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In terms of powerhouse comedies, it’s pretty hard to fill the hole in all of our hearts left by the conclusion of the sixth and final season of Canadian sitcom Schitt’s Creek. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Schitt’s Creek struck an uncommon balance of genuine, straightforward premises and off-the-wall silliness. Driven by its cast of iconic characters bound together with palpable familial chemistry, a strange but endearing setting that becomes a character in its own right, and the less-than-serious meditations on issues of class and social mobility, the finale of this show leaves viewers wishing to return to the creek.
While there are some aspects of Schitt’s Creek that simply cannot be found in other shows—there’s a reason why it’s impossible to spend a day on the Internet without stumbling across one of three Alexis or David Rose reaction GIFS—many programs available for streaming offer variations on similar themes and styles of comedy. Even if they don’t have Catherine O’Hara’s voice or Eugene Levy’s eyebrows.
Workin’ Moms
Another original Canadian sitcom, Workin' Moms weaves together the stories of a handful of women whose lives intersect when they are joined together when they all join the same parenting group. Besides this touchstone of commonality, the women’s experiences vary wildly. Witty, empathetic, and responsive, Workin’ Moms is a surprisingly down-to-earth representation of the complex relationships between women as they work to maintain their friendships in the face of family and career obligations, as well as the messy edges of their own self-preservation and expression of desire and ambition.
If you liked Schitt’s Creek for its navigation of the impact of enterprise on interpersonal relationships, you will definitely appreciate this show’s way of making the fragmented seem cohesive as it seeks to offer an imperfect roadmap for female friendships. Plus, it is incredibly bingeable. The narratives interweave so that just when one thread starts to loosen its grip, another tightens, bringing you back into the addictive fold.
One Day at a Time
Inspired by the 1975 series of the same name, One Day at a Time is an energetic comedy-drama that doesn’t back away from anything. The show stars Justina Machado as Penelope, an Army vet turned nurse. Penelope wears many hats: a single mom, a daughter with a complicated relationship to her Cuban-American mother, a healthcare worker, and a woman struggling with her own PTSD. Considering how much heavy-lifting the show does, tackling discourses of racial identity, depression, nationalism, misogyny, homophobia, and discrimination, it remains upbeat and compulsively watchable. At times, this show strikes a slightly more earnest note than Schitt’s Creek, but if your favorite parts of that one were its tear-worthy moments, then you’re sure to enjoy this. Plus, there is an attention to comedic dynamics throughout, so you will never cry so much that you don’t laugh again within the same episode.
This is owed, in large part, to the sparkling cast and the stream of situational comedy that lends itself to this serialized form. Don’t get too attached to the show, though. The four seasons currently available to stream on Netflix are likely to be the last.
Arrested Development
There are some clear parallels between Schitt’s Creek and Arrested Development. For starters, they both blossom from the premise of a kind of fall-from-grace - and a formerly wealthy family who last to learn what it means to live on more moderate means. In Arrested Development, Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) must drop everything to run his family’s business after his father is sent to prison.
First airing as it did in 2003, there’s a good chance that you’ve already seen Arrested Development, or at least heard enough references to it that you feel like you’ve had. It’s worth a re-watch, especially if you’re craving the kind of familial antics and mishaps that made up Schitt’s Creek. In particular, it’s fascinating to see how the two larger-than-life matriarchs, Catherine O’Hara and Jessica Walter, seem to speak to one another across space and time.
Grace & Frankie
If you liked Schitt’s Creek for the characters’ ability to turn from an unexpected scenario toward a pasture of self-determination, then you will similarly enjoy watching Grace & Frankie. Grace (Jane Fonda) and Frankie (Lily Tomlinson) star in this endearing take on later-in-life female friendships that can be forged after the collapse of marriage. The two women were already friends, because their husbands were friends. Or so they thought. Turns out, the two men (Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen) are actually in love and they both break off their respective marriages. When everything they thought to be stable and continuous is disrupted, the women find an unexpected amount of space in their lives for the intimacy of a friendship built on shared experience, trust, and a level of honest communication neither of them had in their marital lives. Plus, Waterston’s eyebrows almost reach the level of Levy’s.
