If you find yourself craving your next batch of televisual cupcakes, here are 12 older and contemporary shows (sans “Sex and the City,” the grande dame of this category, because you’ve probably gorged on that by now) that should satisfy your TV sweet tooth.
'Bridgerton' (streaming on Netflix)
When “Bridgerton” breakout Regé-Jean Page hosted “Saturday Night Live,” his monologue gave way to one of the show’s most relatable bits in recent memory: a flustered Aidy Bryant and Ego Nwodim professing their love for the Shonda Rhimes-produced period drama. “Did you have a favorite part?” Page inquired. “Episode 5, two minutes in,” Nwodim said. “Episode 6, five minutes in,” Bryant offered. Women everywhere nodded along to references of the show’s most delectable sex scenes between Page’s character, the Duke of Hastings, and Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor). Their love story is the focus of “Bridgerton’s” first season, as narrated by Lady Whistledown, the anonymous author whose gossip columns scandalize 19th-century British high society. The show, based on novels by Julia Quinn, benefits from Shondaland flourishes including a colorblind cast, classical renditions of pop songs and runway-worthy fashion. It’s escapism at its most extravagant. — Bethonie Butler
‘Gossip Girl’ (streaming on HBO Max)
Sometimes, the allure of a television show is how little you need to think while watching it. The original “Gossip Girl” requires a certain suspension of disbelief, after which its six seasons of scheming, backstabbing and making up fly right by. Come for the petty drama between spoiled Upper East Side teenagers Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), stay for the over-the-top plotlines and compelling supporting characters such as the Waldorfs’ maid, Dorota (Zuzanna Szadkowski). — Sonia Rao
‘Insecure’ (streaming on HBO Max)
One of TV’s best comedic duos, Issa Rae and Yvonne Orji, supercharge this singular series about 30-ish besties navigating love and microaggressive workplaces. Few shows are funnier, and few friendships are thornier than Issa (Rae) and Molly’s (Orji) on-again, off-again codependency, the many problems of which gives it a quality that’s wonderfully lived-in or bruisingly real, depending on the episode. But if that’s all a little too heavy, there’s plenty of leavening elements, from the awkward sexual trysts and show-within-a-show parodies of Black television to its loving and utterly irreplaceable depictions of the Black neighborhoods in Los Angeles that keep finding new ways to thrive. — Inkoo Kang
‘Derry Girls’ (streaming on Netflix)
Before appearing in “Bridgerton,” actress Nicola Coughlan played a silly, slightly uptight friend among a group of high-schoolers in “Derry Girls,” a coming-of-age sitcom set in 1990s Northern Ireland. The fraught political backdrop to teenage shenanigans lends to a dark sense of humor, cleverly executed by creator Lisa McGee and the rest of the cast (Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Louisa Harland, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell and Dylan Llewellyn) as well. — S.R.
‘Jane the Virgin’ (streaming on Netflix)
With its telenovela twists and ship-worthy love triangles, “Jane the Virgin” is a delightful confection to savor across four seasons. But the series, created by Jennie Snyder Urman, has substance within those layers. What begins as a story about a virgin who finds herself pregnant following an accidental artificial insemination becomes a profound dramedy about three generations of Latinas: Jane (Gina Rodriguez), her mother Xiomara (Andrea Navedo) and her beloved abuela, Alba (Ivonne Coll). While the show had plenty of plotlines to follow — long-lost dads, evil villains in disguise, characters who seemingly come back from the dead — its heart is the enduring bond the Villanueva women share amid life’s unpredictable curveballs (and pregnancies). The man Jane ends up with at the end, a detail that’s in flux for most of the show’s run, is just icing on the cake. — B.B.
