20 best shows like Carny (1980)

A teen navigates the complexities of high school, family and her sexuality while dealing with new superpowers. Based on Charles Forsman's graphic novel.

A one-hour mystery full of twists and turns that follows Danny Desai, a charismatic 16-year-old with a troubled past who returns to his hometown after spending five years in juvenile detention. Immediately branded an outcast, Danny attempts to reconnect with his two childhood best friends, Jo and Lacey. But when a fellow student is found dead in her home, Danny instantly becomes the prime suspect and town spirals into a frenzy of suspicion and mystery. Jo and Lacey must decide if their childhood friend is unforgivable, or if he's really a victim being persecuted for his own twisted secrets.

Set in the present, the series offers a bold, subversive take on Archie, Betty, Veronica and their friends, exploring the surreality of small-town life, the darkness and weirdness bubbling beneath Riverdale’s wholesome facade.

Dawson's Creek is an American teen drama that portrays the fictional lives of a close-knit group of teenagers through high school and college.

Courtney Whitmore, a smart, athletic and above all else kind girl, discovers her step-father has a secret: he used to be the sidekick to a superhero. "Borrowing" the long-lost hero’s cosmic staff, she becomes the unlikely inspiration for an entirely new generation of superheroes.

Thousands of dead people have risen from their graves and nearly destroyed Britain. A cure has been found - but can the treated zombies be rehabilitated back into living society?

A working class high school drama department and the students come alive under a passionate teacher and family man whose dedication to the program galvanizes the entire town.

A contemporary and culturally resonant drama about a young programmer, Elliot, who suffers from a debilitating anti-social disorder and decides that he can only connect to people by hacking them. He wields his skills as a weapon to protect the people that he cares about. Elliot will find himself in the intersection between a cybersecurity firm he works for and the underworld organizations that are recruiting him to bring down corporate America.

When Emery was 6 years old, an alien spacecraft crash-landed in her small town. Whether they came in peace or with more sinister intentions didn't matter: a fierce battle erupted as humans fought for control over their new rivals, an alien species called the Atrians. In the midst of the conflict, Roman, a 6-year-old Atrian boy, found his way to a shed behind Emery's house, where she temporarily protected him from harm, bringing him food, comfort - and friendship. Ten years later, the Atrians have been acclimated to life on Earth, but they are interned in a heavily-guarded camp known as the Sector to keep them separate from humans. Now, for the first time, a group of Atrian teens will enroll in a suburban human high school, with the goal of testing the feasibility of human/alien integration. Emery and Roman find each other again in a school and a society that distrusts everything about the Atrians. While the world around them rages with anger and prejudice, their bond becomes increasingly strong and increasingly dangerous.

Horror stories told from the perspectives of multiple characters whose lives are affected by the Birch, a bloodthirsty monster deep in the woods. Once you summon her protection, you never escape.

One cannot quench his all-consuming thirst. The other cannot tame the beast clawing its way out. In the sleepy Pennsylvania village of Hemlock Grove, two young men struggle to accept painful truths: about family, themselves, the mystery of the White Tower - and a terrifying new threat so powerful it will turn them from predators into prey.

Inexperienced Otis channels his sex therapist mom when he teams up with rebellious Maeve to set up an underground sex therapy clinic at school.

Brakebills University is a secret institution specializing in magic. There, amidst an unorthodox education of spellcasting, a group of twenty-something friends soon discover that a magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real— and poses grave danger to humanity.

Based on the Pretty Little Liars series of young adult novels by Sara Shepard, the series follows the lives of four girls — Spencer, Hanna, Aria, and Emily — whose clique falls apart after the disappearance of their queen bee, Alison. One year later, they begin receiving messages from someone using the name "A" who threatens to expose their secrets — including long-hidden ones they thought only Alison knew.

Set two generations before the destruction of the legendary Man of Steel’s home planet, Krypton follows Superman’s grandfather — whose House of El was ostracized and shamed — as he fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his beloved world from chaos.

