7 Miniseries That Get Better With Every Episode

Image via HBO Published Oct 24, 2026, 3:07 PM EDT Sign in to your Collider account I have a slightly ridiculous habit of checking how many episodes a show has left after watching a particularly brilliant one. Sometimes I'm excited. Sometimes I'm genuinely worried. They've just delivered an hour of television I cannot imagine improving upon, and now they have three more chances to ruin it. The relief when they somehow get even better is almost embarrassing. I start behaving as though the writers have personally done me a favor. And I mean better, not merely more dramatic. This is why I love a miniseries and especially adore the finest ones out there. And because there are only a few of them, it’s easy to choose which ones are hands down the best ones. These are 7 miniseries that get better with every episode. 7 'The Patient' (2022) Image via FX on Hulu Psychotherapist Alan Strauss (Steve Carell) believes he's treating a disturbed young man named Sam Fortner (Domhnall Gleeson) until Sam kidnaps him, chains him inside a basement, and explains that he's a serial killer seeking help to stop murdering people. The Patient places a man trained to understand human behavior in a situation where understanding his captor may be the only thing keeping him alive. Alan must conduct therapy while desperately looking for a way out. The later episodes get considerably nastier once another captive, Elias (Alex Rich), becomes involved. Alan's responsibility expands beyond his own survival, while memories of his deceased wife and strained relationship with his son start occupying as much emotional space as Sam's murderous impulses. I love how Carell gradually allows Alan's professional composure to deteriorate without making him abandon his intelligence. The Patient is created by Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg. The series refuses to pretend that understanding somebody's trauma automatically makes them safe. 6 'Unbelievable' (2019) Image via Netflix Eighteen-year-old Marie Adler (Kaitlyn Dever) reports being raped, only for investigators to question inconsistencies in her account until she withdraws her allegation and is charged with making a false report. Unbelievable subsequently introduces Colorado detectives Karen Duvall (Merritt Wever) and Grace Rasmussen (Toni Collette), who are investigating sexual assaults with disturbing similarities to Marie's experience. Their work gradually connects two stories that initially seem tragically separate. Building a miniseries around such a topic like this was bound to be high-octane. What makes the progression so extraordinary is the contrast between the investigations. Marie is repeatedly pressured to provide the version of her experience that authorities expect. Karen and Grace approach their victims with patience, taking seemingly insignificant details seriously and building their case through painstaking police work. As the episodes accumulate, every photograph, vehicle description, and overlooked connection becomes increasingly consequential. And all the while, Marie is living with the destruction caused by people refusing to believe her. I desperately wanted those two detectives to reach her story, although I understood that catching the perpetrator could never restore everything she had lost. 5 'Station Eleven' (2021–2022) Image via HBO Max A devastating flu pandemic destroys much of civilization, leaving young actress Kirsten Raymonde (Matilda Lawler) in the care of Jeevan Chaudhary (Himesh Patel), a stranger who helps her survive the initial collapse. Twenty years later, an adult Kirsten (Mackenzie Davis) travels with a theatrical company performing Shakespeare for the scattered communities that remain. Station Eleven moves between these timelines while tracing the surprising connections between people whose lives were altered by the catastrophe. Patrick Somerville created a series that becomes increasingly affecting as its seemingly disconnected stories begin finding one another. I particularly love how the later episodes return to Jeevan and Kirsten's first winter together, giving their complicated relationship more emotional history than we initially understood. Even the mysterious comic book Kirsten carries acquires new significance as we learn about its creator. And then comes that magnificent final episode, where a performance of Hamlet brings several relationships toward long-awaited confrontations. The reunion between Kirsten and Jeevan gets me every time. After watching people spend years trying to survive, seeing two of them recognize each other feels almost impossibly generous. 4 'Sharp Objects' (2018) Image via HBO Journalist Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) returns to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, to investigate the murders of two young girls. Her assignment brings her back into the suffocating household of her mother Adora (Patricia Clarkson) and teenage half-sister Amma (Eliza Scanlen), forcing Camille to confront childhood trauma she has spent years trying to escape. Sharp Objects gradually makes the murder investigation inseparable from the disturbing relationships inside her family. I was already fascinated by Camille's scars and the strange contrast between Amma's apparently innocent behavior at home and her considerably wilder personality elsewhere. Then the later episodes start connecting those details to the family's history, and suddenly practically every uncomfortable interaction deserves another look. Jean-Marc Vallée, who directed all eight episodes, lets fragments of Camille's memories interrupt the present without always explaining their significance. The dollhouse Amma obsessively maintains becomes particularly unsettling once you understand the household it reproduces. And that final episode! The answers arrive through the family's most intimate relationships, making the conclusion considerably more disturbing than a conventional murderer's confession could ever have been. 3 'The Queen's Gambit' (2020) Image via Netflix Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) discovers an extraordinary talent for chess while growing up in an orphanage, where janitor Mr. Shaibel (Bill Camp) teaches her the fundamentals of the game. As she matures, The Queen's Gambit follows Beth through increasingly prestigious competitions while addiction, loneliness, and her obsession with winning threaten to undermine everything she's accomplished. She can calculate extraordinary possibilities across a chessboard while struggling to navigate considerably simpler personal relationships. I could watch Beth dismantle arrogant opponents for hours, but the miniseries becomes more rewarding as her relationships grow complicated. Her adoptive mother Alma (Marielle Heller), former opponents Harry (Harry Melling) and Benny (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), and childhood friend Jolene (Moses Ingram) all contribute to a life Beth initially seems determined to manage alone. Scott Frank, who co-created and directed the series, makes the tournaments thrilling without requiring us to understand advanced chess strategy. Then the final episodes bring Beth back to Mr. Shaibel's old workplace, where she discovers that he had been following her career all along. That moment gives her eventual Moscow showdown an entirely different emotional weight. Her greatest achievement arrives when she finally recognizes how many people helped her reach that table. