7 Shows Like Outer Range

Ah, so your favorite neo-Western about time traveling through a hole on a Wyoming ranch got canceled. It happens. Wait, actually, it kind of doesn't — Outer Range, said neo-Western, really was one of a kind. 

The Prime Video drama, created by Brian Watkins, tells the story of Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin), a sturdy, silent rancher with a big secret (spoiler!) — as a young boy he fell into a hole in 1886, and when he came out of it, it was the 1960s. That pesky time-traveling hole (or "void," if you want to get technical) appears again on Royal's ranch in the present. People fall into the hole, people come out of the hole, it's a, um, whole thing. And also a hole thing, as it were. But Outer Range is more than just a hole show — there's family drama (Lili Taylor plays Royal's wife, and Lewis Pullman and Tom Pelphrey are his adult sons); a mysterious woman (Imogen Poots) who shows up to stir the Abbott pot; a murder cover-up; land disputes; old, deep-seated rivalries in small-town Wyoming; and, yes, time travel. 

Over its two seasons, Outer Range was unafraid to be itself — moody, fantastically weird, and always pushing the boundaries of genre. While there may not be another show exactly like this one, there are several series that might help ease the pain and fill the hole in your viewing schedule (I'll never stop). Take a look at a few other series that also play with genre boundaries (including Westerns), time travel shows that focus on compelling character development, and more shows that, like Outer Range, don't back away from letting things get weird. Outer Range might be gone, but these series will help you let your freak flag fly, too. 

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Talk about a mash-up of Western and sci-fi! Westworld admittedly began to lose its luster toward the end of its four-season run on HBO (and it's not even available on Max these days; don't get me started!), but do you remember how incredible and addictive its first season was? For those uninitiated, the series takes place in the 2050s, where the ultra-wealthy spend their time visiting theme parks where they are immersed in a detailed narrative populated by "hosts" who are built from AI. In Season 1, we spend our time in Westworld, a theme park with a, you guessed it, Western theme. But when the hosts begin to become aware of their own existence, all bets are off. Oh, did I mention this is a dystopian story? Even when the show falters a bit, it's full of knockout performances — especially from lead Evan Rachel Wood — and stunning visuals. Even those opening credits are must-see TV!

Watch on Prime Video (for purchase)

If you're looking for a moody Western, hold the sci-fi, you'll want to check out Godless. Set in 1884, this miniseries from Scott Frank has a lot of your typical Western genre trappings: a bitter rivalry between violent outlaw Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and onetime protege Roy Goode (Jack O'Connell) lands on the doorstep of a little town called La Belle. There are shootouts, gorgeous shots of the land, and a whole lot of hat tippin'. While both Godless and Outer Range, at times, suffer from a problem of moving a little too slowly for their own good, the two series share similarities in the pro column as well. Like Outer Range, Godless offers up a host of compelling characters who buck genre convention — or at least, play a little bit within its confines. La Belle is a town mostly populated by women after a mining accident two years prior killed almost every adult male. This leaves us with Merritt Wever's Mary Agnes, the widow of the town's former mayor, who has taken to wearing his suits and is fiercely protective of everything she's built in La Belle. There's also Alice, played by Michelle Dockery, a twice-widowed outcast of the town who gets dragged into Roy Goode's mess when he takes refuge on her land; she's hardened, resilient, and aces with a rifle. Scoot McNairy is there, too, lending pathos to his Sheriff McNue, a sharpshooter slowly losing his eyesight and his control over La Belle. While the episodes run a little long, the characters that populate La Belle and beyond make it easy to stick with it. 

