The BEST ABC TV shows of all time
Every ABC TV show, ranked
We've compiled the average episode rating for every ABC TV show to compile this list of best shows!
#1 - The Checkout
Satirical consumer affairs series presented by Julian Morrow and Craig Reucassel from The Chaser, Hungry Beast's Kirsten Drysdale and Kate Browne from CHOICE. Conditions apply. While stocks last.
View Episode Rankings#2 - Spicks & Specks
Adam Hills hosts this lighthearted music quiz show. The two teams are captained by Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough.
View Episode Rankings#3 - The Katering Show
Fill the void in your life by joining celebrity chef, Kate McLennan, and her food intolerant friend, Kate McCartney, as they cook their way into the Food Culture Revolution with a series of edible recipes*! Watch as The Kates create food intolerant-friendly meals and explore modern culinary trends like quitting sugar, food porn, food trucks and drinking shit out of jars! They road test everybody’s favourite culinary moneysuck, the Thermomix, and sample a range of libations, like wine, whiskey and kombucha, the hot new drink that combines parasitical fungi with intestinal spasming! The Katering Show! Change your life through the power of good food and even better Friendship**. * The Katering Show accepts no responsibility for side effects incurred from consuming these dishes. ** Friendship is a trademark of The Katering Show Horse Dancing Spectacular and Motorboat Hire Pty Ltd.
View Episode Rankings#4 - Gruen
Gruen is about advertising, how it works, and how it works on us. It decodes and defuses the commercial messages that swirl through our lives, with the help of a panel of ad industry experts. It's the show that tracks advertising almost as closely as advertising tracks you!
View Episode Rankings#5 - Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee (AU)
Get ready to laugh-out-loud as Guy Montgomery and his loyal assistant Aaron Chen are joined by some of Australia’s favourite personalities, testing their spelling prowess with wildly inventive spelling challenges designed to befuddle, bamboozle, and bedazzle them all.
View Episode Rankings#6 - Fisk
When Helen Tudor-Fisk's life falls apart, she takes a job in a small suburban firm specialising in wills and probate assuming that, because the clients are dead she won't have to deal with people.
View Episode Rankings#7 - Serangoon Road
HBO Asia's first Original series, a ten-episode detective noir series set against the tumultuous backdrop of 1960s Singapore, when the global balance of power is shifting and Singapore is at its crossroad; a time when the British colonial rule is coming to an end, independence is on the horizon, and the island state can finally forge its own identity.
View Episode Rankings#8 - Jack Irish
Jack Irish is a man getting his life back together again. A former criminal lawyer whose world imploded, he now spends his days as a part-time investigator, debt collector, apprentice cabinet maker, punter and sometime lover – the complete man really.
View Episode Rankings#9 - Grand Designs Australia
Anthony Burke presents Grand Designs Australia, meeting nine ambitious families across Australia as they tackle the challenge of a lifetime - building their dream homes. With a special guest appearance by Kevin McCloud.
View Episode Rankings#10 - Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe
Starring Aunty Donna's Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly, and Zachary Ruane, the unpredictable comedy follows three best friends running a trendy cafe down one of Melbourne's less-than-iconic laneways.
View Episode Rankings#11 - Utopia (AU)
Set inside the offices of the "Nation Building Authority", a newly created government organization responsible for overseeing major infrastructure projects, Utopia explores that moment when bureaucracy and grand dreams collide. It's a tribute to those political leaders who have somehow managed to take a long-term vision and use it for short-term gain. The eight-part series follows the working lives of a tight-knit team in charge of guiding big building schemes from announcement to unveiling. Constant shifts in priorities are the order of the day as the staff are asked to come up with plans for everything from new roads and rail lines to airports and high rise urban developments. In short, Utopia examines the forces that go into creating a very well-designed white elephant.
View Episode Rankings#12 - Laid
Laid is a series about sex. Sex and death. Death and valour. Life and love. For Roo, it's hard enough just trying to work out who she is and what it's all about without being dragged back to her chequered bedroom past to protect her exes - and preserve her chance at true love.
View Episode Rankings#13 - Harrow
The story of Dr. Daniel Harrow, a unorthodox and brilliant medical examiner with a total disregard for authority. When a dark secret from his past threatens to be exposed, Harrow must use all his forensic skills to keep it buried forever.
