This post is something I’ve been really looking forward to for some time now! I mostly talk books on here, with occasional TV show mentions in my round-ups, but this time I’ll list my ultimate favorite shows, and I hope to find some fans among you guys to fangirl/boy with! Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and every Tuesday there is a different themed post of top 10 things.
Okay, so first of all, I’ll omit some of the cult shows everyone knows about, which need no special mention here, like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Friends, Grey’s Anatomy, Charmed, etc. Instead, I’ll include only ongoing shows that have caught my interest in the last couple of years, then a small section with some cancelled/completed shows, and a section with my favorite mini series, because I’m a TV junkie and I can’t ever get enough.
Ongoing Shows
In no particular order:
Status: 4 seasons out, season 5 expected in 2019
A gangster family epic set in 1919 Birmingham, England; centered on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby.
Why should you watch Peaky Blinders:
- Cillian Murphy
- Tom Hardy (And his wife)
- Basically the rest of the cast
- Birmingham gang wars post WW1
- Because Peaky Fookin’ Blinders
My rating on IMDB: 🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫 10/10 guns
2. Taboo
Status: 1 season out, season 2 expected in 2019
Adventurer James Keziah Delaney returns to London during the War of 1812 to rebuild his late father’s shipping empire. However, both the government and his biggest competitor want his inheritance at any cost – even murder.
Why should you watch Taboo:
- Tom Hardy
- Intense historical drama sprouted out of the brains of Hardy, Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), and Tom Hardy’s dad, produced by Ridley Scott.
- Absolutely amazing cast
- Tom Hardy’s nekkid trippy hallucinations
My rating on IMDB: 🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩🎩 9/10 hats as closely resembling the ones in the show
3. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Status: 12 seasons out, season 13 airing today
Five egocentric friends who run a neighborhood Irish pub in Philadelphia try to find their way through the adult world of work and relationships. Unfortunately, their warped views and precarious judgments often lead them to trouble, creating myriad uncomfortable situations that usually only get worse before they get better.
Why should you watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
- Joke’s on everything, literally everything you can think of, no matter how inappropriate
- Amazing cast
- Short, binge-worthy episodes, each one a blast
- Charlie Day
- Danny DeVito
My rating on IMDB: 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞 9/10 suns
4. Westworld
Status: 2 seasons out, season 3 expected in 2020
Westworld isn’t your typical amusement park. Intended for rich vacationers, the futuristic park allows its visitors to live out their most primal fantasies with the robotic “hosts.” However, the robotic hosts have evolved an artificial consciousness that is similar to, yet diverges from, human consciousness. No matter how illicit the fantasy may be, there are no consequences for the park’s guests, allowing for any wish to be indulged; but there is a price to be paid.
Why should you watch Westworld:
- Sci-Fi vs Wild West
- Anthony Hopkins
- Dolores + Teddy
- Fierce female characters
- Ramin Djawadi’s brilliant soundtrack
My rating on IMDB: 🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖 9/10 robots
5. Castle Rock
Status: Season 1 currently airing
A psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King’s best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland.
Why should you watch Castle Rock:
- Stephen King
- Creepy mystery at its best
- Sissy Spacek
- Everything
My rating on IMDB: ♕♕♕♕♕♕♕♕♕♕ 10/10 chess pieces
6. American Horror Story (Seasons 1-4 for me)
Status: 7 seasons out, season 8 airing on September 12th
An anthology series centering on different characters and locations, including a house with a murderous past, an insane asylum, a witch coven, a freak show, a hotel, a possessed farmhouse, a cult, and the apocalypse.
Why should you watch American Horror Story:
- The anthology form making each season a unique experience
- A special form of scary, demented and weird
- Jessica Lange
- Most of the recurring cast
- A lot of influence from real life creepy stories
My rating on IMDB: 👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻 8/10 ghosts
7. Dark
Status: 1 season out, season 2 expected in 2019
A family saga with a supernatural twist, set in a German town, where the disappearance of two young children exposes the relationships among four families.
Why should you watch Dark:
- A true mystery
- Excellent drama
- Time-travel
- A mind-bending puzzle
My rating on IMDB: 🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️ 10/10 clocks
8. Mindhunter
Status: 1 season out, season 2 expected in late 2018
In the late 1970s, two FBI agents expand criminal science by delving into the psychology of murder and getting uneasily close to all-too-real monsters.
Why should you watch Mindhunter:
- True crime
- Based on real-life experiences of John E. Douglas, one of the first criminal profilers who interviewed David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, etc.
- Creepy AF
My rating on IMDB: 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪 8/10 knives
Status: 2 seasons out, season 3 expected in summer of 2019
When a young boy disappears, his mother, a police chief, and his friends must confront terrifying forces in order to get him back.
Why should you watch Stranger Things:
- 80’s mystery
- Friendship
- Awesome cast, especially kids
- Supernatural things and stuff
My rating on IMDB: 📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼 9/10 videocassettes
Status: 6 seasons out, season 7 expected in 2019
Convicted of a decade old crime of transporting drug money to an ex-girlfriend, normally law-abiding Piper Chapman is sentenced to a year and a half behind bars to face the reality of how life-changing prison can really be.
