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There’s no shortage of prestige TV series on Netflix, but sometimes, you just need a good guilty pleasure binge-watch.
That’s where these shows come in. Each of the entries on this list packs on the drama, navigating the high-stakes world of politics, the even more cutthroat halls of high school, and giving us characters so eccentric, so over-the-top, you can’t help but love them. Or, love to hate them. We tune into these stories for their entertainment value, to be mesmerized by the melodrama, to enjoy all the juicy gossip, shocking betrayal, and eye-rolling cat fights that come with them.
These are the best guilty pleasures on Netflix right now.
Related: The Best Binge-Worthy Shows On Netflix Right Now
What/If
1 season, 10 episodes | IMDb: 6.4/10
Renee Zellweger turns on the melodrama for this 10-episode anthology series about a San Francisco billionaire and the young scientist whose company she funds. Zellweger plays Anne Montgomery, a high-profile member of San Francisco’s elite upper class. She has plenty of money and the attitude to back it up. Jane Levy plays a wunderkind named Lisa, whose promising medical company is broke and needs a helping hand from Anne, who agrees, but her money comes with a price. If daytime soaps are your thing, you’ll probably love this one.
Riverdale
3 seasons, 57 episodes | IMDb: 7.4/10
Riverdale is a dark teen comedy based on characters from the Archie comics. It mixes in elements of a conventional teen drama — romance, small-town life, and the high-school ecosystem — with a compelling, adult murder mystery. The series takes place in a small-town with a 1950s vibe (despite being firmly set in the present) where a high-school teenager is found dead under mysterious circumstances that implicate much of the community as suspects. Riverdale is powered not just by the mystery, but by characters who are instantly likable (Betty, Veronica, and Jughead are all standouts) and is easy to invest in. The mystery is so incredibly intriguing that it’s almost impossible not to get wrapped up in it as the storyline guides us through numerous red herrings. It’s a madly addictive series, occasionally campy, and just self-aware enough not to take itself too seriously.
You
2 seasons, 20 episodes | IMDb: 7.9/10
Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley returns as a scumbag we can’t help but swoon over in this Lifetime drama that’s now been handed off to the streaming platform. Badgley plays Joe Goldberg, a seemingly-sweet guy who works at a bookshop in the city and courts a beautiful blonde named Beck (Elizabeth Lail). Unfortunately, that’s where the rom-com portion of this thriller ends. You see, Joe’s “courting” includes stalking the object of his affections, breaking into her apartment, holding her boyfriend hostage, and peeping in on her most intimate of moments. And that’s only in the first episode. If anything, this show is proof that the modern dating world can be a terrifying hellscape.
Glee
6 seasons, 121 episodes | IMDb: 6.8/10
Ryan Murphy’s musical coming-of-age drama checks all the boxes of a great guilty pleasure. There are song and dance, teenage angst and hormones, betrayal, bullying, witty one-liners, and Jane Lynch in a tracksuit. The show follows a group of high schoolers who join their defunct Glee club, help it to rise from the ashes, and form complicated bonds along the way. Everything is heightened here, and Murphy makes sure to include any and all issues a teen could possibly face in their school career, so expect plenty of rivalries and teen pregnancies and even one teen stripping on the side to make a little money.
Scandal
7 seasons, 124 episodes | IMDb: 7.8/10
Shonda Rhimes’ political thriller starring Kerry Washington started its run strong, focusing on a black woman in power who served as a fixer for some of the most corrupt, questionable politicians on Capitol Hill. As the seasons went on, Olivia Pope confronted more and more drama — her ex lover-turned-president-of-the-United-States still had the hots for her and made a show of it often, she was surrounded by liars and manipulators at her job, she fell for a secret agent spying on her under her estranged father’s orders, she was kidnapped and held hostage. All of that happened before the show’s final season, which had to wrap up all of these plot lines in a satisfying manner. For the most part, it did, and we’ll always remember the melodrama and inhumanly long monologues that the series delivered.
Love Is Blind
1 season, 11 episodes | IMDb: 6.0/10
UPROXX dubbed this the next unconscionably watchable reality dating show and all you need to do is watch the first 10 minutes of this thing to see why. The series is one giant social experiment, done in the view of perfectly-staged cameras for our own entertainment. It asks the question: can you find love without ever meeting your prospective partner face-to-face. Singles go through a week of speed dating, simply chatting to each other through a divider that prevents them from seeing or touching their date. They then propose, are whisked away to Mexico, and have a few more weeks to decide if what they’ve found on the show is actually sustainable. You’ll have to watch to get the answer to that question.
