5 Hit HBO TV Shows That Hardly Anyone Remembers

• Television
• Comedy Shows

When you think of HBO, you probably think of any one of its legendarily great TV shows; this is the premium network, after all, that used to run with the tagline "It's not TV, it's HBO." Series like "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City," "Deadwood," "The Wire," and more modern entries like "Succession," "Game of Thrones," and "The White Lotus" have catapulted the network to a revered status, winning Emmys right and left. But what about the HBO shows that time has simply forgotten?

Everything on the following list is, to be clear, worth watching for one reason or another, and even though HBO's volume of output isn't as relentless as, say, Netflix, the network still makes a lot of shows. Some of them just aren't very good ("The Idol" comes to mind, as does the "Sex and the City" reboot/sequel "And Just Like That..."), but some of them came and went with little fanfare, even if they deserved a little more hype than they got when they initially aired. Here are five largely forgotten but solid HBO shows you should probably go watch on HBO Max.

Enlightened

Long before Mike White competed on "Survivor" and felt inspired to create "The White Lotus" during isolation in the COVID-19 pandemic, and long before Laura Dern won an Oscar and led another buzzy HBO show, "Big Little Lies," White helmed the HBO series "Enlightened," which has a cohort of extremely passionate fans happy to tell you this is the greatest TV comedy of all time (even if you didn't necessarily ask). I won't proselytize fully, but I will say "Enlightened" is really good and only ultimately got canceled after two seasons due to low ratings, not because it was bad by quite literally any metric.

So, what is "Enlightened" about? Dern stars as Amy Jellicoe, a woman who's all ready to return to her job at a huge and seemingly evil corporation called Abaddonn after experiencing a mental health crisis. After experiencing said crisis, however, Amy spent a few months at a wellness center trying to, well, center herself. Life is not exactly easy for Amy even after her "enlightenment," though, and the people around her, including her mom Helen (the late Diane Ladd, Dern's real-life mother, who was also a formidable actor) and her ex-husband Levi (Luke Wilson), doubt that she's actually changed. (White also appears in the show as Tyler, one of Amy's coworkers at Abaddonn who befriends her despite his introverted nature and sketchy past.) "Enlightened" features a wild, bravura performance from the reliably great Dern and is just as incisive and insightful as "The White Lotus," but it focuses its ire on corporate America instead of privileged people vacationing at luxury resorts.

Dream On

When you consider that Marta Kauffman and David Crane — the minds behind a little show called "Friends" — created "Dream On" for HBO, it's all the more shocking that this series didn't make a bigger splash during its six seasons in the 1990s. To be fair to Kauffman and Crane, "Dream On" preceded "Friends" (even though the two overlapped for a few years), so maybe the first show was a big learning experience. The gist of "Dream On" is that it focuses on Martin Tupper (Brian Benben), a book editor living in New York City who's navigating a tricky divorce and shared custody of his son while also trying to find love again. To make matters worse, Martin's ex-wife Judith, played by Wendie Malick, is remarried to Dr. Richard Stone, an absurdly accomplished individual who's never seen on screen (at various points, the audience is told that Richard is a neurosurgeon, the fifth member of the Beatles, and also an astronaut), and Martin is still carrying a torch for his ex-wife despite the fact that he doesn't think he could ever compete with the guy.

The most memorable thing about "Dream On," insofar as the show is memorable, is that it relies on clips from old TV shows and movies to help explain how Martin is feeling at any given moment, giving audiences a look into his mind through a cultural lens. "Dream On" is a fun little blip in HBO's history, but it's still worth checking out, especially because comedy legend and future "Better Call Saul" star Michael McKean plays a great supporting role too.

Hung

Across three seasons of the HBO original comedy "Hung," Thomas Jane plays Ray Drecker, a guy struggling to support his children after a devastating fire destroys their family home and who chooses a somewhat unorthodox route. After enlisting the help of his best friend and former girlfriend Tanya (Jane Adams, who continued working with HBO on future projects like "The Idol" and "Hacks"), Ray decides to start a side gig — apart from his main career as a high school basketball coach — as a sex worker, largely because he's a little "bigger" than most of his male peers (hence the title).

Under the title "Happiness Consultants," Tanya and Ray seek advice and guidance from a life coach named Lenore (Rebecca Creskoff) while the two women act as his sex work facilitators; along the way, Ray still has to deal with his ex-wife Jessica Haxon (the late Anne Heche) and her new husband Ronnie ("Ocean's Eleven" player Eddie Jemison) and even faces stiff competition (literally!) when a younger, hotter sex worker named Jason, played by Stephen Amell, enters the proverbial chat in later episodes. "Hung" only stuck around for two seasons, but it's definitely a fun ride if you decide to check it out.

Arli$$

If nothing else, "Arli$$" is the show that brought us Sandra Oh — and for that, we should all be extremely grateful. A series that was utterly hard to watch until it returned to HBO Max in 2022, "Arlis$$," which was created by its star Robert Wuhl, focuses on his fictional sports agent Arliss Michaels and follows him as he juggles his powerful, wealthy, and talented athletic clients. Unlike a later HBO entry like "Entourage," which aimed to show off the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, "Arli$$" took a more grounded and sometimes even gritty approach, juxtaposing Arliss' complete inability to tell his clients "no" with corrupt situations and over-the-top personal problems that sometimes threaten to derail his entire career.

Wuhl is flanked by, of course, Oh, the future "Grey's Anatomy" star who plays Arliss' assistant Rita Wu (a deeply passionate and knowledgeable woman without whom Arliss would never be able to function), as well as Jim Turner and Michael Boatman as Kirby Carlisle and Stanley Babson (a retired football player turned sports agent and Arliss' financial advisor, respectively). "Ballers" might now be known as HBO's big series that focuses on the ups and downs of professional sports, but "Arli$$" did it first.

Bored to Death

Can you believe that HBO had a comedy starring Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson, and Zach Galifianakis, and nobody even remembers it?! Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but I do think more respect should be paid, generally, to "Bored to Death," which ran for just three seasons on the premium network. Schwartzman leads this brilliant ensemble as Jonathan Ames, a Brooklyn novelist trying to sell books who moonlights as a private detective (albeit illegally, because has absolutely zero credentials for the job), and, as a little bonus, the showrunner, Jonathan Ames, based the show's characters on himself and his real-life buddies. Those pals include Jonathan's best friend Ray, played by Galifianakis and inspired by the comic book artist Dean Haspiel, and Danson's George Christopher, a magazine editor and mentor to Jonathan. (Though we don't really know the exact basis for that guy, it's presumably somebody who helped Ames out during his own writing career.)

"Bored to Death" also features a ton of outstanding guest stars — including Jenny Slate, Kristen Wiig, Zoe Kazan, Patton Oswalt, Bebe Neuwirth, Mary Kay Place, Danson's real-life wife and Oscar winner Mary Steenburgen, and Isla Fisher, among others — and generally, it's just a good time. You absolutely won't be bored if you binge "Bored to Death."