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Baby Reindeer on Netflix has taken the internet by storm. It’s a crazy hit among the audience and fans seem to be not getting enough of it. There are all sorts of speculations around the show and fans have even tried to find the real-life Martha and other characters that were shown. If you are also one of the people who have been hit by the Baby Reindeer fever and want some more thematically similar shows to binge, here’s a list for you. The shows mentioned here are not exactly similar to Baby Reindeer in every aspect, but the themes of trauma, abuse, and mental health issues are the primary themes of these shows as well.
Beef, created by Sung Jin released in 2023 on Netflix. The show was well received, both by the audience and by the critics. It focuses on Amy (Ali Wong) and Danny (Steven Yeun), two strangers who get caught in a road rage incident that brings ultimate chaos to their lives. Amy and Danny are portrayed here as very different individuals having extremely different lives. Amy is successful and rich whereas Danny keeps struggling with his finances and his desire to build his parents a home and make them proud. However, when the road rage incident happens, the thin line of difference between them starts to blur and it becomes evident that maybe they are not so different after all. These two characters get obsessed with each other, planning and plotting their next moves to bring the other one down. They cannot let go, much like Martha and Donny in Baby Reindeer. The theme of stalking and obsession here has been dealt with in a completely different way than in Baby Reindeer but the loop of self-sabotaging tendencies and the irreparable effect of abuse on an individual remain very much the same.
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Created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Bojack Horseman aired on Netflix from 2014-2020. Though the show is often referred to as a sitcom, it is anything but that. Sure, it does have its moments of humor, but that’s generally dark and self-decrepitating. The show tells the story of Bojack Horseman, a half horse half human male character who used to be famous in the 90s but is now jobless and sits in his mansion basking in the glory of his bygone years. It sounds harmless and simple enough but as the show progresses, the audience understands that there is nothing simple in the show. All the characters, including Bojack (Will Arnett) and the main side characters are extremely complicated with their own lives continuously spiraling out of control. Be it Princess Caroline (Amy Sedaris) or Diane (Alison Brie) or Todd (Aaron Paul), each of them have their own history of abuse and trauma. And then comes the titular character, Bojack, whose whole life is a series of unfortunate events, which he brought upon himself. Like Donny in Baby Reindeer, Bojack here also cannot escape his past and continuously keeps falling into a pattern of substance abuse and self-sabotaging tendencies. Though not entirely focused on stalking, Bojack Horseman can be a good watch after Baby Reindeer because of the similarity of themes that the two shows deal with.
After the release of Baby Reindeer, an X user mentioned that the show was like Fleabag but for the guys. Such an observation is not completely wrong. Created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag follows the central character by the same name and how she constantly messes up her life simply because she doesn’t know how to deal with the trauma that she has. Fleabag, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge herself, loses her best friend because of a mistake she makes and that sends her down a spiral, which seems difficult to escape. She has a boyfriend, but the relationship is not satisfying, and they constantly keep breaking and patching up. Fleabag is clearly in control of the relationship and her unresolved issues often make her an emotional abuser of her boyfriend. She sleeps around, not knowing what she wants to do with her life. Much like the central character of Baby Reindeer, Fleabag seems to be lost and stuck in a loop. The common themes of mental health and the inescapable cycle of trauma make Fleabag a worthy watch after Baby Reindeer.
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Written and created by Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You can be a great watch after Baby Reindeer. The protagonist here, played by Michaela herself, is a writer who is struggling with a bad writer’s block. To clear her mind and have some fun, she goes out with her friends one night in London. However, what she realizes later is that on that night she was drugged and sexually taken advantage of. This realization jeopardizes her life and makes it difficult for her to move forward. Michaela herself stated in Edinburgh International Television Festival that she is a sexual assault survivor much like Richard Gadd does in Baby Reindeer. The horrors of surviving a sexual assault and then getting back to everyday life have been brilliantly dealt with in the show and is bound to remind one of Baby Reindeer.
The final one on this list is an out-and-out stalker show though the writing quality of You doesn’t match up to Baby Reindeer. Based on Caroline Kepnes’ books, You follows Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley), a bookshop manager who has a tendency to get obsessed with beautiful women and ultimately murder them. Developed by Sera Gamble and Greg Berlanti, You deals with the theme of obsessed love head-on but minus the seriousness of Baby Reindeer. Despite some fundamental flaws in the writing, the show is quite enjoyable because of its themes of stalking, serial killing, and the over-the-top twists.
These shows, though not all of them are precisely similar to Baby Reindeer, can give you a good insight into the world of trauma, abuse, and mental health and how those themes are dealt with in popular culture.
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