Watch on Netflix

What if you want to go in the opposite direction? If you're looking for more time travel and less Western, Dark is the pinnacle. The German-language Netflix series, created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, ran for three audacious seasons, and even as it unfurled its wildly complex and weird story, it never felt out of control. Even when your head hurts and you need to look at a visual aid to keep timelines and characters straight (trust me, it's fun!), the story remains sharp and compelling. Dark begins as a story about the small German town of Winden in 2019, when one night, a young boy goes missing — but it is so much more than a simple missing persons mystery. The story jumps around between 2019, 1986, 1952, all the way back to the 1880s, and well into the future. You meet the same characters at different points of their lives, you discover people are related in ways you could never imagine (if you know, you know), and your loyalties constantly shift as the central mystery and mythology grows deeper and darker. It's wild. But, like Outer Range, Dark can afford to take such big swings because even the weirdest sci-fi moments are grounded by a swath of characters you'll find hard to let go of once their stories end.

Watch on Netflix

You can't talk strange and genre-bending without talking Twin Peaks. The David Lynch-Mark Frost series — which ran for two seasons in the early '90s, got a prequel movie in 1992, and was revived for Season 3 in 2017 — is, at its most basic level, a murder mystery. In the pilot episode, FBI Agent Dale Cooper (an iconic Kyle MacLachlan) arrives in Twin Peaks, Washington, to investigate the murder of prom queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). But as time goes on, Laura, her murder, and the town of Twin Peaks itself reveal themselves to be much more complicated, and much weirder, than Dale Cooper ever could have seen coming. The series is surreal and campy, funny and grim. If you do decide to fire walk with Twin Peaks, buckle up, because it is a ride.

Watch Twin Peaks on Paramount+
Watch Twin Peaks: The Return on Paramount+

For horror fans who also like their genre shows to have a gaggle of well developed, interesting characters and a moody atmosphere, give From a whirl. It's not too late to jump on the bandwagon of this sci-fi/horror series, created by John Griffin and starring Harold Perrineau as Boyd Stevens, the de facto sheriff of a small town with some big secrets — once you enter the town limits, you can never leave. Oh yeah, and a bunch of terrifying monsters come out at night and will rip out your insides if they see you. It's terrifying. Season 2 offers up a lot of questions with fewer answers (does this sound like another Perrineau show you might know?), but the horror aspects are top notch, the cast is up to the task, and it weaves in some affecting personal drama to balance out the sci-fi. 

Watch on MGM+

Like many shows on this list, Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass is hard to define. OK, sure, it is horror. The ending of this series is terrifying chaos that you will be unprepared for — sorry, but I had to tell you. It's a slow build to that chaos, though, and the journey to get there is less about outright horror and more about slow creepiness. It has an air of unsettledness that looms over every scene. Midnight Mass takes place on a remote island with a small but devoutly Catholic population. The miniseries kicks off with the arrival of two figures on the island: one, a priest (an excellent Hamish Linklater) whose arrival brings about some mysterious and possibly miraculous events; the other, Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford), a young man who grew up on the island and has just finished a four-year prison sentence for a drunk driving accident. Gilford gives such a heartbreaking, aching performance here that it still makes me angry that he didn't get nearly enough praise when the miniseries aired in 2021. The series is scary, yes, but it is also a compelling look at guilt, grief, faith, and its many pitfalls. 

Watch on Netflix

In the early days of watching Outer Range, I often found myself asking, "What…is this show?" It's the same question I used to ask myself before I simply let The Leftovers wash over me. This is a show that is meant to be hard to define. Developed by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta (who wrote the novel on which the series is based), The Leftovers begins three years after a rapture-like event in which 2% of the world's population simply disappeared one day. The show is about making sense of that world-altering event, both pragmatically and emotionally. It's about grief and loss and starting over. It's about figuring out what, and who, you believe in and opening yourself up to new possibilities. It's also weird as hell. I won't get too into the weeds here, but suffice it to say there's a dreamlike side story where Justin Theroux's character, Kevin Garvey, is both the president and an assassin, and it is both insane and incredible. It's a show that only gets better as it goes on, and if you stick with it for all three seasons, you will be baffled, and you will be sobbing. On top of the stellar writing, there's a knockout cast: Theroux! Carrie Coon! Ann Dowd! Regina King! Amy Brennemen! If you haven't watched it yet and it sounds like a show for you, wow wow wow, I am jealous of what you're about to experience.

Watch on Max