There are definitely too many streaming services. Thanks to Netflix’s revolution, every broadcast network and parent company decided that they had to get in on the streaming wars. Peacock TV is NBC Universal’s streaming service, and although it may not seem like the most attractive option, there are actually a number of great Peacock movies and shows available on the service that are hard to find anywhere else.
Some of those popular shows are Peacock streaming originals, although there are plenty that initially aired on NBC or elsewhere and have found their way to Peacock thanks in part to the complicated nature of TV rights. Regardless, though, Peacock speaks to the impressive legacy of NBC Television. Growing up, I watched many of these shows as part of my regular nighttime routine. Now, thankfully, they’re available at our fingertips anytime. Looking for more streaming options? We also have your guide to the best shows on Netflix, the best shows on Hulu, and the best shows on Paramount+.
Recommended Videos
Suits (2011)
9 Seasons
Genre
Drama
Stars
Gabriel Macht, Sarah Rafferty, Amanda Schull
Created by
Aaron Korsh
Watch on Peacock
One of the most perplexing phenomenons of the past few years was the summer everyone spent watching Suits. If you weren’t part of that initial craze, or you simply want to watch it again, you can check out all nine seasons of the show on Peacock. Telling the story of a genius without a law degree who manages to fake being a lawyer, the show’s premise allows for plenty of compelling interpersonal drama, even as the law firm where this man works also deals with regular cases from week to week. It’s not always perfect, but it goes down very smoothly.
Poker Face (2023)
1 Season
Genre
Mystery, Crime, Comedy, Drama
Stars
Natasha Lyonne
Created by
Rian Johnson
Watch on Peacock
Rian Johnson’s mystery show is a throwback to old-fashioned procedurals in the best possible way. The show follows Charlie, a woman on the run who finds herself ensconced in various murder plots as she travels across the country. Charlie has one minor superpower: She can always tell when someone is lying. That power allows her to uncover a wide array of different crimes, and do it in a way that only Natasha Lyonne could. Thanks to sharp writing, a wide array of great guest actors, and a total embrace of the genre’s formulas, Poker Face is a rare treat that never feels like homework.
The Office (2005)
66%
9/10
9 Seasons
Genre
Comedy
Stars
Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer
Created by
Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Greg Daniels
Watch on Peacock
Although it had plenty of fans while it was airing, The Office has only grown in popularity since it became available to stream on Netflix. Of course, now that it’s on Peacock, it’s no longer available on that other streaming service. It says something about Peacock’s strategy, though, that they wanted to lure subscribers over just by offering The Office. It’s also easy to see why the show has become so popular. Its cringe comedy has largely aged well, and it’s also a show about a found family of weirdos who all begrudgingly find themselves supporting one another just because they happen to work in the same office.
Superstore (2015)
58%
7.8/10
6 Seasons
Genre
Comedy
Stars
Ben Feldman, Lauren Ash, Colton Dunn
Created by
Justin Spitzer
Watch on Peacock
Peacock is home to many of the shows that once aired on NBC, and in recent years, NBC has become the home for a number of outstanding comedies. Superstore may not have received the acclaim that greeted series like 30 Rock or The Office, but its version of the workplace sitcom was a natural evolution of those series. The show follows a found family of weird, hilarious employees at a suburban megastore, and for as funny as it often was, it also had an enormous heart. Superstore stayed sharp throughout its run, and it’s sure to be a great discovery for those looking for a great, under-the-radar sitcom.
30 Rock (2006)
73%
8.3/10
7 Seasons
Genre
Comedy
Stars
Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan
Created by
Tina Fey
Watch on Peacock
If The Office represents the softer side of what NBC comedies could be, 30 Rock is the hard-edged, joke-dense counterpoint. The show, which follows Tina Fey as the fictional Liz Lemon, a writer on a Saturday Night Live-style sketch show, is hilarious and often quite cynical about the way the world works. Not every joke from the series lands perfectly, but 30 Rock is just one of the funniest shows that has ever aired on TV. Alec Baldwin redefined his entire career with his performance as Jack Donaghy, and Fey proved that she could be as funny in front of the camera as she was writing jokes behind the scenes.
Parks and Recreation (2009)
67%
8.6/10
7 Seasons
Genre
Comedy
Stars
Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman
Created by
Greg Daniels, Michael Schur
Watch on Peacock
Although it started as little more than a riff on The Office, Parks and Recreation evolved into a meditation on how to create a comedy where the characters are generally kind and loving toward one another. Although Ted Lasso gets a lot of credit for how much it puts kindness at the center of its story, Parks and Recreation operated in a very similar space. After a rough start, the show was consistently funny, and it packed together a cast of incredible comedians who have almost all gone on to incredible success in the years since the show ended.