View Episode Rankings#14 - Bananas In Pyjamas
This television series, Bananas in Pyjamas, is about two giant, child-like bananas, B1 and B2. They are good friends and companions. Together they live on Cuddles Lane, with their friends, the Teddy Bears: Amy, Morgan, and Lulu, the Rat-in-a-Hat, and various other critters. The bananas are constantly teasing the Teddy Bears (the bears know that it is all in fun), but those silly bananas are always able foil the Rat's sly tricks. B1 and B2 are typically mischievous; however, they are always ready to fight for a good cause.
View Episode Rankings#15 - Mystery Road: Origin
It’s 1999, and Constable Jay Swan, a charismatic young officer arrives at his new station. Fresh from the city and tipped for big things, Jay might be the new copper, but he’s not new to this town. His estranged father Jack lives here, as does the woman who will change his life forever, Mary. Mystery Road: Origin will explore how a tragic death, an epic love, and the brutal reality of life as a police officer straddling two worlds, form the indelible mould out of which will emerge, Detective Jay Swan.
View Episode Rankings#16 - The Letdown
Audrey is determined not to be defined by motherhood. In theory, this seems fairly easy. In practice, her career-focused husband, self-obsessed mother & fancy-free best friend, make it damn near impossible.
View Episode Rankings#17 - Mystery Road
Detective Jay Swan takes on a grisly case in a new town, a coastal community where the desert meets the ocean and secrets past and present run deep. Jay must reconcile the law and deep lore and confront a dangerous enemy. Spin-off from Ivan Sen’s films 'Mystery Road' and 'Goldstone'.
View Episode Rankings#18 - Troppo
An ex-cop falsely accused of committing a disturbing crime escapes to hide away in the tropics of Far North Queensland. As he tries to avoid discovery, he's drawn into investigating a wild murder and a missing person, alongside a complicated woman, with dark secrets of her own.
View Episode Rankings#19 - Glitch (2015)
James Hayes is a small town police man who is called to the local cemetery in the middle of the night after six people have inexplicably risen from the dead in perfect health. With no memory of their identities, they are determined to discover who they are and what has happened to them. James recognises one of them and along with local doctor Elishia Glass, struggles to keep the case hidden from his colleagues, his family and the world. The six people are all linked in some way and the search begins for someone who knows the truth about how and why they have returned.
View Episode Rankings#20 - Total Control
When Alex Irving, a charismatic and contradictory Indigenous woman, is thrust into the national limelight after a horrific event, Australia's embattled Prime Minister Rachel Anderson, sees a publicity goldmine for her party. In a bold power play, she handpicks Alex for the Senate. But Alex wants to be more than just a political stunt: she wants to make a difference. So, when the Prime Minister's cynical calculations betray her, Alex sets out for revenge that will send the political establishment into meltdown.
View Episode Rankings#21 - Return to Paradise (2024)
DI Mackenzie Clarke was meant to be back in the UK, living the life she's always wanted. Instead, she's still in Dolphin Cove. Lucky for Mack, her compulsion to solve impossible cases serves as a great distraction.
View Episode Rankings#22 - Bay of Fires
Betrayed and in immediate danger, Stella is forced to move her family to the last place on earth anyone would expect. Mystery Bay isn’t the kind of place they put on postcards. The locals hide secrets and outsiders are viewed with suspicion bordering on the murderous.
View Episode Rankings#23 - The Straits
Set among the turquoise waters of Australia's Torres Strait, The Straits follows the life of a criminal family as they smuggle drugs into Australia and exotic wildlife out through blood ties in the Torres Strait Islands.
View Episode Rankings#24 - Aftertaste
Having burned all his bridges in restaurants across Europe, volatile celebrity chef Easton West finds himself with one more chance in a high-end Shanghai restaurant. But when opening night turns into a pig-slinging disaster, the subsequent social media tsunami washes Easton ashore in the Adelaide Hills. Arriving like a pariah to a dysfunctional family he abandoned 30 years previously, he finds his outspoken 19-year-old pastry cook niece, Diana, is the only person who shows any interest in his return. Diana represents everything he’s not – young, female and with her finger on the pulse – so Easton takes her under his wing in an effort to crawl his way back to relevance. Together, Easton and Diana set off on their quest to create Australia’s next great restaurant. But with no money, an anger management problem, and a volatile family literally built upon the skeletons of the past, Easton West is going to find his comeback a little more difficult than he thought.
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