7 underrated fantasy shows you need to watch

4. The Magicians

When it hit bookshelves in 2009, Lev Grossman’s novel The Magicians was touted as “Harry Potter for adults,” and the description was pretty accurate. The Magicians follows misfit Quentin Coldwater as he is invited to attend magic college, and then discovers that the fantasy world he grew up reading about in his favorite novels, Fillory, is actually real.

Cool, right? It would be, except Fillory is way more dangerous than the kids books made it sound, and magic, it turns out, can have some gruesome consequences.

The Magicians is an odd show. The first season is set mainly Brakebills University, with all the partying and experimentation that go along with a college setting, but now with magic. But it’s not long before the show moves on to exploring the seedy underbelly of the magical community, dealing with difficult topics like addiction and rape while also sending the characters to various magical worlds and putting them through trials.

In brief, this is a coming-of-age story with deals with adult ideas, but with a magical school setting more common you YA and children’s stories. And it’s superior to the books in almost every way.

One of the coolest things about The Magicians is that it’s hyper aware of its audience. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen another show that broke the fourth wall with pop culture references quite as much or as well as The Magicians. Between mentions of Game of Thrones, talking beavers who want better dental and Battlestar Galactica, The Magicians is never short on nods to its nerdy fanbase. Combine that sensibility with a large and lovable cast, and you have a recipe for a killer show.

The fifth (and final) season of The Magicians aired this past April on SyFy, but you can get caught up on the first four on Netflix.