Gossip Girl
6 seasons, 121 episodes | IMDb: 7.4/10
Teen dramas are notoriously difficult to pull off. There’s an unwritten recipe that exists detailing the perfect amount of angst, triviality, romance, and existentialism needed to make a show about the inner workings of high school interesting and enjoyable without being over-the-top and camp. Gossip Girl often walked that fine line, giving us characters to root for (Serena van der Woodsen, Dan Humphrey) and characters we loved to hate (Chuck Bass). The storylines could be trite, sometimes filled with glaring potholes, and eye-roll inducing, but watching this cast enact the lives of those elite Upper East Siders, the ones completely removed from the realities of everyday life, more worried about galas, balls, charity functions, and business takeovers — well, that’s a form of escapism worth anyone’s time.
Nailed It
3 seasons, 19 episodes | IMDb: 7.4/10
Normally, a baking competition like The Great British Bakeoff would make this list, but it turns out Netflix’s own spin on the pastry competition format is just as addictive, for different reasons. Nicole Byer hosts this so-bad-it’s-good series about home cooks who can’t, well, cook, taking on timed baking competitions and presenting their dishes to a panel of judges. Watching these hopeless chefs flounder is most of the fun here.
Jane The Virgin
5 seasons, 100 episodes | IMDb: 7.8/10
Based on a Spanish telenovela, Jane the Virgin plays more like a brilliant but genial satire of conventional Latin TV staple. Gina Rodriguez plays the virgin here, who is impregnated through an accidental artificial insemination. Matters are complicated, however, because she has to break the news of her pregnancy to her deeply religious family, as well as her fiancé, with whom she has never had sex. Jane also develops feelings for another man who just so happens to be the baby’s father. It sounds like a premise that could not sustain itself beyond five episodes, but the writing is so good, and the characters so delightful that Jane never gets bogged down by its crazier storylines. It’s a genuinely delightful, heartwarming show, and Gina Rodriguez lights up the screen every second she is on it.
American Horror Story
8 seasons, 106 episodes | IMDb: 8.1/10
Ryan Murphy’s horror anthology on FX is an unpredictable tour-de-force that, when it sticks its landing, is one of the best shows on TV. The series chronicles truly terrifying, mind-warping plots across multiple seasons, connecting some, ignoring others. What grounds these outrageous storylines involving haunted hotels, murder houses, insane asylums, cults, and covens is the cast, most notably Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, and Evan Peters. Murphy relies on their visceral portrayals of individuals unhinged to sell this wacky, nightmare-inducing rollercoaster, and sell they do.
The 38-year-old man was in an induced coma and couldn’t consent to medical treatment, so a tribunal had to act as his guardian.
BBC America’s Killing Eve is in full third-season swing with a new formidable character on the scene. The premiere introduced Dasha, portrayed by Dame Harriet Walter (Downton Abbey, The Crown, Succession), as she crashed Villanelle’s wedding, and we soon found out that there’s quite a history there. There’s quite a competition as well, given that Villanelle attempts to one-up her trainer’s most notorious kills while aiming for assassin supremacy. The next few episodes follow Dasha as she grapples with an unwieldy Villanelle in a war of wills that doesn’t look resolvable in the near future.
The veteran actress had a ball while barrelling into this role and making it her own, but she’s also giving plenty of credit to the behind-the-scenes players who helped craft Dasha’s physical presence. Walter was gracious enough to speak with us about what it’s like to introduce a new player into a TV show that’s already working so well, along with the strange experience of receiving the most fanmail in her career (out of three decades of work) for her quick blip in the Star Wars franchise.
Dasha is a knockout role. Out of all the gigs you’ve had, though, you’ve gotten the most attention for playing Dr. Kalonia in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. What do you anticipate with Killing Eve?
It hasn’t yet aired in the U.K., but a few people have streamed it in advance, so I’ve had some friends’ feedback. My experience is that there’s kind-of a nine-or-six-month delay when the maximum people have seen something, but yes, they told me that my seven words in Star Wars would have been seen by more people than all of my performances anywhere, put together. That surprised me.
What was your gut reaction to that?
It is humbling. Some of the things that I’m proudest of were seen by 250 people in a small theater, so you just accept that there’s all these different forms of communicating, and it’s a challenge to try and get some impact in all of them. So that’s good, I’m really not snobbish about who likes what.
Were you a Killing Eve fan before you accepted the Dasha role?
Yes, I was a massive fan. Fiona Shaw [who portrays Carolyn Martens, Head of MI6’s Russia Desk] and I are friends from way back. She was telling me about this great show that she was filming with Sandra Oh and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and I thought, “Oh, that sounds interesting.” And when it came out — she was talking about it like any old job, you know — and then I watched it, “Oh, this is quite the best thing.” So, I was a fan from the beginning.
Did you do any extra homework before landing on the set?
When I got offered the role, I went back and watched everything, so I could see it all through new eyes, though the eyes of somebody who could have been watching over Villanelle from afar. All the kills that she was doing, I would have known about. It was important to see that whole stretch of work through the eyes of Dasha, so she knew what was going on. That was helpful.