The town of Rosewood has been suffering from a curse for generations. Five strangers suddenly feel connected by this fatal curse and feel the need to dig in the town's mysterious and horrible history before it's to late for each one of them.

The citizens of the small British town of Pagford fight for the spot on the parish council after Barry Fairbrother dies.

Tensions run high between African American citizens and Caucasian cops in Jersey City when a teenage African American boy is critically injured by a cop.

Cassie Nightingale, Middleton’s favorite enchantress, and her young-teenage daughter Grace, who shares that same special intuition as her mom, welcome Dr. Sam Radford and his son to town. When the New York transplants move in next to the Grey House, they are immediately spellbound by the mother-daughter duo next door, but Sam and Cassie quickly find they may not see eye to eye. With her signature charm, Cassie attempts to bring everyone together, ensuring all of Middleton is in for new changes, big surprises and, of course, a little bit of magic!"Good Witch” is based on Bell’s beloved character Cassie, the raven-haired enchantress who kept audiences spellbound for seven installments of Hallmark Channel's longest-running and highest-rated original movie franchise of all time.

After her mother dies in a fire, Cassie Blake moves in with her grandmother in the beautiful small town of Chance Harbor, Washington. As Cassie gets to know her high school classmates, including sweet-natured Diana and her boyfriend Adam, brooding loner Nick, mean-girl Faye and her sidekick Melissa, strange and frightening things begin to happen.  They are all descended from powerful witches, and they've been waiting for Cassie to join them and complete a new generation of the Secret Circle. What Cassie and the others don't yet know is that darker powers are at play, powers that might be linked to the adults in the town - and that Cassie's mother's death might not have been an accident.

Like most families that settle inside The Gates, the Monahans are unmoored from a complicated life they abandoned in Chicago. There's something very different about this place, almost... haunting. Named the new police chief of The Gates, Nick Monahan is about to be tangled up in a mystery where he will begin to piece together the dark truth about their new home, and the supernatural elements that lurk behind the shadows of The Gates.

Off the grid and miles from civilization, Little Otter Family Camp has summer fun for everyone. Parents decompress over gin and tonics while their kids run wild, and teenage counselors fall in and out of love.Mackenzie Granger is the camp owner and director. Still reeling from her recent divorce, Mackenzie is ready for a fresh start. She is running things on her own for the first time and scrambling to keep the cash-strapped Little Otter from going under.

When everyone else mysteriously vanishes from their wealthy town, the teen residents of West Ham must forge their own society to survive.

R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour is a Canadian/American original anthology horror-fantasy series, with episodes each half an hour long. The series is based on The Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It Movie, and the books The Haunting Hour and Nightmare Hour anthology by R. L. Stine.

The story of David Hobbs, who has spent the last decade playing the perfect father on one of TV’s biggest sitcoms. But when the series ends and his wife resumes her own television career, he finds himself cast in his most challenging role to date: handling the day-to-day needs of three kids who've grown accustomed to not having him around. David soon learns that playing a dad on TV is child’s play compared to the real thing.

After reluctantly returning to her tourist-trap hometown of Roswell, New Mexico, the daughter of undocumented immigrants discovers a shocking truth about her teenage crush who is now a police officer: He’s an alien who has kept his unearthly abilities hidden his entire life. She protects his secret as the two reconnect and begin to investigate his origins, but when a violent attack and long-standing government cover-up point to a greater alien presence on Earth, the politics of fear and hatred threaten to expose him and destroy their deepening romance.

In a future where the elite inhabit an island paradise far from the crowded slums, you get one chance to join the 3% saved from squalor.

A 14-year-old prodigy's mother relies on him to find a way out of poverty, but he is haunted by the death of his friend; he must choose between the streets that raised him or the higher education that may offer him a way out.

Sam & Cat is an American teen sitcom that premiered June 8, 2013, on Nickelodeon. It is a crossover spin-off/sequel of both iCarly and Victorious. It stars Jennette McCurdy as Sam Puckett and Ariana Grande as Cat Valentine. The girls meet by chance during a bizarre adventure and become roommates, then start a babysitting business to earn extra money.

