10 Most Underrated NBC Shows Of All Time

For decades, NBC has essentially been the gift that keeps on giving. This is the network that delivered all-time television classics like "Cheers," "Frasier," "Friends," and "The Office." Want reality TV? NBC aired "The Voice" and "America's Got Talent." Want drama? Check out "Chicago Fire" and "ER." Johnny Carson made his mark with "The Tonight Show," while "Seinfeld" remains one of the best TV shows of all time. Even shows with more modest ratings, like "30 Rock," were critical darlings.

Still, not every show can be a smash success. For every "Seinfeld," there were a handful of underrated TV shows that flew under the radar. Sure, some developed a cult following or earned rave reviews from critics, but plenty of great NBC TV shows deserve much more recognition.

In all honesty, we could hammer out a massive list filled with our favorite undervalued shows, but we decided to limit this to 10 of the most underappreciated NBC shows of all time, ranked in no particular order.

Sometimes, bad luck can keep a great show from stealing the spotlight. In the case of "Homicide: Life on the Street," the crime drama had the misfortune of debuting in 1993, when audiences had plenty of more conventional police procedurals to choose from.

"Homicide" won numerous awards and accolades, but audiences never embraced it the way they did some of its contemporaries. Perhaps its pessimistic tone had something to do with it. Other shows made a point of solving the crime by the end of each episode, rarely leaving audiences without a clear resolution. "Homicide" took the opposite approach and gave us a more realistic depiction of law enforcement. Our heroes, led by Andre Braugher's Detective Frank Pembleton, certainly caught plenty of criminals, but the bad guys sometimes won. The detectives couldn't solve the case or couldn't prove that their prime suspect actually committed the crime.

The show leaned on rough, documentary-style photography to capture the mundane life of a city cop. Again, critics loved it. But "Homicide" never achieved the same mainstream popularity as other police dramas, perhaps because viewers didn't want to spend an hour wondering whether they would walk away frustrated after yet another bad guy got away scot-free.

Thankfully, David Simon, whose nonfiction book "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" inspired the series, later carried some of those same ideas into another series — a little show called "The Wire." 

"NewsRadio" stumbled over the same problems as "Homicide" in that it had the misfortune of debuting in 1995 during a very crowded era for comedy television. Seriously, even the best show could get trounced by a lineup that included "Seinfeld," "Friends," "Frasier," "Mad About You," "3rd Rock from the Sun," and "Wings" — all in their prime.

"NewsRadio" didn't stand a chance against some of the biggest sitcoms of all time. And really, that's too bad because it is a lot of fun. Dave Foley stars as Dave Nelson, the news director of a New York AM radio station, WNYX. There, he deals with an assortment of lunatics, including arrogant anchor Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman), ambitious news reporter Lisa Miller (Maura Tierney), eccentric billionaire Jimmy James (Stephen Root), conspiracy-chaser Joe Garrelli (Joe Rogan), and likable secretary Beth (Vicki Lewis).

Cue the atypical workplace humor, except "NewsRadio" wasn't afraid to up the ante and detour into really weird territory. There are fantasy sequences, delightfully absurd plotlines, and episodes that seem to poke fun at the very formula the show was following.

In almost any other era, "NewsRadio" would have become a ratings hit and a smash success. At the time, it simply got buried beneath brutal competition. Now, it's remembered more as one of Hartman's final gigs before his tragic death than one of the great '90s comedies.

"The Pretender" is one of the stranger entries on our list because, well, it was indeed a hit — lasting four seasons, or 86 episodes — but it has since largely vanished from public discourse. Premiering in 1996, the series follows Michael T. Weiss as Jarod, a genius raised from an early age by an organization called The Centre and gifted with the ability to master virtually any profession or identity. It's a perfect premise for prime-time TV, allowing our hero to tackle different roles in different locales, all the while evading the very system that created him.

It's a very '90s setup. One week he's a racecar driver; the next week he could be a neurosurgeon. Get it? Think "The Fugitive" with a little more action. Viewers agreed, turning "The Pretender" into a decent-sized hit that spawned two TNT television movies and even several "Profiler" crossovers.