Nobody knew Dasha even existed, and then all of sudden, blammo, she’s there.
I know, it is strange. It was great because I was very aware that it was going to be difficult to fit in with something that was so beautifully working before, and I didn’t want to upset the rhythm or not fit in, but at the same time, I think that she was there deliberately to bring some new energy into the show. So, I had more license, and I didn’t have to completely toe the deadpan line or whatever the different type of styles are that have evolved through that show, sort-of tongue-in-cheek, but they’re all outrageous and stylish. With all those components, I thought, “Gosh, how am I going to fit in with that?” But in the end, it’s down to what you’re told to say, and what you’re told to do by the script. It was all in there.
In terms of the hierarchy of The Twelve, are you aware of how Dasha compares to Konstantin?
It’s slightly nebulous, and I think it’s deliberately so. I don’t know how far you have watched.
I’m through episode five as of now, but let’s not go past episode three.
There is a person who surfaces that is higher than me in the hierarchy. I’ve always thought that Dasha was about level with Konstantin in terms of knowledge and involvement. I think that she, to be frank, has a vulnerability to The Twelve, and she needs them, more than they need her, perhaps. Or she thinks that she needs them more than they need her. In the past, she’s been incredibly important. She’s been their top trainer of assassins, and she’s been important to the hierarchy, but she’s feeling old, and she’s feeling like she could be on the scrap heap and wants to retire in glory to Russia. So she’s quite vulnerable, and she’s scared of losing her place.
Well, she still gets pretty physical, especially in the tacking scene. I imagine there were stunt doubles to keep you and Jodie Comer safe?
Well, I have to let you in on a secret. They don’t want us to break our limbs or get bruises because the makeup has to cover up, so it’s just easier that way. But we’re in on it from the beginning and work with the stunt doubles, so they digest what type of character you are and what your energy is. The stunt director is given a breakdown of who these people are, so you would stop them if they did a move that your character wouldn’t do.
What wouldn’t Dasha do in a fight?
My character wouldn’t poke someone in the eye or punch them across the jaw. You could say things like that. But other than that, you leave it to the experts to design the fight and choreograph that. They’re [the ones who are] throwing themselves around.
Villanelle’s got the coolest costumes, but yours are pretty funky as well. How does that compare with the period costumes that you’ve worn on other projects?
Oh, the wig and everything were very helpful to locate and invent this character. The wig and makeup designers devised the look with my lipstick always kind-of smudged and lovely little touches like that. With the costuming, they work separately, but somehow, when it comes together, it really worked. Sam Perry, who’s the costume designer, I’ve worked with her before on two different jobs, very different but both modern dress, and she’s just incredibly inventive, and they just let her come in with all these great ideas. I could never come up with that, that was lovely creativity, and I can think the department for helping me create a character because I don’t know for sure that I would have had that imagination.
In terms of Dasha’s dynamic with Villanelle (which includes putting a baby in the trash), do you think that she truly cares about her?
I think it’s a mixture. I don’t think Dasha’s really capable of tenderheartedness. I think that what we see in young Dasha at the beginning is designed to show you that she will cut out anything that threatens her ambition, whether it has to do with emotional dependency. That’s what that scene was about, where she kills her sort-of admirer because she’s in danger of lured away from her ambition, and so she’s killing that side of herself. She’s done that to herself, and I don’t think she’s got the tenderness about Villanelle, but she has a possessiveness, like an ambitious stage mother. That type of thing, where she lives through Villanelle, and her successes become Dasha’s successes. Her mistakes throw a bad light on Dasha, so that’s how she feels, so she’s competitive with her but also cares because she respects and admires her talent, but there’s a narcissism in Dasha where she’s also narcissistic about Villanelle, like she’s some extension. I’m sounding very complicated her, but there’s a good mixture going on in there, and Dasha’s not very good at being nurturing with kids in the school and gym club. She’s not interested in being sweet or kind.
Villanelle’s getting pretty careless, too, so there’s some concern, right?
Yes, absolutely. She’s blowing it, and if she blows it, she blows it for Dasha, too.
With the Spice Kill, was Dasha as appreciative of the hallmark as she claimed?
Yes, I think so. These are the little ways that she communicates. The little bit of a taunt before it happens. Where Dasha says, “I’m the best,” and Villanelle says, “You used to be, but not anymore,” or whatever it was. And it’s comforting for Dasha because the message is “I can do as well as you can and top it,” but at the same time, it’s a flattery because imitation is the highest form of flattery. So it satisfies Dasha, but it also exemplifies the way that Villanelle got a little bit of the last word, so Dasha’s gotta look out.
BBC America’s ‘Killing Eve’ airs on Sundays at 9:00 PM EST with simulcasting on AMC.