Their rugged faces once dominated the frontier town of Laramie, but history had other plans once fame faded. Some rose to Hollywood glory, others chose quiet lives far from spotlights.

Television is often dismissed as mindless escapism—but some series manage to combine entertainment with intellectual bite. Unfortunately, not every brilliant show finds the audience it deserves. Some get lost in the streaming shuffle; others never escape the shadow of flashier hits. Here’s a guided tour through 25 of the smartest, most underappreciated shows you may have overlooked.

Every TV fan knows the pain: you start a new show, the premise sounds fun, the cast looks promising…but the first season leaves you wondering why you even pressed play. Luckily, some shows don’t just bounce back — they transform into the kind of series you’ll be yelling at your friends to binge immediately. These TV series all prove that sometimes you just need to stick around past Season 1 before the magic happens.

For most, Pat Priest remains the golden-haired niece of television’s most unusual family. But many are unaware that her story stretches further by tracing a life of ambition that would surprise her fans today.

Sometimes you don’t want upbeat. You don’t want “good vibes only”. You want the musical equivalent of sobbing into your pillow with mascara running down your face while imagining yourself as the tragic lead in an Oscar-winning drama. Luckily, music has been breaking hearts for decades, and some songs are so perfectly melancholy they practically come with their own box of tissues.

When cast members die, shows face a tough test. Do they honor the loss or cover it up? Too often, the results have been confusing exits that don’t do justice to all the work the actor put in.