The Corner presents the world of Fayette Street using real names and real events. The miniseries tells the true story of men, women and children living amid the open-air drug markets of West Baltimore. It chronicles a year in the lives of 15-year-old DeAndre McCullough, his mother Fran Boyd, and his father Gary McCullough, as well as other addicts and low-level drug dealers caught up in the twin-engine economy of heroin and cocaine.

When teen siblings Hayley and Alex enter an elite boarding school, they find rivalry, romance and a mystery related to the recent loss of their mom.

Amid the drug trade on Cape Cod, a body washes ashore and is discovered by an irreverent National Marine Fisheries Service officer, Jackie Quinones, who is determined to help solve the murder even if the state cops want her nowhere near the case.

A missing child causes four families to help each other for answers. What they could not imagine is that this mystery would be connected to innumerable other secrets of the small town.

A romantic comedy about two best friends who love each other -- in slightly different ways. After numerous failed attempts to become popular, the girls are mistakenly outed as lesbians, which launches them to instant celebrity status. Seduced by their newfound fame, Karma and Amy decide to keep up their romantic ruse.

Maja, a student in Stockholm, finds herself on trial for murder after a tragedy at her school. More doubts and suspicions arise when new revelations are made.

A new arrival at a boarding school falls in love with a beguiling female student.

Aspiring singer Tori Vega navigates life while attending a performing arts high school called Hollywood Arts.

The Adventures of Pete & Pete is an American children's television series produced by Wellsville Pictures and broadcast by Nickelodeon. The show featured humorous and surreal elements in its narrative, and many recurring themes centered on two brothers both named Pete Wrigley, and their various interactions with family, friends, and enemies.The show was created by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi and began as minute-long shorts in 1989 that aired in between regular programs. Owing to the popularity of the shorts, five half-hour specials were made, followed by a regular half-hour series that ran for three seasons and continued in reruns until around 1999. The N aired reruns of the show between 2002–2003. The first two seasons were released on DVD in 2005; the third was planned for 2006 but was indefinitely postponed.Jason Ankeny of Allmusic called the series "the greatest children's show ever," while IGN called it "One of the most well-written kids shows ever."

A group of high school students navigate love and friendships in a world of drugs, sex, trauma, and social media.

Out to avenge his mother's death, a college student pledges a secret order and lands in a war between werewolves and practitioners of dark magic.

A group of high school students whose exploration of modern sexuality (devices and all) tests deeply entrenched beliefs about life, love and the nature of family in their conservative community.

A rich and comic drama about the people of Cranford, a small Cheshire town on the cusp of change in the 1840s. Adapted from the novels by Elizabeth Gaskell.

A famed major league baseball announcer who suffers an embarrassing and very public meltdown live on the air after discovering his beloved wife's serial infidelity decides to reclaim his career and love life in a small town a decade later.

An unconventional thriller that takes place over three summers — 1993-95 — in a small Texas town when a beautiful popular teen, Kate, is abducted and, seemingly unrelated, a girl, Jeanette, goes from being a sweet, awkward outlier to the most popular girl in town and, by ’95, the most despised person in America.

Two teenagers from very different backgrounds awaken to newly acquired superpowers which mysteriously link them to one another.

A coming of age comedy following a diverse group of teenage friends as they confront the challenges of growing up in gritty inner-city Los Angeles.

La Ciudad de las Estrellas, a tiny town in the South American jungle, is home to an understaffed, understocked medical clinic where three idealistic doctors come looking for change.

A close-knit anthology series dealing with stories involving malice, violence and murder based in and around Minnesota.

The series follows 14-year-old Emma Alonso, as she moves to Miami and her life turns upside-down. Not only does she discover that she is a witch, she also has a crush on the boy next door, Daniel. But Daniel’s ex-girlfriend Maddie, who is an 'evil witch' and leader of the school clique the 'Panthers', is still willing to fight for the boy she loves.

21 Jump Street revolves around a group of young cops who would use their youthful appearance to go undercover and solve crimes involving teenagers and young adults.