The 5 best shows you missed in 2024

With so many streaming services on the market, trying to keep up with all the new stuff worth watching is a pretty herculean task.

Most of us are juggling at least a handful of streaming subscriptions to the likes of Netflix or Prime Video (or any of the others), meaning we're all staring down massive libraries of shows and movies that we've all got to find the time to watch; even the most committed viewer is bound to miss one or two of the many must-watches that hit screens.

With that in mind, I've picked out a handful of shows that I feel didn't quite get the love they deserved when they aired in 2024; here's what they are, and where you can stream them.

'Trying' season 4 — Apple TV Plus

To be quite honest, you could substitute this entry for most Apple TV Plus releases barring, say, "Slow Horses" or "Silo". Apple's streamer is home to an extraordinary range of TV shows, many of which fail to get nearly as much attention as they rightly should. As a long-time "Trying" fan, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sing its praises once more. The wonderfully warm-hearted British sitcom returned for a long-awaited fourth season which saw the series pushing several years into the future. Nikki (Esther Smith) and Jason (Rafe Spall) are still up there with TV's greatest couples, the tone's still a deft balance of levity, wit, and the poignant, hard challenges from everyday life, and that very specific sense of authenticity is there in spades. Oh, and it's still absolutely hilarious. Get it watched.

Watch on Apple TV Plus

'Ripley' — Netflix

It's a crying shame that "Ripley" didn't find nearly as large an audience as it should have. Going by Netflix's data, the show peaked at #6 in the Global Top 10 in its second week on the service (April 8-14), before slipping out of the charts altogether. It was the latest release from Steven Zaillian and reinterpreted Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley" by stretching it out into an incredibly stylish eight-part noir slow-burn series. Slow though it may be, this is TV worth investing in, anchored by Scott's fantastic, complex central turn; he's calculated, yet magnetic in action. Patience-testing though it may sound, "Ripley" is enveloping, and it's hard not to be drawn in this aged-up grifter's web of lies.

Watch it on Netflix

'My Lady Jane' — Prime Video

I apologize in advance to everyone who's heard me shouting my mouth off about "My Lady Jane" already at some point this year, but I was majorly disappointed when Prime Video decided to drop the axe on this oddball, ahistorical fantasy series after just one season. after it "didn't find a broad enough audience (per Deadline). If you missed the show first time around, Gemma Burgess' take on the Lady Jane YA novels took Lady Jane Grey (famous for being the "Nine Days Queen" for her very short reign) and reimagined her life, putting he would-be ruler at the center of a plot for the crown, a steamy romance, swashbuckling adventure, and a fantastical rivalry between "Verities (regular humans) and Ethians (humans who can shapeshift into animals). Throw in a lot of irreverent, painfully British humor, steamy scenes, and tons of swearing, and you have a fun, eight-episode romp that's still worth checking out.

Watch on Prime Video

'Interior Chinatown' - Hulu

Do you like police procedurals? Satire? Action comedies? Weird, creative metafictional watches? Good news: "Interior Chinatown" is all of the above. This Hulu original sees Charles Yu turning his 2020 novel of the same name into a 10-part meta tale about Willis Wu (a very entertaining Jimmy O. Yang). Wu's a background character in the cop show called "Black and White" who spends his days dreaming of getting a shot at being in the spotlight. That time comes when Wu witnesses a crime while at work in Chinatown. He's subsequently recruited to assist another "B&W" detective in the ensuing investigation, and from there, it becomes a shifting satirical drama, one where Wu starts discovering more and more secrets about his family, and the world around him.

Watch it on Hulu

'The Day of the Jackal' — Peacock

Amid the glut of (great!) spy thrillers that hit our screens in 2024's final months, I wouldn't be surprised if you missed out on at least one of them. Apple TV Plus brought us more "Slow Horses" fun, Netflix had "Black Doves", Paramount Plus gained "The Agency," and Peacock premiered "The Day of the Jackal," which I think might be the best of the bunch. This lethal cat-and-mouse drama reimagines Frederick Forsyth's classic spy thriller, bringing it into the here and now for a deadly game revolving around a mysterious hitman-for-hire known only as "The Jackal" (Eddie Redmayne), and Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch), the MI6 agent out to catch him, by any means necessary. It's globetrotting, characterful, and genuinely thrilling, and brought everything together for a killer evening right at the end of the year.

Watch it on Peacock

More from Tom's Guide

• We're in the golden age of spy thriller shows — stream these five
• 7 best Prime Video movies to stream before they leave this month
• 7 best Netflix shows of 2024 with 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes