21 best shows on Peacock for when you need a break or a binge-watch

For years, NBC’s tagline has been “Comedy starts here.” After a deep dive through Peacock’s streaming catalog, it’s clear that their investment has paid off. We’ve put together the best TV shows to stream on Peacock, and a large majority of the top options are comedies. It can’t be helped! NBC has been putting out some of the best comedies of the last 40 years, and they all deserve a shout-out. 

Here are the best heartfelt dramas, spine-tingling horrors, sprawling science fictions, campy teen soaps, period romances, and of course, top-tier comedies to stream right now on Peacock. Fair warning: a list this stacked means you might not leave the couch this weekend. 

1. We Are Lady Parts

The only problem with Nida Manzoor’s exceptional comedy about an all-female Muslim punk bad is that it’s too short — but the good news is we’re getting Season 2. Anjana Vasan stars as Amina, a spectacularly awkward and endearing guitar player who joins the band Lady Parts. She’s one of five rock-solid performances in a show that explores and embraces complex Muslim women, with an irreverent pop-punk soundtrack and riotous laughs to boot. Watch it now and put that banger on repeat.* —Proma Khosla, Senior Entertainment Reporter

How to watch: We Are Lady Parts is now streaming on Peacock.

2. 30 Rock

Ah, 30 Rock. This show taught us it’s okay to flip a table for a good sandwich and that we should “never follow a hippie to a second location.” It is an absurd, fast-paced satire whose jokes are as fresh now as they were when it first debuted in 2006. Tina Fey is Liz Lemon, a prudish know-it-all and head writer for The Girlie Show, a fictional stand-in for Saturday Night Live. Lemon’s life gets flipped upside down when NBC puts Jack Donaghy, a hyper-masculine, hyper-privileged, and hyper-conservative executive (the perfectly cast Alec Baldwin), in charge of TGS. He subsequently forces her to boost ratings by bringing in the unpredictable and unhinged comedian Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan at his finest). 30 Rock is surreal, ridiculous, and hilarious, with loveable characters and an endlessly quotable library of one-liners. If it isn’t already, this is your new favorite show. 

How to watch: 30 Rock is now streaming on Peacock.

3. One of Us Is Lying

Another silly teen show about murder? Yes, please! One of Us Is Lying takes a classic teen soap trope (“high school sucks!”) and kicks it up a notch by placing five characters — each representing a recognizable high school archetype — in detention. Unlike The Breakfast Club, where everyone ends up dating, only four of these high schoolers are making it out of detention alive. Did someone murder their classmate on purpose? Was it an accident? Or is one of us lying??? The mystery is surprisingly well-crafted and often surprising, which makes for an interesting juxtaposition against its well-worn teen show backdrop. 

How to watch: One of Us Is Lying is now streaming on Peacock.

4. Superstore

Binge-watching a season of Superstore in a day is no sweat. So, it makes sense that the series’ six-year run felt as brief as a stroll down the aisle of any Cloud 9. From the beginning, Justin Spitzer’s workplace comedy was sharp, kind, and laugh-out-loud funny — more than it had any right to be and more than most sitcoms pull off in a lifetime. It tackled immigration and other social issues with unparalleled comedic timing and a critical lens. In its final hours, it also achieved the distinction by being one of the only shows to accurately and tactfully portray the pandemic.

For years, this was where we came to gossip with Cheyenne (Nichole Sakura) and Mateo (Nico Santos), to catch up on the drama of Jonah (Ben Feldman) and Amy (America Ferrera), to kick back with Garrett (Colton Dunn), and to be terrorized by Dina (Lauren Ash). By the time Cloud 9 closed its doors for good, Glenn (Mark McKinney) turned out to be right: It was so much more than a store.* — P.K.

How to watch: Superstore is now streaming on Peacock.

5. The Office

The show that made the mockumentary a treasured American institution, The Office will never go out of style. In 2020, seven years after its last episode aired, it was the most-streamed TV show across all platforms by far. For those of us who love The Office, this comes as no surprise. 

