On network television, there simply aren’t as many comedy shows as there used to be. Fortunately, cable networks and streaming services have stepped up to keep the laughs coming.
Comedy shows won’t be an endangered creature as long as Apple TV+ delivers great new shows like Your Friends and Neighbors, which features Jon Hamm in the leading role.
Even Netflix’s recently arrived North of North shows a lot of promise with its heartfelt brand of comedy.
These are just two of the options in Watch With Us’ picks for the must-see comedy shows to stream right now. If you need a laugh, just check out any of these shows.
Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Jon Hamm) is doing everything he can to live the good life in Your Friends and Neighbors, just not in an ethical way. Coop used to be a wealthy hedge fund manager, but now he’s barely staying afloat financially. And since no one seems to be willing to give him another high-paying job, Coop has discovered that he can keep himself and his family going by stealing from their rich neighbors.
Coop’s lovel life is also a mess, as his ex-wife, Mel (Amanda Peet), has already moved on to a new lover. That frees up Coop to sleep with Mel’s best friend, Samantha Levitt (Olivia Munn), but they have to keep their relationship a secret. Coop’s entire existence has become a house of cards and the consequences of his choices will inevitably come back to bite him.
Your Friends and Neighbors is streaming on Apple TV+.
North of North is a comedy series set in a close-knit Arctic town where everyone knows everybody. That’s why a young Inuk woman named Siaja (Anna Lambe) finds it so difficult to start over with her daughter, Bun (Keira Cooper), after leaving her husband, Ting (Kelly William). Siaja simply wasn’t happy in the marriage, but now she has to get a job, look after Bun and possibly find someone new to love.
Siaja does have some support from her mother, Neevee (Maika Harper). But it’s hard for Siaja to completely break free when Ting is still around and there are so many difficult choices to be made.
North of North is streaming on Netflix.
Only Murders in the Building is such a smash hit for Hulu that even casual viewers are aware of it. Steve Martin and Martin Short got a late career revival as Charles-Haden Savage and Oliver Putnam, respectively. When someone in their building is killed, Charles and Oliver team up with a much younger woman, Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), to launch their own podcast about the murder.
But once this unlikely trio dips into one murder investigation, they find themselves getting sucked into even more murders. And eventually, someone may take a shot at this trio as well.
Only Murders in the Building is streaming on Hulu.
If a rabbi and his podcaster girlfriend go into a bar, it’s not a joke setup — it’s just an episode of Netflix’s smash hit, Nobody Wants This. Adam Brody plays Noah Roklov, the rabbi in question, while Kristen Bell plays Joanne, a woman who doesn’t have a religious bone in her body.
What Joanne does have is a devotion to Noah that can’t be denied. They make a cute couple, but their relationship may cost David the career he always dreamed about thanks to pushback from his family, friends and even his fellow rabbi.
Nobody Wants This is streaming on Netflix.
Deli Boys is the latest addition to this list, and one of the funnier crime comedies to come along in years. Brothers Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh) always assumed that their father’s millions were legitimately earned. But it turns out that he had a full-blown drug empire, and now it’s their turn to control if they can.
Their father’s consigliere, Lucky (Poorna Jagannathan), isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty to keep their father’s illegal empire alive. She’ll even kill if she has to, which leaves Mir and Raj scrambling to keep their personal lives walled off against the mess they’ve been brought into.
Deli Boys is streaming on Hulu.
Charles Nieuwendyk (Ted Danson) has finally decided to move into a retirement community, much to the relief of his daughter, Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis). As far as she knows, Charles is really committed to starting the next chapter of his life at the Pacific View Retirement Community. But as the title of this comedy hints, Charles is simply A man on the inside, and he’s come to Pacific View to live out his detective fantasy.
A private investigator named Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada) hired Charles to go undercover in the community to find a stolen necklace, and he takes his job seriously. He’s just not very good at investigating anything, and he runs a very real risk of being exposed as a fraud long before he finds the missing necklace that Julie wants so badly.
A Man on the Inside is streaming on Netflix.
Ruby Yao (Stephanie Hsu) has a unique problem in Laid. She’s a perpetually single woman in her ‘30s with a long sexual history that’s getting shorter by the minute. Someone or something is killing all of Ruby’s ex-partners in the order in which she slept with them. At first, Ruby dismisses it as a coincidence. But there are too many people dying for this to be a random occurrence.
Naturally, this is a bad time for Ruby to develop feelings for her client, Isaac (Tommy Martinez), or to get intimate with her ex-boyfriend, Richie (Michael Angarano). The best thing that Ruby can do for everyone is to remain celibate. And she doesn’t quite have the willpower for that.
Laid is streaming on Peacock.
Seth MacFarlane is almost restrained in Ted the TV series compared to his two Ted movies that came before it. But this foul-mouthed teddy bear is still really funny, even in this incarnation. The show acts as a prequel to the films, and it’s set in the early ‘90s when John Bennett (Max Burkholder) was still in high school.
Because Ted is a perennial troublemaker at home when nobody’s around, John’s family forces him to attend high school with John. Ted being Ted, this is all just a new way for him to cause even more trouble.
Ted is streaming on Peacock.
Upload takes place in a near-future world where the afterlife exists, but only because it was made by man. Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) gets a first-hand look at what awaits the dead in the digital heaven when he gets killed before he even turns 30.
Having a digital Nathan under her control is a dream come true for his girlfriend, Ingrid Kannerman (Allegra Edwards), but less so for him. Especially when Nathan starts having romantic feelings for his still-living customer service handler, Nora Antony (Andy Allo). It turns out that breaking up after you’re dead is a lot harder than it looks.
Upload is streaming on Prime Video.
A lot of comedies have come and gone on Max, but Hacks has staying power. Jean Smart plays Deborah Vance, a comedian whose humor hasn’t kept up with her waning career. To give herself the boost she needs, Deborah hires a failing screenwriter, Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), to come up with new material for her.
On some level, Ava and Deborah have a friendly relationship. But they’re also toxic for each other, and Deborah has a tendency to screw things up in Ava’s life. They’re both like moths to the flame when it comes to each other, and any heartfelt reproachments may be followed by darkly hilarious betrayals.
Hacks is streaming on Max.
The Rehearsal is a bizarre comedy in which Nathan Fielder plays an exaggerated version of himself who is so dedicated to helping people face difficult situations that he’ll do almost anything to walk them through it. And by anything, we mean hiring actors to play their friends, letting his subjects roleplay with those actors and even building elaborate sets to capture the realism of the moment.
Nathan just can’t stop himself from taking things too far, and sometimes, he even gets sucked into his own roleplaying scenarios that he created for someone else.
The Rehearsal is streaming on Max.
Although the name suggests it would be a fantasy series, Mythic Quest is actually a workplace comedy where the creative team behind one of the world’s most popular online games. The creator of the game Mythic Quest, Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney), thinks he’s got his life entirely figured out. But the response of his colleagues is always telling.
One of Ian’s kindred spirits at the company is Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao), the co-lead behind the game’s design. That’s why Ian is so taken aback when she starts a romance and doesn’t feel the need to keep sending sleepless nights to ensure that the game’s updates are protected now and forever.
Mythic Quest is streaming on Apple TV+.
