Top 250 Tv Shows Like Swimming Upstream

A list of the best tv shows similar to Swimming Upstream. If you liked Swimming Upstream then you may also like: Boy Swallows Universe, Bridgerton, Friends, Ted Lasso, Shameless and many more great tv shows featured on this list.

This is a heart-wrenching story about a happy-go-lucky 17 year-old boy with a passion for life and love. Under his free spirit are problems that he must deal with. His mother died, his alcoholic father is unapproachable, and ...the biggest problem of all... he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The only support he receives is from a sister who also lives a fractured life, his immature best friend, and his girlfriend. "Swimming Upstream" is a moving and honest look at life's painful realities and how this teen deals with them.

Boy Swallows Universe

A young boy growing up in the suburbs of 1980s Brisbane faces the harsh realities of life — and the looming dangers that threaten his family.

Bridgerton

Wealth, lust, and betrayal set in the backdrop of Regency era England, seen through the eyes of the powerful Bridgerton family.

Friends

Six young people from New York City, on their own and struggling to survive in the real world, find the companionship, comfort and support they get from each other to be the perfect antidote to the pressures of life.

Ted Lasso

Ted Lasso, an American football coach, moves to England when he’s hired to manage a soccer team—despite having no experience. With cynical players and a doubtful town, will he get them to see the Ted Lasso Way?

Shameless

Chicagoan Frank Gallagher is the proud single dad of six smart, industrious, independent kids, who without him would be... perhaps better off. When Frank's not at the bar spending what little money they have, he's passed out on the floor. But the kids have found ways to grow up in spite of him. They may not be like any family you know, but they make no apologies for being exactly who they are.

7th Heaven

Reverend Eric Camden and his wife Annie have always had their hands full caring for seven children, not to mention the friends, sweethearts and spouses that continually come and go in the Camden household.

90210

90210 revolves around several students at the fictional West Beverly Hills High School, including new Beverly Hills residents Annie Wilson and Dixon Wilson. Their father, Harry Wilson, has returned from Kansas to his Beverly Hills childhood home with his family to care for his mother, former television and theater actress Tabitha Wilson, who has a drinking problem and clashes with his wife Debbie Wilson. Annie and Dixon struggle to adjust to their new lives while making friends and yet adhering to their parents' wishes.

13 Reasons Why

After a teenage girl's perplexing suicide, a classmate receives a series of tapes that unravel the mystery of her tragic choice.

All American

When a rising high school football player from South Central L.A. is recruited to play for Beverly Hills High, the wins, losses and struggles of two families from vastly different worlds - Compton and Beverly Hills - begin to collide. Inspired by the life of pro football player Spencer Paysinger.

The Amazing World of Gumball

The life of Gumball Watterson, a 12-year old cat who attends middle school in Elmore. Accompanied by his pet, adoptive brother, and best friend Darwin Watterson, he frequently finds himself involved in various shenanigans around the city, during which he interacts with various family members: Anais, Richard, and Nicole Watterson, and other various citizens.

Arthur

The show revolves around the lives of 8-year-old Arthur Read, an anthropomorphic aardvark, his friends and family, and their daily interactions with each other.

Atypical

Sam, an 18-year-old on the autism spectrum, takes a funny, yet painful, journey of self-discovery for love and independence and upends his family.

Big Love

The story of Bill Henrickson and his life in suburban Salt Lake City, balancing the needs of his three wives -- Barb, Nicki and Margene-- their seven kids, three new houses and the opening of his newest hardware store. When disturbing news arrives about Bill's father, he is forced to reconnect with his polygamist parents who live on a fundamentalist compound in rural Utah.

Blossom

Blossom is an American sitcom broadcast on NBC from January 3, 1991, to May 22, 1995. The series was created by Don Reo, and starred Mayim Bialik as Blossom Russo, a teenager living with her father and two brothers. It was produced by Reo's Impact Zone Productions in association with Witt/Thomas Productions and Touchstone Television.

