Ali Wong and Steven Yuen in Netflix's short-but-sweet hit Beef. Photo / Netflix
Ali Wong and Steven Yuen in Netflix's short-but-sweet hit Beef. Photo / Netflix
Too little time and too many bloated dramas to plough through? Then you need our guide to the best TV shows lasting 30 minutes or less.
The long and the short of it is that television today is often too long and occasionally very short. We are living through theimperial phase of the bloated binge-watch. Netflix has, for instance, perfected the art of the over-stuffed documentary which typically takes over six hours to tell a story that could be done and dusted in just one.
Elsewhere, season three of the previously snackable Ted Lasso is going for broke with a 60-minute run-time. Last year’s Stranger Things 4, meanwhile, smashed the attention barrier with several instalments weighing in at over 90 minutes.
The streaming wars have, in other words, convinced Netflix, Disney and peers that more is always more. Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the scale, there have been attempts to create a new genre of super-short TV. This had its most notorious manifestation in the disastrous Quibi, a short-streaming platform founded by Hollywood mover and shaker Jeffrey Katzenberg and promising a new genre of “quick bite” entertainment.
Quick it certainly was. Despite shows starring the likes of Sophie Turner, Joe Jonas and Jennifer Lopez, the service crashed and burned in six months while roaring through US$1.7 billion ($2.7 billion).
In other words, length matters in TV. This is why more and more shows are avoiding the extremes of the Netflix documentary division and of Quibi and finding happy ground with a 30-minute run time. The appeal can be seen in the current popularity of Netflix’s new revenge hit, Beef, in which Ali Wong and Steven Yeun excel as frustrated Los Angelenos who became sworn enemies after a road rage incident too far. But Beef isn’t the only binge favourite to clock in at approximately half an hour or less…
Russian Doll (Netflix)
Reality is bent inside out and upside down in this surreal sci-fi series starring Natasha Lyonne as a potty-mouthed New Yorker trapped in a time loop. Lyonne is blisteringly dead-pan as she negotiates time and space while the prominent placing of a song by Harry Nilsson, in series one of two, means you’ll never listen to the Seventies crooner in the same way again. Series two features an expanded role for queen of indie cinema, Chloë Sevigny.
Normal People (TVNZ+)
The steamy and intense adaptation of the Sally Rooney best-seller made stars out of Paul Mescal and Daisy Edger-Jones. This tale of star-crossed lovers in small town Sligo and at Trinity College, Dublin also proves that you don’t have to overstay your welcome, with each episode over and done in (roughly) half an hour.
Selena Gomez, Steve Martin and Martin Short are a trio forged in screwball comedy heaven, as they star in a hokey whodunnit about hapless podcasters attempting to solve a series of murders in their fancy-pants New York apartment block.
Homecoming (Prime Video)
Adapted from a creepy podcast, season one of this unsettling and beguiling series starred Julia Roberts as a social worker in a healthcare centre where soldiers supposedly “transition” to civil life. But there is more to the facility than meets the eye. Janelle Monáe takes over as the lead star in series two when her character wakes in a rowing boat and is determined to piece together her fractured identity.
Derry Girls (Netflix)
A nostalgic comedy about the Troubles sounds like the worst idea ever. But writer Lisa McGee pulled it off by delving into her own school years to deliver this tale of love and friendship in 1990s Derry.
Barry (Neon)
Bill Hader’s super-droll dramedy about a depressed hitman who wants to be an actor is without doubt one of the great TV shows of the last decade. With its fourth and final season having just begun, its combination of superbly executed action, nail-biting tension and twisted jokes deserves a much larger audience.
Glow (Netflix)
Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin and Kate Nash are part of the ensemble cast in this period piece about a real-life all-woman’s wrestling league in Eighties Los Angeles. The period details are fantastic and podcaster Marc Maron excels as the Svengali trying to get the unlikely show on the road.
Glow, Netflix's new show about female wrestling in the 80s. Photo / Netflix
Dead To Me (Netflix)
Top-drawer dramedy starring Christina Applegate as a grieving widow Jen, who is drawn into a friendship with the mysterious Judy (Linda Cardellini). But Judy has secrets directly connected to the hit and run that killed Jen’s husband – while her loathsome boyfriend Ben (James Marsden) has an agenda all his own.