This grounded and charismatic character-based comedy about a paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania still hits just as hard on the second rewatch… and third… and fourth. The jokes don’t get stale and the characters don’t get old — we only fall more and more in love with them. Though Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, Rainn Wilson, and the entire Office cast may have moved on to bigger and better things, they’ll always be Michael Scott, Jim, Pam, and Dwight in our hearts.

How to watch: The Office is now streaming on Peacock.

6. Downton Abbey

Has there ever been a more comforting watch than Downton Abbey, a show whose major conflicts include “getting ready for dinner” and “who’s going to inherit the big house?” Sure, sure, there are deeper threads here, like world wars, women’s rights, Irish independence, and the decay of the British aristocracy, which give the widely revered drama a deep gravitas to match its prodigious charm.

The cast is full of British greats. Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton, Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, Dan Stevens, Lily James, Matthew Goode, and more frequent the eponymous manor. Come for the period drama but stay for the slow burn romances. Downton Abbey is a juicy and beautifully shot show, serving up satisfying watches on a silver platter. 

How to watch: Downton Abbey is now streaming on Peacock.

7. Poker Face

Sometimes nothing hits better than a murder-of-the-week, and Rian Johnson’s Poker Face is an excellent send-up of the form. Natasha Lyonne is Charlie Cale, a former casino worker on the run from a corrupt boss, and a woman who happens to always know when people are lying or telling the truth. Do you think she solves mysteries while she’s working her way across the country, meeting a wacky cast of characters at each location? You bet your butt she does! 

Utilizing Columbo-style inverted detective stories (where the audience already knows the details of the crime), the joy of Poker Face comes from watching Lyonne work out how these dirty deeds were actually committed — which she does, with panache.*

How to watch: Poker Face is now streaming on Peacock.

8. Killing It

Craig Robinson is Craig Foster, a divorced dad in Florida who dreams of making it big but just can’t seem to get any of his business ideas off the ground. After an unforgettable ride with Australian Uber driver Jillian (Claudia O’Doherty), and out of other legal options to get rich quick, Craig formulates a new plan: He’s going to enter the Florida Python Challenge. He and Jillian team up to kill invasive Burmese pythons for cash. Killing It is a quirky comedy with an off-the-wall premise from the creators of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and it’s also a sharp and brutal satire of the American grind. 

How to watch: Killing It is now streaming on Peacock.

9. Mrs. Davis

​​Betty Gilpin is Sister Simone, a modern-day nun living outside of Reno and one of the only people on the planet who doesn’t love Mrs. Davis, the omnipresent AI who controls most human decisions. Through an app and an earpiece, Mrs. Davis helps humans do good and make better choices. She’s designed to help the world become a better place. And Sister Simone wants to see her destroyed. 

Created by TV king Damon Lindelof (Lost, Watchmen, The Leftovers) and Tara Hernandez, Mrs. Davis — the show, not the AI — is a hilarious, unpredictable, genre-bending sci-fi adventure with a grounded emotional core. It’s impossible to pin down, and that’s part of what makes it so exciting. There’s simply no other series like it! *

How to watch: Mrs. Davis is now streaming on Peacock.

10. Saved by the Bell

No one expected the Saved by the Bell reboot to be a self-aware commentary on diversity and socio-economic class disparity. But lo and behold, here we are! Tracey Wigfield’s new Saved by the Bell hits the ground running by re-introducing us to Zack Morris, now the current governor of California. Morris’s idiotic policies have bankrupted schools, forcing Bayside High, a nexus of privilege, to welcome students from underfunded neighborhoods. These new kids clash with the students and teachers of Bayside (included A.C. Slater and Jessie Spano as the football coach and counselor!) in unexpected and often enlightening ways. Honoring its predecessor without feeling like a retread, Saved by the Bell is a bright and clever comedy for the modern era.

How to watch: Saved by the Bell is now streaming on Peacock.

11. Girls5Eva

Produced by 30 Rock legends Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, Girls5Eva is a loony and delightful series poised to usher NBC into its next phase of successful comedies. Sprinkled with ridiculous original songs, Girls5Eva tells the story of a group of 40-something women trying to get their former Spice Girls-style ‘90s girl group back together. Sara Bareilles and Renée Elise Goldsberry’s tremendous musical talent lends authenticity to the group’s backstory, while Busy Philipps and Paula Pell are downright hilarious, making the most of every punchline. In an era when many comedies are actually dramedies, it’s refreshing to watch a show so deeply committed to silliness. 

