I am sick of seeing the rich and powerful on my screen. Where are all the TV shows about normal people?

Skills issue.

Normal people are boring. I want to watch TV shows about wizards.

But not the kkk wizards. And if so, be Rick and Morty chopping them into little pieces like the trash they are.

Bob's burgers.

Bob's Burgers breathes class consciousness. There's an episode where the kids are forced to volunteer through school, and the rich landlord makes no secret that he's exploiting their free child labor to clean up his beach. The concept of collective bargaining is played with when the kids decide they don't want to do that work for free. That episode also includes the lesson that the rich will absolutely use you and screw you over to further their own desires.

The rich landlord is frequently shown dicking around as if the people around him are playthings. In another episode, his tenants decide to hold a rent strike. The landlord uses classic divide and conquer strategy to turn the other tenants against Bob, the leader of the strike, via a water balloon contest (it makes sense in context.)

That's not even touching the realistic struggles that Bob, Linda, and their family have to live with day-to-day. Despite characters sometimes being, well, completely wackadoo, it's probably the most relatable animated show I know of.
- Well put and I agree, for that same reason I really didn’t like the movie though. Its message is basically summed up as “you can commit murder but only if you’re rich enough.”
  
  The brothers should have drowned in that submarine is all I’m sayin

lmfao

"why doesn't my compliance drivel feature class consciousness"

Atlanta, Black Mirror, Severance, Silo, The Terror: Infamy, Slow Horses, The Bear, Black Bird, Baby Reindeer, Station Eleven, Russian Doll. Most of what I've seen recently that was produced in the last few years has been primarily about people who are not wealthy or privileged.

and all copaganda shows, and military propaganda

Fuck that shit, I want to watch sci fi

im currently watching the orville, its perfect to just forget everything and be entertained in on a silly level

can recommend
- I'm sooo hyped that it's coming back with another season! Just the show we need these days.
- Ooh that sounds perfect right now. Lost my pup recently and really need just some good distraction. I’ll check that out today, thank you! And with that username, I’m very excited by your suggestion :)

The biggest reason I dropped Succession during first season. I have no interest in watching some rich fucks and on top of that there is not one likable character in that show.

You missed the point of the show, they are all unlikable for a reason, and contrary to what you might think, none of them come out on top the way they wanted to. It's a great show that highlights their petty, callous, empty little lives
- I know they are unlikable for a reason. I just don't feel a need to watch a show about petty, callous empty little lives of rich idiots.

I read some article the other day, how they had noticed a heavy attempt, by Hollywood, to glamorise and humanise ultra rich, like Yellowstone. Is that so we just sit back and shut up and let the billionaires be. Fk that.

Detectorists

Northern Exposure

Abbott Elementary

All Creatures Great and Small

Black Books

Bored to Death

Bridget & Eamon

The Cafe

Cheers

The Cleaner

The IT Crowd

King of the Hill

Letterkenny

Peep Show

Shameless

Spaced

Tacoma FD

Taxi

Watch Andor, if you wanna see ordinary people fight the power

Such content already exists.

There's a Streisand Effect that occurs when writing about what you don't want instead of lifting up what you do want.

The cool irony of this thread complaining about it is that it’s promoting tons of great shows many of us would have not known.

Judge Judy, Hoarders, and Cops

I dunno if you’re being sarcastic here but wow, what a low opinion of normal people!
- I cast no judgment but these shows are where you can find regular people and not professional actors.

Shameless: "am I a fucking joke to you?"

Since the wealthy fund the shit, anything to do with the commoner is portrayed as trashy, just above literal refuse with regard to usefulness, while the wealthy are portrayed as the righteous and just, with money to fix all the problems they face and any moral failings related to them is the result of something outside their wealth.

Japan has an incredible wealth of entertainment in their TV shows. I highly reccomend KASSO! Its ninja warrior but with skating they have English guests and translations on their YT channel.

Usually non US shows and Movies are alot better imho. Another something you should not sleep on are UK TV shows. Like: The Responder a show about a first responder who is struggling with mental illness and the pressure of his work.

