20 best shows like Damsels in Distress (2012)

Pre-law student Marti Perkins' world is flipped upside down when she loses her scholarship, and realizes the only way she can stay in school is by reigniting her dormant teen gymnastic skills to win a place on Lancer University's legendary cheerleading team.

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.

Felicity Porter, a sensitive and intelligent girl from the San Francisco Bay Area, decides to give up a slot at Stanford University's pre-med program to follow her long time crush to college in New York City. Things get even more complicated when she meets her dorm's resident advisor and they fall in love.

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

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.

Married is a half hour comedy about being miserably in love. Russ and Lina Bowman can barely remember what life was like before kids, debt, and suburbia rained on their romance -- but every once in a while, in between the arguments about their declining sex life and who's driving carpool, they are reminded what drew them together in the first place -- they're best friends. The show also features Russ and Lina's friend AJ, who is recently divorced and pretending he's over his wife, and their other friend Jess, who is married to a much older man who can't keep up with her.

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.

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.

Two worlds collide when Josh, a wealthy young tech entrepreneur, meets Gabi, a feisty young food blogger, looking to be his personal chef. Gabi is desperate for the job and must prove herself, mostly to Josh's aide, who prefers a famous chef for the job. When Josh enlists Gabi to prepare a romantic meal for him and his girlfriend, the dinner goes awry and Gabi finds herself in a very awkward position. With the help of her best friend Sofia and Josh's housekeeper, Gabi turns a difficult situation into an opportunity for employment and maybe even love. Gabi gets some much needed help and advice from Josh’s assistant and his housekeeper.

Set in 1996 in Lincolnshire, the show tells the tragic and humorous story of a very troubled young girl Rae, who has just left a psychiatric hospital, where she has spent four months after attempting suicide, begins to reconnect with her best friend Chloe and her group, who are unaware of Rae's mental health and body image problems, believing she was in France for the past four months.

Baby Daddy follows Ben, a young man in his early 20s living the life of a bachelor in New York City with his buddy, Tucker, and his brother, Danny. Their lives are turned upside down when they come home one day to find a baby girl left on the doorstep by an ex-girlfriend of Ben's. After much deliberation, Ben decides to raise the baby with the help of his friends and his protective and sometimes over-bearing mother, Bonnie, and his close female friend, Riley.

An irreverent look at the conflict, chaos and humor that defines teenage life through the eyes of 15-year-old Jenna Hamilton whose life begins to change when a simple accident becomes an epic misunderstanding and is blown way out of proportion. Narration in the first-person voice of Jenna's blog posts captures the humor within the struggles and experiences everyone can relate to from their formative years.

Four adults nearing 40, living under the same roof, struggle to keep their relationships and their individual dreams alive.

A tight-knit group of best friends and family helps Wade embrace his “new normal” in the wake of the loss of his wife. As a sometimes ill-equipped but always devoted single parent to his two adolescent daughters, he is taking the major step of dating again.

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.

A group of friends from Boston who feel stuck in life experience an unexpected wake-up call after one of their friend dies unexpectedly.

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.

Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama-mystery series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. It aired Sundays at 9 P.M. Eastern/8 P.M. Central, on ABC from October 3, 2004, until May 13, 2012. Executive producer Cherry served as showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season included Bob Daily, George W. Perkins, John Pardee, Joey Murphy, David Grossman, and Larry Shaw. The main setting of the show was Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional American town of 'Fairview' in the fictional 'Eagle State'. The show followed the lives of a group of women as seen through the eyes of a dead neighbor who committed suicide in the very first episode. The storyline covers thirteen years of the women's lives over eight seasons, set between the years 2004–2008, and later 2013–2017. They worked through domestic struggles and family life, while facing the secrets, crimes and mysteries hidden behind the doors of their — at the surface — beautiful and seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood. The show featured an ensemble cast, headed by Teri Hatcher as Susan Mayer, Felicity Huffman as Lynette Scavo, Marcia Cross as Bree Van de Kamp, and Eva Longoria as Gabrielle Solis. Brenda Strong narrated the show as the deceased Mary Alice Young, appearing sporadically in flashbacks or dream sequences.

House of Anubis is a jointly Nickelodeon British, American, and Belgian mystery television series based on the Dutch-Belgian television series Het Huis Anubis aired in the Netherlands and Belgium. The series was created by Hans Bourlon and Gert Verhulst and premiered on Nickelodeon on New Year's Day 2011 in the United States and on 25 February 2011 in the United Kingdom. The series is the first Nickelodeon series to be filmed overseas, the first soap opera created by Nickelodeon and the channel's first soap opera aimed at children and teenagers. As of 25 February, the program will be broadcast on TeenNick. The show has since concluded its third season and as of 28 September 2013 Nickelodeon has not announced a fourth season.

Nothing delights Emma more than meddling in the love lives of others. But when she takes protege Harriet Smith under her wing, her plans can only end in disaster...

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

Kelly Quinn and her two BFF's, Darbie and Hannah, stumble upon her grandmother's mysterious cookbook in the attic and discover some far from ordinary recipes. When the Shut'em Up Shortcake silences Kelly's pesky little brother and the Healing Hazelnut Tart heals Darbie's ankle, the girls discover they have the power of magic. A single-camera live-action pilot based on the popular book.

