Help! All My Shows Are Over!

For how horrible and scary the first few months of 2025 were in the real world, they were, inversely, an excellent time for television. From the first episode of The Traitors’s third season on January 9 right up until The Pitt’s first-season finale on April 10, every week has delivered appointment television, often released one episode at a time, that it seemed like everyone was yapping about. A throwback? Certainly. A recession indicator? Perhaps. But the programming slate buoyed us through the winter, and now, it feels like the options have dried up.

I’m told The Last of Us season two premiered last night, and that allegedly this is a Very Important Show for many viewers, but I find its fungal zombies repulsive, its dystopian vision woe-inducing, and the whole dreadful thing very much not the sort of culture I wish to engage with in Times Like These (or, to be honest, any other times). It’s just not my genre. Nor is it that of my friends, who have been asking me what on earth there is to watch now that all of our programs are done for the year. If you, too, are uninterested in the survival-horror game adaptation on everybody’s lips, I’ve compiled a guide for what to watch instead.

If you miss: The Pitt 

Watch: ER (Max)

This one seems obvious, like a too-easy swap. It’s so one-to-one, in fact, that Michael Crichton’s widow filed a lawsuit against The Pitt, calling it an unauthorized ER spinoff. The Pitt’s star and EP Noah Wyle said the lawsuit “taints the legacy” of ER, but I took it as a ringing endorsement of the foundational ’90s medical drama. You’re telling me this 30-year-old procedural that overstayed its welcome on NBC … is like my beloved Pitt? You’re telling me that after I have to say good-bye to my friends Dr. Robby and Nurse Dana and Mel and Santos and Huckleberry, there are hundreds of episodes of a different show with a comparably lovable ragtag team of medical professionals?! This is how I plan to pass my time in that long, drawn-out waiting room we call hiatus.

Or: Scrubs (Hulu)

Long before The Pitt, doctors used to call this the most realistic medical show on TV for how much it had to do with hospital underfunding and the dull ins-and-outs of treating unremarkable elderly patients. If those relentless, asinine Zach Braff–Donald Faison T-Mobile commercials haven’t given you burnout, Scrubs might be worth a rewatch?

If you miss: The White Lotus

Watch: The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip 4: RHONY Legacy (Peacock)

There’s no grand idea explored in the most recent season of The White Lotus that isn’t tackled more effectively in a great multi-episode vacation arc of The Real Housewives. What is a White Lotus resort, after all, if not a Scary Island? Ultimate Girls Trip assembles an all-star cast each season and ships them off for a weeklong stay in a luxury rental at an exotic destination (or the Berkshires). These condensed seasons allow you to dip a toe into the Bravoverse, and none is better to start with than the most recent, RHONY Legacy, which reunited one of the greatest television ensembles of all time for a shenanigan-filled trip to St. Barts. Seeing these friends, foes, and frenemies back together again —only older, less wise, and acting like the most versions of themselves — is a beautiful chaser to The White Lotus’s recent girls’-trip plotline. If that season didn’t earn Carrie Coon’s beautiful “time gives it meaning” monologue, the RHONY season most certainly does. The ladies even chase their own hunky island-local versions of Valentin!

Or: Enlightened (Max)

The more obvious choice is Mike White’s other HBO series, which, despite his recent success, remains critically underrated. This look at the intersection of white-woman privilege and New Age spirituality is a perfect follow-up to White Lotus’s third season, which saw White grappling with similar topics. Who do I want in my White Lotus season-four fantasy cast? Laura Dern as Amy Jellicoe.

If you miss: Severance

Watch: Better Off Ted (Prime Video)

This is another satire of corporate America set in the offices of a surrealist, evil conglomerate experimenting on its own employees, although this one is less arty mystery and more network comedy: It’s a great complement to the stress this season of Severance put us through. Jay Harrington and Portia de Rossi star as the head of R&D and his boss, respectively, at a shady corp called Veridian Dynamics.

Or: Dollhouse (VOD wherever you buy your media)

Another show in which Dichen Lachman plays a woman controlled by a mysterious syndicate that constantly resets her brain and personality, Dollhouse is a fascinating mess. Joss Whedon’s ill-fated sci-fi series spun off in all sorts of unexpected directions over the course of its two seasons, but it’s fun to see a concept similar to Severance’s explored in such an opposite tone and style.

If you miss: Love Is Blind 

Watch: Are You the One? (Paramount+)

Before Love Is Blind kicked off a wave of Netflix “social experiment” dating reality shows, Are You the One? set the trend. Ahead of its time, the gimmick introduced an algorithm that knew every contestant’s “perfect match.” Couples would hit it off with each other and pair up, like on any dating show where sexy young singles all live on a tropical island together, but the twist was that the “truth booth” would tell these couples if they were the “correct” match as identified by the algorithm or not. It’s so much more entertaining than I can explain.

Or: Naked Attraction (Max)

It’s one thing to not see each other because you’re talking through enclosed pods. It’s another to choose someone based off of their naked body, slowly revealed by a rising screen. Naked Attraction is one of the most fascinating exports from the U.K.’s Reality TV Industrial Complex.

If you miss: Yellowjackets

Watch: Hannibal (Pluto)

A lot of cannibalism, a lot of gore, a lot of gay shipping, and a lot of antlers. It’s hard to imagine a fan of Yellowjackets who wouldn’t also (or doesn’t already) love Bryan Fuller’s deliciously moody take on Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham, starring Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy. And if you have seen it already, it’ll be fun to rediscover.

Or: Santa Clarita Diet (Netflix)

Is it weird that Liv Hewson has carved out a niche for themselves starring in shows about cannibalism? Best not to think about it too hard. This drastically underrated suburban satire is one of the funniest things Netflix has ever produced; it gave the world Skyler Gisondo and has high jinks courtesy of Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant that play like a souped-up version of Shauna and Jeff at their absolute peak. Drew was so brave for this, tbh.

If you miss: The Traitors

Watch: Celebrity Big Brother (ITV w/ VPN)

It’s celebrities doing challenges and behaving badly in a contained space in the British Isles: What more could you ask for during Alan Cumming’s hiatus vacation? This U.K. reality TV situation runs episodes constantly, as in most weeknights, and a new season just began on April 7, featuring all sorts of memeable drama. The show is free to watch on ITV’s website; the only snag is you need a VPN to access it.

Or: Dancing With the Stars season 31 (Hulu)

If you enjoyed this season of The Traitors, odds are you became a fan of contestant Gabby Windey in the process. The fabulous femme-lesbian member of the Bambi Alliance made it to the end by playing sneaky-smart and staying underestimated, like a cunning castle-bound Elle Woods. Windey got her start on The Bachelor and then as co-star of The Bachelorette season 19, but did you know she was runner-up on DWTS in 2022? Is there anything this girl can’t do? Windey could have made it all the way, but she was beat out by someone who — I won’t spoil it — was probably already the world’s most famous dancer in the year 2022. Windey robbed!