The 10 Best Dramedy TV Shows of All Time, Ranked
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The word “dramedy” is pretty easy to define, since it mashes together the words “drama” and “comedy.” So, a dramedy is something that has elements of both, or more specifically, it’s something that balances the two quite evenly. If you didn’t get specific, then almost anything could be a dramedy… like, Parks and Recreation can be touching at times, but it’s primarily a sitcom, while certain scenes of The Sopranos and The Wire are hilarious, they're easiest to define as crime dramas.
So, with a look at those that balance comedy and drama quite evenly, here are the best dramedy shows in TV history. Some of these begin with more comedic elements than they end with, but so long as there was some focus on comedy throughout, they can qualify here. That does disqualify something like Better Call Saul, for example, which might've been a dramedy for the first one or two seasons, but ended up feeling as sad and dramatic as its parent show, Breaking Bad, by the end… and yeah, Breaking Bad might well have had a dramedy-ish first season, but ended up being more of a drama.
10 'Scrubs' (2001–2010)
There are so many points at which Scrubs feels like one of the silliest shows of the century so far, and the quirkiness can honestly be overwhelming at times, from a modern point of view… or the very 2000s quirk might well be nostalgic now. An argument could be made for either camp, but anyway, the important thing is that, alongside all the goofiness, Scrubs was also brutally emotional at points.
It’s about doctors dealing with everyday dramas and personal conflicts that are relatable, all the while living in a slightly cartoonish world that leads to over-the-top (and sometimes surreal) comedy. Somehow, Scrubs made it work more often than not, with the first eight seasons being generally good, with only a few episodes that misfired, and then there was a ninth season people don’t really care about, and it’s also been revived, as of 2026. But it’s the original run that was strong enough, as a dramedy, to earn the series a place here.
9 'BoJack Horseman' (2014–2020)
You get a little drama early on in BoJack Horseman, but not a ton, admittedly. It does initially feel like a rather silly show about Hollywood and the entertainment industry, with its world being similar to the real one, but obviously heightened in some regards, for satirical purposes. Oh, and animals. Lots of the people are human-animal hybrids. That’s worth mentioning, but also obvious, with the title having “Horseman” in it and stuff.
As a broad comedy, it’s serviceable, but it feels like the purpose of starting silly was so that the dramatic parts of BoJack Horseman would ultimately hit harder. When the main character’s grim past and struggles to change in a meaningful way start being explored in more depth, and the show gets more critical with its look at the nature of fame and celebrity, BoJack Horseman might well become more of a drama than a comedy (some of its most memorable episodes help further this feeling, at least).
8 'Girls' (2012–2017)
To say Girls is a show about characters who aren’t hugely endearing in the traditional sense would be an understatement, but that’s also what makes it pretty great. Well, if written poorly, having to spend six seasons with characters who can be frustrating to watch would be misery, but Girls got it right, and it did become a deeper and more mature show to some extent as its characters gradually got older.
Girls starts as a show about young women in their mid-20s, and then they're probably more around their early 30s by the end, and there’s realism here in showing how people around this stage of their lives can drift apart, or have disagreements that prove friendship-ending. That’s where Girls can be sad, but then when it looks at other awkward or unusual elements of young adulthood, that’s where it can also be very funny. Because that’s how life can be, and that’s what can feel relatable, even if you might not literally have experienced exactly what the main characters experience here.
7 'The Office' (2001–2003)
The U.S. version of The Office is definitely more famous, to the point where it kind of gets to be “The Office” now, and you have to call the U.K. version “The Office U.K.,” just so people don’t think you're talking about the American one. The U.K. one came first, of course, so it feels like the American one should be “The Office U.S.,” but it was just too popular, so it feels silly making that argument nowadays.
Anyway, both are workplace sitcoms, to some extent, about people surviving awkward and soul-crushing office jobs, but the U.S. version is almost entirely comedic (outside some occasionally sentimental moments), and then The Office U.K. is a good deal darker, and very much something that balances awkward comedy with some very sobering drama. It’s a more powerful and arguably consistent show as a result, even if its whole approach does mean that The Office (U.S.), at least at its best, did definitely manage to be funnier.
6 'Fleabag' (2016–2019)
Another British dramedy that lasted only two seasons, like The Office (though that sort of got a third season, or a third installment, with its two-part Christmas episode finale), Fleabag really is a quality-over-quantity sort of show. And that’s okay when the quality is so high, with Fleabag justifiably being acclaimed for its writing and central performance, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge doing both, having been the sole writer of all 12 episodes and the actress playing the main character.