Based on a True Story (2023)
1 Season
Genre
Comedy, Drama
Stars
Kaley Cuoco, Chris Messina, Tom Bateman
Created by
Craig Rosenberg
Watch on Peacock
When a married couple gets entangled in the grasp of a supposed serial killer, they decide the best course of action is to start a true crime podcast and exploit their close proximity to the criminal. This is a fun and exciting new comedy thriller, and although it has not been as well-received as Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, it should satisfy fans of the genre.
Yellowstone (2018)
54%
8.7/10
6 Seasons
Genre
Western, Drama
Stars
Kevin Costner, Kelly Reilly, Luke Grimes
Created by
John Linson, Taylor Sheridan
Watch on Peacock
Although it’s often described as a show for middle America, Yellowstone is a great watch no matter where you live. The series follows the Dutton family, the owners of the biggest ranch in the entire U.S. The plotting takes the shape of a fairly conventional soap opera, but that’s not meant as an insult. Some of the greatest TV shows of all time play out like soaps, and Yellowstone uses them as a playbook. There’s plenty of intrigue and family drama, but Yellowstone is always good enough to keep you coming back for more.
Mrs. Davis (2023)
1 Season
Genre
Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Stars
Betty Gilpin, Jake McDorman, Andy McQueen
Created by
Damon Lindelof, Tara Hernandez
Watch on Peacock
Perhaps the wildest show on Peacock, Mrs. Davis tells the story of a nun living in a world where an artificial intelligence (AI) has become incredibly influential in the lives of most people. When the nun, Simone, sets out to stop the AI, she winds up going on a series of wacky adventures that have to be seen to be believed. Anchoring the entire show is Betty Gilpin’s commanding central performances, as well as sharp writing that makes us buy into a premise that is absurd on its face. This show is silly and profound, and that’s why it’s great.
The Traitors (2023)
Based on a British reality show of the same name, The Traitors follows a mixture of famous reality contestants and everyday Americans as they get trapped in a house together and are forced to play a murder mystery game. The game comes with plenty of twists and turns, but what makes The Traitors so fun is that it gives you both the fun of a reality show and also the chance to play along with the contestants. It’s a formula that’s worked incredibly well wherever the show was set, and as it turns out, the U.S. was no exception.
The Continental: From the World of John Wick (2023)
1 Season
Genre
Crime, Drama, Action & Adventure
Stars
Mel Gibson, Colin Woodell, Mishel Prada
Created by
Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward, Shawn Simmons
Watch on Peacock
If you’re a lover of great action movies, then you’ve likely seen at least one John Wick. While that franchise continues to dominate the box office, though, you may find yourself hungry for more content set in a similar world. Lucky for you, there’s The Continental, a prequel series about the hotel for assassins that is so central to the lore of John Wick. It adjusts the perspective of the series so that the focus is on the workers at the hotel instead of the hitmen, The Continental offers a familiar world in a slightly new package, and should give every John Wick fan plenty to chew on.
Monk (2002)
8 Seasons
Genre
Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery
Stars
Tony Shalhoub, Ted Levine, Jason Gray-Stanford
Created by
Andy Breckman
Watch on Peacock
Thanks in large part to Tony Shalhoub’s incredible, hilarious central performance, Monk became one of the most enduring shows of the first decade of the 21st century. The series, which tells the story of a former police officer with obsessive-compulsive disorder who works with the police to solve difficult homicides, manages to toe the line brilliantly between comedy and drama. Not every episode is perfect, but part of Monk‘s charm is learning how its mysteries unfold, even as we watch Adrian Monk struggle to survive in a world riddled with the dangers of germs.
Top Chef (2006)
A reality competition series that will make you think you can cook, Top Chef has long been one of the most acclaimed series of its kind on TV. The show, which is often set in different cities across the country, is great for appreciating the vast diversity of the U.S. and the way that diversity is often reflected in a town’s food culture. Whether you’re a foodie or not, Top Chef is the kind of show that’s easy to fall in love with. Thankfully, there is more than a decade of seasons to get through if you’re someone who loves a binge.
Saturday Night Live (1975)
49 Seasons
Genre
Comedy, News
Stars
Michael Che, Mikey Day, Kenan Thompson
Created by
Lorne Michaels, Dick Ebersol
Watch on Peacock
One of the most enduring shows in the history of television, Saturday Night Live has been an institution for almost 50 years now. The sketch comedy series has had its ups and downs over that time, but the show is still humming along and occasionally delivering the kind of comedy that you can’t really find anywhere else. Thanks to its consistent ability to find excellent hosts and musical performers, SNL doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere, at least not anytime soon.
