Television series

Rick and Morty

Name: Rick and Morty
Genre: Comedy, Adventure, Science Fiction
Released: 2013
Cast: Ian Cardoni, Justin Roiland, Harry Belden, Justin Roiland, Spencer Grammer

Comedy
Science fiction
Strange
Relentless

Rick and Morty is a science-fiction comedy that treats infinite universes as an excuse for gross-out gags, existential dread, and family dysfunction in roughly equal measure. It's fast, filthy, structurally inventive, and unafraid to undercut its own jokes with real sadness. Best for viewers who like their laughs a little bleak and don't mind a plot that reboots reality every twenty minutes.

TVMaze rating

4.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like animated sci-fi comedy that runs on manic, rule-breaking cleverness and gleefully cynical jokes, with a bleak streak underneath the absurdity.

Skip it if you want warm, steady characters or stories that settle down; the nihilism, crude humour and sudden shifts in tone can feel abrasive rather than playful.

What it asks of you: Episodes run about half an hour and there are nine seasons to get through, so you need to tolerate a dense, joke-packed style that rarely lets up.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Futurama1999

Same DNA, doubled: Rick and Morty's creators grew up on this. Big dumb sci-fi premises, deep emotional gut-punches disguised as jokes, and a supporting cast you'll love despite yourself.

But Warmer and more sentimental than R&M — the misanthropy has a soft centre that some viewers find syrupy.

Community2009

Dan Harmon's other show, and you can feel the same brain at work: high-concept structure, meta jokes about storytelling itself, and a cast of misfits who actually love each other underneath the bickering.

But No sci-fi, no gore — it's a sitcom about a community college, so the tonal jump from R&M is real.

The Venture Bros.2003

Adult Swim's other masterpiece: a family of glorious failures, absurd side-villains, and jokes buried so deep in continuity they reward obsessive rewatching almost as much as R&M's do.

But Denser and slower-burning — years of accumulating lore before it fully pays off, and the humour runs drier.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Rick and Morty

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Cowboy Bebop1998

Same structural trick as Rick and Morty: episodic, genre-hopping adventures held together by deep unspoken sadness about people who can't escape who they are. R&M's creators have cited it directly as an influence.

A bounty-hunter crew drifts through space, mixing genre pastiche episode to episode — noir one week, farce the next — with a melancholy undertow that hits harder the longer you sit with it.

But No jokes about butts or portal guns — it's slower, jazzier, and genuinely mournful rather than manically funny.

Doctor Who2005

The reset-every-week structure, the wildly different genres from episode to episode, and a brilliant, careless lead who's occasionally awful to the people who love him most. Sound familiar?

But Far gentler and more hopeful — this show wants you crying happy tears, not existential ones.

Archer2009

Same rapid-fire, reference-stuffed dialogue and a cast of gleefully terrible people you can't stop watching. Great pick for R&M fans who love the verbal comedy as much as the sci-fi.

But Grounded in spy-genre parody rather than science fiction, so the surreal, universe-hopping weirdness isn't here.

South Park1997

The same willingness to go anywhere for a joke, skewer any target regardless of taste, and land a surprisingly sharp point underneath all the crudeness.

But Cruder in a different way — the topical satire dates fast and the animation is deliberately ugly rather than polished.

Solar Opposites2020

Made by one of R&M's own co-creators, and it shows: chaotic alien family, gleeful cruelty played for laughs, a subplot about shrunken humans that gets stranger every season.

But Thinner characters and lower emotional stakes — it's the junk-food version of a very similar meal.

Inside Job2021

A conspiracy-workplace comedy with dense, rapid-fire jokes and a genius protagonist who's brilliant, damaged, and hard to root for — very much in R&M's register.

But Cancelled after one season, and the animation and jokes are noticeably less polished than R&M's.

The Twilight Zone1959

This is where the 'sci-fi premise as a delivery system for moral horror' move that R&M runs every single episode actually comes from — same engine, decades earlier, dead serious instead of gleefully profane.

Black-and-white anthology sci-fi where every episode is a self-contained moral trap — a scientist's hubris, a wish granted too literally, an ordinary life gone suddenly, quietly wrong.

But No continuing cast, no comedy, and pacing that's stagey by modern standards — pure 1959 television grammar.

Primer2004

Swap the portal gun for a jury-rigged box in a garage: the same idea of brilliant, reckless men whose inventions destroy the people closest to them, played with total, humourless seriousness instead of gross-out comedy.

Two garage engineers build a machine that shouldn't work, it works anyway, and their friendship and sanity both come apart in real time — one of the smartest time-travel stories ever made on a budget of nothing.

But Deliberately, almost punishingly confusing — no jokes, no relief, and you may need to watch it twice just to follow the plot.