13 Best TV Shows About TV Shows, Ranked

This Matt LeBlanc comedy erased all memories of Joey and reminded us why we liked the Friends star in the first place. Co-created by Friends co-creator David Crane, Episodes starred LeBlanc as a fictionalized version of himself as he tries to wedge himself into a U.S. remake of a U.K. TV show. (And as this show illustrates, American TV producers often adapt foreign formats beyond recognizability.)

Aaron Sorkin went from The Social Network to a riff on Network with this drama, starring Jeff Daniels as a news anchor whose gravitas gives way to impetuousness on- and off-camera meltdowns. The Newsroom isn’t always enjoyable or aspirational, but it does seem like an accurate depiction of cable news and its 24-hour-news cycle.

LeBlanc wasn’t the only Friends star to return to TV in a comedy about TV. For two seasons — spaced nearly a decade apart — Lisa Kudrow played a former sitcom star trying to reclaim the spotlight as a reality TV show chronicles her ups and downs. And those camera crews capture humiliating moments Kudrow’s Valerie would prefer left on the cutting room floor.

In the wake of Matt Lauer’s Today firing came this drama, initially featuring Steve Carell as a morning-show anchor felled by a similar #MeToo scandal. More recently, though, the show has focused on Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon’s characters, two other anchors grappling for their due respect in a sexist, amoral, rarely-sunshiny business.

Though it lost momentum in its first and only season, Sorkin’s West Wing follow-up had everything going for it: an enviable cast, led by Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, and a still-rising Sarah Paulson; an expansive set, depicting the soundstage of the titular sketch-comedy show; and one of the best pilot episodes we’ve ever seen. But it debuted alongside 30 Rock, and only the latter became a classic.

No disrespect to Meryl Streep and Julie & Julia, but we consider this series a more comprehensive biopic about TV chef Julia Child and her time hosting the public-television cooking show The French Chef. With a winning performance by Sarah Lancashire, Julia shows how much of a groundbreaker and go-getter Child really was.

Emmy Awards viewers might have tired of hearing Candice Bergen’s name — she got seven nominations and five wins for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for playing the title TV anchor of this show. As the action picks up, Murphy leaves rehab and returns to her post anchoring the fictional newsmagazine FYI, where she uses her sharp wit against anyone who stands in her way.

After breaking the fourth wall with It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, star Garry Shandling starred in another TV series about a TV series, playing the host of a fictional late-night talk show — and getting real-life celebrities to parody themselves. Some of the 1990s-era punchlines are cringey in retrospect, but the show’s influence on future TV comedies is crystal clear.

Often cited as the best Marvel TV show yet, WandaVision has its two Avengers offshoots — Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) — hurtling through a history of TV sitcoms. As much a winking ode to television as a fantastical (and emotional) superhero story, WandaVision is indeed a Marvel.

Though some of its bits never should have aired (and have been pulled from circulation), Tina Fey’s zany comedy about a fictional sketch-comedy show called TGS (f.k.a. The Girlie Show) was a gut-busting satire from a veteran of Saturday Night Live’s front lines. And we imagine it wasn’t too much of an exaggeration of real-life SNL antics.

An Emmy favorite starring Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, Hacks spotlights a Las Vegas comedian and the joke writer she can’t stand but also can’t live without. The comedy’s fourth season hones in on the TV biz as — spoiler alert — Smart’s Deborah Vance finally gets her own late-night talk show, only to realize it’s not the dream job she expected.

The Dick Van Dyke Show starred its title star as Rob Petrie, a comedy writer on the fictional variety-show-within-a-comedy-show The Alan Brady Show, with Brady played by Dick Van Dyke Showcreator and variety-show alum Carl Reiner. Got it? Thanks to talented stars of that caliber — with that kind of experience — The Dick Van Dyke Show was bound to be the classic it became.

A few years after she finished her long-running job on Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore got a self-named show of her own. This time, she’s not a sitcom wife but the star attraction, a single woman working for a news broadcast at Minneapolis’s fictional WJM TV station. The show was popular — three of its supporting characters got their own spinoffs — but better yet, it was political, with feminism enmeshed with the farce.