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner. 🧢Dustin(Stranger Things) 🗼Emily(Emily in Paris) 🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday) 🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game) FIND YOUR BEST FRIEND → 01 How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it. AWe got loud about the same obsession and never stopped. BThey invited me somewhere before we had properly met. CWe bonded over disliking exactly the same thing. DThey noticed I was struggling and stayed with me. NEXT QUESTION → 02 What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours. AA ridiculous plan neither of us should attempt. BSomewhere new, photographed heavily, ending very late. CSomewhere quiet, few people, zero small talk. DSomething simple, and a conversation that actually matters. NEXT QUESTION → 03 You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it. AThey are already putting their shoes on. BThey answer instantly and turn it into a plan. CThey answer and say something unflattering and true. DThey listen for an hour and never check the time. NEXT QUESTION → 04 What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected. ASupport first. We can review the mistake later. BA relentlessly positive reframe of the entire disaster. CThe blunt version. Do not soften it for me. DPatience, and no judgment about how I got here. NEXT QUESTION → 05 What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are. AI am all in, always, about everything. BI can turn almost any situation into a good time. CI say the thing nobody else in the room will. DI look after whoever is having the worst day. NEXT QUESTION → 06 You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks. ALoudly, briefly, then back to normal by Tuesday. BThey apologise first, enthusiastically, with a gift. CCold silence, then one dry joke that fixes everything. DWe talk until we both understand what actually happened. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap. ATo make my life bigger than it would be alone. BTo push me out of the house and into my own life. CTo catch me when I start lying to myself. DTo be the person who never gave up on me. NEXT QUESTION → 08 Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get. AWe would still drop everything for each other, instantly. BWe still make plans, and we still actually go. CWe still cut through each other's nonsense in one sentence. DThey stood by me once when it cost them something. REVEAL MY BEST FRIEND → The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like. Dustin HendersonYou do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan. Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind. You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it. He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds. You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet. Emily CooperYou are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves. Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels. You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else. She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts. She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo. Wednesday AddamsYou have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list. Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount. You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else. Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring. Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you. Seong Gi-hunYou look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend. Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself. You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving. He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage. He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 2 'Mare of Easttown' (2021) Image via HBO Mare of Easttown follows a police officer who knows practically everybody involved, making every interview potentially uncomfortable and every discovery capable of damaging relationships she's maintained for decades. Detective Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) investigates the murder of teenage mother Erin McMenamin while her Pennsylvania community remains haunted by the disappearance of another young woman. Meanwhile, Mare is grieving her son, dealing with a complicated custody dispute, and struggling to keep her own household together. I became ridiculously attached to these people, particularly Mare's mother Helen (Jean Smart) and younger detective Colin Zabel (Evan Peters). That attachment becomes dangerous around the fifth episode, when Mare and Colin visit a suspicious man's house and begin noticing details suggesting they're finally close to locating the missing women. What happens there completely changes the emotional direction of the investigation. Brad Ingelsby created a mystery where solving one terrible crime keeps exposing other wounds inside the community. Yet the scene I return to happens after the central case has been resolved. Mare finally approaches the attic where her son died. All that courage she displays investigating other people's tragedies, and this is the place she's been unable to enter. It's an almost unbearably simple conclusion to her personal story. 1 'Watchmen' (2019) Image via HBO Decades after the events of the original graphic novel, Watchmen follows Angela Abar (Regina King), a Tulsa police detective operating under the masked identity Sister Night. The murder of her police chief draws Angela into a conspiracy involving white supremacists, mysterious vigilantes, inherited trauma, and the legacy of events that supposedly transformed the world. Damon Lindelof created a series that initially appears to be expanding an established superhero mythology before gradually questioning the history upon which that mythology was built. I cannot overstate how extraordinary the sixth episode, "This Extraordinary Being," is. Angela experiences the memories of her grandfather Will Reeves (Louis Gossett Jr.) through a drug called Nostalgia, confronting the racism and violence that shaped his life. Stephen Williams directed that episode, turning superhero history into something deeply personal without sacrificing its disturbing political implications. And somehow the series gets even more ambitious afterward. The eighth episode explores Angela's relationship with Doctor Manhattan (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) through a beautifully unconventional treatment of time, making their romance increasingly heartbreaking as we understand its circumstances. Everything that initially appeared disconnected begins acquiring enormous emotional significance. By the ending, the masks, inherited identities, family histories, and questions surrounding extraordinary power have become inseparable. I love Watchmen because each episode makes the previous ones richer. The sixth hour alone would justify recommending it. The final three make the argument impossible to resist. Watchmen Release Date 2019 - 2019-00-00 Network HBO Cast Angela Abar / Sister Night