Thousands of Americans probably signed up for Peacock for the first time last week in order to watch the 2024 Paris Olympics. The streamer’s coverage has been both exceptional and rather overwhelming—there’s something to watch every hour, as well as the nightly Primetime in Paris show with the top highlights from the day.
If you’re anything like us, you’ve been heading straight for the Olympics hub every time you load up the Peacock app. That will likely continue to be the case for the next few weeks, but if you are on a lengthy free trial or plan to keep the service after the Olympics end, you’re going to have to find something else to watch eventually. Thankfully, Peacock has built up a solid library of shows over the years, and these are five of our favorites.
Killing It
After failing to secure the loan to start his business, security guard Craig Foster (Craig Robinson) teams up with an Australian Uber driver named Jillian Glopp (Claudia O’Doherty) to hunt pythons in the Florida Everglades for prize money. It’s a shame that a show starring two actors this funny isn’t more popular, so put it on your watch list.
Mrs. Davis
I’m a sucker for Damon Lindelof projects, and while Mrs. Davis isn’t exactly as profound as The Leftovers or Watchmen, it’s still thoroughly entertaining. Betty Gilpin plays Sister Simone, a nun on a globe-trotting quest to defeat an all-powerful artificial intelligence. It feels even more timely now than it did when it premiered back in April 2023.
Poker Face
One of Peacock’s best original shows, Poker Face is a procedural crime comedy series starring Natasha Lyonne as cocktail waitress and human lie detector Charlie Cale. Guest stars in the first season include the likes of Adrien Brody, Chloë Sevigny, Tim Meadows, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Nick Nolte. Poker Face season 2 is now filming.
The Resort
As I make this list, I’m realizing how often Peacock pairs up amazing actors. That is certainly the case for The Resort, which stars Cristin Milioti (Palm Springs) and William Jackson Harper (The Good Place) as a married couple on vacation at a holiday resort in Cancun, Mexico for their 10th anniversary. While there, they get wrapped up in a 15-year-old mystery of two missing persons, putting their relationship to the test.
Ted
Set years before the movie of the same name, Ted shows us the origins of the odd friendship between the talking teddy bear and John Bennett (portrayed by Mark Wahlberg in the movies, Max Burkholder in the show). There’s one specific scene from this show that makes me laugh every time I see it because of how ridiculous it is.
