10 Most Underappreciated TV Shows Of The Decade (So Far)

An ode to the heavy hitters that never quite became mega-hits.

Orphan Black
BBC America

We're currently in the midst of a television ‘Golden Age’, a culture that’s filled to the brim with vast quantities of exciting and varied shows, and almost as many outlets on which we can watch them.

The likes of The Sopranos and The Wire were the instigators of this TV revolution, while Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones proved that TV franchises could be both critically lauded, financially lucrative, and just as popular (if not more so) than their cinematic counterparts.

The budgets have never been higher, the production values have never been greater, and even some Hollywood’s brightest stars are migrating over to the small screen.

But as the sheer volume of TV content expands and spreads between broadcast networks, cable, and streaming services, the time in which we can digest it all is shrinking. As a result a lot of great shows go unseen, or at least underappreciated by larger audiences. They might still be critically well-received (therefore technically highly rated), but perhaps they don’t latch on to the same sizable audience that The Walking Dead or Stranger Things did with ease.

These are some of the forgotten or comparably unsung gems of the last seven-ish years – shows that excelled at what they did, but didn’t receive nearly enough love.

10. Trapped

Orphan Black
RVK Studios

Often the most criminally underappreciated television is put out by non-American, or even non-English speaking teams. Although Scandinavian noir thrillers and French dramas are now more readily available than ever outside their own countries, they still only attract a fraction of the viewership earned by similar (and often inferior) American shows.

Trapped is one such series, a white-knuckle crime drama wherein the elements play just as crucial a role as the criminals themselves.

Set in a remote Icelandic town called Seyðisfjörður, Trapped follows disgruntled chief of police Andri Olafsson as he attempts to solve a grisly murder. A mutilated torso is dredged out of the local harbour, prompting a mid-blizzard investigation, the likes of which is unprecedented for Andri’s small precinct.

Meanwhile, a mysterious and potentially innocent convicted arsonist returns to the town, a group of local businessmen attempt to sell off parts of the town to Chinese investors, and a violent sex trafficker is brought to justice around the same time that the torso shows up.

It borrows a lot from Twin Peaks and shows like The Killing, but Trapped still feels very much like its own unique beast, a beast that has yet to catch on like a lot of its sister shows. Trapped has aired on BBC Four and recently begun airing on Viceland in the States, but without a large marketing push or a decent broadcast slot, it has gone largely unnoticed by the majority of viewers.

Contributor
Contributor

Liam is a writer and cranberry juice drinker from Lincolnshire. When he's not wearing his eyes away in front of a computer, he plays the melodica for a semi wrestling-themed folk-punk band called School Trips.