5 TV Shows To Watch If You Like Sugar

Apple TV continues its reign as the go-to destination for anyone wanting smart, original adult dramas. That goes double for the noir detective series "Sugar." Colin Farrell plays the titular John Sugar, a private investigator who's tasked in the first season with discovering what happened to a movie producer's granddaughter. You might think you have a good handle on what the show entails from that description, but in the middle of Season 1, "Sugar" throws in a massive twist that had viewers freaking out. 

We won't spoil it here in case you haven't watched "Sugar" yet but are reading an article about TV shows like "Sugar" for some reason. Suffice it to say, it's a far cry from detective shows on the past and helps advance the genre.

But if you want shows in that same vein, it helps to know where the genre has been before and where it could be heading toward in the future. Some of these series are good, old-fashioned noir shows while others throw in a neat twist like "Sugar." Even if you don't normally go for detective shows, there are some options here that pivot away from what most of those series are known for.  

Let's say you're all caught up on "Sugar" but still want to see what else your Apple TV subscription has to offer. If you want more of a straightforward crime drama with ample dark comedy thrown in, you should turn to "Your Friends & Neighbors." Rather than having a central mystery to unravel, "Your Friends & Neighbors" homes in on a criminal rather than a detective, namely Andrew Cooper (Jon Hamm).

Cooper is a financier whose wealth gets threatened when he's fired from his job. In order to maintain his lavish lifestyle, he steals from, you guessed it, his friends and neighbors. Hamm's performance is naturally phenomenal, but he's surrounded by such a strong supporting cast that you remain enthralled even when the action pivots away from Cooper for a bit. The dialogue sizzles, as you can sense that everyone perhaps knows a little more about a situation than they're letting on. 

And both "Sugar" and "Your Friends & Neighbors" are interested in the duality of human nature. John Sugar is best exemplified by his kindness in a frequently corrupt world whereas many of the characters on "Your Friends & Neighbors" fall into morally gray areas. Cooper's far from the only corrupt individual on his block, and the show becomes a commentary on how much evil rich people can get away with because, deep down, we all want to be wealthy like them. 

The untold truth of "Perry Mason" is that it started as a series of books before taking over television. Ever since that first iteration that began in 1957, various other Perry Masons have taken over the airwaves, but anyone with a keen interest in legal dramas would do well to go back to the show that started it all.

It may be in black and white, but you'll get over that fairly quickly. What's astonishing is how well the original series has held up all these years later. And most of the episodes are easily accessible through Paramount+, so you don't have to go digging through some grainy old footage on YouTube. But "Perry Mason" is important for pioneering the hour-long courtroom drama. It's likely shows like "Law & Order" and "The Good Wife" wouldn't exist if it wasn't for "Perry Mason" proving that sharp dialogue and having a mystery to solve week-to-week could sustain a show for years on end.

It should come as no surprise to see networks trying to revive the series every so often. HBO's "Perry Mason," which takes place in the 1930s, offers the origin story of the titular character where Perry (Matthew Rhys) is a private investigator who will one day work his way up to being the incredible lawyer we see later. 

There have been some great Spider-Man series in the past, but none of them have ever followed a booze-guzzling private investigator before "Spider-Noir." The show takes place in an alternate reality where the web-slinger hails from 1930s New York and is Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage) rather than Peter Parker. Ben was formerly The Spider but hung up the mantle following a tragedy, but he still tries to help where he can, especially if the price is right. 

The show has plenty of fight scenes that are a spectacle to behold, particularly if you decide to watch in black-and-white over the color version. But this isn't your typical superhero show. It's less about the battles and setting up a bunch of spinoffs. The focus remains solely on Ben and him coming to terms that with great power, he might have some extra responsibilities he needs to fulfill.

Cage is at his most unhinged here, often taking on the voices and personas of various stars from the '30s, like Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. "Spider-Noir" offers a splendid sci-fi twist on the detective genre, which puts it in perfect company to "Sugar." Even if you love just straightforward noir stories, both "Spider-Noir" and "Sugar" have sensibilities to give you what you're looking for while being just weird enough to be unlike anything you've seen before. 

By the 2010s, avid TV watchers had seen no shortage of detective-based crime procedurals, usually involving a will-they-won't-they romance between the male and female lead. But one show dared to ask the question, "What if there was a crime show with the ruler of Hell as one of the detectives?" Granted, "Lucifer" is based on the Lucifer Morningstar character from DC Comics, but the premise made for a banger series that ran for six seasons.

The idea is that Lucifer (Tom Ellis) gets bored with running Hell and decides to run a Los Angeles nightclub. However, he takes on a side gig consulting with the Los Angeles Police Department and begins solving crimes with homicide detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German). The best episodes of "Lucifer" masterfully blend the show's supernatural elements, including demons and angels, with very relatable personal stakes. 

Lucifer may be the literal devil, but over the course of the series, he becomes far more human. He even undergoes therapy to unpack all of his deep-rooted trauma, like being cast out of Heaven. In this way, a supernatural being has to walk amongst humans to figure out what it means to be human in the first place. And with that, it should be pretty obvious what makes it similar to "Sugar."

"Spider-Noir" and "Lucifer" are great if you're looking for subversions of the detective genre. But maybe you're a traditionalist. You don't want a bunch of fancy nonsense getting in the way of a classic crime story, and you're in luck because not everything has a postmodern twist these days. Prime Video's "Bosch" is a standard detective drama following Harry Bosch (Titus Welliver), a homicide detective who gets a handful of cases to solve season to season.

In fact, Season 2 of "Bosch" sees him investigating the death of an adult film producer, making it feel like something of a companion piece to "Sugar." But don't go into "Bosch" expecting any kind of high-concept twists. It's a straight-up drama about a detective with a strong sense of duty and abiding by the law but isn't afraid to color outside the lines when it comes to dealing justice.

"Bosch" is just one of many of the "Dad TV" shows Prime Video has cornered the market on, alongside such hits as "Reacher" and "Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan." And "Bosch" has spawned its own TV universe with several spinoffs getting greenlit, from "Bosch: Legacy" to "Ballard." When you just want to see competent law enforcers doing their job well, "Bosch" has your back.