its five seasons tell a complete and intentional story that slowly builds up to its ending in a way that makes every shocking twist and devastating loss along the way feel inevitable in retrospect. The seeds for Walt's internal motivations and eventual arc, too, are planted at the very beginning of the show. Within the context of the complete series, each little detail in Breaking Bad makes even more sense and shows just how well-thought through each aspect of the show is.
'How to Get Away with Murder' (2014–2020)
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How to Get Away with Murder follows criminal defense lawyer and law school professor Annalise Keating (Viola Davis), who is the very best in her field. At the start of each school year, Annalise picks a group of students from her intro class to intern at her law firm. At the start of the series, in the present day, Annalise chooses five interns to work for her. In between tackling individual cases each episode, they all catch wind of the investigation into the murder of an undergraduate student of their university. In flash-forwards to several months in the future, Annalise's interns are shown covering up the murder of her husband, Sam (Tom Verica). Over the course of Season 1, as Annalise works cases and learns more about how the present-day murder investigation connects to the people in her life, flash-forwards continue to hint at Sam's eventual fate.
Each of How to Get Away with Murder's six seasons follow the same structure: As Annalise and her team work weekly cases, they somehow become involved in the legal fallout of an ongoing murder investigation. At the same time, flash-forwards reveal that halfway through the season, the main characters will somehow be involved in the murder of another major character. How to Get Away with Murder was a suspenseful and captivating series when it was airing, keeping its viewers guessing each week. In the wake of its shocking and epic conclusion six years ago, though, the series stands the test of time as a truly phenomenal TV drama.
'Succession' (2018–2023)
Succession only concluded three years ago, but already, the series is aging very well. It only gets better with each rewatch, and it is widely considered to be one of the best drama series of recent years. The show kicks off when Logan Roy (Brian Cox), the 80-year-old founder and CEO of a media conglomerate called Waystar Royco, has a stroke. After recovering, Logan continues to work at the same pace as before without stepping down. Still, one question hangs over Succession's four seasons: Which of Logan Roy's adult children — Connor (Alan Ruck), Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), or Shiv (Sarah Snook) — will take his place after his eventual death?
Each season of Succession has one main overarching storyline, but they're also all packed with a number of equally significant and gutting smaller storylines. At the center of it all are the complicated dynamics between Logan and each of his children, as well as the fraught relationships they have with each other. Succession has unbelievably sharp writing, an expert way of slowly building a sense of dread until each conflict explodes, and an absolutely phenomenal ending that recontextualizes everything that came before it in brilliant and tragic ways.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Music Era Do You Actually Belong In? The Sixties · Seventies · Eighties · Nineties
Eight honest questions about how you actually are: how you feel about the way things are, what your style says, how you take being told what to do, what you would want to be remembered for. Answer them and we will tell you which decade you were supposed to be young in. Four eras are open, and each one wanted a completely different sort of person.
☮️The Sixties(Motown & Woodstock)
🕺The Seventies(Glam & Disco)
📼The Eighties(MTV & Synths)
🎸The Nineties(Grunge & Hip-Hop)
01
How do you feel about the way things are? Every one of these decades had a different answer.
02
How would somebody describe the way you dress? Use the description your friends would actually give.
03
Where would you rather spend a Friday night? Pick the one that sounds like a good time to you.
04
What do you actually want out of your work? Answer for what you want, not what sounds good.
05
How do you handle being told what to do? This is the one that really separates the four.
06
What would you do with a sudden windfall? First instinct, before the sensible one arrives.
07
What kind of people do you end up around? Look at who is actually in your phone.
08
What would you want your era remembered for? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your decade.
Drop The Needle You Belong In…
Four decades, four completely different ideas of what music was even for. Here is the one you were built for, what it would have asked of you, and what it would have given you back.
The Sixties
You belong in the only decade that genuinely believed a song could change something, and then kept finding evidence for it. The Sixties is where pop music stopped being entertainment and started being an argument.
- You are an idealist who would rather be involved in something unfinished than comfortable in something settled.
- Motown, the British Invasion and the whole folk revival happened inside about ten years, which is a rate of change nobody has matched since.
- Sam Mendes is releasing four Beatles films in April 2028, one for each member, which is the biggest bet anybody has ever placed on this decade.
- The catch is that the decade promised more than it delivered, and the people who lived it have been arguing about that ever since.
