No Cable Needed: 69 Great TV Series You Need to Watch

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I am a “TV-aholic.” I got through my Undergraduate Degree, Grad School, my first deployment (and the insomnia), and the writing of my ebook, all with the background noise of some amazing TV series! I was able to afford all of these big ticket items by living frugally which meant no cable.

The hardest part was feeding those addictions with new TV series. I am always tempted to binge watch so I am always looking for new TV series and I am sure I am not the only one! Since my latest has been scoring international series (and I have found some amazing ones), I have put together a list of all the series I love and have watched over the years.

I hope it helps you find some good ones that you will want to watch over and over. All of the shows below can be found on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime.

69 Great TV Series You Need to Watch

1. Criminal Minds Find it on: Amazon or Netflix

The series follows a talented group of FBI profilers who set about catching various criminals through behavioral profiling. The plot focuses on the team working cases and the personal lives of the characters, depicting the hardened life and statutory requirements of a profiler.

2. Numb3rs: Find it on: Prime, Netflix, and Hulu

This series follow two brothers: one in the FBI and one who is a mathematics professor and their efforts to fight crime.

3. Life: Find it on: Hulu

“Life” focuses on a detective who is given a second chance and returns to the force after serving time in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

4. Cracked: Find it on: Amazon and Hulu

Follows teams of cops and psychiatric professionals who make up the Psych Crimes and Crisis unit.

5. Mistress: Find it on Hulu

A drama about the scandalous lives of a group of four friends – each on her own path to self-discovery as they brave the turbulent journey together.

6. Rookie Blue: Find it on Hulu

The stakes are high for five young cops fresh out of the Academy and ready for their first day.

7. The Astronaut Wives Club: Find it on Hulu

Follow seven women through The Space Program.

8. MI-5:  Find it on Hulu

The missions of MI-5, the UK’s domestic intelligence organization.

9. Private Practice” Find it on Netflix and Hulu

A spin-off of the medical drama, Grey’s Anatomy centering on the life of neonatal surgeon, Addison Montgomery.

10. Murdoch Mysteries: Find it on Netflix

Set in the 1890s, William Murdoch uses radical forensic techniques for the time, including fingerprinting and trace evidence, to solve some of the city’s most gruesome murders.

11. Grimm: Find it on: Amazon and Hulu

A homicide detective discovers he is a descendant of hunters who fight supernatural forces.

12. CSI: Find it on Hulu

An elite team of police forensic evidence investigation experts work their cases in Las Vegas.

13. CSI Miami: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

An elite team of police forensic evidence investigation experts work their cases in Las Vegas.

14. CSI Cyber: Find it on Hulu

Special agent Avery Ryan works to solve crimes as a CyberPsychologist for the FBI.

15. Monroe: Find it on Hulu

Medical drama series about brilliant neurosurgeon Gabriel Monroe.

16. Devious Maids:  Find it on Hulu

Four Latina maids with ambition and dreams of their own work for the rich and famous in Beverly Hills.

17. Chicago PD: Find it on Hulu

Follows District 21 of the Chicago Police Department, which is made up of two distinctly different groups: the uniformed cops and the Intelligence Unit.

18. Black List: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Keen, a new FBI profiler has her entire life uprooted when a mysterious criminal, Raymond Reddington, on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List turns himself in and insists on speaking to her.

19. Chicago Fire: Find it on Hulu

The story of firefighters in Chicago, both on a personal and professional level.

20. Body of Proof: Find it on Hulu

Medical examiner Megan Hunt’s unique approach to solving crimes puts her at odds with her superiors.

21. Forever: Find it on Hulu

A 200-year-old man works in the New York City Morgue trying to find a key to unlock the curse of his immortality.

22. Bones: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

A forensic anthropologist and a cocky FBI agent build a team to investigate death causes. And quite often, there isn’t more to examine than rotten flesh or mere bones.

