Best Drama Series 2016 - Laugh and Root Until Your Breath Catches in Your Throat

Laugh and thrill until your breath catches in your throat – these are the best drama series 2016 in the genres of drama, comedy and action. Including a few real insider tips!

The year 2016 was an incredibly good year for series! Because it brought us some highly anticipated series like Vinyl* and Marvel’s Luke Cage – but also some unexpected series highlights that go completely under the radar of many series fans. Hundreds of new series come out every year – the USA in particular has been flooding us with so many great series in recent years that you can’t keep up with watching them. So it’s time to look back and choose the best drama series 2016 in our opinion!

Although 2016 also brought us the much-awaited 6th season of A Game of Thrones, Walking Dead kicked off its 7th season with a killer cliffhanger, and yet these two top series will not appear in this list! That’s because we’re focusing on the 15 best drama series 2016 that started in the genres of drama, comedy and action! Tomorrow, the 15 best thriller series of 2016 in the genres horror, sci-fi or crime will follow in part 2 of our series best-of of the last year.

The Best Drama Series 2016 – More Drama Is Not Possible

Billions – Wall Street Thriller

Bobby Axelrod is a filthy rich, successful hedge fund manager whose company is flourishing. The self-confident, intelligent Wendy Rhoades also works for the company as a psychological counsellor for the managers. But the shining star threatens to sink, because Wendy’s husband Chuck is an able prosecutor who begins a campaign against Axelrod and his unscrupulous machinations.

A topical subject, brilliant actors, crackling suspense: all this makes Billions a thriller that grabs you and pulls you along more with each episode. Clever, career-minded bloodhound lawyer vs. cunning, unscrupulous self-made billionaire – that means lots of intrigue, politics and fatal secrets. A very great tip for thriller fans!

Billions can be seen in Germany on Sky Atlantic:

The Crown – Royal Costume Drama in Series Format

Princess Elizabeth II is 25 years old and faces the challenge of leading Britain as head of state. To do so, she has to build a relationship with the difficult Prime Minister Winston Churchill and her private life also changes completely as monarch of the United Kingdom.

The Crown is by no means a cheesy soap opera for tabloid readers, but a top-class British costume drama. For all fans of Downton Abbey, costume films and the British Royals an absolute must: because The Crown is definitely a gem of this genre!.

The Crown is a production of Netflix and can also be watched there in German.

The Night Of – The Truth of a Night – Murderously Suspenseful Justice Thriller

Pakistani-American college student Nasir Khan wants to go to a party. To do so, he borrows his father’s taxi and gives a young woman a lift. A few hours later, the woman lies murdered in her bed and Nasir wakes up at the scene. He remembers nothing, flees, is arrested and charged. What happened that fateful night?

The script for the tense and dark and miniseries The Night Of was written by Richard Price – who also wrote the script for the terrific series The Wire. In a story that is coherent down to the last detail, criticism of the American justice system is not neglected and the characters are multi-layered and morally ambivalent. This makes the miniseries a great counterpart to many shallower lawyer series with selfless fighters for justice, who always lead seemingly hopeless cases to a good end.

The Night Of kann man in Deutschland bei Sky Atlantic sehen:

The Path – Drama About Life in a Cult

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Eddie Lane, his wife Sarah and their two children belong to the religious sect Meyerism Movement. The word of prophet Stephen Meyer is law there – but the great guru is already dying at the beginning of the series. The Lanes have been a part of the community for years, but Eddie begins to doubt the sect more and more. The dilemma: His wife co-leads the cult, his children grew up in it and his whole life is closely connected to the Meyerism movement.

The Path tells a story that could happen in many cults. The conflicts, dramas and protagonists paint a picture of how the mechanisms of cults work. A moving drama that will not only captivate fans of Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad star Jesse).

The series The Path is available in Germany via Amazon Prime Video, which you can try for free for 30 days.

Underground – Suspenseful Historical Drama

America at the time of slavery. A group of 600 slaves manage to escape from the hated Georgia plantation. Hunted by men who are to take them back to the plantation dead or alive, their dangerous escape begins. Their longed-for goal: freedom.

The Underground Railroad was the top-secret information network that helped African-American people escape from the Southern states to the North in the 19th century. Underground tells the story of this movement as a highly suspenseful historical drama.

Vinyl – Sex, Drugs & Rock’n Roll In the 70s

New York in the 70s. Richie Finestra has a vision: he is the boss of a record company and believes in the future of new music. He wants to breathe new life into his rocked-out label with a new sound. Punk and disco are reborn, glam rock is in its heyday and sex, drugs and rockn roll are commonplace in the music business.

Big names are behind Vinyl: rock legend Mick Jagger and Martin Scorsese. Even if the series falls short of the expectations associated with these names, and it was discontinued after only one season following disagreements between the makers – unstable rock stars, intriguing music producers and a brutal murder make Vinyl really good material for nostalgic series evenings….

Vinyl can be watched in Germany via Sky Atlantic:

Outsiders – Outlaws Fight for Their World

The Farrell clan has lived in seclusion in the Apalachian Mountains of Kentucky for over 200 years. They live by their own rules in a segregated world. What they cannot produce themselves, the outlaws steal on raids into the nearby small town. Then the Farrells are threatened with eviction because a mining company wants to mine coal under their settlement. The Farrells try to stop this by all means. The situation threatens to escalate more and more…

What makes Outsiders special is that it creates its own world to tell this story. And it succeeds so well that from the pilot on you are immediately immersed in this strange, archaic world.