How to watch: Girls5Eva is now streaming on Peacock.

12. Everything I Know About Love

Based on the memoir by Dolly Alderton, this British comedy stars Emma Appleton and Bel Powley as best friends Maggie and Birdy, who move into a London flat with two other twentysomethings played by Marli Siu and Aliyah Odoffin.

As Rachel Thompson wrote in her review, “Created and adapted for television by Dolly Alderton, and based on her best-selling memoir of the same name, this show is about the almighty learning curve many of us embark upon in this formative decade of our lives. Don’t be fooled by the title, this show is not just about romantic love — its most important arc is a story of friendship between best friends Maggie and Birdy, who’ve known each other since childhood, and are now navigating a perilous path as their romantic partners and sexual exploits pose a threat to the platonic love they share. Can their lifelong friendship survive?”

Set in 2012, Everything I Know About Love is a warm, funny, and charming series about the joy of youth and the pain of growing up, packed with nostalgic details of the mid-aughts.

How to watch: Everything I Know About Love is now streaming on Peacock.

13. Resident Alien

Resident Alien is a fantastic science fiction-mystery-comedy-drama about an emotionless alien (a perfect Alan Tudyk) sent to Earth to destroy all humans. Unfortunately, he crash lands in rural Colorado and has to pretend to be a local doctor to avoid suspicion while he repairs his ship. Despite his lack of medical knowledge, his disguise has most of the town fooled — except the young son of the mayor, the only human in the area who can see him for the alien he is. The genre-bending here pays off spectacularly. You’ll fear for the alien’s nemesis (a seven-year-old boy) and wonder about the future of his mission while laughing at his incisive critiques of modern American life. An absolute gem.

How to watch: Resident Alien is now streaming on Peacock.

14. Angelyne

In the 1980s, everyone in LA knew Angelyne, a bleach blonde who plastered the city with billboards of herself and drove the streets in an iconic pink Corvette. No one actually knew who she was or what she was advertising; she was just famous for being famous. This bubbly, fast-paced mini-series follows Angelyne’s determined and enigmatic rise to fame, as well as one reporter’s attempts to uncover the woman behind the icon. 

Emmy Rossum is magnetic as the bombshell herself, while Philip Ettinger is hilarious as her former bandmate, neither of whom are telling the same story about their shared history. Alex Karpovsky, Hamish Linklater, and Martin Freeman all sparkle in this dramedy with an infamously unreliable narrator at its core. 

How to watch: Angelyne is now streaming on Peacock.

15. Parks and Recreation

Amy Poehler charmed a nation as Leslie Knope, the pathologically cheerful deputy director of the Parks and Recreation Department in Pawnee, Indiana. Knope believes steadfastly in the power of government and human decency, not to mention waffles and Galentine’s Day. Her staff, on the other hand, led by libertarian survivalist Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman‘s career-defining role), can’t really be bothered to care. 

Parks and Recreation is a joyful, hilarious, and often poignant mockumentary sitcom that soars in large part thanks to its wacky and lovable characters. This is the show that launched Aubrey Plaza, so for that alone, you owe it some gratitude.

How to watch: Parks and Recreation is now streaming on Peacock.

16. Chucky

Absurd, funny, and actually scary, Chucky carries the wacky torch for its killer-doll film franchise proudly, right down to the casting of Brad Dourif and Jennifer Tilly. This time, the obnoxiously homicidal doll finds himself in the home of a gay New Jersey teenager who feels rejected by his father. If you’re a fan of the original Child’s Play films by Don Mancini, you’ll love this series. Also created by Mancini, Chucky hits all of the same comedic and gross-out notes as the films, while creating some surprisingly elevated conversations about gender, sexuality, and teenage bullying.

How to watch: Chucky is now streaming on Peacock.