23. Castle: Find it on Hulu

After a serial killer imitates the plots of his novels, successful mystery novelist Richard “Rick” Castle receives permission from the Mayor of New York City to tag along with an NYPD homicide investigation team for research purposes.

24. State of Affairs: Find it on Hulu

A CIA officer plucked from the field to become the president’s daily briefer, assuming responsibility for targeting America’s most critical threats while navigating the unique lifestyle that comes with such a high-powered job.

25. Night Shift: Find it on Hulu

A group of Army doctors return to work on the night shift at a hospital in San Antonio.

26. Grey’s Anatomy: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

A drama centered on the personal and professional lives of five surgical interns and their supervisors. If you start watching now it is possible you can catch up and watch the premiere near the end of September. Clicking just one more episode is quite easy when watching Grey’s.

27. The Mysteries of Laura: Find it on Hulu

A single mom NYPD homicide detective cracks case after case while raising wild twin boys and locking horns with her less than helpful police detective ex-husband.

28. Law and Order Special Victims Unit: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

This show introduces the Special Victims Unit, a new elite squad of NYPD detectives who investigate sexually related crimes.

29. How I Met Your Mother: Find it on Prime and Netflix

A father recounts to his children, through a series of flashbacks, the journey he and his four best friends took leading up to him meeting their mother.

30. McLeod’s Daughters: Find it on Hulu

31. Hart of Dixie: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

New Yorker and new doctor Zoe Hart accepts an offer from a stranger, Dr. Harley Wilkes, to work in his medical practice in Bluebell, Alabama. She arrives to find he has died and left half the practice to her in his will.

32. Flash Point: Find it on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu

33. South Park: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

34. Alias: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

35. Ghost Whisper: Find it on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu

A newlywed with the ability to communicate with the earthbound spirits of the recently deceased overcomes skepticism and doubt to help send their important messages to the living and allow the dead to pass on to the other side.

36. Downton Abby: Find it on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu

A chronicle of the lives of the Crawley family and their servants, beginning in the years leading up to World War I.

37. Call of the Midwife: Find it on Netflix

Chronicles the lives of a group of midwives living in East London in the late 1950s to early 1960s.

38. Longmire: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

Walt Longmire is the dedicated and unflappable sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming. Widowed only a year, he is a man in psychic repair but buries his pain behind his brave face, unassuming grin and dry wit.

39. NCIS: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

The cases of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service’s Washington DC Major Case Response Team, led by Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

40. NCIS Los Angeles: Find it on Hulu

The Naval Criminal Investigation Service’s Office of Special Projects takes on the undercover work and the hard to crack cases in LA. Key agents are G. Callen and Sam Hanna, streets kids risen through the ranks.

41. NCIS New Orleans: Find it on Hulu

A spin-off of “NCIS” that is set in the Crescent City. The cases and lives of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service’s New Orleans branch, which consists of Senior Special Agent Dwayne Cassius “King” Pride, Special Agent Christopher LaSalle, and Special Agent Meredith Brody.

42. Blue Bloods: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

Revolves around a family of New York cops and prosecutor.

43. White Collar: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

A white collar criminal agrees to help the FBI catch other white collar criminals using his expertise as an art and securities thief, counterfeiter, and conman.

44. When Calls the Heart: Find it on Netflix

Elizabeth Thatcher, a young school teacher from a wealthy Eastern family, migrates from the big city to teach school in a small coal mining town in the west.

45. Graceland: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

46. M.A.S.H.: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

The staff of an army hospital in the Korean war find that laughter is the best way to deal with their situation.

47. JAG: Find it on Amazon

The cases of Harmon Rabb, former Navy fighter pilot, and his fellow lawyers of the US Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s office.

48. Leverage: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

A crew of high-tech crooks attempt to steal from wealthy criminals and corrupt businessmen.

49. Suits: Find it on Hulu

On the run from a drug deal gone bad, Mike Ross, a brilliant college-dropout, finds himself a job working with Harvey Specter, one of New York City’s best lawyers.