The story of two teenage girls who discover they were accidentally switched as newborns in the hospital. Bay Kennish grew up in a wealthy family with two parents and a brother, while Daphne Vasquez, who lost her hearing at an early age due to a case of meningitis, grew up with a single mother in a working-class neighborhood. Things come to a dramatic head when both families meet and struggle to learn how to live together for the sake of the girls.

A woman's daring sexual past collides with her married-with-kids present when the bad-boy ex she can't stop fantasizing about crashes back into her life.

After moving to The Coterie in Downtown Los Angeles, Callie and Mariana Foster realize that living on their own is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

When ambitious Chicago marketing exec Emily unexpectedly lands her dream job in Paris, she embraces a new life as she juggles work, friends and romance.

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.

Billy & Billie centers on two young adults as they fall in love. They face the usual barrage of attention from their friends and family, and the normal anxieties that come at the start of a new relationship-all further complicated by the fact that they're stepbrother and sister.

Two high school best friends who make the age-old promise to get married if they are still single by 30 years old.

Victor is a new student at Creekwood High School on his own journey of self-discovery, facing challenges at home, adjusting to a new city, and struggling with his sexual orientation. When it all seems too much, he reaches out to Simon to help him navigate the ups and downs of high school.

My Boys follows PJ, a twenty-something professional sportswriter who is looking for love within her world which is dominated by her group of male friends. Her tomboyish, no-nonsense approach to relationships tends to freak out potential suitors which leads her only female friend to advise her to dress and act more feminine.

Inspired by the Internet’s “404” error code, Dimension 404 aims to evoke that 3 AM feeling of wandering onto the weird side of the web, stumbling upon stories that cannot be explained in the world that we know.

A dual coming-of-age comedy exploring the impact of internet porn and social media, Mrs. Fletcher follows empty nest divorcée Eve Fletcher — as she reinvents her life to find the happiness and sexual fulfillment that’s eluded her, and her college freshman son Brendan.

In crowded and expensive London, cash-strapped couple Gemma and Kieran open their small apartment to a third person. Somehow, their new addition, Ray, makes the flat seem bigger, not smaller. Gradually, many things become easier, nicer and better with an extra pair of hands.

Having gone their separate ways since the original series ended 19 years ago, the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210 reunites when one of them suggests it’s time to get a reboot up and running. But getting it going might make for an even more delicious soap than the reboot itself.

Meet Bess King, a uniquely talented performer struggling to fulfill her dreams while handling rejection, dating drama, and family issues. This is a story about finding your authentic voice—and the courage to use it.

A sheltered London professor attempts to uncover the cause of his wife’s mysterious death in Hong Kong, traveling there after discovering she died in a car accident on the mountain roads of Tai Po.

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

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.

It is the year 1967. After five happy years of marriage in New York with Alberto and their young son, Anna Ribera returns to Spain to take her project Velvet to the next level. She and Alberto had been managing all things Velvet from across the ocean and, together with their best friends and partners, had made a name for Velvet as the number one address in the world of fashion and innovation. Now they decide to take the next step and turn their reputation into a franchise, first at home, then abroad. The first step is opening shop in the other great Spanish city, Barcelona, on its world famous promenade, the Passeig de Gracia. There, the second Velvet Fashion Store is about to open its gates, managed by Ana's good friend Clara who had made it up the career ladder from seamstress to directorial assistant in the Madrid Velvet years.

Aan irreverent and outrageous take on true family love‐and dysfunction. Newly sober single mom Christy struggles to raise two children in a world full of temptations and pitfalls. Testing her sobriety is her formerly estranged mother, now back in Christy's life and eager to share passive-aggressive insights into her daughter's many mistakes.

Ordinary college student Paige gets her big break after auditioning for the starring role in a Hollywood blockbuster. She must now navigate her new star-studded life and the highs and lows that come with being the new It Girl in town as well as balancing her college workload.

New Yorker Zoe Hart has it all figured out - after graduating top of her class from medical school, she'll follow in her father's footsteps and become a cardio-thoracic surgeon. But when her dreams fall apart, Zoe decides to work at a small practice in Bluebell, Alabama.

Everything changes when Alex Rider learns that his uncle Ian has actually been killed in the line of duty as a British spy. The normal teen is approached by the head of The Department and pressured to help investigate his uncle's death. Alex reluctantly assumes a new identity and goes undercover in a remote boarding school called Point Blanc.

A gay man with mild cerebral palsy decides to rewrite his identity as an accident victim and finally go after the life he wants.

Daniel Garcia is working in the family bakery and doing everything that his loving Cuban parents and siblings expect him to do. But on a wild Miami night he meets Noa Hamilton, an international superstar and fashion mogul, and his life moves into the spotlight. Will this unlikely couple upend their lives to be together and pull their families into a culture clash?

The assorted humiliations, disasters and rare triumphs of four very different twenty-something girls: Hannah, an aspiring writer; Marnie, an art gallery assistant and cousins Jessa and Shoshanna.

Elizabeth Thatcher, a young school teacher from a wealthy Eastern family, migrates from the big city to teach school in a small coal mining town in the west.

In a backwater corner of the South Pacific in 1938, a young American adventurer and his ragtag group of friends become involved in death-defying hi-jinx, transporting people-on-the-run in a well-worn Grumman Goose seaplane.

A much more lavish version of the popular Superman television series which had first aired forty years earlier, Lois & Clark focused more on the Man of Steel's early adult years in Metropolis. With the unknowing help of Lois Lane, Clark Kent created Superman there in Metropolis after finding work at the world-famous Daily Planet newspaper, where he meets fellow reporter Lois Lane.