‘Starstruck’ (streaming on HBO Max)
Premises don’t get girlier than the one for this British import: Girl meets boy, girl sleeps with boy, girl realizes the next morning that boy is a movie star and he’s actually really into her. Creator-star Rose Matafeo’s charisma, comic chops and fresh perspective lend a naturalistic ease to the series’ high concept, and co-star Nikesh Patel is utterly believable as both an A-lister and a frustrated everydude who knows that what he needs in his life isn’t more razzle dazzle. The ‘90s got Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, but the downwardly mobile millennial version of the same story, which asks if the gig-economy London life is for everyone, isn’t any less romantic for its economic realism. — I.K.
‘Never Have I Ever’ (streaming on Netflix)
On paper, “Never Have I Ever” is a classic teen series about the romantic struggles of high-schooler Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). But in execution, it winds up being so much more. The heart of the show isn’t in the love triangle (filled out by Darren Barnet and Jaren Lewison) but in Devi’s relationship with her mother, Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan), and how the two navigate life after the death of Devi’s father. The series was co-created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, a writer on “The Mindy Project.” — S.R.
‘Run the World’ (streaming on Starz)
This Starz series follows four 30-something Black women whose friendship anchors them as they navigate life, love and careers in New York City. Starring Amber Stevens West, Andrea Bordeaux, Corbin Reid and a scene-stealing Bresha Webb, “Run the World” is relatable and aspirational at once. Creator Leigh Davenport told Essence she spent more than a decade working on the concept for the project, which she hoped would portray Black women in a way she hadn’t seen on TV since “Living Single.” Serendipitously, the creator of that iconic ’90s show — Yvette Lee Bowser — happens to be the showrunner on “Run the Girls.” The first episode features a reference to “Sex and the City, but we’d be selling this hilarious and fun series short if we only focused on what it has in common with other shows about women. — B.B.
‘Ugly Betty’ (streaming on Hulu)
Who hasn’t felt like a troll among the glamazons of the world? (And if you never have, go stand away from me.) Debuting the same year as “The Devil Wears Prada,” this beloved ABC adaptation of a Colombian telenovela made America Ferrera, who played the title character, a household name and reintroduced Vanessa Williams, who played an editrix who’s more dominatrix, to a new generation by channeling our basest insecurities around the professionally beautiful. Chock full of eye-popping outfits, still-great one-liners and go-for-broke performances, few shows captured our love-hate relationship with the style industries like “Ugly Betty.” — I.K.
‘We Are Lady Parts’ (streaming on Peacock)
Jane Austen meets riot grrrl in “We Are Lady Parts,” about a shy, rules-obsessed, marriage-minded grad student (Anjana Vasan) who joins an all-women, all-Muslim punk band. To no one’s surprise but her own, it’s exactly what she needed — though, at first, her musical passion hardly tempers her search for a husband (or the unacknowledged horniness fueling that pursuit). Set among London’s multiethnic, multicultural Muslim communities, it’s a series that earns its representational triumphs by offering up its girly bona fides — fashion, female friendship, personal fulfillment — through a point of view all its own. — I.K.
‘Tuca and Bertie’ (streaming on Netflix and Adult Swim)
Though Netflix canceled “Tuca and Bertie” after a single season, Adult Swim resurrected it for a second one this summer — and thank goodness for that. The series presents a nuanced look at the best friendship between a seemingly carefree toucan (voiced by Tiffany Haddish) and an anxious songbird (Ali Wong), filtered through “BoJack Horseman” alum Lisa Hanawalt’s surreal animated style. It’s like “Broad City,” with Bird Town subbed for New York. — S.R.
‘Gilmore Girls’ (streaming on Netflix)
Few shows have resonated like Amy Sherman-Palladino’s beloved drama about Rory (Alexis Bledel) and Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham). Set in the cozy and fictional Stars Hollow, Conn., the series was a coming-of-age tale for both mother and daughter since Lorelai had Rory when she was just a teenager. Their quick-witted banter, fueled by lots and lots of coffee, made the series stand out amid other teen-focused shows that tend to portray parents as antagonistic or clueless. Booksmart Rory also made for an exciting (and relatable) protagonist, who struggled as much over which Ivy to attend as she did in choosing a boyfriend. Feel free to skip the revival, though. — B.B.
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