The 10 Best Original TV Series on Netflix

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One Day at a Time

Multi-camera situation comedies (sitcoms) were the mainstay of TV comedy for decades—you can tell them apart from the "single-cam" comedies because they're staged like a play, sometimes in front of an audience—think I Love Lucy, Mary Tyler Moore, Cheers, Friends, All in the Family, etc. They've kind of fallen out of favor these days (The Big Bang Theorynotwithstanding). However, when Netflix revived the classic 70's sitcom One Day at a Time—complete with original exec producer Norman Lear—it did it as a multi-cam show shot on stage. The big changes were instead in the family makeup, as the new show is about a Cuban-American family dealing with lots of modern issues faced by Latinos. All that and some kick-ass performances from the likes of Rita Moreno made it one of the top shows of the last two years; a third season is on tap for 2019.

Love

Love is a Judd Apatow co-creation, along with series star Paul Rust and writer Leslie Arfin (from HBO's Girls). It's all about dating and romantic relationships featuring two of the most dysfunctional people ever: Rust as Gus, and Gillian Jacobs (Community) as Mickey. Were they meant to be? Do they deserve each other? Are they a punishment inflicted upon each other (and their friends)? Maybe all of the above. Watch all three seasons in their entirety right now. 

Bojack Horseman

There's a lot of animation on the streaming services, but few do adult storylines with the aplomb and wit of BoJack, where half the adults are talking human/animal hybrids for no reason whatsoever other than it's funny. Bojack Horseman himself is a former sitcom star (from the 80s show Horsin' Around) trying to cash back in, and also find love. Voiced by Will Arnett, he's the epitome of anxious, obnoxious, and sympathetic—perfect for a satire on Hollywoo (there's no D, it was stolen on the show) and beyond. Five seasons are streaming (plus a Christmas Special from 2014); season six starts sometime in 2019.

Master of None

Master of None is a tour-de-force series personified entirely by one personality: co-creator and star Aziz Ansari. It would remind you perhaps of Louie, the once-considered-great single-camera dramedy from Louis C.K. over on FX—but it's hard to think of Louie much in the aftermath of C.K.'s pre-#MeToo admissions to some very, very questionable (at best) actions. Ansari almost suffered similarly, but it hasn't tarred his reputation as thoroughly as that of C.K.

Master of None remains a master-work. It's funny, it's romantic, it's melancholy, it's surprising. It won the Critic's Choice Award for Best Comedy, a Peabody, an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a comedy (twice) and for editing, and Ansari won the Golden Globe for the second season. It may not be back for a third season... even before the accusations, Ansari said he'd need a long break before he'd come back.

Which would honestly be a shame. With the introspection displayed in this show, what played out for Ansari in real life would have a serious impact on his storytelling, potentially a very positive impact. He'd already tried to address the issues of harassment in season two—perhaps in a way that echoes his tangential closeness to harassment (some say he kept silent about C.K.) and not speaking up in the past. It would surely be different if he wrote it today.

Dear White People

This adaption of the award-winning 2014 movie was in good hands, since the movie's director, Justin Simien, also directed the first and last episodes of the 10-episode first season. Not many shows have a 98 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but this one does, though unsurprisingly it got lots of online hate early on as well for being "racist" to white people. Logan Browning takes over the lead roll of Sam, who runs a campus radio show also called Dear White People on a mostly white campus. A third season is coming in 2019.

Big Mouth

Prefer your animated shows to be adult in nature, even when featuring little kids? Big Mouth, helmed by Nick Kroll and a cast full of his comedy friends, treads where even South Park or Family Guy has rarely, if ever ventured—the sexuality of budding youth. All told from a total gross-out, hilarious point of view. Season two dropped in October, and it's already renewed for a third.

GLOW

If you liked wrestling in the 1980s, you probably were utterly agog at the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling—a real-life all-female wrestling show. This is a fictionalized telling of the origins of GLOW, starring Alison Brie (Community), Betty Gilpin (Nurse Jackie), and comedian and podcaster Marc Maron. Come to watch gals grapple, stay to be charmed by these women's stories, many of whom were chasing a dream but got sucked into GLOW and decided to make the very best show possible. The 80s soundtrack will have you nostalgic for more than just wrestling in its heyday. Season three is coming in 2019.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Sometimes the TV networks are dumb. NBC had Tina Fey and Robert Carlock—who helmed the classic 30 Rock—develop a show for star Ellie Kemper (The Office) but passed it on to Netflix. Silly, silly NBC. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt quickly became one of the go-to Netflix classic comedies in its four seasons, displaying the rapid-fire sensibility it earned from its 30 Rock DNA. A catchy theme song doesn't hurt, either. It's been nominated for an Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy four times in a row, among many other nominations. Season four—the final season—was split into two parts; the final six episodes will be posted on Jan. 25.

The Crown

Post-WWII Britain was thrown when the King died unexpectedly, leading to the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II, who reigns to this day. The Crown is the fictional retelling of her ascendancy to the throne, and how her family and the English government coped along the way and thereafter. It's told with one decade passing per season—enough so that the stars of the first two seasons have been replaced for the third and fourth. For now, relish the star turns by Matt Smith as Prince Philip, Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret, John Lithgow as Churchill, and the award-winning performance by Claire Foy as Elizabeth herself. You may even see some corgis. Coming in 2019 for season three, the new cast will include, Olivia Colman as the Queen, Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip, and Helena Bonham Carteras Princess Margaret.

Stranger Things

This is the crown jewel in Netflix's bid to make a show with as much audience chatter as rival HBO gets with Game of Thrones and Westworld. The first two seasons of Stranger Things are a phenomenon in and of themselves. Set in the 1980s in a small town that just so happens to have a lab full of mad scientists who experimented on children and opened a doorway to a nightmare dimension dubbed The UpsideDown, it's like all the disquieting-but-addicting horror/sci-fi you remember from the 80s distilled into one stunning and macabre series. An eight-episode third season is coming in 2019.