16 Hidden Gems on YouTube You Can Watch for Free

The Goes Wrong Show (2019-21)

There’s something irresistible about bloopers: an idea that has birthed a wide variety of (mostly) reality TV shows. In this hilarious two-season series, a fictitious amateur theater troupe from the U.K.’s Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society mount a series of error-prone productions, from a courtroom drama to a Christmas play featuring a Santa who enjoys way too much sherry.

Watch it: The Goes Wrong Show

Grand Designs (1999-present)

For two decades, designer Kevin McCloud, 66, has hosted this series that unblinkingly follows the building of a new house, from blueprints to final trims. What sets the show apart from its high-gloss HGTV cousins is how it keeps the cameras rolling when problems arise: contractors quit, cranes won’t go up steep hills, budgets get busted, tempers flare. Some projects come off without a hitch, while others are epic disasters worthy of Greek tragedy.

Watch it: Grand Designs

The Greatest American Hero (1981-83)

At a time when superhero content seems to be ubiquitous, it’s puzzling that nobody has rebooted this light-hearted lark about an ordinary schoolteacher (William Katt, 74) who’s bequeathed a red-and-black alien suit granting him superpowers like flight, super-strength and X-ray vision. But since Katt’s unlikely hero promptly loses the instruction manual, he winds up discovering his abilities by a combination of accident and hilariously awkward trial and error. The show is also blessed with an earworm of theme song that will leave you walking on air.  

Watch it: The Greatest American Hero

Heartland (2007-present)

Sisters Amy and Lou Fleming (Amber Marshall and Michelle Morgan) run the family horse ranch in this sprawling saga that has been a mainstay of Canadian TV for nearly two decades. The show not only explores humans’ connection to animals but also to each other — and how family bonds can survive and even grow amid individual stumbles and mistakes.

Watch it: Heartland

Kitchen Nightmares (2007-2014)

Quick-tempered British super-chef Gordon Ramsay, 59, first made a name for himself on this reality series, going into failing restaurants and berating chefs, owners and front-of-house staff at volumes higher than a perfectly executed soufflé. Better yet, the original British version was pure fly-on-the-kitchen-wall vérité — with the struggling restaurateurs expected to step up to the stove on their own (in the better-funded American reboot, Ramsay and the show ponied up for new appliances and full dining-room makeovers). Kitchen Nightmares captured Ramsay at his cheffiest, and anticipated a whole genre of foodie-centric series like The Bear.

Watch it: Kitchen Nightmares

Lonesome Dove (1989)

Who says the Western is dead? In 1985, CBS turned Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer-winning novel into an epic four-part miniseries that remains one of the best literary adaptations of all time. Robert Duvall, 95, and Tommy Lee Jones, 79, turn in finely crafted performances as two former Texas Rangers who set themselves up in a small town along the Rio Grande in 1870s Texas.

Watch it: Lonesome Dove

Midsomer Murders (1998-present)

The U.K.’s version of Law & Order is a comparably long-running crime drama set in a fictional county that seems to have a body count as high as Cabot Cove (the Maine town where Angela Lansbury’s Jessica Fletcher called home in Murder, She Wrote). Here, the cases are cracked by Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby (John Nettles, 82), and in later seasons by his younger cousin John Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon, 65). And instead of the ba-dum gavel sound effect, the show’s theme tune boasts an otherworldly theremin.

Watch it: Midsomer Murders

Project Runway All Stars (2012-19)

Over seven seasons, some of the most beloved (and prickly) contestants from Lifetime’s fashion competition series got a second shot at runway glory. Judges include designers Isaac Mizrahi, 64, and Joanna Coles, 63, stepping into the Tim Gunn mentoring role. Granted, dyed-in-the-merino-wool fans of the franchise will lament the absence of Heidi Klum (the show rotated hosts, with Alyssa Milano, 53, assuming the gig for the last five seasons). But it’s fun to watch talented if volatile creatives trying to make it work on a deadline ahead of a runway showdown.

Watch it: Project Runway All Stars

Taskmaster (2015-present)

Each season in this addictively entertaining show, five comedians compete in a series of bizarro tasks (throw a teabag into a mug from the greatest distance, get a stuffed toy camel “through the smallest gap”). All are seeking to win the favor of Taskmaster Greg Davies, 57, and his obsequious assistant (and show creator) Alex Horne, with the humor wrung from the easily flustered contestants’ exasperation as well as their outside-the-box thinking. (Former The Great British Bake Off host Mel Giedroyc, 57, for example, ran her toy camel through the local Baby Gap, winning admiration and top marks.)

Watch it: Taskmaster

Unsolved Mysteries (1987-2010)

The granddaddy of true-crime shows still holds up decades after its launch. Unlike modern imitators and a recent reboot, the long-running show benefited from sharp writing, minimal padding (no music cues or talking-head interviews) and late host Robert Stack’s no-nonsense narration.

Watch it: Unsolved Mysteries

Wiseguy (1987-1990)

This ’80s crime series, starring Ken Wahl, 71, as an FBI agent who goes undercover to infiltrate the Mafia, was ahead of its time. Instead of discreet weekly stories, story arcs unfolded over multiple episodes — often featuring notable guest stars like Jerry Lewis, Maximilian Schell and a young Kevin Spacey, 66.

Watch it: Wiseguy