Except, unlike, say, "The X-Files" or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "The Pretender" didn't leave behind much of a cultural footprint. Like its beleaguered hero, the series arrived, did its job, then packed up and disappeared almost as if it never existed. That's a weird thing to say about a show that crafted a fairly complex mythology around a likable lead character.

Maybe someday we'll get some sort of revival or remake that jogs our memory and reminds us why we tuned into this compelling drama in the first place.

Like "The Pretender," "Chuck" is another show that lasted for a long time — five seasons! — but always felt like it was on the brink of cancellation. Luckily, a hardcore fan base kept the dream alive and allowed this goofy series to last longer than its ratings probably should have allowed.

The biggest reason "Chuck" lands on this list is because, well, a show this good shouldn't be a cult favorite. "Chuck" should have been a monster hit, the type of series people gather around the water cooler to talk about at work. Why?

For starters, the premise is absolutely inspired. An underachieving computer nerd named Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) accidentally downloads government secrets into his brain, essentially turning him into a valuable asset. As such, CIA agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) and NSA agent John Casey (Adam Baldwin) are assigned to protect him. So the series becomes a strange workplace comedy/spy-thriller hybrid that somehow works.

The cast alone does much of the heavy lifting, while a bevy of guest stars — including Timothy Dalton, Linda Hamilton, Scott Bakula, Chevy Chase, Brandon Routh, and Carrie-Anne Moss — add a significant amount of stature. Based on quality alone, "Chuck" deserved far more than begging for help from Subway. It's a solid piece of entertainment that TV fans should definitely check out if they haven't already.

"Community" is one of those shows that's been in the lexicon for so long that it's hard to call it underappreciated. Not a day goes by that someone isn't using a GIF from the series in a text message or quoting a memorable line of dialogue. Heck, we're getting a "Community" movie!

And yet, hear us out: "Community" is still underrated, especially compared with shows like "The Office," which achieved far more mainstream success, or even "Parks and Recreation," which has arguably enjoyed a larger cultural afterlife. "Community" has a devout following and has certainly carved out a niche in pop culture, but for many, it's likely the obscure show that sometimes featured Chevy Chase.

Or maybe we're underrating the impact this show has had and continues to have. You could argue that "Community" was overlooked during its run but steadily grew in popularity thanks to streaming, while others might argue that it still hasn't attained the level of success a show like this deserves.

Ultimately, this one is tricky because "Community" reached the general public, but it took too long and may never achieve the success we think it deserves.

This feels like the perfect place to talk about "Ed." Here we have another show with a wonderful premise, charismatic stars, and plenty of commercial appeal that enjoyed four solid seasons, earned accolades, and maintained steady ratings before seemingly falling off the face of the Earth.

A large part of that has to do with music licensing. See, "Ed" used a considerable amount of popular music that added an emotional layer to the series but complicated home video and distribution. Licensing for this type of stuff is incredibly expensive, and so "Ed" never found much of an afterlife following its initial run.

In fact, most TV viewers will recognize its colorful cast from other roles. Tom Cavanagh, Julie Bowen, and Justin Long all went on to find success elsewhere — namely, "The Flash," "Modern Family," and big-screen ventures like "Drag Me to Hell." Seriously, ask a casual TV viewer about "Ed," and they'll look at you as though you just told them about your bowling alley-based law firm.

Long story short, we should be talking about "Ed" all these years later. There should be cast reunions, endless talk of a revival, and maybe a movie based on the series. Instead, "Ed" walked off into the sunset, somehow less famous than the day he arrived.

In 2017, amid the wave of true-crime shows, NBC produced "Trial & Error," a mockumentary that pokes fun at the genre in the same vein as "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation." With Nicholas D'Agosto, a fantastic John Lithgow, and an outrageous premise that packed every 30-minute episode with as many jokes as possible, "Trial & Error" looked like a surefire hit. Sadly, it wasn't.

Instead, this little-seen comedy lasted for two seasons before NBC pulled the plug. Too bad, because both seasons are pretty damn hilarious. Season 1, in particular, gets a big boost from Lithgow's bonkers portrayal of a man who may or may not have killed his wife. He certainly behaves like a guilty person. He's cheerful and completely oblivious to how much he reveals, which makes his lawyer's job harder. But did he really do it?