17. A Friend of the Family

Based on a horrifying true story, A Friend of the Family digs into the two 1970s kidnappings of Jan Broberg. At 12, she was drugged and taken by neighbor Robert Berchtold to Mexico. Eventually she was found by the FBI, but Berchtold’s psychological manipulation was hard to shake. Then, at 14, she disappeared again, this time seemingly joining Berchtold of her own accord. The story only becomes more shocking and twisted from there as you unravel how Berchtold snaked his way into the family and manipulated Jan’s parents, even after returning from Mexico. The performances here are all breathlessly engaging, with Jake Lacy in particular holding focus as the insidious family friend who never should have been trusted.

How to watch: A Friend of the Family is now streaming on Peacock.

18. Everybody Hates Chris 

Inspired by Chris Rock’s childhood, Everybody Hates Chris is a warm-hearted sitcom for the whole family. After his family moves to Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, the young Chris (played by Tyler James Williams of Abbott Elementary fame) has to learn to survive in his new school, all the while taking care of his younger siblings and helping out his parents where he can. This is a lighthearted portrait of the kind of family that does not often get the spotlight, one where the parents each have multiple jobs and the kids have to go to schools in distant neighborhoods to get an education. Because of this, Everybody Hates Chris is doing more work than your run-of-the-mill sitcom. On top of everyday family squabbles, it highlights serious social issues, and it does so with a smile and a laugh. It’s smart, thought-provoking, and playful — everything you want from a comedy.

How to watch: Everybody Hates Chris is now streaming on Peacock.

19. Vanderpump Rules

Vanderpump Rules is a standard low stakes/high drama Housewives spinoff that follows the life of restaurateur and former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills castmate Lisa Vanderpump.

But for a specific period in the summer of 2023, you couldn’t leave your house without hearing a wild new update to the Vanderpump Rules drama. It dominated the airwaves. The layers to the #scandoval run deep, but it all pretty much boils down to a brazen affair at the core of the show’s main cast. If you’re jonesing for some good gossip, you gotta go Vanderpump. 

How to watch: Vanderpump Rules is now streaming on Peacock.

20. Dr. Death

Based on the true crime podcast of the same name, Dr. Death is a disturbing anthology series focused on flagrant medical malpractice cases. You don’t want to watch, but you can’t look away.

Season 1 is the story of the people who worked tirelessly for years to bring Dr. Christopher Duntsch, an American neurosurgeon convicted of maiming and mutilating multiple patients, to justice. It’s got a stacked cast, with Joshua Jackson as Duntsch, Christian Slater as Dr. Randall Kirby, Alec Baldwin as Dr. Robert Henderson, and Grace Gummer as Duntsch’s former assistant Kim Morgan. The second season, which is set to premiere Dec. 21, is about the crimes of a Swiss-Italian surgeon who performed unethically experimental surgeries in the name of research, most of which resulted in fatalities. Édgar Ramírez and Mandy Moore co-star.

How to watch: Dr. Death is now streaming on Peacock.

21. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Andy Samberg is an immature NYPD detective who loves jokes and hates doing things by the book. Andre Braugher is his new captain — he’s serious, rules-oriented, and oozing gravitas. Their continual conflict, and those of the rest of the lovable precinct, make Brooklyn Nine-Nine an endlessly rewatchable comedy. It’s extremely clever, but it also throws a lot of weight in the silly hijinx department. Each member of the impressive cast (which includes Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Melissa Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, and more) could be considered “the most ridiculous and beloved character,” depending on the episode. 

Brooklyn Nine-Nine also gets extra credit for completely throwing out its existing scripts and rewriting its final season in light of global protests against racism and police brutality after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. The resulting eighth season seamlessly weaves the very real problem of police brutality into its arc, making space for victims and exploring disillusionment within the force without sacrificing an inch of comedy. It’s a masterclass in writing for the modern era. 

How to watch: Brooklyn Nine-Nine is now streaming on Peacock.

Asterisks (*) indicate the entry has been modified from a previous Mashable list.

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​ “The Office,” “We Are Lady Parts,” “Parks and Rec,” and “Dr. Death” are just a few of the awesome TV shows streaming on Peacock. 

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