There’s a certain, glorious feeling that comes with finding a good series to watch.

Movies are great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s all over in two hours and then you’re back to searching again.

We’ve given you a few binge-worthy series to watch recently (these five could replace Game of Thrones, for example, whilst these two have won numerous awards), but this time we will hand over to Rolling Stone.

Their resident TV buff, Alan Sepinwall, gives his halfway-point highlights of the year, “from meta-sitcoms to real-life disaster miniseries”.

Because Alan picked many, many different series (where does he find the time to watch them all?), we’re going to handpick a few options for you to consider:

Better Things:

Season Three of Pamela Adlon’s autobiographical dramedy ventured into uncharted territory, both onscreen and off. In a year where Adlon and her collaborators wrote the show without the input of disgraced co-creator Louis C.K., Better Things devoted more time to Sam Fox’s career, her friendships, and her romances than it had before…A special show rising above ugly behind-the-scenes circumstances.

I’ve watched two seasons so far, and I’m a big fan. Below is the trailer for season one:

Catastrophe:

Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan’s tale of a romance that unfolded in the wrong order — they met, then got pregnant, then got married, then fell in love — came to an appropriately bittersweet conclusion. The stars and creators found a way to write comedy in the wake of real-life tragedies: the deaths of co-star Carrie Fisher, and of Delaney’s young son Henry.

I know that sounds dark and heavy, but there’s plenty to laugh at. Season one trailer, please:

We’ll skip over Chernobyl and Fleabag – you should watch both – and move onto Fosse/Verdon:

This eight-part miniseries about the long personal and professional entanglement between director Bob Fosse (Sam Rockwell) and dancer Gwen Verdon (Michelle Williams) at times felt like less than the sum of its many amazing parts, including a creative team joining up writers and directors who worked on Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen and The Americans.

But Williams’ performance was never less than riveting — the seventh episode, about the backstage genesis of the ex-spouses’ last great collaboration, Chicago, was as good an hour of TV as you’ll see this year — and Rockwell was great in spite of some over-familiar clichés about problematic geniuses. Not as incredible as I’d hoped, but terrific enough, often enough.

Haven’t seen it, but I am willing to watch the trailer:

Back to the somewhat lighthearted with Ramy:

There are some TV shows that could have been created by almost anyone with the right amount of talent. And then there’s something like Ramy, which feels so wonderfully specific to the experience of comedian Ramy Youssef — who co-created, starred, and even directed an episode — that it’s hard to imagine anyone else even thinking of it, let alone trying.

Youssef plays a millennial Muslim-American in the New Jersey suburbs struggling to balance a renewed commitment to his faith and the complications of modern life. At times explosively funny, at others achingly sad — and occasionally, like the flashback episode about young Ramy’s experience on and around 9/11, both at once — it’s a true, instantly strong original.

Yeah, why not:

Added to the list.

One more before we call it a day – Warrior:

 Martial arts legend Bruce Lee’s vision of an epic historical drama about a Chinese immigrant arriving in 19th century America didn’t happen in his lifetime, though parts of it were allegedly stolen for the Kung Fu TV show with David Carradine. Instead, the idea lay untouched for decades until the TV ecosystem had evolved enough to do it right. Showrunner Jonathan Tropper brought the whole sweeping saga to life, with scorching rivalries between different Tongs in San Francisco’s Chinatown, racial tension very much evoking our current ugly political moment, and elaborate fight scenes that often surpassed the best that Tropper’s previous Cinemax pulp drama Banshee had to offer.

You had me at Bruce Lee:

If it’s good enough for TV buff Alan Sepinwall, it’s worth considering.

Oh, for the doccie fans out there, here are three more options.

Get watching.

[source:rollingstone]