The 5 Best Shows That Get Work Life Exactly Right

Silicon Valley premiered on HBO in 2014  and aired for six seasons until 2019. The series focuses on a start-up founder in the emerging tech industry, highlighting its often absurd and excessive world. Like so many in the real-life Silicon Valley, the lead characters portrayed by Thomas Middleditch, T.J. Miller, Josh Brener, Martin Starr, Kumail Nanjiani, and Zach Woods are part-genius, part-con men, and all just trying to be successful in a cut-throat, fast-changing industry.

Silicon Valley delves into many topics like securing investments, competing with larger, more powerful companies, and even delves into the emerging world of cryptocurrency. Although it focuses on a workplace environment that many are unfamiliar with, it presents relatable issues like business ethics, how business can impact friendships and personal relationships, and the desire for success. At its core, Silicon Valley gets the work life of many of those in the tech industry just right.

Parks and Recreation was one of the most successful workplace sitcoms born out of the success of The Office. Premiering in 2009, the series ran for seven seasons. Focusing on the Parks and Recreation department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, headed by Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope and Nick Offerman’s Ron Swanson, the series is shot in documentary style and focuses on some of the hijinks that go into navigating local politics and small-town bureaucracy. 

Parks and Recreation launched the careers of breakout actors like White Lotus’ Aubrey Plaza and Guardians of the Galaxy’s Chris Pratt. Although the series is ultimately focused on the comedic, it did focus on a number of real procedural events like dealing with budget cuts, the construction of the country’s smallest park, and the bureaucratic headaches that come with doing something as simple as filling in an open construction pit. The series also saw the characters develop strong bonds with one another and emphasized the camaraderie that develops in a workplace.

Mad Men is another great example of a workplace drama that captures some of the core issues of its time. Airing on AMC from 2000 to 2015, Mad Men focuses on advertising executive Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), the creative director at the fictional Sterling Cooper ad agency.

Draper is a brooding and mysterious genius advertiser whose personal and professional life starts to crumble as the cultural shift between the 60s and 70s impacts the marketing world, as well as his family. Maybe better than any other on this list, it captures some of the historical underpinnings that pervaded the marketing industry that it focuses on.

Unlike many of the series on this list, Mad Men is definitely a drama series. It deftly portrays the sexism and racism in the advertising world of the 1960s and is widely regarded as one of the greatest period dramas of all time. Bolstered by complex characters, and world-class acting performances, Hamm, January Jones, Elizabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, and Vincent Kartheiser, the series won 16 Emmys and five Golden Globes.

Adapted from the British television series of the same name headed by Ricky Gervais, the American adaptation of The Office focused on the employees of a fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin led by annoying, crude, and lovable regional manager Steve Carrell’s Michael Scott. The Office aired in 2005 and aired on NBC until its finale in 2013 and has certainly been one of the most popular and influential comedies of all time, spawning dozens of similar mockumentary workplace-style comedies like Parks & Recreation and the recent award-winning Abbott Elementary. 

Although there are some absurd things that happen in The Office, at its core it is grounded in a very realistic and compassionate portrayal of the bonds that form at a workplace, and as icky as it is to say it, the development of a work family. Its brand of cringe-humor and stonefaced execution of hilarity paired with a focus on humanity made it an excellent portrayal of working in a modern office. Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer)’s romance will go down as one of the most famous television romances of its generation.

Scrubs is a workplace medical sitcom that premiered in 2001 and ran for nine seasons that follows new doctor John “JD” Dorian and his group of friends and colleagues as they navigate the medical field in a fictional hospital called Sacred Heart. Scrubs is a mix of comedy and drama and became known for its surrealist, often-sketch-comedy-inspired fantasy sequences born out of the daydreaming of lead character JD. 

More than any other series on this list, Scrubs has a strong balance of comedy and drama that is grounded in a realistic depiction of everyday life at a hospital. As the series progresses, so do the characters in believable ways. Although it contains drama, the drama is not at Grey’s Anatomy-levels of absurdism. 

These doctors are not superheroes, and medicine is not always about rescuing plane crash victims and surviving unexpected mass shootings. Rather, it focuses on the human details of both the patients and the doctors and focuses on the personal and ethical responsibilities that those in the field have.