So broaden your horizon, The industry is not as bad as you think

Japan has an incredible wealth of entertainment

That is a wild way to write “a few very bright spots in a vast sea of absolute garbage”
- Am I honest opinion most things that come out of the United States are shit, so if you exclude the United States from your entertainment library you get left with some pretty good stuff. Just stop watching from sources that reliably produce bad content

New Taskmaster series just dropped with Jason Mantzoukas for us plebs.

Maximum Derek!
Game changer new season first 2 episodes just droped and its 1000% better than task master. Thats how a game show for us normal people looks like.
- Ooh that’s another good show! They’re both good in their own rights.
- "How long can you keep a cat on your lap?" 0.02s
Speaking of, Plebs was a great comedy series

Bob <3 (hearts) Abishola

Are we due for a new fat man, hot wife sitcom?

Roseanne reboot?
- Do you think Roseanne was a fat man hot wife sitcom?

What really resonated with me was watching shows like Roseanne.

The article then goes on to ignore The Connors which aired from October 2018 to April 2025.

Yes, if you ignore all of the shows about "normal people", you'll suddenly find no shows about "normal people".

The Connors went on that long? I'll have to check it out. I figured with Roseanne having gone off the deep end it wouldn't hold up much longer.
- Nope, they killed her off with fent, made suing the drug company a storyline, and then did like 5 more seasons.
Also Young Sheldon and the spin-off that’s still going on

I haven't seen it but I've heard good things about Adolescence?

I was gonna say that British TV has more realistic or normal people. However I haven't seen much of that recently. It's mainly Taskmaster and Black Mirror.

Why do you need a show about normal people?

You're surrounded by normal people

We want to see a show about normal people that just happen to be more interesting than the normal person you are.

Money doesn't make people more interesting, it usually makes them far less interesting.
- Yeah. Enough of celebrities going on and on about their introspections, how this experience will grow their personality. Show the guy that spend years building a model train track in his garage.
- The life stories of the people around you are likely more interesting than anything a Hollywood screenwriter can come up with
Married with Children was super fun and about normal people.
Exactly... Fuck that lifestyle.

Reattach to reality.

I am sick of "history" shows and movies that are completely inaccurate. There are so many unbelievable stories that fiction always takes a backseat for me if I were to choose between a history or sci-fi book for example. Shogun is extremely guilty of this, it had great production but the details were sickeningly incorrect, in Japan people were pissed because it's an opportunity to teach about culture and every Japanese knows the real story and details of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Americans have already been propagandizing and manipulating history in many ways since decades past, there is much change to be done.

I tried to watch Shogun, but couldn't really get into it. I was really hoping I'd like it. Instead I just be watching The Seven Samurai on repeat
To be fair, I don't know that Shogun ever purported to 100% totally accurate. It is a fictionalisation of events.
- Shogun was adapted from a book by the same name written by James Clavell who wrote a series of historical fiction books that took place in different times in history.
  
  The series stayed pretty faithful to the novel from what I remember, so the person your replying to’s complaint doesn’t really make much sense in that context.

I get it, but look at it this way, most of those shows do not show the rich and powerful in a flattering light E.g. Succession. So you could interpret it as Hollywood trying to shatter the glitz and glamor persona that the rich have always enjoyed.

Do yourself a favour and watch Son of a Critch..

Normal people can’t afford it like the rich can and shows about losers are depressing.

Here it is:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287254/

That was a joke due to the English name, but Brazil is actually pretty good at making shows and movies about normal, ordinary people.

Brazilian show.
All cast is white.

Check out.
- Depends on how you define white then, is it just skin color? Maybe you're right, but I know plenty of Brazilians that are indistinguishable from white people. We can't call them less Brazilian because they're fairer than the averagei guess real crime is choosing entire cast that is fairer than average and the show being promoted about average people.

There's so much low-hanging fruit regarding topics and themes TV could be written about, but those are all "mundane" and not glamorous. The Pitt might be the closest thing to seeing normal people in a prestige show (not sure if it's considered prestige but at least it's getting a lot of attention).

For example, you could write a great drama or comedy about people moving away from a big city to work remotely from home in a small town.

YouTube