Bob's Burgers

Bob's Burgers follows a third-generation restaurateur, Bob, as he runs Bob's Burgers with the help of his wife and their three kids. Bob and his quirky family have big ideas about burgers, but fall short on service and sophistication. Despite the greasy counters, lousy location and a dearth of customers, Bob and his family are determined to make Bob's Burgers "grand re-re-re-opening" a success.

The Bold and the Beautiful

Continuing drama combining romance and intrigue set against the glittering backdrop of Beverly Hills and the American fashion industry.

The Casagrandes

The Casagrandes tells the story of Ronnie Anne, an independent, adventurous, 11-year-old who explores city life with her big, loving, multi-generational Mexican-American family.

Casualty

Drama series about the staff and patients at Holby City Hospital's emergency department, charting the ups and downs in their personal and professional lives.

Chasing Life

April, an aspiring journalist, is balancing her ambitious career with her family and a new office romance. In an unexpected twist of fate, April learns that she has leukemia.

Clueless

CLUELESS is a television series spun off from the 1995 teen film of the same name. The series originally premiered on ABC on September 20, 1996 as a part of the TGIF lineup during its first season. The show then spent its last two seasons on UPN ending on May 25, 1999.

Cory in the House

It's a brand new life for Cory Baxter when his dad, Victor, becomes the personal chef to the President of the United States. Cory's entrepreneurial scheming reaches new heights as he mingles amongst high-powered Washington D.C. elite.

The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show is an American television situation comedy starring Bill Cosby, which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992. The show focuses on the Huxtable family, an upper middle-class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York.

Craig of the Creek

Craig and his friends, Kelsey and JP, venture out into a kid-controlled wilderness in the creek.

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood

The life of 4-year-old Daniel Tiger and his friends as they learn fun and practical strategies and skills necessary for growing and learning.

Dawson's Creek

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.

The Donna Reed Show

Revolves around typical family problems, such as firing a clumsy housekeeper, throwing a retirement bash for a colleague, and finding quality time away from the children.

Doogie Howser, M.D.

Doogie Howser is a doctor. He is also a 16-year-old genius who graduated college at age 10 and finished medical school at age 14. But he is still a teenager, with normal teenage friends and problems. But unlike a normal teenager, he is just learning to drive while also consulting on serious medical cases like heart transplants.

Even Stevens

The Stevens are a middle-class family living in Sacramento, CA. Husband and father Steve is a successful attorney. Wife and mother Eileen is a state Senator. Their oldest child Donnie ia a high-school sports legend. Ren, an 8th-grader, is just about the perfect daughter. She makes the best grades, she's popular, she does volunteer work and other extracurricular tasks by the score. Her brother Louis, in the 7th grade, is her opposite. He likes to sleep late, he's messy, his grades are not good, he's frequently in detention and he seems to take nothing seriously. But he is serious about finding something of his own that he can do to put himself on a par with the rest of his overachieving family. Though he and Ren occasionally soften their attitudes toward each other, at any given moment the're likely to be fighting like mongoose and cobra.

Everwood

After the death of his wife, world-class neurosurgeon Dr. Andrew Brown leaves Manhattan and moves his family to the small town of Everwood, Colorado. There he becomes a small-town doctor and learns parenting on the fly as he raises his talented but resentful 15-year-old son Ephram and his 9-year-old daughter Delia.

Faking It

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.

Father Knows Best

Family man Jim Anderson copes with the everyday problems among his wife Margaret and their three children as they experience day-to-day changes.

Full House

After the death of his wife, Danny enlists his best friend and his brother-in-law to help raise his three daughters, D.J., Stephanie, and Michelle.

George Lopez

George raises daughter Carmen and dyslexic son Max with his wife Angie, after surviving a miserable, dysfunctional childhood at the hands of his neglectful alcoholic mother Benny.

