What to Watch
Underrated Shows of the 2000s: Thirteen Worth Digging Up
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 6 min read
The 2000s were the last decade when a good show could just disappear. No algorithm resurfaced it, no streaming service inherited it, and if you missed it on a Tuesday at nine you missed it. That's why this list exists, and it's also why The Wire and The Office are not on it. Those shows won. These didn't.
The rule: premiered between 2000 and 2009, and either canceled early or forgotten despite finishing. Thirteen of them, with what each is, who it suits, and the network and dates so you know exactly what you're getting into.
Canceled too early
Pushing Daisies is the most beautiful network show ever made and it lasted two seasons because a writers' strike broke its momentum. A pie maker can bring the dead back with a touch, but a second touch kills them permanently, so he solves murders by asking the victims who did it.
ABC, October 2007 to June 2009, two seasons.
Who it's for: anyone who likes storybook visuals and rapid dialogue. It ends without full resolution, so know that going in.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had no business being good. It's a Fox spinoff of a film franchise, and it turned into a serious show about a mother raising a son she knows will become a soldier, with Lena Headey in the lead.
Fox, January 2008 to April 2009, two seasons.
Who it's for: people who want science fiction that's mostly about parenting. Season 2 is much stronger than season 1.
Wonderfalls is Bryan Fuller's other canceled masterpiece, about a woman working in a Niagara Falls gift shop where the souvenirs start talking to her and telling her to help strangers. It aired four episodes before being pulled.
produced for Fox in 2004, one season of 13 episodes, most of which only aired later.
Who it's for: Pushing Daisies fans. Same creator, same wit, smaller budget.
Carnivàle is a Dust Bowl traveling carnival, a preacher, and a war between good and evil that HBO canceled after two seasons of a planned six. It's the most frustrating recommendation here and it's still worth it.
HBO, September 2003 to March 2005, two seasons.
Who it's for: viewers who can enjoy atmosphere without an ending. Everyone else, skip it.
Dead Like Me follows a teenager killed by a falling toilet seat from a space station who becomes a grim reaper with a day job. It's the best comedy about death before The Good Place existed.
Showtime, June 2003 to October 2004, two seasons.
Great and finished
Deadwood is the one people are most likely to have skipped because they assumed it was a Western. It's a show about how a lawless camp invents institutions, written in blank verse dressed up as profanity, with Ian McShane giving the performance of his life.
HBO, March 2004 to August 2006, three seasons, with a feature-length film in May 2019 that closes it out.
Who it's for: anyone who liked the political machinery of The Wire. The film means this one actually has an ending now.
Rome ran two seasons and burned an enormous amount of money doing it, following two soldiers through the collapse of the Republic. The second season is rushed because it was compressing a planned third, and it's still gripping.
HBO, August 2005 to March 2007, two seasons.
Who it's for: Game of Thrones viewers who want the version where the politics are real.
Generation Kill is seven episodes covering the first weeks of the 2003 invasion of Iraq from inside a Marine reconnaissance battalion, from the team behind The Wire. It has no arc, no heroes and no score, and it's one of the most convincing things ever televised.
HBO, July to August 2008, a seven-part miniseries.
Who it's for: people who want documentary texture. It is not entertainment in the usual sense.
Slings & Arrows is a Canadian comedy about a Shakespearean theater festival run by people who are all slightly unwell, with a dead artistic director haunting his replacement. Three short seasons, six episodes each, and it's perfect.
Canadian television, November 2003 to August 2006, three seasons.
Who it's for: anyone who wants a complete, funny, moving eighteen episodes. This is the easiest full commitment on the list.
Comedies that deserved more
Party Down is a catering company staffed by failed actors and writers in Los Angeles, and it's the bleakest funny show of the decade. Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Jane Lynch and Ken Marino, all before most of them were famous.
Starz, premiered March 2009, two seasons at the time, with a third season revival in 2023.
Who it's for: people who like their comedy about disappointment. The revival means there's more of it now than there was.
Better Off Ted is a workplace satire set at an amoral conglomerate, and its jokes about corporate language have aged into prophecy. Portia de Rossi is the best thing in it.
ABC, March 2009 to August 2010, two seasons.
Who it's for: anyone who wants short, dense, absurd half-hours.
British and worth importing
Life on Mars is the original BBC version, in which a modern detective wakes up in 1973 and cannot tell whether he's mad, in a coma or actually in the past. Two series, sixteen episodes, and an ending that commits.
BBC One, January 2006 to April 2007, two series.
Who it's for: viewers who want a police procedural with a real puzzle underneath. Do not watch the American remake first.
The one people always ask about
Veronica Mars gets called underrated so often that it's arguably overrated now, but the first season genuinely deserves it: a teenage private investigator in a California town split by money, working a season-long murder case. Three seasons on UPN and The CW from September 2004, plus a fourth season revival in 2019.
Who it's for: anyone who likes a noir plot inside a high school. Season 1 is the reason. Seasons 2 and 3 are optional.
Where these stream
Older catalog television is the most volatile category there is, and several of these rotate through ad-supported services and physical media. Where each streams changes, so the title page on BingeNext shows current US options.
Start here
If you want something complete and short, Slings and Arrows. If you want the best writing, Deadwood. If you want to laugh, Party Down. If you want to be charmed, Pushing Daisies. If you have one evening and want to know whether this decade is for you, watch the first episode of Veronica Mars.
Digging through a whole decade by hand is the slow way to do this. BingeNext's TV mode goes the other direction: enter two or three shows you already love, and it returns picks with the reason each fits and where it streams, in about a minute.
Topics covered: underrated, 2000s, classic-tv, throwback, archive
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and is responsible for every guide published on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu. Dates, season counts and where-to-watch details in these guides are checked against official sources before publishing, and corrections are welcome at Jordan@Bingenext.com.