From Mad Men to Good Girls

I have never been a picky person. I can eat anything, travel anywhere, and pass time with most people in almost any situation. So it should follow suit that I also have an open mind when it comes to television shows. There are very few genres that I have not explored and enjoyed to the fullest. And every time I finish a show, I crave more. I want to cut back to the feelings I had when the show was at its height. I want to experience the same emotional journey. But how can this be replicated? Watching it over again immediately will never suffice. So I need to find another show that I will enjoy just as much as the show I just completed. This can be a difficult feat. While I have not perfected a method, I have developed an extensive list of recommendable and binge-worthy shows that can be explored within each genre. In this list, I not only go over suggestions based on shows you have watched and enjoyed, but I also go into suggestions based on your possible reasons for enjoying each show.

Let’s say you have just finished all seven seasons of Matthew Weiner’s incredible series, Mad Men. What do you watch next? Well, that mostly depends on why you loved the series and what you loved most about it. Did you love Mad Men for the high-pressure world of business in Manhattan and how Don Draper climbed his way to the top through deception and secrets? If so, then Suits (available on Amazon Prime) is the show for you. You will find that Harvey Specter and Michael Ross combine to form the modern-day Don Draper.

Or perhaps you enjoyed Mad Men because of the 1960s setting and the roles that women played within the show. Iconic female characters like Peggy Olson, Joan Holloway, and Dawn Chambers used whatever little was handed to them to create a life for themselves. If you want more of this, Amazon’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will help you travel back to 1960s New York to watch a strong, hilarious woman work her way through the male-dominated world of stand-up comedy. If you like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for it’s fast-talking female leads, then after your binge, you should venture into the world of Gilmore Girls, another gem by Amy Sherman-Palladino that centers around mother-daughter relationships among three generations of women. After your Gilmore Girls binge, I would recommend Netflix’s recent Gilmore Girls imitation with a darker underlying theme, Ginny & Georgia. If you enjoy Ginny & Georgia because of the dark family secrets just waiting to be exposed, then your next binge should be Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu.

Or, if after watching Mad Men, you were tired of the city that never sleeps, but still wanted to remain in the world of the sixties, The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix and Why Women Kill on Paramount+ offer hours of entertainment. Want to travel abroad? Perhaps a trip to 1960s Europe might suffice. In this case I would recommend Call The Midwife, Velvet, and The Crown, all available on Netflix. While The Crown stretches across many decades, the second and third seasons are set in the 1960s, and cover many of the large global events that were featured in Mad Men, but from the British perspective.

Let’s say you have just finished The Crown, and want to do a deeper dive into the real stories of the British royal family, as I am sure you have already begun Googling during your time watching the show. Then I would recommend documentaries such as Diana: In Her Own Words (Disney+) and The Royal House of Windsor (Netflix). Or, if you enjoyed The Crown as pure entertainment and simply want more royal romance, I would recommend the BBC series Victoria, which explores the lives and love story of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime.

Want to step away from the royals but keep the same pace and energy as The Crown? Then take a glance at The Crown’s cast, and explore some of their other titles. For instance, Broadchurch (Available on Netflix) and Fleabag (Amazon Prime) are both amazing shows that star The Crown’s Olivia Coleman. Matthew Goode also has gems in his resume, including Downton Abbey (available on Amazon Prime) and The Discovery of Witches (which is found on YouTube Premium, and also features Victoria's Tom Hughes). The Durrells in Corfu, a Masterpiece comedy series found on Amazon Prime about a British family in the 1930s who move to the Greek island of Corfu, is a hidden gem which stars The Crown’s Josh O’Connor.

If you’ve just finished The Durrells in Corfu and are craving more adventure to satisfy your wanderlust, I would recommend stepping into the world of foreign language films. My personal favorites are Spanish dramas. They offer mystery, romance, and adventure. Netflix’s High Seas (Netflix) offers an elegant mystery romance set in the 1940s on a cruise ship. If you finish High Seas and want more, Grand Hotel (a Spanish murder mystery romance set in early 1900s Spain also found on Netflix), Bonfires of Destiny (a fictional French romantic mystery drama set in 1897 Paris after a devastating fire at a Charity Bazaar, a real historical tragedy on Netflix) and Cable Girls (a female-led Netflix mystery drama set in 1920s Madrid) will satisfy your cravings. Want to step away from the murder and keep the sweeping Spanish romance? Then the mini-series Morocco: Love in Times of War (Netflix) could be the show for you. If you like the mystery aspects of Grand Hotel and Cable Girls but want something more modern, then you should watch Money Heist (Netflix) (a sophisticated tale of a special group’s schemes to accomplish the perfect heist) and Elite (Netflix) (a murder mystery centering around a wealthy Spanish prep school). Control Z (Netflix) is a great follow-up series after watching Elite. It centers around a mysterious cyber-bully who begins revealing the deepest secrets of various high school students, with disastrous results. If Elite and Control Z are a bit too intense, and you are looking for a teen comedy/thriller, check out Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix).

