The Pacific, Enlightened, Halt and Catch Fire: Shows you have to stream if you haven’t already

With new shows constantly hitting streamers, you’d be forgiven for missing some of the hidden gems. Here are the forgotten series you need to watch.

With ample quality TV series’ constantly hitting streamers, you’d be forgiven for missing some of the hidden gems.

There’s nothing quite like the thrill of pressing play on a brand new show Twitter has been raving about (Dr Death, we’re lookin’ at you), but once that’s been binged we’re left back at square one desperately searching for something equally satisfying.

Thankfully there’s a smorgasbord of wonderful series that are hiding on streaming platforms just waiting to be discovered.

Here are our top picks for the shows you may have missed over the years.

The Pacific (2010), Binge

WWII drama The Pacific blew out its budget, doubling the projected costs.

There was massive buzz around this HBO miniseries when it first dropped back in 2010.

But streaming has had an overwhelming resurgence since then, and chances are you may not have gotten on board.

The World War II drama, starring James Badge Dale and Rami Malek, is one of the most expensive shows ever made by HBO, costing a whopping $27 million an episode and $230 million overall.

On top of a big budget, it was a passion project of producing forces Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, and was filmed across various locations in Australia including NSW, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania.

The series, a companion piece to the 2001 miniseries Band Of Brothers, follows the experiences of three marines in different regiments of the 1st Marine Division, and their battles in the Pacific, such as Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, and Okinawa, as well as the Battle of Iwo Jima.

And with just 10 episodes, it’s an easy (albeit, heavy) weekend binge.

Stream The Pacific on Binge. New customers get a 14-day free trial and start streaming instantly. Sign up at binge.com.au

Atypical (2017), Netflix

English-born Canadian actor Keir Gilchrist stars as a teen on the spectrum in Atypical.

I adore this show, but often discover I’m the only one who’s seen it.

It’s the kind of series you put on when you need something lighthearted to make you smile.

Atypical, which just dropped its fourth and final season on Netflix, expertly and realistically portrays autism (this is very hard to do) in the form of its lead character Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist), a high school student on the spectrum who’s ready for his first girlfriend.

Expect laughs, tears and plenty of talk about penguins. Oh, and a wonderful performance by Jennifer Jason Leigh as the mother everyone needs in their life.

There are only 10 episodes per season with a 30-minute runtime.

Enlightened (2011), Binge

Mike White and Laura Dern in Enlightened. Laura Dern’s mother Diana Ladd also plays her on-screen mother in the series.

If you’re loving writer, director and occasional reality TV contestant Mike White’s latest show The White Lotus, you should really check out his cult classic Enlightened, an HBO two-season-wonder which lasted for just 18 episodes a decade ago.

It stars Laura Dern at her very best as Amy Jellicoe, a high-powered business executive who suffers a very public breakdown at work, which then triggers a greater existential crisis about her place in the world.

Broke and living back with her mother (Dern’s own mother Diane Ladd in a quietly heartbreaking performance), Amy grapples with how to make a new start in life, this time intent on making a positive impact and being a force for change.

If it all sounds a bit heavy, it is at times, but also frequently hilarious as Amy battles against her own innate selfishness to be this new, better version of herself. Class, money, status, midlife crises: Enlightened mines all those same rich veins White’s now exploring so perfectly on The White Lotus.

Friday Night Dinner (2011), Stan

Tamsin Greig, Paul Ritter, Simon Bird and Tom Rosenthal in Friday Night Dinner. Tamsin Greig also starred in oddball British sitcom Green Wing.

If you like The InBetweeners, Friday Night Dinner will be your kind of meal.

The British sitcom has a simple premise, centred around family dinner time on Friday nights at the Goodmans, a middle-class British Jewish household.

It’s full of hilarious banter, brotherly pranks, an oddball dad and salt of the earth mum. Throw in a crazy neighbour named Jim who is afraid of his own dog and you’ve got yourself one quality show that delivers plenty of laughs in every 20-minute episode.

Bunheads (2012), Disney+

Sutton Foster stars in Bunheads.

From the creators of Gilmore Girls comes this feel-good comedy-drama aptly titled Bunheads – slang for ballerinas.

The quirky one-season show, fit with 18 episodes, marked Younger star Sutton Foster’s big TV break after an illustrious career on broadway.

It focuses on Michelle Simms Flowers (Foster), a former ballerina turned Vegas dancer who decides on a whim to marry her persistent admirer, Hubbell, when her career isn’t taking off.

The pair uproot to the fictional town of Paradise and move into the home Hubbell shares with his mother Fanny (Kelly Bishop), who owns a ballet school.

Things fall apart when Hubbell unexpectedly dies in a car accident, forcing Michelle to re-establish her purpose yet again.

The aforementioned ballet school – after some teething issues – becomes central to Michelle’s story.

Admittedly the journey is a slow burn, but that’s what makes it so loveable. It’s not trying so hard to shock its viewers with twists and turns, it just naturally brings you along for the ride as it would happen in real life.

Ultimately, this is probably why ABC cancelled the show after one season, shelving it into the underrated gem category.

Halt and Catch Fire (2014), Binge

Lee Pace as Joe MacMillan in Halt and Catch Fire. The title of the series refers to a computer code which causes the CPU to stop operation. Picture: Tina Rowden/AMC

According to news.com.au reviewer, Wenlei Ma, this “under-appreciated” drama had some of the “most compelling and complex characters committed to the small screen in recent years”.

Taking place over a period of more than a decade in the world of technology, the four-season series takes viewers inside the personal computer revolution of the 1980s and the growth of the internet in the early 1990s.

But that’s just a framework to tell the very human stories of Joe, Cameron, Donna and Gordon, the core four who will change each other’s lives with their ambitions and betrayals.