Best well-written likeable TV and movies on free streaming services?

June 6, 2023 7:49 AM

I've recently discovered free streaming on Tubi and Shout Factory. I like well-written, smart TV (and movies) with likeable characters, ideally being kind to each other. What should I watch?

Things I've been pleased to find so far:

The Goes Wrong Show
QI
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Tudor Monastery Farm
One Day at a Time
Columbo
The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross
Barney Miller
Carol Burnett
Everybody Hates Chris

Are there other shows or movies I'd like?

Are there other free streaming services I should check out?

Thanks!

posted by kristi to Media & Arts (18 answers total)

Best answer: Amazon's FreeVee is ad-supported, and Jury Duty and Primo are both really good along these lines.
posted by Etrigan at 7:59 AM on June 6, 2023 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Tudor Monastery Farm

Ruth Goodman is the best! There's a ton of her stuff on youtube for free, and she's just terrific and kind and smart and real, and her colleagues are as well. I particularly loved Secrets of the Castle, where Ruth, Tom, and Peter help build a castle in France using 13th C. tools.

See also: Wartime Farm, Victorian Farm, etc.
posted by mochapickle at 8:12 AM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Taxi is on Pluto and FreeVee.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:13 AM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Republic of Doyle is on ShoutFactory. It's definitely well-written. The characters are likeable. As to whether they're nice to each other, it's about a family, with typical family tensions, so while there is love there is also teasing and frustration and all of the other human emotions that come with living with other people.

I say it's a family show, but it's actually a detective show. Its creators said it was supposed to be a modern Rockford Files set in Newfoundland. It kind of fits that bill, but it is very much its own thing.
posted by sardonyx at 8:16 AM on June 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: The Saint is also on ShoutFactory. Again, it's well-written (especially the earlier episodes, many of which are ripped straight from the books). I've always found Simon Templar extremely likeable, but maybe that's just me. He might be a bit smug for other people.

It's the same sort of detective scenario you'd get with Columbo: people doing mean things to others (although probably fewer murders and more thefts, frauds, etc.), so not everybody will be likeable. Because they're one-hour episodes, most of the supporting characters are more caricatures than fully realized people but they're also not evil, moustache-twirling campy villains either.
posted by sardonyx at 8:22 AM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

K-Drama! I always thought I hated sentimental, corny stuff, but I mostly just hate Hallmark - I think the Koreans are pulling the heart-strings like no one else like now. I can recommend Crash Landing on You, Live up to your name, and the Reply series, for nostalgic slice of life.
posted by sohalt at 8:26 AM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Chuck. Great relationships, funny plots and a few weirdos to keep it all interesting.
posted by Enid Lareg at 8:43 AM on June 6, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: NewsRadio is on a couple of free services, and is still one of the funniest ensemble shows out there.
posted by Mchelly at 8:43 AM on June 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Seconding Primo on Freevee.
posted by maddieD at 9:06 AM on June 6, 2023

Best answer: You might like The Great British Baking Shows; they are the kindest 'competitions', with the participants helping each other and being friends. The kids one is particularly heartwarming.

Along the lines of QI, you might like Would I Lie To You, which is funny and silly and very British-casual like QI.

You might also like Leverage; the team is very much a family and while they face bad guys, they always win; watching them take down arrogant millionaires is very cathartic in this day and age...
posted by The otter lady at 9:12 AM on June 6, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Towards the end of our Travel Man binge (which spanned several services) we discovered that Richard Ayoade's entire run of the show was available on Tubi. I don't know if it's still on Tubi, though, because the rights for it seem to move around a lot, and we haven't seen any Joe Lycett episodes at all. The conceit in the Richard Ayoade era at least was that he was an unhappy traveler, so there's lots of deadpan humor about how he'd rather not be traveling at all. Every episode has a different guest traveling companion, with the running joke being that it's "the most available" talent. Some of them (e.g. Dawn French) seem to understand the assignment better than others (Noel Fielding), and as a result the episodes can be uneven, so have your skip button handy. Generally if a guest starts to get on your nerves, they're going to stay on your nerves the entire episode.
posted by fedward at 9:18 AM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: JustWatch has great listings; here's freevee. Numb3rs, Night Court, Leverage, and lots more.
posted by theora55 at 9:50 AM on June 6, 2023

Best answer: The Great Pottery Throwdown
Landscape Artist of the Year
posted by chuke at 12:26 PM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Seconding Jury Duty on Freevee. (Freevee cracks me up because they've basically just re-invented "TV with commercials")
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:25 PM on June 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: The Detectorists.
The Art Detectives
posted by brachiopod at 10:26 AM on June 7, 2023

Sports Night - a show about people putting on a nightly cable sports news show called Sports Night.

Summary from Metacritic.com: Sports Night ran nearly two full seasons on the ABC network in the US during the '98-99 and '99-00 seasons. Created by Emmy Award winning writer/director, Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin created such movies as, A Few Good Men & The American President before his first venture into television (Sorkin would later create the massively respected & popular The West Wing). Sports Night is smart, fast-paced, witty and features a fine ensemble cast.
posted by Homer42 at 12:42 PM on June 7, 2023

Yes, the Detectorists! Sweet, funny, gentle and great characters.
posted by caviar2d2 at 8:02 PM on June 7, 2023

Response by poster: This is such a great, great set of recommendations.

I've bookmarked a ton of these to watch on Tubi (has anyone come up with a worse interface anywhere for saving a watch list? sheesh), and I'm looking into freevee.

I've already seen and utterly adored Detectorists, and I am stunned to learn it's on Tubi - I hope that recommendation will be handy for anyone else who sees this thread.

I didn't Best-Answer the great K-drama or Sports Night answers because, as far as I can tell, they're not on any free services - but I'll see whether Sports Night might be on DVD at the library, and I've added those three K-dramas to my Netflix list for the next time I sign up for a month of Netflix.

Thank you all so much!
posted by kristi at 10:57 AM on June 22, 2023 [1 favorite]