We Are Lady Parts (2021)
1 Season
Genre
Comedy
Stars
Anjana Vasan, Sarah Kameela Impey, Juliette Motamed
Created by
Nida Manzoor
Watch on Peacock
Every streaming service produces great, unheralded shows that no one watches in their early years, and We Are Lady Parts is one such show. The series follows four Muslim women who start a punk band together. The brilliant mix of interpersonal and culturally specific humor, as well as the show’s effortless charm and genuinely edgy attitude, all combine to make the series almost undeniable. The fact that We Are Lady Parts hasn’t gotten more attention is criminal, especially since most of the songs are pretty great.
Columbo (1971)
10 Seasons
Genre
Crime, Drama, Mystery
Stars
Peter Falk
Created by
Richard Levinson, William Link
Watch on Peacock
Perhaps one of the more comforting shows in the history of TV, Columbo follows an off-beat lieutenant who is remarkably skilled when it comes to solving unusual and sometimes convoluted crimes. Thanks to Peter Falk’s incredible central performance as the title character and a unique who-done-it formula that shows you exactly what happened at the beginning of every episode, Columbo is a remarkably safe and cozy show, even if it is about murder. While not every aspect of the series holds up, Columbo has endured for decades precisely because it’s so easy to get into.
Community (2009)
6 Seasons
Genre
Comedy
Stars
Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi
Created by
Dan Harmon
Watch on Peacock
One of the most beloved cult comedies ever made, Community is ostensibly about a group of community college students of all ages who come together to form a study group. While that may sound like a relatively simple premise, Community eventually became something a lot more convoluted than that. Combining normal sitcom humor with its own meta analysis of the broader format and the conventions of storytelling more generally, the show almost works as both criticism and a great show in and of itself. It’s no wonder so many people love it.
House (2004)
8 Seasons
Genre
Drama, Mystery
Stars
Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard, Omar Epps
Created by
David Shore
Watch on Peacock
A smart, zippy hospital show about a brilliant doctor who diagnoses the cases that baffle most doctors, House is a riff on Sherlock Holmes that features an utterly captivating central performance. In addition to doing one of the great American accents in the history of TV, Hugh Laurie also provides his curmudgeonly, brilliant character with plenty of wit, but the writers give House plenty of opportunities to reveal how vulnerable he really is. Fueled by new mysteries in every episode and sharp scripts throughout its eight-season run, there are few shows more reliably watchable than House.
Downton Abbey (2010)
An upstairs/downstairs drama set in the early 1900s, Downton Abbey is a brilliant, soapy show about class and history. Thanks to its flair for drama and its brilliant cast, Downton Abbey managed to keep its audiences hooked as it interwove actual history with the lives of these fictional characters. At its best, Downton Abbey could be one of the best shows on television. The remarkable thing, though, was even at its worst, it was still so much soapy fun that you barely noticed how silly it had become.
Bel-Air (2022)
3 Seasons
Genre
Drama
Stars
Jabari Banks, Adrian Holmes, Cassandra Freeman
Created by
Andy Borowitz, Susan Borowitz
Watch on Peacock
It may have sounded like a terrible idea to take the premise of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and convert it into a sitcom, but that’s exactly what the good folks at Peacock elected to do. What we got, though, was Bel-Air, a show that has a surprising amount to say about the nature of class and race in America. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air could occasionally make a pretty trenchant point, but Bel-Air has leaned even more into explicit politics, even as it highlights the way privilege changes and shapes who you are.
Apples Never Fall (2024)
1 Season
Genre
Drama, Mystery
Stars
Annette Bening, Sam Neill, Jake Lacy
Created by
Melanie Marnich
Watch on Peacock
A captivating series that asks how well we really know our families, Apples Never Fall follows a wealthy Palm Beach family whose lives are upended first by the arrival of a stranger on their doorstep, and then again by the disappearance of their matriarch. Starring Annette Bening, Sam Neill, Jake Lacy, and Alison Brie, Apples Never Fall is about the lives your parents lead before they become your parents, and the way that they shape who you are whether you’re aware of it or not.
St. Denis Medical (2024)
1 Season
Genre
Comedy
Stars
Wendi McLendon-Covey, David Alan Grier, Allison Tolman
Created by
Justin Spitzer, Eric Ledgin
Watch on Peacock
Although it’s still pretty new, the early returns on St. Denis Medical have been pretty positive. The series tells the story of a group of doctors and nurses who work together in an underfunded hospital, attempting to treat the glut of patients who show up at their door. Part of the show’s brilliance is the way it derives comedy from the broken systems it’s depicting, a little like Abbott Elementary for the healthcare industry. The show’s lovable, eclectic characters all genuinely care for one another, which only makes the show feel more endearing.
