Although Amazon Prime Video is itself filled with plenty of great TV shows, you don’t necessarily need to be a subscriber to see some of the stuff that is available on the service. Amazon’s Freevee channel features plenty of free, ad-supported programs that are available without any subscription required.
If you’ve made your way through the most obvious titles, as well as the ones that Freevee recommends, you may be looking for some more underrated titles that are worth exploring. We’ve picked out three such shows that are definitely worth checking out, all of which have been off the air for at least a few years.
Fringe (2008-2013)
One of the most unheralded sci-fi shows of its era, Fringe follows a detective who is forced to work with a mad scientist and his son to investigate crimes that are related to the cringiest aspects of scientific thought. Although it started as a relatively straightforward sci-fi procedural, Fringe took some wild leaps over the course of its years on the air, and almost all of them ultimately work.
While it’s been off the air for more than a decade, Fringe is still gaining new viewers who are interested in finding some genuinely great sci-fi TV that’s worth digging into.
The Good Wife (2009-2016)
The idea of a show about lawyers is not exactly revolutionary, and yet, The Good Wife managed to breathe new life into the genre over the course of its time on the air. The show follows the wife of a politician who decides to return to work in the wake of her husband’s cheating scandal.
Thanks to an outstanding ensemble and incredible writing, The Good Wife managed to effortlessly combine one-off stories with overarching arcs. Julianna Margulies and Christine Baranski proved to be two of the best actors on TV over the course of the show’s run, and they’re supported by an all-star lineup of supporting and guest actors.
Person of Interest (2011-2016)
A show that ran for five seasons and nevertheless felt both underseen and underdiscussed, Person of Interest follows a group of private agents who use a machine to predict crimes before they happen. Like the great Steven Spielberg sci-fi movie Minority Report, Person of Interest is interested in the sticky ethical questions that come with trying to solve crimes before anybody has actually done anything.
Michael Emerson and Taraji P. Henson anchored the series over the course of its run, and while it had some elements of a simple criminal procedural, the notion of solving crimes before they happen helps to distinguish this series from something like Law & Order.