Sex Education
Set to release its third season in September, Sex Education is a youthful and unique portrayal of the awkwardness of growing up and coming to terms with the fact that you have a body that must interact with other peoples’ bodies. Otis (Asa Butterfield), an awkward high school student, has to navigate all of the usual problems but with one specific hitch. While he’s learning to have the confidence to talk to anyone, let alone girls he’s interested in, his mom (Gillian Anderson) works at home as a sex therapist. When he starts recycling the kind of counsel that his mom gives clients to his classmates, he gets way in over his head with advice that he doesn’t fully understand. Younger than any of the kids on Schitt’s Creek, Otis’s adventures offer a similar kind of side-by-side existence with parent figures who are continuing to develop and discover themselves.
Derry Girls
Set during the period of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, Derry Girls offers a fascinating glimpse into the effects of sociopolitical conflict on the lived experiences of children. The show follows a ragtag gang of friends who all attend the same all-girls school (all-girls, that is, except for the one male character who is dragged along and out of place everywhere) as they navigate ordinary things like teachers they hate, money problems at home, and… thirty years of ongoing sporadic violence. While the stakes on this show are certainly different than those of Schitt’s Creek, there is a clear crossover in the dry, sarcastic sense of humor and the character-driven mishaps that are shown to be consistent across two disparate political contexts.
Superstore
America Ferrara stars in this sitcom about the lives of low-level employees at Cloud Nine, an outlet store suspiciously similar to Wal-Mart. Superstore highlights the ways that it’s impossible to speak about the lives of wage-workers in the United States without the conversation becoming political. Team members face the usual concerns: dating, promotions, raising children, etc. alongside those realities that give the show a deeper and specific social context: organizing around union busters, attempting to dodge ICE, and the ongoing, internal conflict of attempting to succeed at a rigged game of social mobility. All of these different facets of the character’s work and home lives blend together seamlessly into a bingeable string of situational comedies.
In the same way that the Rose family attempts to adapt to the economic ecosystem of the motel they move into, Superstore features a kind of clashing between idealistic Jonah (Ben Feldman) who is freshly dropped out of business school (and tempering an undeniable savior complex) and those who have spent their careers at Cloud Nine out of necessity. It is in this relational space that both shows make some of their more interesting points about dignity, work, and class stratification.
Episodes
David Crane, co-creator of the hit show Friends, teamed up with writer Jeffrey Klarik to create this unique comedy about...the adaptation of a comedy. Episodes begins with an English couple celebrating the success of their sitcom. When they are approached by an American producer about recreating the show overseas, they decide to do it. The trouble begins right away when one of their main stars is forced to audition and ultimately replaced (because he sounds too English) by Friends star Matt LeBlanc. From there it only gets worse as the couple's original vision is mangled beyond recognition.
What makes this a suitable supplement post-Schitt’s Creek is its emphasis on location as a kind of adversarial character. While the Rose family was forced to adapt to a little, less-than-hospital town out of necessity, ultimately finding its kind heart underneath a rough exterior, Episodes takes a different approach. Everything that looks glitzy is superficial and everything they are supposed to value is thrown into hilarious contention.
Shrill
In general, stories that seek to focus on the lives of fat women leave much to be desired. There’s the weight-loss accounts of transformation, the love interest who sees past the woman’s shape to the size of her heart, etc. In Shrill, these scripts are more or less thrown out. Annie Easton (Aidy Bryant) is a sharp, early-career journalist navigating her place in a world very much not designed for her. That’s not to say that her confidence is easily won. She faces the kinds of internalized pressures that women often do so that when she does arrive at moments of sassiness and mordant expression, these triumphs are coupled with the very real heartache that accompanies the ebbs and flows of self-love. With the third and final season available to stream on Hulu, Shrill’s story arc is a multi-dimensional look into work and womanhood that Alexis Rose would certainly squeal over.