The central mystery beneath the jokes is compelling enough to keep viewers invested. And while it may look like a knockoff of "The Office," "Trial & Error" actually carves out its own unique identity. Even better, Lithgow's storyline concludes at the end of Season 1, opening the door for another mystery involving Kristin Chenoweth in Season 2.

Funny enough, the combination of murder mystery and comedy would later help make Hulu's "Only Murders in the Building" such a hit. It's a shame more people didn't come along for the ride.

After "Friends," Matthew Perry tried his hand at a few different TV projects, notably "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," "Mr. Sunshine," and "The Odd Couple," none of which stuck. Sadly, his best work outside of Chandler Bing was the comedy-drama "Go On," created by "Friends" writer/executive producer Scott Silveri.

Of those projects, "Go On" utilizes Perry's comedic and dramatic chops best. The late actor stars as Ryan King, a sports radio host dealing with his wife's death by attending a support group. There, he's joined by an eclectic group of characters played by the likes of Laura Benanti, Tyler James Williams, Julie White, Suzy Nakamura, and Brett Gelman, all of whom bring a fun assortment of quirks to the table.

While the comedy features an abundance of broad jokes, the series homes in on loss and grief, giving Perry plenty of opportunities to flex his dramatic chops. As the lone season wears on, the series morphs from "quirky support group sitcom" to something more profound. Our characters become something of a family, consoling each other through tough times. Honestly, it's pretty great.

Like many on this list, however, audiences simply didn't turn up. Whether they were merely unwilling to see Perry in another role outside "Friends" or turned off by a darker-than-usual premise, viewers never gave the show a chance, leaving "Go On" as one of those great "what ifs?" because of its untapped potential.

In 2002, we got a snazzy little crime drama called "Boomtown," with an unusual premise. Rather than following a conventional investigation, episodes splintered off and showed the same crime from multiple perspectives. For example, we'd see a murder through the eyes of a pair of detectives, followed by the perspective of a reporter, then a paramedic, victim, or prosecutor. These alternate angles revealed different information or significantly changed our understanding of what happened. Pretty cool, eh?

Well, fluctuating ratings left "Boomtown" with a quick two-season run despite a banger cast that included Donnie Wahlberg, Neal McDonough, and Mykelti Williamson. "Boomtown" went on to win the Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding New Program, along with a Peabody Award, but that wasn't enough to keep it on the air.

Granted, NBC squandered its momentum. Season 1 actually averaged around 10.1 million viewers, but when the network moved Season 2 to Friday, the show lost a significant portion of its audience. NBC tried to retool it into a more basic, run-of-the-mill procedural, ditching its hook and further diluting its potential. Here we have an example of an acclaimed series being completely underrated by its own network. "Boomtown" was created by Graham Yost, who would later give us "Justified." So, don't feel too bad for the guy.

Finally, chances are you have never heard of "Great News." And yet, this peak TV treasure from "30 Rock" writer Tracey Wigfield lasted for two seasons, featured a great cast and a clever premise, and never found the same audience or cultural footprint as other NBC shows.

The plot follows Katie Wendelson (Briga Heelan), a producer of the cable news program "The Breakdown," where her mother, Carol (Andrea Martin), becomes an intern. So, basically, you get two shows in one: a solid workplace comedy mixed with a surprisingly heartfelt mother/daughter story.

In the late 2000s/early 2010s, "Great News" might have been a solid entry alongside other kookier comedies like "30 Rock" or "The Office." By 2017, however, the television landscape had shifted, with streaming taking center stage and leaving traditional network comedy blocks in the dust. Who wants to watch a quirky weekly comedy series when viewers can binge cinema-quality shows like "Stranger Things" on Netflix?

Too bad, because "Great News" is legitimately good. It never reaches the same highs as "30 Rock" or even "Community," for that matter, but those first two seasons showed real potential, suggesting bigger things were ahead. John Michael Higgins stands out as a pompous news anchor, while Nicole Richie is actually quite hilarious as his younger co-anchor. Fans of "30 Rock" will enjoy the fast-paced dialogue and nonstop media satire and lament that we didn't get more of it.