Television series
It Gets Worse
It Gets Worse is a gleefully bleak comedy about three post-uni friends facing the double crisis of losing their London flat and realizing adult life is mostly disappointing. It's warm, cynical, and genuinely funny about the specific misery of your mid-twenties: bad jobs, worse dating, and the dawning suspicion that nobody knows what they're doing. For anyone who's felt betrayed by adulthood's false advertising.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like comedy that finds the bleakness of early adulthood funny rather than sad, and friendships that are messy, loud and clearly load-bearing.
Skip it if you need warmth or a story that moves forward, since the humour leans on cringe and crude talk and the characters rarely catch a break.
What it asks of you: Six episodes and one season, so a short commitment; the jokes come thick and fast, and the mood stays wry and unsentimental from start to finish.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Fleabag2016
Razor-sharp comedy about a chaotic young woman navigating London, romantic failure, and the gap between who you are and who you pretend to be. The fourth-wall breaks and brutal honesty about self-sabotage feel ancestral to It Gets Worse.
But It's been culturally inescapable, and some find the protagonist's charm exhausting rather than endearing. Wrapped up five years ago, so no discovery left.
Schitt's Creek2015
A found family comedy that actually earns its warmth. Four people forced together through circumstance learn to love each other while remaining completely themselves. The show understands that friendship survives incompatibility—sometimes because of it.
But It's a slow burn that doesn't hit its stride until season two. The early episodes feel more conventional sitcom than later seasons' emotional sophistication.
Trying2020
Two struggling people in their thirties trying to adopt navigate bureaucracy, disappointment, and each other with devastating comedy and actual tenderness. It's about wanting things and failing repeatedly but showing up anyway.
But The tone shifts genuinely toward the serious and sad; it's not consistent comedy. That sincerity might undercut what you're after.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from It Gets Worse
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
BoJack Horseman2014
Both are about young(ish) people realizing the world isn't going to fix them, and that their friendships might be the only honest thing they have left—but friendship alone doesn't solve anything. Both refuse the lie of self-improvement.
An animated show about a washed-up actor and his broken friends in LA. It looks like a goofy cartoon and gradually reveals itself as one of television's most unsparing examinations of how bad choices, low self-worth, and generational damage keep people stuck. Devastatingly, very funny.
But The animation style is deliberately ugly. More importantly: it gets dark and stays dark in ways that go far beyond comedy. Some episodes are genuinely difficult to watch.
More like this (8)
Catastrophe2015
A one-night stand turns into a relationship when she gets pregnant. It's rowdy, profane, and full of the specific jokes of people who know each other's worst selves. The writing between Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney crackles.
But Much of it centres on pregnancy and parenthood; if that's not your lane, large chunks won't resonate. Ends abruptly in season four without full resolution.
This Country2017
Two cousins in rural Cotswolds are deeply, authentically bored and document it as comedy. It's about small-town entrapment and ambitious dreamers going nowhere, shot with documentary realism that makes the mundane funny.
But British regional accents and dialect comedy don't land for everyone. Very slow-paced; it's about nothing happening, which requires patience.
Young Sheldon2017
A prequel about an awkward genius kid in Texas learning to navigate a world that doesn't understand him. It balances character warmth with sharp observational comedy about being an outsider.
But If you haven't watched The Big Bang Theory, some layers won't land. It's fundamentally gentler and more sentimental than a show about three dysfunctional London flatmates.
Derry Girls2018
Four Catholic girls in 1990s Northern Ireland navigate school, boys, and identity with the kind of friend-group chemistry that feels lived-in. The ensemble dynamic is why you'll keep coming back.
But It's set in a specific time and place; if period detail annoys you rather than charms you, it drags. Heavier emotional arcs in later seasons shift the tone.
Motherland2016
Three school-run parents in North London are broke, exhausted, and failing at everything including friendship. It's specifically about the pretence we perform and how it cracks under pressure.
But Centres on parenting and school-gate politics; if your main characters don't have kids, this won't feel like your world. Some storylines rely on UK education system knowledge.
People of Earth2016
A woman joins a support group for alien abductees; everyone is broken in different ways and bonded by a shared delusion that might not be delusion. It's weird, tender, and genuinely strange in how it values outsiders.
But The sci-fi premise is genuinely odd and takes time to land. It was cancelled after two seasons, so the incompleteness might frustrate. Genre-adjacent in ways that pull from its realism.
Sexy Beast2001
It Gets Worse is about people trapped by circumstance and poor choices; Sexy Beast is about a man who can't escape who he is, no matter where he goes. Both suggest that geography is not destiny and that better places can still demand we be ourselves—which might be the worst thing of all.
Ray Winstone is a British criminal living idyllic retirement in Spain when a terrifying sociopath (Ben Kingsley) arrives to pull him back in. It's violent, baroque, and genuinely disturbing—nothing like you'd expect from a British crime film.
But It's grotesquely brutal; the violence isn't cartoonish or consequence-free. Kingsley's character is so relentlessly vile it tips into uncomfortable. Not entertaining in the traditional sense.
Please Like Me2013
Both start as comedies about dysfunction and gradually reveal themselves as being about whether love—specifically friendship, specifically showing up—means anything when circumstances are genuinely bad. Both refuse the comfort of either tragedy or triumph.
An Australian comedy-drama about a guy whose mum has a mental health crisis, his estranged dad re-enters his life, and his friends are variously falling apart. It's funny in the moment and then you realize you're watching something about how we save each other through jokes.
But It's explicitly about mental illness and parental failure; there's real pain underneath. The tone whipsaws between comedy and raw hurt. Some people find that dishonest; others find it true.
People
Cast
Writing
- Leo ReichCreator
Production
- Sam PinnellProducer