Best Comedy Series 2016 – Black Humour, Parodies & Witty Sayings

Angie Tribeca – Nothing Else! – Funny Cop and Crime Parody

Angie Tribeca is quick-witted, pretty much her own person and stands up to all her colleagues at the LAPD as a female cop. The loner gets a new partner in the first episode and solves a murder case with him every episode.

The series Angie Tribeca is a witty, entertaining persiflage on some crime and cop series from the USA. If you love the quirky humour from The Naked Gun movies, you will love this series.

You can watch it on Amazon Video.

Animals – Animal Cartoon Series With Lots of Black Humour

Animal dramas play out daily on the streets of New York City. Shy rats are lovesick, pigeons are turned into transvestite pigeons by a golf ball, and bedbugs are in the midst of a midlife crisis.

The cartoon Animals. (with full stop) is indeed about animals and their everyday problems – but they are very human. The episodes deal with existentialist themes in a black-humoured and clever way. And this is completely unstressful, because thanks to flippant sayings and funny animal characters Animals is really good, entertaining comedy entertainment. A very clear highlight of the best drama series 2016.

Animals. can be seen in Germany on Sky Atlantic:

Lucifer – Devilishly Smart Sayings From the Prince of Hell

What happens when the devil leaves hell and decides to take a holiday in Los Angeles? The women, wealth and power fly to him as if by magic. But the handsome, smart and charismatic Lucifer has quite human problems: he goes to a psychologist, is unhappy & bored and has problems with his divine father. Typically devilishly forbidden sinfully he runs the nightclub Lux and he hasn’t lost his desire to punish criminals either.  On the side, he therefore solves murder cases with the tough investigator Claire.

The devil is the king of witty remarks and quips here – a charming big boy. The series Lucifer entertains the viewer mainly with witty sayings and word fights. The somewhat shallow plot with rather trivial murder cases that are solved along the way is ultimately worthwhile because of Lucifer’s constant confrontation with his rather human problems.

Lucifer is available at Amazon Prime Video.

Baskets – The Comedy Series with Rodeo Clown

Chip Baskets has a big dream: he wants to become a clown. To achieve this, he quits his job and travels to Paris to attend a popular clown school. Unfortunately, he doesn’t speak French and promptly fails the clown school. He has no talent for his dream job – not even his girlfriend finds his jokes funny. So he has to earn money at a rodeo in the provinces. But that’s no reason to give up….

Baskets makes the viewer roar with laughter with some gags, others are rather so-so. But the first season is well scripted, has subtle humour and terrific actors: what more does it take for a good comedy?

Action Series 2016 – Zombies, Superheroes & Badass Priests

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow – New Superhero Series With Time Travel

The year is 2166 and Rip Hunter is a Time Master who must save the world. To do so, he travels back to 2016 to join a team of heroes to prevent the villain Vandal Savage from destroying the world and time. Pure action!

A new comic series about characters from the DC world. It is set in the same fictional series universe as the successful series Arrow and The Flash.

Legends of Tomorrow ran on Pro 7 in this country, but is also available to buy on Amazon Video.

Luke Cage – Marvel’s Superhero Fights for Justice

Luke Cage is strong and invulnerable. In a failed experiment he gets his super ability and ends up on the streets as a contract superhero. While Luke is trying to get a grip on his messed-up life, his friend Pop is shot dead. Thus begins Luke’s fight for his city and against the nasty, power-hungry gangsters.

After the super Marvel series Daredevil and Jessica Jones, Luke Cage is the third Netflix series about a character in this comic book universe. As with the other two Marvel series, Luke Cage is not a one-dimensional all-American superhero but also struggles with the darker sides of being a hero. That’s why the series is so much fun!

Preacher – An Ex-criminal Priest, a Drug-Addicted Vampire and the Hosts of Heaven & Hell

A tiny, sun-baked nest in Texas. Jesse Custer is the priest there and tries to help the sometimes quite bizarre people (despite his own dark past) – and also a rather irresponsible, drug-addicted Irish vampire, who one day swoops into the church on the run from vampire hunters. But then mysterious men in suits suddenly appear, and Jesse’s flighty girlfriend Tulip also appears on the scene, urging him to settle a score they both have outstanding with someone. To make matters worse, Jesse becomes possessed by something supernatural. Is it an angel? Is it a demon? His search for God takes a completely unexpected turn…

For us, this unconventional comic adaptation was definitely one of the best drama series 2016! Funny, tragic, black-humoured, action-packed, crazy and unpredictable: Preacher can’t really be assigned to any genre and that’s precisely why it’s enormous fun!

The series is an Amazon original production and can be watched via Amazon Prime.

Also read part 2 with the best thriller series 2016 in the genres SciFi, Horror and Crime! At Abenteuer Freundschaft you will also find many more ideas for indoor activities and in general for activities for two, with friends or with the family.

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Image source Cover image: © Warner Bros. / Amazon Instant Video / Netflix

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