Fleabag starts pretty strong, but the show really finds its groove after the first few episodes, and then it’s also not hard to see why the second season was even more praised than the first one. Also, Fleabag is incredibly dark and sad at the same time as it’s funny in a rather unique way, and those qualities plus its length (getting through the whole show is like watching two decently-long movies, time-wise) make it very easy to recommend to just about anyone.
5 'Freaks and Geeks' (1999–2000)
It only ran for a season, sure, but at least that one season of Freaks and Geeks was pretty much perfect, and it does feel like a slightly more complete experience than something like Firefly, which was cut down before it could get even better. Freaks and Geeks might've struggled to continue feeling as effortless, charming, and moving if it had been given a few more seasons, but it would've been nice to see if it could've, of course.
Even though Freaks and Geeks was made more than 25 years ago and was set almost 20 years before that, so much of it continues to hold up and feel relatable.
As for what the show is, it’s about high school and surviving it, with a focus on those two titular groups being of slightly different ages, with the “geeks” being in their early teens and the “freaks” being a little further along in high school. There’s a lot of humor and pathos here, without one stepping on or taking away from the other, and even though Freaks and Geeks was made more than 25 years ago and was set almost 20 years before that, so much of it continues to hold up and feel relatable to this day.
4 'M*A*S*H' (1972–1983)
Decades before Scrubs existed, there was M*A*S*H, and it’s honestly still the definitive medical dramedy show. Whether it’s the definitive show about doctors/medicine… that’s a little harder to say, since there are some acclaimed dramas that focus on such an area of life, but M*A*S*H is pretty much ideal if you want to do that sort of thing with an even balance of comedy and drama.
Further, M*A*S*H is a war show, and it focused on one of the less-represented 20th-century wars in media: The Korean War, which only lasted about three years, while M*A*S*H was on the air for more than a decade. For historical value, and for how influential it was, it’s hard to look past this particular show and how good it generally was, all the while helping to pave the way for pretty much all the other shows being mentioned here, in one way or another.
3 'Six Feet Under' (2001–2005)
Of all the shows here, Six Feet Under probably leans the most into drama over comedy, and there is a progression throughout the show of getting a little more grim as things go along. It already starts quite grim, since most of it’s set in and around a funeral home, and in the opening minutes of the first episode, the patriarch of the family who runs said funeral home himself dies suddenly.
The characters are surrounded by death, usually (but not exclusively) people they don’t know, who end up in their funeral home and all, and death is something that becomes a source of dark comedy at points. There is also a heightened feeling to much of Six Feet Under that can almost feel like it’s approaching (but quite arriving at) camp territory, though the sadder moments and episodes do ultimately stick in one’s mind the most once you’ve seen the show about things coming to an end come to an end itself.
2 'Succession' (2018–2023)
Sure, Succession is recent, but it felt like a classic when it was airing, it was kind of just that good, and it’s continued feeling worthy of classic status in the years since it finished, so why not consider it an all-timer? What it does as a dramedy is also fascinating, because it’s never really predictable about what’s going to be funny and what might be deeply upsetting, or even tragic.
And some of the best episodes of Succession manage to do both at once, all the while having impressive tension throughout, even with it not really being a show with life-or-death stakes to the same extent as plenty of other HBO shows from the last couple of decades. It might well be the best-written and best-acted show in recent memory, too, with all the writers and cast members being impressively on the same (odd) page, making Succession both a perfect comedy and drama series simultaneously.
1 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' (1997–2003)
With seven seasons and 144 episodes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer definitely had sufficient room to play around with just about every genre, but the primary ones tackled in pretty much every episode, right from the show’s start, were action, comedy, drama, fantasy, and romance. And hey, two of those are what you need if you want a dramedy, so here Buffy the Vampire Slayer is.
It’s also a coming-of-age show about surviving high school and early adulthood, with the characters battling both supernatural and mundane things all the while. It’s going in the #1 spot because when it wanted to be, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was funnier than most full-on sitcoms, and then when it wanted to be heavy, it could also be more dramatic and tragic than most full-on dramas. That it did a bit of everything when it came to all the other genres, too, is really just icing on an essentially perfect cake.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
- Release Date
- 1997 - 2003-00-00
- Network
- The WB
- Showrunner
- Joss Whedon
- Directors
- Joss Whedon
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