My Essential TV Shows

The life, friendships and romances of the protagonist Charles Ryder-including his friendship with the Flytes, a family of wealthy English Catholics who live in a palatial mansion called Brideshead Castle.

The sweeping drama about the ruling and ruled classes of WWII India, trying amidst the turmoil to come to terms with the drastic changes taking place around them, knowing that their lives will never be the same again.

The lives and fortunes of the Bellamy family and their below-stairs servant staff at 165 Eaton Place play out against the social, political and historical backdrop of Edwardian London from 1903 to 1930.

Spanning decades, the saga contrasts obsessive Soames, clinging to wife Irene, and Jolyon, leaving for his kids' governess. Their diverging paths intertwine, bringing highs and lows to the upper-class Forsyte clan.

Two friends, one northern and one southern, struggle to maintain their friendship as events build towards the American Civil War.

In the arid 1920s Australian Outback, a Catholic priest and the beautiful niece of a vast sheep station owner stand powerless before God's will, tormented by desire. How far are they willing to go in the name of love?

A dramatization of author Alex Haley's family line from ancestor Kunta Kinte's enslavement to his descendants' liberation.

Epic series reveals the scandalous life of a young king whose affairs and obsession with producing a male heir changed marriage, the church, and the world.

The lives of both illustrious and ordinary Romans in the last days of the Roman Republic.

Set against a backdrop of war, religious strife and power struggles which tears lives and families apart.

The English town of Kingsbridge works to survive as the King leads the nation into the Hundred Years' War with France while Europe deals with the outbreak of the Black Death.

When King Uther dies and Britain faces chaos, Merlin presents an unknown named Arthur as the new king by birthright, as the late king's son, against the ambitious desires of his half-sister, Morgan.

Three different, yet equally relentless women vie for the throne in 15th-century England.

A young actress, thought to be easy and without morals, gathers three former schoolmates to find out who her mother is.

In France during World War II, René Artois runs a small café where Resistance fighters, Gestapo men, German Army officers and escaped Allied POWs interact daily, ignorant of one another's true identity or presence, exasperating René.

Three middle-aged best friends from Los Angeles are flying to Paris when their plane makes an emergency landing in Cleveland. Realizing that all the norms from Los Angeles don't apply anymore, they decide to celebrate a city that values real women and stay where they're still considered hot.

Four previously married women live together in Miami, sharing their various experiences together and enjoying themselves despite hard times.

The soap-operish antics of two families: the Campbells and the Tates.

The Right Honorable James Hacker has landed the plum job of Cabinet Minister to the Department of Administration. At last he is in a position of power and can carry out some long-needed reforms, or so he thinks.

The apparently-perfect lives of upper-class mothers of students at a prestigious elementary school unravel to the point of murder when a single mother moves to their quaint California beach town.

Nine noble families fight for control over the lands of Westeros, while an ancient enemy returns after being dormant for millennia.

Using a crack team of doctors and his wits, an antisocial maverick doctor specializing in diagnostic medicine does whatever it takes to solve puzzling cases that come his way.

The survivors of a plane crash are forced to work together in order to survive on a seemingly deserted tropical island.

When death is your business, what is your life? Laced with irony and dark situational humor, the show approaches the subject of death through the eyes of the Fisher family, who owns and operates a funeral home in Los Angeles.

Set 97 years after a nuclear war destroyed civilization, when a spaceship housing humanity's lone survivors sends 100 juvenile delinquents back to Earth, hoping to repopulate the planet.