Succession is back for a fourth season of multi-billion dollar chess moves between the scheming members of the Roy family. But, it comes with the news that this season will be the last. So, while ten episodes seems like plenty, eventually we'll have watched them all and there will be nothing left. From that perspective, it's already time to panic and start thinking about what other TV shows might be similar enough to Succession to fill the void. Series creator Jesse Armstrong's previous show, Peep Show, might seem like a reasonable place to start, but it does differ from Succession in two major ways: it's a sitcom and it's British. Nevertheless, if you're looking for something that hits many of the same notes of cringe comedy and relentless self-sabotage, Peep Show is the answer.

'Peep Show' Is a Comedy That Asks Existential Questions

Peep Show
Image via Channel 4

"What are people?" patriarch Logan Roy asks in the fourth season premiere of Succession, monologuing to his bodyguard after wandering away from his own birthday party. In a way, this moment is one that the series has always been building to. With his squabbling children (mostly) allied in opposition to him, Logan has to admit that, though his unfathomable wealth and power might make him a god, he can't completely ignore the inner workings of mere mortals. They're relevant to his interests, at least when they manage to align in agreement that he sucks. But...if people as a whole matter, then Logan is forced to consider, as if for the first time, the logical follow-up question. "What is a person?"

Peep Show, which premiered in 2004, asked this same existential question. However, that wasn't the original intention. The show evolved from a concept that Armstrong (along with Sam Bain, his frequent writing partner), came up with for comedy duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb. They would play a Beavis and Butthead-like pair, who'd watch and comment on clips from other TV shows. Eventually, the clip show idea was dumped, but the couch potato roommate characters — office drone Mark Corrigan (Mitchell) and aspiring musician Jeremy "Jez" Usbourne (Webb) — proved worthy of their own show. There was still a gimmick, but a very different one. Every shot is in first-person POV, from the perspective of Mark, Jeremy, or some other human or animal. And, not only do we see the world through their eyes, we hear a running monologue of Mark and Jeremy's inner thoughts.

These ideas might feel distracting and artificial, but you get used to them quickly. What gives the show its identity isn't the goofy concept, but the quality of the writing. What Succession fans will recognize in Peep Show, which lets you see straight through into its characters' souls, is the soup of anxiety, hypocrisy, desire, and imposter syndrome that the characters all bathe in. If Seinfeld taught us anything, it's that personal growth is not possible. Mark is always Mark: a repressed misanthrope. Jeremy will always be Jeremy: an unemployable, sexually liberated fellow. They will always be flatmates, but never quite friends. And Jeremy will never have the rent.

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The Characters on ‘Peep Show’ Are Loathsome but Lovable, Like in ‘Succession’

David Mitchell in Peep Show
Image via Channel 4

Though Peep Show is very centered on its two leads, one of its charms is the universe of recurring characters it builds. Most notably, this includes Sophie, the cheerful office mate Mark has a crush on and gradually infects with his own misery (one of Olivia Colman's best performances), and Super Hans (Matt King), Jeremy's slightly more successful musician buddy who has done most (if not all) of the drugs. But there's a deep stable of supporting characters that circulate through the pair's life, with the main unifying characteristic that, in some way, most of them are frauds. Overall, though, it's Mark and Jeremy's show. Their relationship, in Succession terms, is a bit "Kendall and Roman" in that they envy and intimidate each other and want what the other one has (social skills, financial solvency), despite seeing exactly how little it's gotten for them.

The fun thing about Peep Show is how its characters manage to be utterly delusional, even while they see through to the inherent pointlessness at the heart of the universe. "The world's just people going around, walking into rooms and saying things. It's all a big swizzle!" thinks Mark, after he finds it a little too easy to lie his way into a college history lecture. For Mark and Jeremy, consciousness is often the real-time commentary track they provide to their own self-aware self-sabotage. How do they live with an awareness of their own doom without going mad? How does anybody? The funniest answer the show provides to that question is that humans are just easily distracted, moving from one experience to the next like goldfish.

Many of the best bits of mental voiceover on the show are the bizarre streams of consciousness Mark and Jeremy float off on at the most inappropriate times. Mark, musing on the different types of "parlors" (massage, pizza) while at a funeral. Or Jeremy, imagining that two pieces of bread in the toaster are his parents on fire, and wondering which one he would choose to save. Buried in all that nonsensical rambling, there's some secret about the ability of humans to adapt to anything.

‘Peep Show’ and ‘Succession’ Offer Different Perspectives

Peep Show Logo with Mitchell and Webb
Image via Channel 4

Even though Peep Show comes to conclusions that seem just as bleak as anything on Succession, it remains the warmer show. Yes, as with Succession, you might need to pause it and walk away when you sense that a character is about to absolutely humiliate themselves. But after the credits roll, you're not left with the same sense of lingering dread. It's hard to say why. Is it just the money? One of the central questions of Succession is whether the disgustingly rich members of the Roy family are still humans, or whether their wealth makes them effectively something else. Well, of course they're human! Look at how pathetic they are! But, then again, are they, truly? There's no satisfying answer. Frequently, the show holds up "normal life" as a potential salvation for the Roy kids. Whether it's the new friends Kendall makes during his Season 1 drug relapse, or the expedition to a "real" bar the siblings take for an almost-karaoke night in Season 4, on Succession working class life often signifies an escape hatch, one that the Roys will always scoff at.

Is the seeming prison of Mark and Jeremy's flat actually true freedom? Logan Roy, in his monologue on people, mentions that, compared to a media mogul like him, they're basically insects, "but together, they form a market." He imagines humans as, first and foremost, consumers of television. This same viewpoint is embedded in the origin story of Peep Show, and one it never leaves behind. In the opening credit sequence, steady over nine seasons, Mark and Jeremy look at themselves on a TV screen on display in a storefront window. From their own POVs, they're one human among many. In a disorganized sea of conflict, they can barely see over the head of the person standing in front of them. They don't have the perspective to become aware of themselves as "forming a market.” And, aside from the occasional act of class rebellion, only have an abstract conception of people like Logan Roy, who look down at them like bugs. Ignorance is bliss, and they manage to find meaning in their quotidian concerns. The final shot of Peep Show leaves the first-person camera perspective for the first time, to regard Mark and Jeremy from the perspective of their television set. It brings everything full circle, and it also affects a perfect transition into the new God's-eye perspective of Succession, which Armstrong would premiere on HBO a few years later. Good old lovely Mark and Jez. They may not be particularly happy (or good) but at least they're people.

All seasons of Peep Show are available to watch for free on most ad-supported streaming channels.