11 TV Shows Your Mom Loved & Now You’ll Love Them Too

Let me introduce you to Julie Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter) and her team of very Southern and very incredible Designing Women. Your mom remembers them, I can almost guarantee it, because Designing Women ran for seven seasons from 1986 to 1993. The premise of the show was simple in its appeal: It followed an Atlanta-based design firm called Sugarbaker and Associates where Julia and her sister Suzannah (Delta Burke) spent their days working on interior design ideas with Charlene (Jean Smart), Mary Jo (Annie Potts), and Anthony (Meshach Taylor). More than that, so much more than that, these Designing Women took on some seriously tough subjects like gun rights, racism, and the AIDS crisis with class and sass. You’ll be talking about the Sugarbakers like they’re your best friends after the first episode, I promise.

Stream Designing Women on Hulu.

So I don’t know if this was all moms or just my mom, but I can tell you this much: My mom was such a huge fan of the original Magnum P.I. series (or should I say, very into Tom Selleck, as so many moms were at the time) that she rearranged her work schedule to be home to watch it. And we were not allowed to talk when her beloved was onscreen, at all. The original series, which ran from 1980 to 1988, focused on private investigator Thomas Magnum, who was living rent-free in the guest house of an unseen famous author named Robin Masters in Oahu. The best tension of the show was between Magnum and Higgins, Robin Masters’ house manager, but there was plenty of romance too.

Moms liked this show for the sight of Magnum in short shorts, I think, but the stunning views of Hawaii and actually interesting low-stakes crime-solving is sort of soothing too.

Stream Season One of Magnum P.I. on The Roku Channel.

Before dipping into Dallas, you really need to brace yourself for some serious world-building. This primetime soap opera, which ran from 1978 to 1991, centers around the wealthy Ewing family and their oil empire. Despite their enormous wealth and power, everyone seems to want to live at their family’s Southfork ranch, instead of, say, Milan or Fifth Avenue. Think of Dallas, with outsized bad guys like J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) as the sort of precursor for Yellowstone. But even bigger and more over-the-top.

There’s even a Romeo and Juliet love story at the center, with Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) falling in love with Pamela Barnes (Victoria Principal), the daughter of Digger Barnes, the Ewing family oil rival. Spicy.

This series is a meaty one, with wild twists and turns that once dominated the headlines of magazines across the country. You just need to settle in and watch, especially my favorite television divorcee, Sue Ellen Ewing (Linda Gray), who can swirl a martini in anger like no one else.

You can rent the entire Dallas series on Apple TV+

Listen, I know you’ve already heard about or seen The Golden Girls. You’ve seen countless memes featuring Dorothy (Bea Arthur) raising one sardonic eyebrow in response to someone’s foolishness, probably her sultry pal Blanche (Rue McClanahan) or even more likely, the naive and sweet Rose (Betty White). She wouldn’t dare roll her eyes at mom Sophia (Estelle Getty), lest she be taken down by the pint-sized Italian mom’s rapier wit.

But you need to go back to the source and watch the show from the first season. You need to see these middle-aged women decide to live together in a house in Florida and become instant best friends. You need to see them gather in the kitchen to laugh and fight and cry over midnight cheesecake.

Because this show spoke to your mom. And it will speak to you, too.

Stream The Golden Girls on Hulu.

If you love a limited series as much as I do, you have The Thorn Birds to thank. Your mom might have missed this one when it first came out in March 1983, but The Thorn Birds has made the rounds again and again through the years. It has everything you want and some things maybe you and your mom don’t want to watch together but still, it’s so great you need to watch.

A quick rundown of The Thorn Birds, based on the book of the same name by Colleen McCullough, to whet your whistle: The Cleary family runs a sheep farm in the Australian outback in the ‘20s and their daughter Meggie is not the favorite of anyone except a priest named Ralph who she meets because her rich aunt Mary is trying to seduce him. Meggie falls in love with the priest, they spend years pining for each other and she marries a man who is kind of a jerk.

That’s just an amuse-bouche. It gets wilder.

Rent The Thorn Birds on Amazon Prime Video.

