Television series

The Bold Type

The Bold Type follows three best friends climbing the glossy, chaotic ladder of a Cosmo-esque women's magazine — a writer, a photo director, a social-media wunderkind — while their formidable editor-in-chief coaches them through career panic and heartbreak alike. It's fizzy, big-hearted television: earnest about ambition, unashamed about feelings, funny about the absurdities of media work. Comfort viewing that still cares about ideas.

TVMaze rating6.7

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Younger2015

Shares the publishing-world setting and mentor dynamics, but leans harder into farce with its age-swap premise, and its heroine is just as endearingly earnest as Sutton climbing the ladder.

But The central lie — a 40-something posing as 26 — never quite resolves as gracefully as the show wants it to.

Younger poster

Ugly Betty2006

Another magazine underdog fighting her way up through a fashion glossy staffed with divas and secret hearts of gold — funnier, campier, but with the same belief that kindness wins.

But The telenovela plotting — evil twins, comas, secret babies — is a big tonal jump from Bold Type's grounded realism.

Ugly Betty poster

Sex and the City1998

The ur-text for women, friendship, and Manhattan careers — messier and more grown-up, but you'll recognize the DNA in every brunch scene and workplace crisis.

But Its politics around race, class and sexuality have aged badly in ways the show never grapples with.

Sex and the City poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show1970

Same structural engine as Bold Type — a young woman finding her voice inside a demanding boss-mentor relationship at a media job that becomes her real family — fifty years earlier, laugh track included.

Decades before Jacqueline, there was Lou Grant's newsroom and a single woman insisting she could make it on her own — the original workplace-family sitcom, still sharp and quietly radical.

But The multi-camera, studio-audience format and 1970s pacing will feel like a different planet if you've never watched vintage sitcoms.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show poster
More like this (8)

Jane the Virgin2014

From the same network, with the same generous, big-hearted tone and a similarly whip-smart, ambitious heroine finding her voice — just filtered through telenovela machinery.

But The narrator gimmick and plot density take some adjusting to if you want something more naturalistic.

Jane the Virgin poster

Insecure2016

Swaps magazine glamour for the messier real world of LA, but keeps the same commitment to specific female friendship, career anxiety and identity — funnier, rawer, less tidy.

But Its comedy of discomfort and cringe is a different register than Bold Type's sunnier optimism.

Insecure poster

The Devil Wears Prada2006

The mentor-boss relationship at the center — imperious editor, terrified new hire — is basically Jacqueline and Jane's blueprint, compressed into two sharp, quotable hours.

But It's one movie's worth of ambition-versus-soul, not the slow-burn friendship arc that unfolds across seasons.

The Devil Wears Prada poster

Suits2011

Swap the magazine for a law firm and you get the same aspirational cocktail — glossy offices, wise mentors, workplace romance simmering under looming deadlines.

But Its slicker, more plot-driven approach means the friendships take a backseat to case-of-the-week drama.

Suits poster

grown-ish2018

Freeform's other flagship, following a young woman finding her identity away from home — smaller scale, college setting, same warmth and social conscience.

But Its college-comedy rhythms are looser and rowdier than Bold Type's more polished workplace focus.

grown-ish poster

Girls2012

The other great New York friendship show of the decade, following twenty-somethings toward adulthood — bleaker, funnier, far less interested in giving anyone a happy ending.

But Its characters are deliberately, sometimes excruciatingly unlikeable in ways Bold Type never risks.

Girls poster

The September Issue2009

This is Jacqueline's world with the writers'-room warmth stripped away — the same magazine ecosystem Bold Type romanticizes, shown as it actually operates, ambition and cruelty included.

A real magazine, a real terrifying editor, and the actual chaos of assembling a glossy issue — quieter, sadder and far more ruthless than any fictional version.

But There's no friendship arc, no romance, just the cold machinery of an industry — a genuinely different kind of watch.

The September Issue poster

Broad City2014

Take Bold Type's core friendship and its belief that female bonds can carry a whole show, then swap earnestness for anarchy — same emotional spine, opposite tone entirely.

Same devoted best friendship at the center, same city, same hunger to matter — but turned all the way up into gleeful, filthy, absurdist comedy about being broke and young in New York.

But It has zero interest in career triumph or tidy life lessons — it's chaos for its own sake, proudly.

Broad City poster

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