I know what you might be thinking. How did we go from Mad Men to modern high school dramas? What if you went with Suits initially? How do the rest relate? While there is a case to be made that Meghan Markle’s presence in Suits would be an easy transition to The Crown, but I am sure you are probably itching for more shows in the world of suited businessmen, lawyers, and politicians. Billions (Hulu), Bull (Paramount+), Ray Donovan (Hulu), and House of Cards (Netflix) are all popular suggestions to go along with this theme. I would also recommend Homeland (Hulu) and For The People, two shows I happened to have worked on. Did I mention I work in television post production? Probably not, but I am sure that might explain (and perhaps justify) my extensive list.

If you do watch For The People, and find yourself fawning over Regé-Jean Page, then you can find him again in Bridgerton. Oh, you’ve seen it? Who hasn’t, I guess. Well, if you liked Bridgerton, I would recommend Death Comes To Pemberley (available on Amazon Prime), Vanity Fair (the series, not the movie, available on Amazon Prime), Dickinson (Apple TV), and Julian Fellowes Presents Doctor Thorne (available on Amazon Prime). Or, if after watching Bridgerton, you wanted to see more of Phoebe Dynevor, I would recommend Younger (Hulu), which tells the humorous tale of Liza Miller, a forty-year-old mother who pretends to be twenty-six in order to work as an assistant in a Manhattan publishing firm. If you love Younger, your next binges should be The Bold Type (Hulu), Katy Keene (HBO Max), Jane the Virgin (Netflix), Sex and the City (HBO Max), Ally McBeal (available on Amazon Prime) or Emily in Paris (Netflix). They are easy to watch and candy for the senses.

If you watched Emily in Paris and fell in love with Lily Collins, I would recommend The Last Tycoon on Amazon Prime. It is a one-season hidden gem set in the world of Old Hollywood. After The Last Tycoon, check out Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood on Netflix. Or, if you enjoyed The Last Tycoon because of its F. Scott Fitzgerald connection, I would recommend Z: The Beginning of Everything on Amazon Prime - another show that ended much too soon.

What’s that you say? You hated Emily in Paris? You just want an easy, good, digestible comedy? Well, I’m sorry I led you astray initially, but here is my fool-proof list of comedies: New Girl (Netflix), Schitt’s Creek (Netflix), Modern Family (Peacock), The Office (Peacock), The Mindy Project (Hulu), Malcolm in the Middle (Hulu), and Ted Lasso (Apple TV).

If you loved Modern Family, The Office, and Malcolm in the Middle, then you will also love WandaVision’s take on them on Disney+. And if you love WandaVision and New Girl, I would recommend Dollface, a Hulu comedy starring WandaVision’s Kat Dennings, and That Girl (available on Amazon Prime), which is a 1960s sitcom about a struggling actress in New York. If you loved The Mindy Project, check out some of Mindy Kaling’s other projects: Never Have I Ever (Netflix) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (Hulu). If you watch the latter and want more of Nathalie Emmanuel, you can find her in Game of Thrones, or if you want more of John Reynolds, then you can find him in Stranger Things.

Love the sci-fi of Stranger Things? Check out Lost in Space - it is definitely binge-worthy, but I might be biased as it is the show I am currently working on. Or if you love the spooky mystery aspect of Stranger Things, I’d recommend the CW’s Nancy Drew and Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Spellman, where you will find Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper) playing a much darker role. Speaking of other shows Mad Men actors have starred in, Netflix’s Good Girls stars Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway), and The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu stars Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson). Does that mean we’ve come full circle? Perhaps so. However, here are a few last recommendations if you will humor me: once you finish Good Girls, check out Dead To Me (Netflix) and when you finish The Handmaid’s Tale, watch Alias Grace (Netflix), another Margaret Atwood adaptation that will keep you on the edge of your seat. I could go on (and on), but I’m sure this list will probably keep you entertained for the rest of 2021.