What’s on Paramount+? The 10 best TV shows

In the increasingly fragmented universe of online TV, specialized services like Paramount+, Hulu, Disney+, and others are putting together mixtures of original and classic entertainment and offering them to cord-cutters at relatively little cost—at least at the ad-supported tiers. Still, signing up for all of them at the same time is probably a waste of money, even for the most inveterate couch potato.

We previously looked at the 10 best movies currently available on Paramount+. In this article, we list the 10 best TV shows that make this service worth $4.99 per month (with ads) or $9.99 per month for the ad-free service.

If you think you’ll get enough out of Paramount+ to sign up for a full year, you can get the service for a discount: $50 annually for the ad-supported plan ($4.17 per month) or $100 ($8.33 per month) for the ad-free plan. Just know that as with most streaming service subscriptions, if you decide to cancel, you’ll get the balance of the service you paid for but you won’t get a refund.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Nickelodeon/Paramount+

One of the richest and most satisfying of animated fantasies, this Nickelodeon series, which ran from 2005 to 2008, is set in a war-torn world in which characters can control, or “bend,” the four elements. Twelve-year-old Aang awakens from a 100-year suspended animation and finds that he may be the only one that can save the world.

Cheers & Frasier

CBS/Paramount+

It was the place where everyone knew your name, and where a great cast traded jokes over beers and wondering when Sam and Diane would ever get together. Then, Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier embarked upon one of the best-ever sitcom spinoffs, taking care of his injured father (John Mahoney) and hanging out with his equally brainy, fastidious brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce).

The Good Fight

Paramount+

A Paramount+ original, this sharp, relevant spinoff of The Good Wife focuses on Christine Baranski’s Diane Lockhart character, who loses everything she has in a huge financial scam, just as she’s about to retire. She winds up going to work for a Black firm, which focuses on battling racial injustice cases. A terrific Delroy Lindo co-stars.

SpongeBob SquarePants

Nickelodeon/Paramount+

This kid-friendly animated show, which began in 1999 and continues today, is sweet and positive enough to appeal to little kids (SpongeBob frequently appears in his tighty-whities), but it’s also weird and subversive enough—with its strange cutaways and its grumpy, cynical side characters—to appeal to adults. It’s a smooth, lovable blend. (Note: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run is Paramount+’s only original movie so far, and it’s worth seeing.)