The 10 Best Shows You're (Probably) Not Watching

Quality doesn't always mean popularity, as the following gallery of 10 currently underrated, little-watched series demonstrates. Granted, it's hard to make an emotional investment and time commitment to a show that might be on the cancellation bubble...

'Blood and Oil'

This ABC nighttime soap about the oil boom in North Dakota plays like a more earnest "Dallas," which is not necessarily a bad thing. Old-school tycoon Don Johnson (married to a spidery Amber Valleta, from "Revenge"), pondering his legacy, gloms onto naive, Chace Crawford. But even if you're a fan of Johnson's eternal smoothness or Crawford's millennial hotness, ABC still gave it the boot. 

'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'

YouTube comic Jane the Virgin") about a young woman pursuing both her past and her future with plucky klutziness.

'Fargo'

You loved the first season of this FX crime drama; why aren't you watching the second? Just because there's no Billy Bob Thornton or Martin Freeman, or because the balance between Coen-esque quirkiness and horrific violence isn't as well-calibrated as before? Fair enough. Still, Patrick Wilson (as the younger version of Keith Carradine's character from last season), Jean Smart (as the matriarch of a backwoods crime family), Jesse Plemons (as a dim-witted butcher), and Bokeem Woodbine (as a chatty, menacing hitman) are killed it every week.

'Getting On'

If you think the medical mischief in "Scrubs" and "Nurse Jackie" made for some dark comedy, wait 'til you get a load of "Getting On." Adapted from the British comedy of the same name, the HBO series is set in a ward for dying patients dumped by other hospitals. Gallows humor is a must just to get through the day for the overworked, underappreciated doctors and nurses, played by such sitcom MVPs as Laurie Metcalf ("Roseanne"), Alex Borstein ("Family Guy"), and Niecy Nash ("Scream Queens"). Still, as the series faces its own impending demise, its mushy heart ought to become more apparent.

'Grandfathered'

John Stamos stars in this Fox comedy as a playboy restaurateur who discovers he has both a grown son (Josh Peck) and an infant granddaughter. He insists on trying to become a decent dad and grandpa, much to the exasperation of his ex, Peck's mom, played by Paget Brewster. There's a lot of room for disastrous sentiment here, but the cast expertly avoids it. Brewster keeps the show grounded in reality, Peck is hilariously hangdog, and Stamos is Stamos, gifted with enough charm to coast over the rough spots.

'The Grinder'

Fox's companion to "Grandfathered" stars another charismatic, seemingly ageless leading man, The Grinder") who, when the show is over, moves home to Boise and joins the family law firm, believing that the skills he developed as a make-believe lawyer qualify him to represent real clients in the courtroom. (Here, the incredulous, exasperated, lone reality-based individual is Lowe's brother, played engagingly by Fred Savage.) The show's running satirical joke, and it's a good one, is that Lowe is usually right, and his phony, fame-bred credentials really are as effective as Savage's actual, practical training. In the midst of a presidential campaign where attitude and presentation substitute for actual qualifications, "The Grinder" is the show of the moment.

'The Muppets'

The ABC comedy looked like a hit but fizzled fast, maybe because it's not especially interested in nostalgia. The characters you loved from childhood have grown up and moved forward, and that's not sitting well with everyone. (Imagine "The Larry Sanders Show" or "30 Rock" cast with cute stuffed-felt critters.) The backstage drama is still there, but the show also sends Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, and the rest out into the human world the way the Muppets' movies did, expanding the storytelling possibilities. It also amplifies their emotions -- Kermit's desperation, Piggy's vanity, Fozzie's insecurities -- in ways that may be more satisfying to grown-ups than to kids. The self-parodying celebrity cameos have been fun (a romantic and pretentious Josh Groban, a rude Laurence Fishburne), but this is still, like the old "Muppet Show," a series about a workplace family trying to make the best of an almost always disastrous situation.

'The Returned'

Three years after the first season of this French series made it to our shores (check it out, it's on Netflix), Season 2 has finally come to the Sundance channel. It's a multilayered drama about a town where the dead have returned to life as if nothing had happened. No, they're not seeking flesh, just their old lives back, among loved ones who've tried to move on. Conflict is inevitable, and the result is poignant, gripping, and spooky.

'Red Oaks'

If you liked "Mad About You" fans, its a chance to see Paul Reiser and Richard Kind on the same show again; for everyone else, it's probably a nostalgic look at that one summer where your heartache was the most keenly felt.

'Manhattan'

You may not even know where WGN is in your TV lineup, much less that this drama, now in its second season, is on it. Set in the claustrophobic context of the 1940s Manhattan Project -- on the closely guarded New Mexico military base where American scientists are developing the atomic bomb while their spouses get lonely -- the series is a handsome period piece in the "Mad Men" mode, but with much bigger stakes. The show already boasted "The West Wing"'s Thomas Schlamme as its director and a fine cast led by John Benjamin Hickey and Olivia Williams, but this season, newcomers include all-stars William Petersen, Neve Campbell, and Mamie Gummer, giving the show a charisma boost.