Growing Pains

Fatherhood has taken on a whole new meaning for Jason Seaver, who has assumed the chores of cooking, cleaning and minding the kids so that his wife, Maggie, can pursue a career in journalism after spending 15 years as a housewife.

How I Met Your Mother

A father recounts to his children - through a series of flashbacks - the journey he and his four best friends took leading up to him meeting their mother.

iCarly

Watch Carly, Sam, and Freddie, as they try to balance their everyday 8th grade lives with their newfound fame managing and starring in the most awesome show on the web.

Joan of Arcadia

Joan Girardi has begun acting a little strange since her family moved to the city of Arcadia. No one knows that various people keep introducing themselves as God, and then giving the teenager specific directions to do things. Unsure of what God wants, and if she's even sane, Joan tentatively begins to follow God's cryptic directives, all the while trying to retain a "normal" teen-aged existence.

Life Unexpected

16-year-old Lux was given up for adoption at birth but never adopted. When she is put back into the custody of her estranged-since-high-school birth parents, Cate and Baze, the three form an unlikely family.

Little People, Big World

Matt & Amy Roloff enlist the help of their four children Jeremy, Zack, Molly & Jacob to help expand the business of Roloff farms. As the kids grow older, the family grows larger and the Roloffs learn how to keep their family relationships strong.

Me and My Monsters

Me and My Monsters the story of the Carlson family who have recently relocated from Australia to the UK to discover there are three out of control hilarious monsters living in their basement.

The Middle

The daily mishaps of a married woman and her semi-dysfunctional family and their attempts to survive life in general in the city of Orson, Indiana.

A Million Little Things

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

Mistresses

Meet Savi, a successful career woman working toward the next phase in her life—both professional and personal—simultaneously bucking for partner at her law firm while she and her husband, Harry, try to start a family of their own. Savi's free-spirited and capricious baby sister, Josselyn, couldn't be more different—living single, serial dating and partying, and regularly leaning on her big sister along the way. Their common best friend, April, a recent widow and mother of two, is rebuilding her life after tragedy and learning to move forward, with the support and guidance of her closest girlfriends. And friend Karen, a successful therapist with her own practice, reconnects with the girls after her involvement in a complicated relationship with a patient goes far too deep.

Mom

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.

Mr. Belvedere

Mr. Belvedere takes a job as a housekeeper with an American family headed by George Owens.

My So-Called Life

The life of a 15 year-old high school student, whose angst-ridden journey through adolescence, friendship, parents, and life teaches her what it means to grow up.

The O.C.

Ryan Atwood, a teen from the wrong side of the tracks, moves in with a wealthy family willing to give him a chance. But Ryan's arrival disturbs the status quo of the affluent, privileged community of Newport Beach, California.

One Tree Hill

In Tree Hill, North Carolina two half brothers share a last name and nothing else. Brooding, blue-collar Lucas is a talented street-side basketball player, but his skills are appreciated only by his friends at the river court. Popular, affluent Nathan basks in the hero-worship of the town, as the star of his high school team. And both boys are the son of former college ball player Dan Scott whose long ago choice to abandon Lucas and his mother Karen, will haunt him long into his life with wife Deb and their son Nathan.

Open Heart

In the wake of her father's disappearance, 16-year-old Dylan Blake falls in with the wrong crowd, gets arrested, and earns court-ordered community service volunteering at Open Heart Memorial, the hospital where her mother and sister are doctors, where her grandparents are board members and benefactors and where her father was last seen the day he vanished.

The Osbournes

The Osbournes is an American reality television program featuring the domestic life of heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne and his family. The series premiered on MTV on March 5, 2002, and in its first season, was cited as the most-viewed series ever on MTV. The final episode of the series aired March 21, 2005.

Parker Lewis Can't Lose

For a cool high school kid and his friends, thwarting authority figures and other enemies is not a problem.