Why should you watch Orange is the New Black:
- Emotion, drama, tension, comedy, tragedy
- A huge, brilliant and totally unique cast
- Inspired by a real-life story
- Ladies in jail do craaazy shit
My rating on IMDB: 🔒🔒🔒🔒🔒🔒🔒🔒🔒 9/10 padlocks
Completed/Cancelled/On Hiatus Shows
1. Sherlock
Status: 4 seasons out, season 5 not coming anytime soon
A modern update finds the famous sleuth and his doctor partner solving crime in 21st century London.
Why should you watch Sherlock:
- Sherlock Holmes + Dr. Watson
- Benedict Cumberbatch + Martin Freeman
- Brilliant humor
- Mystery
- Need I say more?
My rating on IMDB: 🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍🔍 10/10 magnifying glasses
2. Fargo
Status: 3 seasons out, season 4 rumored for 2019, but not confirmed and renewed
Various chronicles of deception, intrigue and murder in and around frozen Minnesota. Yet all of these tales mysteriously lead back one way or another to Fargo, North Dakota.
Why should you watch Fargo:
- Black comedy gold
- Brilliant cast
- Each season a separate event set in a different time period, but all interconnected
- Snowy setting makes a perfect murder
- Just freaking brilliant
My rating on IMDB: ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️ 10/10 snowflakes
Status: 3 seasons out, cancelled in 2016
Explorer Sir Malcolm Murray, American gunslinger Ethan Chandler, scientist Victor Frankenstein, and medium Vanessa Ives unite to combat supernatural threats in Victorian London.
Why should you watch Penny Dreadful:
- Victorian London
- Features well-known characters like Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, Dracula, etc.
- Sexy Horror, yet tasteful and original
- Eva Green
My rating on IMDB: 🧛🧛🧛🧛🧛🧛🧛🧛🧛 9/10 vampires
4. Portlandia
Status: 8 seasons out, completed in 2018
A sketch-comedy series that parodies life in Portland, Oregon.
Why should you watch Portlandia:
- Makes fun of every single 21st century “trend” in a brilliant way
- Kyle MacLachlan as the mayor of Portland
- Short sketch-form episodes, each revolving around a certain theme
- Two main actors playing a wide range of recurring characters magnificently
- Sometimes gross but still funny AF
My rating on IMDB: 🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛 8/10 glasses of zucchini milk
Status: 2 seasons out, cancelled in 2016
A semi-anthology series that centers on returning characters being terrorized by a serial killer in different locations, including a university and a hospital.
Why should you watch Scream Queens:
- Awesome slasher movie parody
- More funny than scary, perfect for binge-watching
- Jamie Lee Curtis
- Denise Hemphill will come a-runnin’
- The Chanels
My rating on IMDB: 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱 8/10 screams
Mini/Limited Series
1. The Terror
Status: 1 season, 10 episodes
*A money-grabbing move was made to turn this mini series into an anthology, so season 2 is coming in 2019, but it won’t be connected to season 1, which covers Dan Simmons’s book.
In 1848, two real life warships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, sent on a Royal Naval expedition to find the treacherous Northwest Passage become trapped in ice near Arctic and face starvation, mutiny, cannibalism and a demonic polar bear.
Why should you watch The Terror:
- Amazingly atmospheric Arctic mystery
- A truly amazing cast (I know, I say this a lot)
- Based on a book based on a true-life mystery
- Creepy AF
My rating on IMDB: 🛳️🛳️🛳️🛳️🛳️🛳️🛳️🛳️🛳️ 9/10 ships
Status: 1 season, 3 episodes
Ten strangers are invited to an island by a mysterious host, and start to get killed one by one. Could one of them be the killer?
Why should you watch And Then There Were None:
- Based on Agatha Christie’s best novel (IMO)
- Charles Dance
- Superb cast (I know, but it’s true)
- An amazing mystery
My rating on IMDB: 💂💂💂💂💂💂💂💂💂 9/10 little soldiers
3. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Status: 1 season, 7 episodes
In an alternate history, during the time of real life Napoleonic Wars, two men of destiny, the gifted recluse Mr. Norrell and daring spellcasting novice Jonathan Strange, use magic to help England.
Why should you watch Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell:
- If you loved the book – you’ll love the series
- If you’re afraid of starting that huge book – try the series
- Magic
- Evil Fae
My rating on IMDB: 🧚♂️🧚♂️🧚♂️🧚♂️🧚♂️🧚♂️🧚♂️🧚♂️ 8/10 gentlemen with the thistledown hair
4. 11.22.63
Status: 1 season, 8 episodes
A teacher discovers a time portal that leads to October 21st, 1960 and goes on a quest to try and prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which is complicated by the presence of Lee Harvey Oswald and the fact that he’s falling in love with the past itself.