Atlanta (Disney+/Neon)
Donald Glover is the surrealist ring-master of this breathtakingly bizarre sitcom, ostensibly about an Atlanta rapper (Brian Tyree Henry) and his frustrated manager (Glover) but which quickly pings into all sorts of surreal directions. The most recent season featured Liam Neeson cameoing as himself and discussing the outburst about black people that nearly got him cancelled. It’s only the 10th weirdest thing in that specific episode – let alone the series in its entirety.
Forever (Prime Video)
June (Maya Rudolph) and Oscar (Fred Armisen) are happily married when an unexpected event befalls them and they discover they have to spend all eternity together. This forces the couple to reconsider their relationship and what they want from the world and each other – with hilarious but also dark and thought-provoking consequences.
Sophia Lillis stars as a grumpy teenager with telekinetic powers in a snappy adaptation of a cult comic book that has the gritty feel of an indie movie. A second season was planned but then cancelled because of the pandemic.
Colin From Accounts (TVNZ+)
Husband-and-wife team Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer serve up a subversive twist on the romcom “meet cute”, with this hilarious tale of two singles brought together by a car accident.
Undone (Prime Video)
Psychedelic animated mystery starring Alita: Battle Angel’s Rosa Salazar as a Mexican American woman who develops the ability to manipulate time after a car crash. The trippy series utilises the old “rotoscope” technique of tracing over live footage – with mind-bending results.
The Patient (Disney)
Steve Carrell plays a therapist kidnapped by a psychopath who hopes he can cure his bloodlust in this drama from the creators of The Americans. Effectively a two-hander between Carrell and Domhnall Gleeson, terrifyingly good as the patient, it’s as lean and mean as TV gets.
Domhnall Gleeson and Steve Carell in The Patient. Photo / Supplied
Trying (Apple TV+)
A gentle sitcom starring Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as a London couple desperate for a baby. Imelda Staunton and Blue Light’s Siân Brooke also feature in a wonderfully quirky ensemble cast.
Heartstopper (Netflix)
Alice Oseman adapted her own graphic novel about a gay student who fall in love with his new classmate. Sweet and gooey, it’s the perfect 30-minute pick-me-up.
Dickinson (Apple TV+)
The life, times – and poetry – of Emily Dickinson are celebrated in a pithy drama tracing her formative years. Hailee Steinfeld excels in portraying the young Dickinson as a woman ahead of her time.
The End of the F***ing World (Netflix)
A modest hit on Channel 4, the eight-part comedy drama become a global smash when it upsized to Netflix. James (Alex Lawther) is a 17-year-old who believes he is a psychopath (he kills animals as a hobby). Alyssa (Jessica Barden) is his defiant and rebellious classmate. When they run away together, they have a series of funny and terrifying adventures together.
The eight-part comedy, The End of the F***ing World, became a global hit. Photo / Netflix
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Disney+)
The green “Hulk” effects were dire and the jokey dialogue outraged many Marvel fans. But the breezy tone of Disney +’s Incredible Hulk spin-off is endearing and Tatiana Maslany shines as a promising lawyer whose career is derailed when she becomes a superhero by accident. Watch out for a hilarious cameo by Tim Roth, returning as a Hulk nemesis who has swapped his villainous ways for a life of mindfulness.
Community (Prime Video/Netflix)
The stars of comedy future (Donald Glover) and past (Chevy Chase) cross paths in an infectiously silly, ridiculously inventive sitcom about a group of underachievers attending their local community college.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Disney+)
Robb McElhenney and Charlie Day have built a cult audience for their ribald comedy about a group of losers who run an Irish bar in South Philadelphia. It’s Seinfeld for amoral, gutter-mouthed drunks.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Netflix)
An old-school ensemble sitcom about a group of policemen in a ramshackle New York precinct who must adjust to the eccentricities of a new commanding officer. With Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz and Terry Crews.
Bojack Horseman (Netflix)
Existential despair disguised as a bright and breezy cartoon. Will Arnett voices the eponymous Bojack, a human-horse hybrid who has been living off the vapours of the hit sitcom in which he starred 30 years previously.
The Big Door Prize (Apple TV+)
Chris O’Dowd is a boring dad and teacher whose marriage is plunged into uncertainty when a mysterious device at the corner store promises to show people their “true” fate. He’s happy with his lot – but his wife, Cass (Gabrielle Dennis), suddenly realises she is meant for so much more.
