Cast: Myha’la Herrold, Marisa Abela, David Jonsson, Ken Leung, Harry Lawtey, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Conor MacNeill, Freya Mavor In my opinion, if there’s one workplace show you should watch right now, it’s Industry. And if “Euphoria meets investment banking” doesn’t get you on board, I’m not sure what will. This gritty, smart, suspenseful, absolutely off-the-walls bonkers show doesn’t let up for even a second as it follows five summer associates competing for full-time employment at a prestigious London investment bank. These cocaine-addled, power-horny youngsters throw around stock trading terms I couldn’t even begin to understand, all while navigating the extremely questionable politics of the firm and relationships of their own. There are standout performances by American protagonist and Bodies Bodies Bodies star Myha’la Herrold and Lost alum Ken Leung as her baseball-bat wielding boss. It should be commended first and foremost for the way it tackles the subtle, constant horror of being a woman of color in a patriarchal institution, and how muddy the waters can truly get when you’re determined to get to the top. Watch it on HBO Max. Cast: Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Aziz Ansari, Rashida Jones, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Rob Lowe, Jim O’Heir, Retta Parks and Rec has it all: an impeccable cast, a laugh-out-loud comedic script for all ages, and an unrelenting sense of positivity that never feels corny or inauthentic. It takes place in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, in a small government office crammed full of corrupt, lazy, and eccentric characters who hinder enthusiastic bureaucrat Leslie Knope (Poehler) at every opportunity. But despite her obstacles, which include libertarian stick in the mud Ron Swanson (Offerman), disruptive and ardent pessimist April (Plaza), and materialistic and capricious Tom (Ansari), Leslie loves her coworkers and always manages to unite them through an inexplicably fierce love for her town and the inner workings of city government. Amy Poehler is a force of comedic timing and wholesome gaffes, and it’s blasphemous that she didn’t win an Emmy for her tireless work through seven seasons. It was my go-to comfort watch before it was taken off Netflix, and now I will follow it to Peacock. Watch it on Peacock with a Premium membership. Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Naveen Andrews, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Laurie Metcalf, Bill Irwin, William H. Macy, Mary Lynn Rajskub Amanda Seyfried is terrifically unhinged in this miniseries about Elizabeth Holmes, the real-life fraudster and former CEO of Theranos, a massively successful Silicon Valley startup that claimed to revolutionize home blood testing until it was proven to be a massive scam. Unlike others in the scammer TV genre, The Dropout delves deep into Holmes’s psychology and emphasizes her experiences as an outcast, as well as her unconventional relationship with her lover and business partner, Sunny Balwani (played by Naveen Andrews). Seyfried’s Emmy-winning performance is well laid from the first episode, and her dogged determination, zany aversion to societal norms, and inexplicably perfect Mandarin accent make us actually feel for and maybe — just maybe! — start to understand an extremely infamous woman. Watch it on Hulu. Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jared Leto, Kyle Marvin, Kelly AuCoin, Steven Boyer, America Ferrera This limited series based off a podcast (welcome to 2022!) chronicles the rise and fall of the coworking company WeWork. Anne Hathaway and Jared Leto play the real-life couple who turned the company, once valued at $4.6 billion, into a toxic, cult-ish nightmare rife with financial losses. America Ferrera also stars as a fictional founder who gets sucked into the company under the promise of its success. Jared Leto does what he does best and plays a larger-than-life egomaniac who’s slightly dead behind the eyes, while Anne Hathaway is amazing as always as his crunchy and capricious partner in crime. It’s equal parts slow-burn love story, thriller, and Silicon Valley cautionary tale, as each episode introduces more shenanigans until it all comes crashing down. Watch it on Apple TV. Cast: Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, Dichen Lachman, Michael Chernus, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette There aren’t too many sci-fi thriller shows out there centered around the ol’ office — in fact, Severance might be the only one. Adam Scott (who, evidently, loves a good workplace show) plays an employee of Lumon Industries who decides to undergo the “severance” procedure that separates all memories of his work life from his personal consciousness. And while that might sound on the surface like a dream scenario for many of us working as part of the capitalistic machine, in this show it’s a front for a whole truckload of what can only be described as corporate psycho-horror. Its hour-long episodes build slowly, and coupled with the terrifyingly