The Day of the Jackal (2024)
1 Season
Genre
Drama, Action & Adventure, Mystery
Stars
Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Lynch, Úrsula Corberó
Created by
Ronan Bennett
Watch on Peacock
Adapted from a novel and TV show of the same name, The Day of the Jackal stars Eddie Redmayne as an assassin who takes out high-profile targets for a fee. When he’s tasked with the riskiest and highest-paying job of his career, he must find a way to elude the British intelligence officer on his heels in order to complete it. As the two chase one another across Europe, The Day of the Jackal has just enough surprises to keep you guessing and is a great reminder that the Brits know a thing or two about how to make great spy shows.
New Girl (2011)
7 Seasons
Genre
Comedy
Stars
Zooey Deschanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield
Created by
Elizabeth Meriwether
Watch on Peacock
One of the silliest, funniest comedies of the 2010s, New Girl took a pretty lo-fi premise and turned it into a real gem. The show has the same basic setup as everything from Friends to How I Met Your Mother. It follows a young woman fresh off a breakup who moves in with three men. Over the course of years, they become friends with one another and romantically intermingle, but the point of New Girl is not the way these relationships develop, but the sheer hilarity of every episode. New Girl is much stranger and more idiosyncratic than many shows of its type, and it’s all the more interesting as a result.
Laid (2024)
1 Season
Genre
Comedy, Drama
Stars
Stephanie Hsu, Zosia Mamet, Michael Angarano
Created by
Sally Bradford McKenna, Nahnatchka Khan, Kirsty Fisher, Marieke Hardy
Watch on Peacock
Shows with a premise like Laid have to strike a remarkably precise tonal balance. The show follows a 33-year-old woman who begins to discover that all her exes are dying under mysterious circumstances. As she works to figure out what might be causing this, she also has to navigate her current love life, and what this new wrinkle might mean for it. Anchored by the brilliant Stephanie Hsu, Laid is funnier and darker than it has any right to be, and knows how to balance two seemingly irreconcilable tones
The Resort (2022)
1 Season
Genre
Comedy, Mystery
Stars
William Jackson Harper, Cristin Milioti, Nick Offerman
Created by
Andy Siara
Watch on Peacock
Cristin Milioti has never been on The White Lotus, but she did do The Resort, an underseen mystery series where she co-stars with William Jackson Harper as one half of a married couple celebrating an anniversary. After arriving in Mexico, the couple find themselves at the center of a mystery dating back 15 years, and also have to deal with a hurricane that is bearing down on their resort. Thanks in part to the incredible chemistry between the two leads, The Resort is deeply satisfying from the word go.
What shows are coming to Peacock in April?
April 1
- Moving On, Season 11
- Prosecuting Evil with Kelly Siegler, Season 2 (Oxygen)
April 2
- The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 14 – Reunion Part 1, Extended & Uncensored (Bravo)
April 4
- Girl You Know It’s True – Premiere (Peacock Exclusive)
- Southern Charm, Season 10 – Reunion, Uncensored (Bravo)
- Southern Charm After Show, Season 1 – Finale (Bravo Digital)
April 5
- Saturday Night Live, Season 50 (NBC)
April 6
- Hearts Around The Table: Josh’s Third Serving
April 7
- Married To Medicine: Atlanta, Season 11 – Reunion, Uncensored (Bravo)
April 8
- The Hunting Party, Season 1 – Finale (NBC)
April 9
- Denise Richards and Her Wild Things, Season 1 – Finale
- The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 14 – Reunion Part 2, Extended & Uncensored (Bravo)
April 11
- WrestleMania IX: Becoming a Spectacle (Peacock Original)
April 12
- Saturday Night Live, Season 50 (NBC)
April 13
- The Americas – Finale (NBC)
- Hearts Around The Table: Kiki’s Fourth Ingredient
- The Making of the Americas – Premiere (Peacock Original)
April 16
- The Valley, Season 2 – Premiere (Bravo)
- The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 14 – Reunion Part 3, Extended & Uncensored (Bravo)
April 17
- Law & Order Organized Crime, Season 5 – Premiere, 10 episodes, (Peacock Original)
- Team Mekbots: Animal Rescue, Season 1 – New Episodes, 6 Episodes (Peacock Original)
- Ninjago: Dragons Rising, Season 3
April 19
- WrestleMania 41 – Night 1
April 20
- WrestleMania 41 – Night 2
April 28
- Bravo’s Love Hotel, Season 1 – Premiere (Bravo)
April 29
- Fatal Family Feuds, Season 2 – Premiere (Oxygen)
- Yes, Chef!, Season 1 – Premiere (NBC)
April 30
- St. Denis Medical, Season 1 – Finale (NBC)
