Six TV shows to watch if you’re already miss­ing Fleabag

This week, TV audi­ences waved good­bye to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag for what appears to be the final time. Stick­ing to the tra­di­tion of oth­er UK sit­com greats (includ­ing The Office and Fawl­ty Tow­ers), this was nev­er going to be a long-drawn-out love affair. Instead, we’re left with 12 excep­tion­al, hilar­i­ous and often heart­break­ing episodes to treasure.

There’s no replac­ing Fleabag or mim­ic­k­ing Waller-Bridge’s voice, but if you are search­ing for some­thing to fill the void then look no fur­ther. Here are six tele­vi­sion shows explor­ing love, rela­tion­ships and the human con­di­tion in ways that will make you laugh out loud (and maybe shed a few tears).

The Emmy-award win­ning series just returned for a sec­ond sea­son, which sees Bill Had­er as the tit­u­lar Bar­ry attempt­ing a career change from assas­sin to actor. This might sound like a con­cept more in tune with anoth­er Waller-Bridge TV cre­ation – the hit series Killing Eve – but Bar­ry is a lot more Fleabag than Vil­lanelle (Jodie Com­er). He finds it hard to let his emo­tion­al guard down, he has a tonne of guilt about a close friend and flash­backs to his messy past inter­rupt his dai­ly life. Where Fleabag has British nation­al trea­sure, Olivia Col­man; Barry’s act­ing teacher is played by the Fonz him­self, Hen­ry Win­kler, scor­ing high on the leg­end status.

Pamela Adlon is both the star and cre­ator of Bet­ter Things, which is cur­rent­ly mid­way through its third sea­son. Falling under the dram­e­dy sub-genre, it is an hon­est and often-hilar­i­ous por­tray­al of a sin­gle moth­er and work­ing actress liv­ing in Los Ange­les, try­ing to keep it togeth­er as she rais­es three daugh­ters and attempts to date. As with Fleabag, Adlon strips away the façade and deliv­ers a sear­ing and amus­ing look at mod­ern living.

Anoth­er recent­ly fin­ished series and one that explores the inner-work­ings of its lead in an inter­est­ing fash­ion; unlike Fleabag, Rebec­ca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) breaks the fourth wall via song. Bloom co-cre­at­ed Crazy Ex-Girl­friend with Aline Brosh Mcken­na and through­out the four sea­sons, they rode the tra­di­tion­al roman­tic com­e­dy nar­ra­tive in a way that both sub­vert­ed and cel­e­brat­ed this form. Explor­ing sex­u­al­i­ty, men­tal health and what it means to not know who you real­ly are, Crazy Ex-Girl­friend shares a lot with Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, includ­ing stick­ing the final episode landing.

Debut­ing ear­li­er this year on Chan­nel 4, Pure is based on the mem­oir of the same name by Rose Cartwright. Marnie (Char­ly Clive) moves from a small town in Scot­land to Lon­don, as a way to find her­self and fig­ure out exact­ly why she has such explic­it thoughts at the most inop­por­tune moments – includ­ing mid-speech at her par­ents’ anniver­sary par­ty. Quick cuts, direct address and a pro­tag­o­nist who talks about sex might sound a lot like Fleabag, but this isn’t a case of mas­tur­bat­ing to Oba­ma speech­es under the cov­ers. Instead, Pure opens up the dis­cus­sion about OCD, a con­di­tion peo­ple will often ref­er­ence with­out the knowl­edge to back it up.

The Oth­er Two has already been hailed as the ​“first can’t‑miss TV com­e­dy of 2019”, and despite a famil­iar premise – sib­lings hav­ing to con­tend with their 13-year-old brother’s Bieber-esque rise to fame – it man­ages to feel like ​“some­thing entire­ly fresh”. From for­mer head Sat­ur­day Night Live writ­ers Chris Kel­ly and Sarah Schnei­der, it stars Helén Yorke as for­mer dancer Brooke and Drew Tarv­er as Cary, who is still wait­ing for his big act­ing break. It has already been renewed for a sec­ond sea­son by Com­e­dy Cen­tral and UK view­ers will be glad to know that E4 has acquired the rights. As well as Fleabag, The Oth­er Two looks set to help fill the hole left by the also recent­ly-depart­ed Broad City.

Romance plays a role in Fleabag and Russ­ian Doll, how­ev­er, it is the impact of a per­son­al loss, as well as non-roman­tic love that is the true bind­ing force. Both Fleabag and Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) excel at build­ing a pro­tec­tive wall around their hearts, giv­ing the impres­sion that they don’t give a shit. Exis­ten­tial adven­tures exam­in­ing mid-thir­ties crises that don’t cen­tre on the ​“Can a woman have it all?” con­ver­sa­tion are at the heart of these refresh­ing narratives.