sterile set design and eerie performances by Patricia Arquette (who plays Scott’s ever-watching boss), Christopher Walken, Yul Vazquez, and Britt Lower, it stands out as a genre all its own in a world that grows ever closer to a dystopia than we’ve ever seen before. Watch it on Apple TV. Cast: Sutton Foster, Debi Mazar, Nico Tortorella, Hilary Duff, Miriam Shor, Peter Hermann, Molly Bernard, Charles Michael Davis A pioneer in the “middle-aged woman taking control of her life” genre, Younger is about a particularly youthful 40-year-old divorced mom (Sutton Foster) who decides to start her life over, pretend to be a twentysomething, and enter the book publishing industry. It gives us such gems as a romance with a much younger man (played by Nico Tortorella), a fast friendship with bookworm editor Kelsey (a resplendent Hilary Duff, who has some steamy scenes of her own 👀), and lots of age-related gaffes as Liza tries to find personal and professional fulfillment all while hiding her huge secret. If you’re a bookworm, publishing nerd, and/or lover of all things whimsical and romantic, this show, reminiscent of such girlboss classics as Sex and the City and Emily in Paris, should be on your binge list. Watch it on Hulu and Paramount Plus (and for free if you have the Paramount Network!). Cast: American Ferrera, Ben Feldman, Colton Dunn, Lauren Ash, Nico Santos, Mark McKinney, Nichole Sakura, Kaliko Kauahi Much like Parks and Rec, a surface description of this show is distinctly unalluring. Employees of a big-box retail chain store in St. Louis deal with customers, try to move up the chain of bureaucracy, develop relationships with each other, such and such and such. But what makes it so special is the way in which it sheds light on, as one Vox writer puts it, “how a lot of the working class survives” — by working a sort of shitty job that they don’t like, but, due to financial necessity, that becomes an pivotal part of their livelihood and identity. The show tackles sexism, sexual harassment, class divide, stigma around immigration status, unionism, and the true grind of American corporate culture through the lens of its beleaguered foot soldiers. It flew under the radar as one of the most diverse shows on TV, featuring a gay, undocumented Filipino immigrant (Nico Santos) and a disabled character (Colton Dunn), not as a lukewarm attempt to appease but because these people reflect the realities and dangers of working America. Watch it on Hulu. Cast: Adam Scott, Lizzy Caplan, Ken Marino, Ryan Hansen, Martin Starr, Jane Lynch Adam Scott appears for a third time on the list, this time as a disillusioned failed actor who takes a job at a catering company. His coworkers are a ragtag gang of entertainment industry wannabes sure that their big break, and their escape from their humiliating job, is around the corner (for example, Lizzy Caplan’s character earns a one-liner in a Judd Apatow movie in the second season and — spoiler alert! — gets cut out in the finale). As in the show, many of the cast are undeniably talented comedic actors just establishing their careers. It’s a pessimistic commentary on the entertainment industry at large, fueled by the cast’s chemistry, fantastic writing, and sheer hilarity as the gang caters such events as a college conservatives gathering and an orgy. The show, originally on Starz, was a cult favorite until it was tragically canceled after two seasons and a nicely wrapped emotional cliffhanger — but by some grace of the television gods, a six-episode revival has wrapped shooting as of March 2022. Watch it on Hulu. Cast: Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, BJ Novak, Mindy Kaling, Melora Hardin, David Denman, Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Kate Flannery, Angela Kinsey, Oscar Nunez, Phyllis Smith, Ed Helms, Paul Lieberstein, Creed Bratton, Craig Robinson, Ellie Kemper, Zach Woods, Amy Ryan, James Spader, Catherine Tate, Clark Duke, Jake Lacy You really thought I could make a workplace TV roundup and not include The Office? If I would, I could, truly. But if I’m being honest, this NBC classic deserves every bit of hype it got and continues to get, no matter how annoying I also find it. Its nine seasons (which, controversially I think were all good, even the ones sans Steve Carell), continually rotating cast of colorful characters, one-of-a-kind comedic writing that launched the careers of Mindy Kaling, BJ Novak, and more, and its ability to glorify the mundanity of the American workplace make it the staple of the workplace genre. It’s got a soft spot in my heart for being the dry, yet wholesome humor that inspired…well, many of the shows on this list. Plus, two words: soup snakes. Watch it on Peacock. Cast: Aisha Dee, Katie Stevens, Meghann Fahy, Sam Page, Matt Ward, Melora Hardin Why do we, as a society, love media about the girlbossification of magazine publishing? The answer is unclear, but The Bold Type is one such gem. It follows three young women climbing the ladder at a Cosmo-esque magazine (it’s actually executive produced by former Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Joanna