Pelswick

Pelswick is an animated television series produced by Nelvana for CBC Television in Canada and the Nickelodeon cable channel in the United States. The series is about a teenage boy who uses a wheelchair, emphasized how he lived a normal life and was based on the books created by John Callahan. It aired during Nick on CBS on September 14, 2002, then ended in November the same year.

Peppa Pig

Peppa Pig is an energetic piggy who lives with Mummy, Daddy, and little brother George. She loves to jump in mud puddles and make loud snorting noises.

Quintuplets

Quintuplets is a quirky ensemble comedy about the trials and tribulations of two parents raising 15-year-old quintuplets in a three-bedroom home.

Riverdale

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.

Road to Avonlea

In the fictional small town of Avonlea, Prince Edward Island, in the early 20th century, 10-year-old Montreal heiress Sara Stanley is sent by her wealthy father to live with her two maiden aunts, Hetty and Olivia King, to be near her late mother's side of the family.

Roseanne

A working-class family struggles to get by on a limited income in the fictional town of Lanford, Illinois.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

Amy and her friends at Grant High learn to define themselves while they navigate the perilous waters of contemporary adolescence. Between their love triangles, secrets, drama, accusations, gossip, confusion, and scandalous rumors, there's never a dull moment.

Stella

Ruth Jones stars as a 40-something mum juggling the ups and downs of family life amid the chaos of her eccentric friends, relatives and children's fathers.

Step by Step

Step by Step is an American television sitcom with two single parents, who spontaneously get married after meeting one another during a vacation, resulting in them becoming the heads of a large blended family

Still Standing

After 18 years of marriage, high school sweethearts Bill and Judy Miller still make each other laugh and try to keep their marriage intact, even when their family pulls them in different directions. Since Bill has a far more immature approach to marriage and raising their three children than Judy does, they work at striking a balance and remembering why they love each other, quirks and all.

Switched at Birth

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.

Teen Mom OG

In 16 and Pregnant, they were moms-to-be. Now, follow Farrah, Maci, Amber, and Catelynn as they face the challenges of motherhood. Each episode interweaves these stories revealing the wide variety of challenges young mothers can face: marriage, relationships, family support, adoption, finances, graduating high school, starting college, getting a job, and the daunting and exciting step of moving out to create their own families.

That's So Raven

No ordinary teenager; Raven Baxter can see glimpses of the future! Watch her schemes and misadventures as she enlists the help of friends, including best friends Eddie and Chelsea, to change life's little outcomes. Raven's younger brother, Cory, is obsessed with money and creates get-rich-quick schemes to try to earn cash.

Twin Peaks

The body of Laura Palmer is washed up on a beach near the small Washington state town of Twin Peaks. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate her strange demise only to uncover a web of mystery that ultimately leads him deep into the heart of the surrounding woodland and his very own soul.

The Young and the Restless

The rivalries, romances, hopes and fears of the residents of the fictional Midwestern metropolis, Genoa City. The lives and loves of a wide variety of characters mingle through the generations, dominated by the Newman, Abbott, Baldwin and Winters families.

Young Dracula

The misadventures of Vlad and Ingrid, who have moved to Britain from Transylvania with their father Count Dracula.

Reba

After her dentist husband of 20 years leaves her for his dental hygienist, Reba Hart's seemingly perfect world is turned upside down.​

Falcon Beach

Set in a quiet town where locals and summer visitors mingle, and relationships change as quickly as the tide. Will the hot days of summer prove long enough to resolve the abundant seduction and scandal of Falcon Beach?

Huff

Dr. Craig Huffstodt, a family man and a successful psychiatrist, gets a wake-up call after a tragedy occurs with one of his patients.

2Point4 Children

They're just your average family. Stressed mum Bill, daft dad Ben, and two troublesome teens. Plus just a few crazy ideas, escapades and mishaps. The classic 90s sitcom.