ER walked so Grey’s Anatomy could fly. Your mom was watching ER, the weekly medical drama created by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton, long before Grey’s Anatomy hit the hospital drama scene in 2005. There was actually about four years when the two shows were both running, and that was peak Must See TV time.

But when ER premiered all the way back in 1994, it was its own thing. This show introduced us to George Clooney, praise be, and went deep with the drama right out of the gate when it came to hospital romances. It remains its own animal on a rewatch, really zeroing in on the medical side of medical drama with day-to-day issues and even some beautiful guest appearances like Clooney’s aunt, the famous singer Rosemary Clooney, who plays a dementia patient in one episode. The whole series is worth a watch or even a rewatch with your mom.

Stream ER on Hulu.

I need you to give Northern Exposure a try in the same way you gave Schitt’s Creek, a very similar, quirky fish-out-of water series, a try in its first season. Your mom did back in the day, I can almost guarantee it. Not just because Rob Morrow, who plays a big city doctor Joel Fleischman moving to Cicely, Alaska to work with the peculiar locals, is super charming. The real beating heart of Northern Exposure are those aforementioned peculiar locals, much like Schitt’s Creek. Like the uber cool, funky deejay Chris Stevens played by John Corbett, a man you probably know as Sex and the City’s favorite boyfriend Aidan Shaw. The series ran from 1990 to 1995, giving you five seasons of gorgeous Alaskan scenery, cool ‘90s grunge fashion, and an actually incredible playlist to enjoy. Your mom says you’re welcome.

Stream Northern Exposure on Amazon Prime Video.

Yes, I really do think you should set a course for adventure on The Love Boat. I don’t care that it was on television nearly 50 years ago and, yes, definitely had some problematic episodes in its 10 seasons on air. I think The Love Boat is ready to be revisited. The premise itself is a winner: a bunch of B-list celebrities stop by on a weekly basis to play cruisers looking for love and/or trouble on the Pacific Princess. Then here comes Captain Stubing (Gavin McLeod) to merrily insert himself instead of steering the ship and while Cruise Director Julie (Lauren Tewes) tries to arrange a limbo night as bartender Isaac Washington (Ted Lange) listens to everyone’s problems. Even if you don’t like the show (which you will), it is so fun watching all of these future stars show up on the ship. And you’ll be able to sing the theme song, which will impress your mom.

Stream The Love Boat on Paramount+

This is where your mom and the rest of the world first met Bruce Willis, who played snarky, quick-witted Detective David Addison opposite Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting. These two had classic old Hollywood onscreen chemistry, with Shepherd playing former model and owner of the Blue Moon Detective Agency Maddie Hayes. When the show starts, Maddie’s been fleeced out of all her money and forced to sell her assets, but David convinces her to keep the agency going. They start to solve people’s problems and fight and look longingly at each other while pretending to be mad all the time — it’s just great fun. Also Cybil Shepherd’s chic bob really holds up.

Stream Moonlighting on Hulu.

You might have watched Family Ties with your mom, but I’m here to tell you that you should watch it again as a mom. Because it’s totally different. Elise and Michael Keaton (Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross) are genuinely, deeply believable as parents to their three kids Alex (Michael J. Fox), Mallory (Justine Bateman), and Jennifer (Tina Yothers). They’re always trying to figure out how to let them be the people they’re meant to be and hold on to their own identity as the human beings they were pre-kids. When your mom watched it back when it aired from 1982 to 1989, she might have been trying to figure out the same thing. You’re not so different after all.

Stream Family Ties on Paramount+.

You might not be the only member of the family to dig in deep to a true crime/mystery series. Ask your mom about her years of watching Twin Peaks, the dark/weird/fascinating mystery series that ran for just two seasons in the early ‘90s before returning for a third in 2017 because everyone missed it so much.

The entire series is centered around the death of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and the investigation lead by FBI Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan). Again, much like Northern Exposure, the fictional city of Twin Peaks, Washington is populated by some unusual characters. But Twin Peaks was something completely of its own kind. Surreal and a bit campy and darkly funny, your mom might have watched this as a way to still feel like she was part of the zeitgeist. And I bet she was.

Stream Twin Peaks on Paramount+.