Filling the Downton Abbey Hole

Has the end of season three of Downton Abbey left you with a good-TV hole in your heart? You are not alone! Thank goodness for streaming video and on-demand television shows, because you can fill that Downton Abbey-shaped hole with some more quality television. The one thing on which we can pinpoint its popularity is the realism of the drama. There are no zombies, no vampires, no mysteries in Downton Abbey. It's all about a look back at how "they" lived, providing us with quality entertainment. There may not be a surplus of shows set in the early-20th-century British countryside, but the Gods of Television have bestowed good shows for us to catch up on while we wait for season four of Downton Abbey to air.

The Wire may be the complete opposite of Downton Abbey in pretty much every way, except that it's an exceptionally good show. The series originally aired on HBO beginning in 2002 and continued for five seasons. It's gritty, it's sometimes disturbing, and it has more drama than you wish for anyone in real life. Each season focuses on different criminal problems in the city of Baltimore and how the police work to overcome the crimes committed in and outside of the inner city.

Taking place just a few decades after Downton Abbey is set, Mad Men chronicles the life of those involved in the birth of the "Madison Avenue" advertising age. The realistic look at how women entered the board room during the 60s in Manhattan has draw in the attention of both critics and us regular TV-watchers alike.

Now that the show has aired its final episode, if you haven't seen every episode of the seven-season show, you can have a marathon Weeds-watching weekend. The 30-minute serial is over-the-top in its realism, but it wouldn't be worth watching if we believed everything that happened on TV. And if everything that happened on Weeds really did happen in real life, we don't want to believe it.

Glenn Close as Patty Hewes is ruthless. The whole series is worth watching for the acting alone. Couple in the season-long court cases that wane from the unbelievable to the let's-hope-this-isn't-real drama of the law. Many of the cases portrayed in Damages are based on real-life situations made into must-watch-TV. There are five seasons of the 10- and 13-episode hour-long drama, all available to rent or stream in a marathon session of legal drama.

Currently airing on Showtime, Shameless is a cross-over show from England staring William H. Macy as the alcoholic, degenerate father of six children, Frank Gallagher living in Chicago. Left to fend for herself and her brothers and sister, Fiona, played by Emmy Rossum, runs the household with an iron fist while trying her best to create a life for herself. The show is irreverent towards the government system that claims to help families in situations like the Gallaghers live, but the realistic side of surviving by any means necessary is must-watch television.

Filling the Downton Abbey Hole

Has the end of season three left you with a good-TV hole in your heart?