Why should you watch 11.22.63:
- Stephen King
- James Franco
- The 60’s
- Time-travel
- Jake & Sadie ❤
My rating on IMDB: 🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯 9/10 bullseyes
Of course I have more favorite shows, because I’m a true TV junkie, but I went too far as it is for one post with 19 series, phew. Do you guys love any of these show, or would you give some of these a chance? Let me know in the comments below, and have a nice, productive week! ❤
P.S. Okay I just realized I forgot Outlander, which is one of my favorite shows ever and should be in the top ten, I’m so sorry Jamie and Claire, my soul is weeping right now. 💔
Books of Magic 
Peaky Blinders is pretty cool! Still haven’t finished watching it tho. I really like their accents 😀
Westworld S1 was awesome! Season 2?? Dunno, i was extremely confused by the end of it. And i even paid attention! Did not help 😀
Castle Rock… ah, can’t wait to watch it.
Dark was great! I wanted to watch it with the original German sound but the BF got annoyed after like 5 minutes. Also somewhat confusing story line and just made me question everything.
Loved Mind Hunter and Stranger Things ❤
11.22.63… i'm wary of this. Loved the book, not sure how i will feel about the series.
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Haha me too, I especially love Tommy. 😁 Ahh me too, though I watched the recaps on YouTube and finally got it in the end. ☺️
Ahh Castle Rock is getting more confusing though I really love it! Ahaha you watched Dark dubbed? I’m used to subtitles obviously, but even if I weren’t, the original is always cooler. 😄 I was confused too, though me and bf binged it in a day, so we managed to figure it out 🙂
Hehe me too, can’t wait for the new seasons for both! Hmm don’t be! A fan who saw and read it said he loved it, it’s an amazing show! ☺️
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Yea, we watched Dark with English voices. I understand German more or less, but BF said he doesn’t like how German sounds… go figure 😀
I was mainly confused with timelines and some stuff seem to go against what i “know” of time travelling… like how it’s presented in other stories for example.
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Haha oh my, I guess I’m so used to subtitles that I can’t watch anything dubbed. 😀 In Serbia, they started playing dubbed only cartoons (Disney, Pixar) in cinemas, so I can’t watch cartoons anymore, it’s really bleh.
Haha I love German, and Scandinavian languages, so I love to watch their shows, plus the Scandinavians have some really good ones! I was a bit confused too, so we had to rewind a couple of times to piece the puzzle. 😀
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Ugh I LOVED Sherlock, but the last season was awful. I tried the first episode of Mindhunter, Westworld, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia but wasn’t feeling pulled to continue, maybe I need to power through the first several episodes to really get into the groove.
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I didn’t hate the last season, but it was weaker than the rest, and I was really pissed about the Christmas special being basically a re-do of S3E3 but in 19th cent, something like that if I remember correctly. 😒 Hmm if you didn’t like Mindhunter I think it’s not for you, Westworld does get more and more intriguing and complex, but Sunny is definitely worth to power through, it gets way funnier, I just watched the first 3 episodes with my mom and saw quite a difference. 😉
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Great, thanks for the heads-up. I’m in huge need for a fun, binge-worthy comedy show. Or I can just start watching Sunny from season 4 then? Or is the first three seasons still worth watching?
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Hehe no, I meant first three episodes, not seasons. 😀 Yep, definitely worth watching because they introduce the characters, then one main character comes later, in S2 I think, and there are many side characters/plots who get introduced, so you won’t be able to get some jokes later if you skip the early seasons. 🙂 It just gets funnier, but that doesn’t mean the first seasons are bad. 🙂
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What a great list! 😀 I can’t wait for the new season of AHS to start up. ❤
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Ugh me too, it combines 2 of my favorite seasons! 😊 Thanks!
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Ah! So many here that I want to watch! Taboo, Penny Dreadful, Dark and Jonathan Strange definitely! I’m a bit too scared to watch AHS but I love Stranger Things and I really enjoyed the adaptation of And Then There Were None as that’s one of my favourite Agatha Christie’s!
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Oooh watch them! I warmly recommend all 🙂 Haha, yep, it can be a bit scary at times. 😀 Me too, hehe. 🙂
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I’ll have to watch some of these! I’m looking forward to American Horror Story: Apocalypse. Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is also on my list and premiers on October 26. Thought I’d let you know since you love witches as well!
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*Premieres, oops. Stupid English and its similar words that mean different things.
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Haha I know, no worries, I often do that too. 😀
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Me too! The trailer looks awesome, and it combines two of my favorite seasons! And Jessica Lange is back, yes! Yep, I know that, I can hardly wait! 😀 I need more witchy shows definitely. 🙂
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Yes so much to Taboo. I loved that show so much! I also binge-watched all of Stranger Things S2 with absolutely no guilt because it was AMAZING
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Me too, such amazing shows! 🙂 Since you loved Taboo – try Peaky Blinders, since you loved Stranger things – try Dark. 🙂 Similar vibes. 🙂
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Pesky Blinders is awesome! I have yet to watch season 4 – soon!
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Yep, I adore that show! Yay, hope you love it, it’s a great one, though it left me a bit teary at the end. 😦
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