Coles) and trying to figure out their love lives along the way. Jane is a writer who yearns for more serious content, Sutton is an assistant trying to find her place in the company while juggling an affair with a lawyer, and Kat is a social media director struggling to reconcile her sexuality. It gets a lot of things right about the rapidly changing, increasing digital landscape of publishing, complete with discussions of networking, doxxing, salary expectations, and freelancing — but with the wholesome BFFs-making-it-in-the-big-city vibes you need in your life from time to time. Watch it on Hulu. Cast: Nicholas Braun, Kieran Culkin, Hiam Abbass, Brian Cox, Peter Friedman, Matthew Macfadyen, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong This Emmy-winning family dynasty drama slash black comedy took the world by storm back in 2018, and continues to be perhaps the most memeable boardroom drama to date, in part because of the razor-sharp writing and the cast’s ability to bring the Roy family’s endless neuroses, sabotages, power struggles, and supremely unlikable dysfunctions to life in a somewhat endearing way. It’s got none of the pep that graces many of the shows on this list, with mostly hyper-realistic, moody lighting and more mature themes. But don’t be fooled — it’s rife with an unmatched dark humor that no other show really comes near. Watch it on HBO Max. Cast: Craig Robinson, Rell Battle, Claudia O’Doherty, Stephanie Nogueras, Scott MacArthur More of a kooky rags-to-riches story than your average workplace show, Killing It is a Peacock original that follows Craig Robinson (of The Office fame) on an adventure, as stated in the trailer, that could only happen in the USA. Naturally, it all starts with the Florida Python Challenge, wherein Craig attempts to make it big by killing as many pythons as he can and winning the $20,000 prize, which he then plans to use for his own palmetto berry-based prostate drug company. He is forced to team up with Claudia, an Uber driver with an unlimited amount of side hustles living out of a billboard, and together they chase what they think is the American dream: just having enough money to chase their dreams in the first place. Its producers previously worked on The Office and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and the trademark tenderness scattered amongst the scathing capitalist critique is what makes this show a must-watch. Watch it on Peacock. Cast: Quinta Brunson, Tyler James Williams, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Janelle James, Lisa Ann Walter, Chris Perfetti, William Stanford Davis This sitcom about teachers in an underfunded Philadelphia elementary school made waves when it premiered earlier this year for its witty writing (for which Quinta Brunson became the second Black woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series), deadpan humor, and heaps of heart. Not only is Abbott Elementary boosting ABC’s ratings record-high, but more importantly, teachers are hailing it as hilariously accurate to their experiences as those tasked with the frankly Herculean responsibility of shaping young Gen Z minds. And while it treads a familiar mockumentary format, it dares to surpass what the genre has previously done in terms of social impact, smart and funny racial humor, and all-around understanding of the current generation’s quirks and concerns. Watch it on Hulu or HBO Max. Cast: Chris O’Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, Noel Fielding, Matt Berry, Chris Morris I am extremely partial to an irreverent British sitcom. And of this genre, there is no selection more worthy than The IT Crowd, a show about a basement-dwelling gang of IT nerds at a mysterious communications company whose extreme awkwardness and/or laziness gets them into, as you can probably guess, all sorts of shenanigans. Chris O’Dowd and Richard Ayoade are at their deadpan best, and Katherine Parkinson is perfect as a manager with “normal” people skills who arrives and helps the gang liaison with the outside world. If canned laugh tracks aren’t your thing, don’t worry — it’s recorded in front of a live studio audience, with proper laughs galore. Watch it on Netflix. Cast: Matt Ingebretson, Jake Weisman, Anne Dudek, Adam Lustick, Aparna Nancherla, Lance Reddick Corporate is the best blacker-than-black Comedy Central workplace show you’ve never heard of. It follows two nihilistic employees (“junior executives in training”) at a large corporation who want nothing more for their misery to end. It’s lit like a horror movie in which there’s no escape, but plotted like a comedy-drama in which the villain is the absurd pointlessness that permeates modern-day office culture. The faceless company’s constant torture of its workers is unending, as is Ingebretson’s and Weisman’s capacity for cynicism. Comic Aparna Nancherla is a rare beam of humanity as the disillusioned HR rep, and Ingebretson’s and Weisman’s standup chops are evident as they deliver nonstop punch lines (albeit with very little joy). Watch it on Paramount Plus.