The Wonder Years

The story of Kevin Arnold facing the trials and tribulations of youth while growing up during the 1960s and 70s. Told through narration from an adult Kevin, Kevin faces the difficulties of maintaining relationships and friendships on his enthralling journey into adulthood.

Hannah Montana

At home and school, she's Miley Stewart, a typical teenager, but when the lights go down and the curtain goes up, she emerges as the glamorous and talented Hannah Montana. Having the "Best of Both Worlds" is a complicated proposition, and keeping her identity under wraps leads Miley and her friends into some hilarious capers as she tries to balance her normal life with her rock star persona.

Brideshead Revisited

Charles Ryder, an agnostic man, becomes involved with members of the Flytes, a Catholic family of aristocrats, over the course of several years between the two world wars.

Les Bougon, c'est aussi ça la vie !

They’re dirty, vulgar, dishonest, grouchy, uncultured. They’re also a big, happy family. The Bougon are a joyous bunch of scoundrels who live on the margins of society, doing whatever it takes to scam their way through life, thinking up new schemes for avoiding work, and never conforming to the system.

White Teeth

The lives of three families are woven together across three decades in multi-cultural Britain.

No Ordinary Family

After their plane crashes into the Amazon River, each member of the Powell family starts to show signs of new, unique and distinct super powers.

Skins

A wild ride through the lives of a group of high school friends stumbling through the mine field of adolescence... and stepping on most of the mines as they go.

Marchlands

The gripping story of three different families living in the same house in the 1960’s, 1980’s and present day. The families are linked by the spirit of a young girl – the 1960’s family’s daughter who died in mysterious circumstances.

About a Boy

Will Freeman lives a charmed existence as the ultimate man-child. After writing a hit song, he was granted a life of free time, free love and freedom from financial woes. He's single, unemployed and loving it. So imagine his surprise when Fiona, a needy single mom and her oddly charming 11-year-old son, Marcus, move in next door and disrupt his perfect world. When Marcus begins dropping by his home unannounced, Will's not so sure about being a kid's new best friend, until, of course, Will discovers that women find single dads irresistible. That changes everything and a deal is struck: Marcus will pretend to be Will's son and, in return, Marcus is allowed to chill at Will's house. Before he realizes it, Will starts to enjoy the visits and even finds himself looking out for the kid. In fact, this newfound friendship may very well teach him a thing or two that he never imagined possible - about himself and caring for others.

Hostages

A high-octane suspense drama that centers on Dr. Ellen Sanders, a premier surgeon thrust into a chilling political conspiracy when she and her family are held captive in their home by rogue FBI Agent Duncan Carlisle, a desperate man doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, who orders Dr. Sanders to assassinate the President when she operates on him.

Some Girls

Some Girls is a British comedy series written by Bernadette Davis that airs on BBC Three. The show stars Adelayo Adedayo, Mandeep Dhillon, Alice Felgate, Natasha Jonas, Dolly Wells, Colin Salmon, Jassa Ahluwalia and Franz Drameh. It debuted on 6 November 2012 and the first series ran for six episodes. BBC Three announced at the end of the first series that the show would return for a second series. On 18 September 2013, they confirmed that each episode of the second series will premiere on BBC iPlayer a week ahead of being broadcast on BBC Three. The first episode became available on iPlayer on 23 September and will be broadcast on BBC Three on 30 September with the rest of the series following that trend.

My Mad Fat Diary

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.

Red Band Society

Children and teenagers become friends in a hospital where they are all patients. Together they try to escape the sad reality to create their own world with their own codes , while the nursing staff do their best to bring them a little happiness everyday. Charlie , in a coma for several months, attending meanwhile helplessly bustle around him. He sees nothing , but he hears everything ...