The Seventies
You belong in the decade with no interest whatsoever in restraint. The Seventies gave you glam, disco, punk and stadium rock at the same time, and the only thing they agreed on was that more was better.
- You want the night to be worth talking about, and you have never once left a good time early.
- This is the decade of the great transformation act, where Bowie changed persona every eighteen months and everybody else tried to keep up.
- Disco and punk arrived within a year of each other as two completely opposite answers to the same boredom.
- You would have loved it and it would have cost you something, which is roughly the deal this decade offered everybody.
The Eighties
You belong in the decade where how it looked became as important as how it sounded, and the people who understood that immediately became enormous. MTV rewrote the job description overnight and you would have read the memo first.
- You are ambitious and you see no reason to be shy about it, which this decade regarded as an excellent quality.
- A three minute video could break an artist globally, and the ones who treated it as a film rather than an advert are the ones still remembered.
- The synthesiser turned the bedroom into a studio and let people with ideas beat people with training.
- The risk is that a decade built on image is unkind to anybody who stops keeping up with it.
The Nineties
You belong in the decade that reacted against everything the previous one stood for. The Nineties decided that polish was suspicious and that the only thing worth being was real, whatever that turned out to cost.
- You can smell a sales pitch from a long way off, and you have never trusted anything that tries too hard to be liked.
- Grunge and hip-hop had almost nothing in common musically and exactly the same instinct, which was to say the true thing plainly.
- This is the last decade before the internet flattened everything, so a scene could still belong to one city.
- The cost was that a decade obsessed with authenticity put unbearable pressure on the people who best embodied it.
'Six Feet Under' (2001–2005)
Six Feet Under is a sharply funny and deeply emotional drama series that follows the Fisher family and their family business, Fisher & Sons Funeral Home. After the death of the family's patriarch, Nathaniel Fisher Sr. (Richard Jenkins), his oldest son, Nate (Peter Krause), reluctantly returns home to Los Angeles from Seattle. Despite running the funeral home alongside his other son, David (Michael C. Hall), Nathaniel left it to both of them to run in his absence. Their younger sister, Claire (Lauren Ambrose), meanwhile, is still in high school and has no interest in the family business.
Each of Six Feet Under's five seasons is absolutely phenomenal, and most notably, it has one of the greatest TV series finales of all time. Knowing where the show is ultimately leading and how it concludes just makes every Six Feet Under that much better. Now over two decades after the show ended, Six Feet Under still feels timeless. The themes are as resonant now as when it aired, and the dialogue is still incredibly witty and realistic.
'Lost' (2004–2010)
Lost was always excellent, but it has gained quite a legacy for itself in the 16 years since it concluded. It had a massive impact on the landscape of television and went on to influence a number of the TV shows that have since followed it. The series starts with a simple premise: The survivors of a plane crash are now stuck on a strange island together. What is initially about survival and community, though, soon branches off into an epic story that ventures into the speculative.
Lost has phenomenal storytelling, splitting the narrative of each episode between the past and the present. While the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 struggle with current problems on the island, flashbacks to the past reveal how each of them wound up on that flight. Lost is a deeply clever and thoughtful series with nuanced and well-written characters that fans continue to be deeply attached to all these years later, and it only gets better with each rewatch.
'The Leftovers' (2014–2017)
With three perfect seasons that all take bold risks, The Leftovers is one of the very best TV dramas of all time. Based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perotta, The Leftovers follows the residents of the small town of Mapleton, NY three years after 2% of the world's population suddenly vanished into thin air with no explanation. In the wake of this tragedy, people have tried to make sense of it in a number of increasingly radical ways, which has led to the creation of cults like the Guilty Remnant. Mapleton's Police Chief, Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), is just trying to keep things running smoothly in the town, but the Guilty Remnant is determined not to let anyone ever move on from the Departure.
Each season of The Leftovers takes place close to the anniversary of the Departure in the years that follow. They are all set in different places, and they have their own overarching storylines that guide the season. Every season of The Leftovers is stunningly beautiful and creative, but they all also stay focused on the show's core themes of loss, love, and faith. Now almost a decade since the show ended, The Leftovers is still deeply impactful and utterly gut-wrenching from start to finish.
The Leftovers
- Release Date
- 2014 - 2017-00-00
- Showrunner
- Damon Lindelof
- Writers
- Damon Lindelof, Tom Perrotta
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