21 Great TV Shows You Can’t Stream

Leslie Nielsen, Alan North, and William Duell—need we say more? This Emmy-nominated comedy gave some humor (and sight gags) to detectives solving cases, and sure, it was canceled after six episodes, but it led to The Naked Gun films.

This sitcom, based on the Martin Scorsese film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, starred Linda Lavin as the titular widow-turned-waitress. It ran for nine seasons and reached No. 4 in ratings, but we’re still waiting for our (streaming) order at this TV diner.

When it comes to streaming libraries, this high school drama created by David E. Kelley is stuck in detention, despite a Peabody Award-winning storyline and an all-star cast featuring Loretta Devine, Chi McBride, and Jeri Ryan.

This four-season comedy, starring Gary Sandy, Gordon Jump, Loni Anderson, Richard Sanders, Tim Reid, and others, was nominated for multiple Emmys during its run in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Unfortunately, no one can revisit the laughs of the characters at the radio station.

“I see you ER, but when are we getting Chicago Hope streaming?!” one fan tweeted in 2018, referring to this CBS medical drama starring Mandy Patinkin, Héctor Elizondo, and Christine Lahti.

It’s been more than three decades since viewers left China Beach, a medical drama starring Dana Delany as a nurse working at an evacuation hospital during the Vietnam. The show won a Golden Globe, and Delany landed two Emmys, but when it comes to this show’s availability, streaming services are leaving us stranded.

Streaming platforms just aren’t Smart enough these days. Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, this action-adventure show served as a send-up of James Bond movies, with Don Adams playing an incompetent secret agent and Barbara Feldon playing his better-equipped partner.

You’d think that any series popular enough to win a People’s Choice Award — as this show did in 1992 — would be made available for streaming. With Kyle Chandler, Kelly Rutherford, and John Slattery in its cast, the two-season series follows the residents of the fictional River Run, Ohio, as they recover from World War II.

Adweek calls this NBC procedural — the first show to feature Richard Belzer’s Law & Order: SVU character, John Munch — a “capital-G Great TV Series” that’s “perfect for streaming.”

During Everwood’s run, TV producer Greg Berlanti expanded his TV empire with this ambitious drama, which told the story of two Missouri teen brothers (played by Matt Long and Logan Lerman), one of whom would grow up to become the U.S. president. Documentary-style flash-forwards helped connect the boys’ upbringing to that momentous future.

This primetime soap, which just celebrated a milestone anniversary, had viewers visiting the Seaview Circle for 14 seasons, with Michele Lee, Joan Van Ark, William Devane, and other actors holding court over the cul-de-sac. But can you find it streaming these days? Knot a chance.

Combine a family drama, an amazing cast, and complicated relationships, and you get the perfect binge. Unfortunately, this show about a single mother and a single father’s romance and the impact on their families is nowhere to be found. It starred some very familiar faces, too: Sela Ward (who won an Emmy), Billy Campbell, Susanna Thompson, Jeffrey Nordling, Shane West, Evan Rachel Wood, Marin Hinkle, and Steven Weber.

The X-Files is streaming, but not Chris Carter’s follow-up series starring Lance Henriksen as an ex-FBI vet assisting the shadowy Millennium Group through is ability to peer into criminals’ minds. For now, fans can only get their fix with the X-Files Season 7 episode “Millennium,” a crossover installment continues the story of Frank Black.

This sitcom, created by and starring Drew Carey as a fictionalized version of himself, may have run nine seasons (from 1995 to 2004) but unfortunately, they’re nowhere to be found. It’s especially a shame considering the rest of the cast: Diedrich Bader, Christa Miller, Craig Ferguson, Ryan Stiles, John Carroll Lynch, and Cynthia Watros.

News flash: Neither the original 10-season run of this sitcom nor its one-season revival is current streaming. The show won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series twice, and lead Candice Bergen won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series five times for her performance as the namesake FYI anchor.

Speaking of Emmy faves, Julia Louis-Dreyfus won the first of her record seven Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series trophies by playing Christine Campbell, a gym owner trying to move on after her ex-husband moves on with a younger Christine, in this sitcom.

This late 1970s docuseries, from science historian James Burke, focused on the history of science and inventions and how certain discoveries have changed the world forever. The original series led to sequels, including Connections with James Burke in 2023 on Curiosity Stream.

Long before Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy were up Schitt’s Creek, so to speak, they were costars on this Canadian sketch series, alongside Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, and other comedy MVPs. But good luck finding those yuks on the streaming platforms.

Sela Ward won her first Emmy for playing one of this family drama’s four sisters. Actually — plot twist — make that five sisters. The Illinois-set series also starred Swoosie Kurtz, Patricia Kalmeber, Julianne Phillips, Sheila Kelley, and Elizabeth Hoffman.

We can’t get a second helping of this series, which — like the 1997 film of the same name — chronicled the lives of a fictional Black family in Chicago. The show won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Drama Series for each of its five seasons and ranked as the longest-running Black TV drama when it ended.

One can only hope we won’t have to wait another thirty-something years to revisit this Emmy-winning series about Baby Boomers navigating family life in Philadelphia. Like L.A. Law, thirtysomething was also due to get a sequel series a few years back, but thirtysomething(else) never made it to TV.