Man Down

Dan is a childish idiot trapped in an adult’s life, whose world is at near collapse. His girlfriend Naomi is fast running out of patience with his inability to navigate the simplest of life tasks. He has two uniquely dysfunctional friends and a listless teaching career that sees him begrudgingly teach a version of the same lesson every day, inexplicably popular with all but one of the pupils, with his only highlight coming in the form of Miss Lipsey, a head mistress who views Dan with a mixture of pity and despair. To make matters worse, he is tormented daily by his willfully insane father, whose driving motivation in life seems to be to ensure his son is humiliated at every turn.

Nouvelle adresse

Nathalie Lapointe is in her early forties, a single mother of three with a successful career as columnist at a major newspaper. Just as she’s starting to think she might be able to pay more attention to her own needs, she gets terrible news: the cancer from which she recovered two years previously is back. How can she break the news to her kids? How can the family plan for the future with this sword of Damocles hanging over them? Despite the shock, life goes on. Nathalie must cope with evolving circumstances at the paper as well as at home. She wonders if she can allow herself to fall in love with her daughters’ school principal. As for her children, they must deal with their own teenage life challenges, all the while knowing that their mother may soon be gone. Nathalie’s best friend and neighbor is particularly hard-hit by the news: she’s already suffering from her husband’s infidelity and from the absence of her son, who is overseas. Nathalie’s misfortune also has a powerful effect on her three siblings. They must re-think their priorities at a time when all three are facing crucial choices in their emotional and professional lives. For Nathalie’s parents Janine and Gérard, her illness makes no sense. How do you face the very real possibility that your child will die before you?

Schitt's Creek

Formerly filthy rich video store magnate Johnny Rose, his soap star wife Moira, and their two kids, über-hipster son David and socialite daughter Alexis, suddenly find themselves broke and forced to live in Schitt's Creek, a small depressing town they once bought as a joke.

The Real O'Neals

A contemporary take on a seemingly perfect Catholic family, whose lives take an unexpected turn when surprising truths are revealed. Instead of ruining their family, the honesty triggers a new, messier chapter where everyone stops pretending to be perfect and actually starts being real.

Act of Will

Act of Will is a 1989 mini-series directed by Don Sharp. It the third mini series based on a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel he had directed and was an early lead role for Elizabeth Hurley.

HIM

A 17-year-old boy, known only as HIM, caught in the limbo between childhood and adulthood is also trapped in a limbo between the two homes of his divorced parents, each now remarried with new families. Like most boys he finds it hard to process his feelings so tends to “act out”. But his behaviour is also triggered by something else - his primal struggle to contain the terrifying secret of a supernatural power he inherited from his grandfather. A power that only his ageing grandmother understands, who urges him to use his gift only for ‘good’ for she knows if he doesn’t it could end in tragedy. 

Safe

After his daughter goes missing, a widower begins uncovering the dark secrets of the people closest to him.

Almost Home

Having a hard time making ends meet after her divorce, Millicent Torkelson moves her three children to Seattle, where she becomes the nanny to the spoiled Morgan children.

The Baker and the Beauty

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?

October Faction

Monster hunters Fred and Deloris Allen tangle with evil ... and family drama with their teenage twins. From the comics by Steve Niles and Damien Worm.

The Baby-Sitters Club

In this contemporary take on the beloved book series, five best friends launch a baby-sitting business that's big on fun and adventure.

White Lines

Zoe Walker leaves her quiet life behind to investigate her brother's disappearance in Ibiza, where she quickly heads down a decadent and dangerous path.

Julie and the Phantoms

Teenage Julie finds her passion for music and life while helping the Phantoms -- a trio of ghostly guys -- become the band they were never able to be.

My Unorthodox Life

The personal and professional life of fashion mogul Julia Haart - former member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community turned CEO of Elite World Group.

Changing Ends

An autobiographical scripted comedy based on stand-up and presenter Alan Carr's life.

Extended Family

Jim and Julia are happily divorced, co-raising their kids while staying best friends and close confidants. But the situation gets hilariously more complicated when the owner of Jim's favorite sports team enters the picture... and wins Julia's heart.

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