50. Dollhouse: Find it on Amazon and Netflix

A futuristic laboratory assigns different tasks to its various residents, who then have their memories erased upon the completion of their assignments.

51. The Unit: Find it on Amazon

Military show which looks at the life of American super-secret operators.

52. The Glades: Find it on Amazon and Netflix

A former Chicago cop moves to a small Florida town and joins the state police.

53. WareHouse 13: Find it on Amazon and Netflix

After saving the life of the President in Washington D.C., a pair of U.S Secret Service agents are whisked away to a covert location in South Dakota that houses supernatural objects that the Regents, an Authority above and outside any government, have collected over the centuries. Their new assignment: retrieve any lost objects and investigate reports of new ones.

54. The Goodwife: Find it on Amazon and Hulu

Alicia has been a good wife to her husband, a former state’s attorney. After a very humiliating sex and corruption scandal, he is behind bars. She must now provide for her family and returns to work as a litigator in a law firm.

55. The Guardian: Find it on Amazon and Hulu

Nick Fallin is a hotshot lawyer working at his father’s ultra-successful Pittsburgh law firm. Unfortunately, the high life has gotten the best of Nick. Arrested for drug use, he’s sentenced to do 1,500 hours of community service, somehow to be squeezed into his 24/7 cutthroat world of mergers, acquisitions and board meetings. Reluctantly, he’s now The Guardian – a part-time child advocate at Legal Aid Services, where one case after another is an eye-opening instance of kids caught up in difficult circumstances.

56. Lie To Me: Find it on Amazon and Netflix

About Cal Lightman, the world’s leading deception expert who studies facial expressions and involuntary body language to expose the truth behind the lies.

57. 24: Find it on Amazon

Jack Bauer, Director of Field Ops for the Counter-Terrorist Unit of Los Angeles, races against the clock to subvert terrorist plots and save his nation from ultimate disaster.

58. NYPD Blue: Find it on Amazon

NYPD Detectives of Manhattan’s fictional 15th precinct investigate criminal cases.

59. Royal Pains: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

An unfairly discredited but brilliant diagnostic surgeon winds up working with his cheesy brother in the Hamptons as a concierge doctor to the uber-rich and ultra-elite.

60. Xena: Warrior Princess: Netflix and Hulu

Xena, a mighty Warrior Princess with a dark past, sets out to redeem herself. She is joined by small town bard, Gabrielle. Together they journey the ancient world and fight for the greater good against ruthless Warlords and Gods.

61. Stargate Atlantis: Find it on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu

An international team of scientists and military personnel discover a Stargate network in the Pegasus Galaxy and come face-to-face with a new, powerful enemy, The Wraith.

62. Stargate: Find it on Amazon and Hulu

A secret military team, SG-1, is formed to explore the recently discovered Stargates.

63. The Mentalist: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

A famous “psychic” outs himself as a fake and starts working as a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation so he can find “Red John,” the madman who killed his wife and daughter.

64. Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior: Find it on Netflix

65. House: Find it on Netflix

An antisocial maverick doctor who specializes in diagnostic medicine does whatever it takes to solve puzzling cases that come his way using his crack team of doctors and his wits.

66. Gilmore Girls: Find it on Netflix

A drama centering around the relationship between a thirty-something single mother and her teen daughter living in Stars Hollow, Connecticut.

67. Band of Brothers: Find it on Amazon

The story of Easy Company of the US Army 101st Airborne division and their mission in WWII Europe from Operation Overlord through V-J Day. This HBO series is an absolute must.

68. Scrubs: Find it on Netflix and Hulu

In the unreal world of Sacred Heart Hospital, intern John “J.D” Dorian learns the ways of medicine, friendship and life.

69. Desperate Housewives:  Find it on Hulu

What is your favorite TV show? Did I miss any?