Television series

BoJack Horseman

Name: BoJack Horseman
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: 2014
Cast: Will Arnett, Alison Brie, Paul F. Tompkins, Amy Sedaris, Aaron Paul

An anthropomorphic sitcom horse, decades past his '90s fame, drinks and self-sabotages his way through Hollywoo trying to feel like a good person without doing anything to become one. It's a candy-colored animated comedy stuffed with puns and talking animals that gradually reveals itself as one of television's most unflinching studies of depression, addiction and the lies we tell ourselves. Funny, then devastating, then funny again.

TVMaze rating

7.9

If you liked this

Fleabag2016

A woman charms you directly to camera while quietly disintegrating from grief and guilt. Same trick as BoJack: make you laugh so hard you don't notice the knife going in.

But Two tight six-episode seasons and then it's over — if you want sprawl, this isn't it.

Barry2018

A hitman tries to reinvent himself as an actor and discovers you can't out-act your own nature. Same pitch-black comedy about a man who genuinely can't stop hurting people.

But Gets increasingly violent and formally strange as it goes; not the cozy hangout comedy its first episodes suggest.

Big Mouth2017

Netflix's other filthy, surprisingly tender adult cartoon, this one about puberty instead of midlife rot. Same willingness to get graphic about shame and anxiety while being relentlessly silly.

But Broader and grosser — hormone monsters and ghost of Duke Ellington energy, less interested in quiet devastation.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Sunset Boulevard1950

BoJack's satire of fame as a slow poisoning of the self is Billy Wilder's invention first — same doomed narcissist, same rotten industry, just done in shadow instead of color.

A washed-up silent film star, propped up by delusion and a devoted enabler, narrates her own downfall from beyond the grave. The rot of Hollywood glamour, seventy years before Hollywoo.

But Black-and-white, theatrical, and unmistakably a 1950 studio picture — no jokes softening the cruelty here.

Atlanta2016

A surreal, genre-hopping look at fame, race and the entertainment industry from the inside, where an episode can turn into a horror movie without warning. Shares BoJack's appetite for satire with real teeth.

But Deliberately elliptical and sometimes plotless — it rewards patience more than it rewards bingeing.

Russian Doll2019

A woman dies over and over at her own birthday party until she deals with what's actually broken in her. Same structural obsession: self-destruction as a loop you have to choose to break.

But The time-loop mechanics take a minute to click, and the tone whiplashes between screwball and grief.

You're the Worst2014

A rom-com about two genuinely terrible people that turns, unexpectedly, into one of TV's most honest portrayals of clinical depression inside a relationship. Same bait-and-switch as BoJack's own tonal turns.

But Front-loaded with abrasive, deliberately unlikeable characters before the show earns your investment in them.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia2005

The gold standard of comedies about irredeemable people who never learn and never grow, played for maximum cruelty and laughs. If you want the id BoJack keeps trying to suppress.

But No emotional payoff by design — it never wants you to feel anything but appalled and delighted.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia poster

Rick and Morty2013

A brilliant, self-loathing drunk destroys everyone around him across the multiverse. Same animated nihilism, same genius-as-excuse-for-monstrousness engine, dialed up into sci-fi spectacle.

But Colder and more misanthropic — less interested in redemption, more interested in the joke that redemption is a lie.

Tuca & Bertie2019

Made by BoJack's own production designer, this bird-and-plant-woman buddy comedy has the same lush surreal animal world but turns its attention to female friendship, anxiety and trauma.

But Bounces between silly sight gags and heavy trauma material fast enough to feel uneven if you're not braced for it.

The Comeback2005

Same anatomy of a washed-up performer's self-delusion and desperate need to matter, but stripped of animation's cushioning distance and played entirely straight-faced in mockumentary form.

Lisa Kudrow plays a fading sitcom actress clawing for relevance via a reality show that humiliates her at every turn, and she lets you watch her know it. Cringe as tragedy.

But So committed to secondhand embarrassment it can be genuinely hard to sit through — there's little relief from the discomfort.

In Treatment2008

BoJack keeps circling therapy as the thing that might actually fix him; this show is what happens if you stop cutting away from that room and just stay in it.

Each short episode is a single therapy session, one patient, one hour, nowhere to hide. What BoJack's therapy scenes gesture at, this show does for real, at length, with total seriousness.

But There's no plot to speak of and no comic relief — it's dialogue-only rooms of people confronting themselves, which some will find airless.