Television series
This Life
A cult 1990s drama about six ambitious junior lawyers sharing a London house, navigating first jobs, relationships and moral compromises. Sharp, sexy and surprisingly tender, it captures the specific thrill and terror of your twenties when everything feels urgent and possible. For anyone who loved having their worldview challenged by smart peers.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you like ensemble stories where messy flatmate chaos and private heartbreak sit side by side, and you don't mind a show that treats its characters' bad decisions with sympathy rather than a lecture.
Skip it if the 1990s look and pacing feel dated to some viewers, and 32 episodes across two series is a real commitment before the house settles into its rhythm.
What it asks of you: Expect long unhurried evenings: 32 episodes of forty-four minutes each, with plenty of talking, slow comic beats and a tone that swings from giddy to bruising.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
The West Wing1999
Intelligent ensemble drama where idealism meets institutional reality. Characters grow across seasons, work feels consequential, and dialogue crackles. If you loved This Life's blend of ambition and ethics, this extends that world into politics.
But Later seasons lose focus and the optimism can feel naive. Seven seasons is a commitment, and the show knows it's in love with itself.
Suits2011
Fast-talking lawyers, high stakes, the same addictive blend of workplace drama and character chemistry. It understands what draws people to legal shows: the tactics, the betrayals, the impossible choices made under pressure.
But It prioritizes plot momentum over depth, and relationship drama can feel soapy. The clever banter sometimes substitutes for actual character development.
The Good Wife2009
Smart, propulsive legal procedural with genuine emotional stakes. Complex female characters, a marriage in freefall, cases that matter. Every episode earns its runtime; this show respects your intelligence.
But Seven seasons of accumulated mythology can feel daunting. Some earlier episodes are clunkier than others.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from This Life
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
I, Daniel Blake2016
Both interrogate whether good intentions survive contact with institutions. This Life asks it inside the system; Loach asks it outside, where the stakes are survival.
Ken Loach's portrait of the welfare state and human dignity stripped away. It shares This Life's moral spine—the question of who our systems serve and at what cost—but asks it without any irony or romance.
But It is profoundly sad and makes no concessions to entertainment. Watching it feels like an obligation, not a pleasure. It will stay with you in ways that might hurt.
More like this (8)
Reckless2014
British legal drama with the same house-share energy and younger cast learning on the job. Shares This Life's understanding of how personal chaos bleeds into professional life. Fast and propulsive.
But It never quite reaches the same heights or has the same cultural moment. The tone wavers between serious and lightweight.
Boston Legal2004
Sardonic take on ambitious lawyers, but older and more jaded. If you want to see what happens to the idealism in This Life, or just need sharp courtroom scenes and genuine weirdness, this delivers.
But Tonally all over the map. It swings between farce and social commentary in ways that don't always land, and it can feel uneven.
Silk2011
British drama about barristers at the self-same stage of career anxiety and ambition. Grounded, intelligent, understands the particular pressures of that world. Peter Capaldi is extraordinary.
But More austere than This Life, with less romance and warmth. If you need the emotional fireworks, you might find it austere and slow.
L.A. Law1986
The obvious predecessor: glossy 1980s ensemble about beautiful lawyers doing beautiful work in California. If you're curious what influenced This Life's DNA, this is it. Great fun and surprisingly smart.
But The production design hasn't aged gracefully. It's very much of its moment, and that moment was 1986.
Damages2007
Taut legal thriller that shows what happens when you marry ambition to ruthlessness. Glenn Close is formidable. If you loved This Life's moral ambiguity, this pushes into darker territory.
But Relentlessly grim and manipulative in structure. There's little warmth or joy; it's a show about winning at all costs.
The Practice1997
American legal ensemble from the same era, similarly focused on young lawyers trying to do good and survive. Solid procedural with real heart and occasional genuine weightiness.
But Uneven writing and it hasn't worn well visually. Can feel very nineties earnest in a way that dates it badly.
The Split2018
Both capture the specific intelligence and hunger of lawyers early in their careers trying to prove themselves, but The Split adds the complication of family and legacy, showing what happens when personal and professional lives weaponize each other.
Brutal, propulsive family law drama that reunites three estranged sisters. Sharp dialogue, spectacular characters, and the legal work genuinely matters to the emotional architecture. British, funny, formidable female leads.
But Only three seasons before it ended, so you might want more. The family dynamics can overshadow the actual cases.
My Beautiful Laundrette1985
Both are love letters to a specific London moment and the young people in it, full of ambition and sex and argument and the sense that anything could happen. But where This Life is about climbing the ladder, Laundrette is about refusing it entirely.
Hanif Abdulkhoda's gorgeous, strange, utterly alive film about two young men in 1980s London building something together against the odds. It crackles with the same energy and specificity as This Life: that moment when you can be anyone, become anything.
But It's formally experimental and tangential in ways that frustrate plot-hungry viewers. Some will find it insubstantial or opaque. It's also about race, class and sexuality in ways that require attention.
People
Cast
Recommended by
Fresh Meat, Coupling, Cold Feet, Trying, Teachers, Clocking Off, EastEnders: E20, A Very Peculiar Practice