Somehow this all started with Sam Reid and ended with four shows permanently lodged in my brain. Two of them feature him, the other two just fit the same vibe dark, heavy, the kind of stories that sit with you for days.
Good stuff all around. None of these are ranked, just four shows that deserve way more attention than they get.
Interview with the Vampire (2022)
I found this show the way most people find their new obsessions these days, through a TikTok edit. I had never read Anne Rice's novels and had never seen the 1994 Tom Cruise film. I just saw a clip, thought "okay what is this," and pressed play.
The story follows Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), a vampire who was turned in 1910s New Orleans, now recounting his entire life story to a journalist from a penthouse in Dubai. The framing keeps you constantly questioning how much of what Louis is telling is actually true. At the center of everything is his relationship with Lestat de Lioncourt, played by Sam Reid with an intensity that makes you fully understand why Louis could never just walk away. Romantic, monstrous, funny, and terrifying sometimes all in the same scene. The show also gives us Claudia (Bailey Bass in Season 1, Delainey Hayles in Season 2), a girl turned into a vampire and trapped in a child's body forever, and her arc is where things get genuinely devastating. The visuals, the score, the gothic atmosphere, all of it is exactly as lush and heavy as it should be. This show sent me straight into Sam Reid's entire filmography the moment it ended, and I have zero regrets.
What could have been better: The pacing in a couple of mid-season episodes slows down enough that you feel it, even if the payoff is worth the wait. There are also moments where the show leans so heavily into the emotional spiral between Louis and Lestat that the plot momentum stalls a little. Minor complaints, honestly, for a show that gets so much right.
Quick highlights:
- Sam Reid as Lestat. He is the whole show. The French accent, the emotional range, the way he makes you root for someone you know you should not be rooting for. Genuinely one of THE best performances in recent prestige TV history.
- The love story at its core. This is not a vampire show that happens to have a romance. It is a romance that uses vampirism as the framework for examining obsession, codependency, grief, and the particular agony of loving someone who is also capable of destroying you.
- The visual and tonal commitment. Every frame feels deliberate. The New Orleans period detail, the wardrobe, the color grading. It does not cut corners on atmosphere anywhere, and it shows.
And the timing of this post could not be more perfect, because Season 3 drops tomorrow, June 7th, 2026, and I am barely holding it together. The wait has been genuinely painful and I have been rationing my rewatch energy specifically for this moment.
The Newsreader (2021)
I originally put this on as background noise during a sick day. I already knew Sam Reid could act, so I figured I would let it play while I rested and check in occasionally. That plan lasted about fifteen minutes before I was fully upright and completely locked in. I binged the entire three-season run in two days flat, sick and absolutely unbothered about it.
The Newsreader is an Australian drama series created by Michael Lucas and broadcast on ABC, premiering in August 2021. It went on to become ABC's most-watched drama of that year, ran for three seasons concluding in early 2025, and the fact that it is not talked about more globally is baffling to me.
Set in 1986, the show follows Dale Jennings (Sam Reid), an ambitious young reporter, and Helen Norville (Anna Torv), a brilliant but notoriously difficult news anchor, as they navigate the cutthroat world of a Melbourne television newsroom. The show is set against the backdrop of some of the biggest news events of the late 80s, and it uses that historical texture really well to make the newsroom setting feel alive and grounded.
What could have been better: Season 3 is the weakest of the three, and I say that as someone who loved this show enough to binge it while running a fever. It feels a little slow and repetitive compared to the tightness of the first two seasons, and there are moments where the storytelling feels like it is rushing to wrap things up rather than landing with the same care the earlier seasons had. Still watchable, but the dip is noticeable.
Quick highlights:
- Anna Torv as Helen Norville. She is the backbone of the entire series. The way she plays a woman navigating a world designed to sideline her, without ever making Helen a simple victim or a simple hero, is something special.
- The 1980s newsroom atmosphere. The production design and period details are meticulous without feeling like a costume drama. It feels lived in, which is exactly what a story like this needs.
- Sam Reid before the fangs. Watching him here, all restrained charm and quiet desperation, makes his Lestat performance even more impressive in retrospect. The man has range.
Hellbound (2021)
Few shows have made me physically pound my fists on a table the way Hellbound did, and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. This South Korean supernatural horror series from director Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan) dropped on Netflix in November 2021 and it is so worth your time. The acting is excellent, the writing is tight, and it does not let up. Only two seasons are out so far and given that this is Netflix, I honestly have no idea if a third is coming. Fingers crossed.
The premise is simple but unsettling. Supernatural beings start appearing to ordinary people in Seoul, announcing the exact time they will die and be condemned to hell. When that moment arrives, monstrous executors show up and carry out the sentence in public. What follows is a story about how society responds to something no one has the framework to understand. Religious groups, vigilante organizations, legal systems, all of them scrambling to make sense of it. It is horror with a lot on its mind, and it handles both sides of that really well.
What could have been better: The jump in timeline between Season 1 and Season 2 can be a little disorienting at first, and some of the new characters in Season 2 take a few episodes to feel as grounded as the Season 1 cast. Also, three years between Season 1 and Season 2 is unacceptable, Netflix. Three years?! For a show this good. And six episodes per season? SIX? The release schedule alone is its own form of psychological damage, and if Season 3 gets announced and takes another three years to arrive, I will not be okay.
Quick highlights:
- The social commentary. At its core this show is really about how people respond to fear, how religion, institutions, and group mentality all scramble to control something they do not understand.
- The premise holds up. The rules of the world are consistent throughout and the show never cheats on them. How each character responds to those rules tells you everything about who they are.
- Season 2 escalation. It goes to places you genuinely do not see coming. The finale in particular is the kind of ending that makes you want to go back to Season 1 immediately.
Midnight Mass (2021)
Mike Flanagan is one of those creators who takes horror seriously, and Midnight Mass is probably his best argument for why that matters.
Set on a small, isolated fishing island called Crockett Island, the story follows Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) returning home after a prison stint, just as a mysterious and charismatic priest, Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater), shows up with what looks like the power to perform miracles. The community loses its mind over it, and then things go very dark very fast. At its core this is a show about faith, grief, and what people are willing to believe when they are desperate enough.
What could have been better: The vampire elements are there but the show keeps them in the background, which was honestly my biggest frustration. I kept waiting for it to dig deeper into the vampiric mythology and it never quite went there. If you are coming in expecting a traditional vampire story, just know this leans much more toward character study than horror. Still great though.
Quick highlights:
- Hamish Linklater as Father Paul. The performance is unreal. He makes Father Paul sympathetic, terrifying, pitiable, and utterly believable all at once.
- The slow burn payoff. Everything the show spends its early episodes building comes crashing down in its final two episodes. The patience is worth it.
- The themes. It handles faith and community and collective belief in a way that feels honest without being preachy about it.
Which of these four have you already watched, and which one are you adding to your list first?
Drop your thoughts in the comments, especially if you have strong feelings about the Hellbound Season 3 situation, because I know I am not the only one refreshing for that renewal news.
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