1. For Cutthroat Ambition: Industry
If you miss the thrill of watching hyper-ambitious, morally flexible people claw their way up the corporate ladder, HBO's Industry is your next essential watch. Set in the high-stakes world of London investment banking, the show follows a group of recent
graduates competing for permanent positions at a prestigious firm. While Succession looked at power from the very top, Industry captures the view from the bottom, where every day is a battle for survival. The dialogue is just as sharp, the betrayals are just as sudden, and the characters are a compelling mix of brilliant and broken. It’s a series that has steadily grown its audience and critical acclaim, yet it remains one of those shows you can still get in on before everyone else does.
2. For Flawed Visionaries: Halt and Catch Fire
Often cited as one of the great underrated dramas of the last decade, AMC's Halt and Catch Fire is a must-see for anyone fascinated by the intersection of genius, ego, and commerce. The series chronicles the personal computing boom of the 1980s and the rise of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, following a shifting group of tech pioneers. Like the Roys, these characters are brilliant, difficult, and often their own worst enemies in their quest to build something lasting. It’s less about inherited power and more about the messy, electrifying process of creating it from scratch. The show is a masterclass in long-form character development, and its four seasons tell a complete, deeply satisfying story that many viewers unfortunately missed during its initial run.
3. For a Comedic Dysfunctional Dynasty: The Righteous Gemstones
At first glance, this bombastic comedy seems worlds away from Succession's prestige drama. But look closer, and you'll find the exact same DNA. HBO's The Righteous Gemstones centers on a world-famous, fabulously wealthy family of televangelists whose empire is built on a shaky moral foundation. Patriarch Eli Gemstone (John Goodman) is a formidable Logan Roy-esque figure, and his three emotionally stunted children are locked in a perpetual, hilarious battle for his approval and control of the family business. It swaps corporate jargon for Southern-fried sermons and trades tragic undertones for absurd, laugh-out-loud set pieces, but the core themes of sibling rivalry, generational rot, and the corrupting influence of power are strikingly similar.
4. For Darkly Comic Bureaucracy: Patriot
Perhaps the truest hidden gem on this list, Prime Video's Patriot is a one-of-a-kind series that defies easy categorization. It’s a spy thriller, a workplace dramedy, and a melancholy folk musical all rolled into one. The story follows intelligence officer John Tavner, who goes undercover at a Midwestern industrial piping firm to complete a mission in Iran. What follows is a slow-motion catastrophe, a darkly funny and surprisingly poignant look at the absurdity of bureaucracy and the toll of a dangerous job. If you appreciated Succession's moments of bleak humor and its critique of hollow corporate systems, you'll love Patriot's unique, wry, and deeply human tone. It’s a cult classic that more people need to discover.
5. For a Bleakly Funny Corporate Satire: Corporate
While Succession satirized the lives of the 0.01%, Comedy Central's Corporate takes aim at the soul-crushing reality for everyone else. Set within the multinational monolith Hampton DeVille, the show follows two junior executives-in-training, Matt and Jake, as they navigate the bleak, nonsensical, and often dystopian world of modern office life. It’s a pitch-black comedy that finds humor in HR-mandated fun, meaningless buzzwords, and the quiet desperation of an open-plan office. It lacks the glamour and globetrotting of the Roy family's world but makes up for it with a painfully relatable and bitingly funny critique of the systems that govern so many of our lives. It’s the perfect chaser for anyone who loved to hate Waystar RoyCo.
