Fame

Right now you can watch Fame on streaming — and it holds up to as much attention as you give it. With 6 seasons behind it, the show has had time to find its rhythm and keep it. A 7/10 rating says what the writing already makes obvious: this one works. Watch it for Debbie Allen — one of the stronger performances out there right now. There is no real reason to keep putting it off.

There is a reason Fame keeps coming up in conversation. Fame trusts its audience to sit with discomfort instead of resolving it too quickly. An American television series originally produced between 1982 and 1987. The show is based on the 1980 motion picture of the same name. With a mixture of drama and music, it followed the lives of the students and faculty at the New York City High School for the Performing Arts. Debbie Allen and Gene Anthony Ray lead a cast that treats the material with real seriousness. It ran for 6 seasons (1982–1987), and the writing holds up across every one of them. Fame resists tidy resolutions in a way that respects how messy real consequences actually are. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

For anyone looking for storytelling that takes its characters seriously, Fame delivers. The tonal similarities to Gossip Girl are real, though Fame carves out its own identity quickly. 6 seasons is a lot, but the quality holds all the way through. Debbie Allen's work here is the kind that gets referenced in career retrospectives. It makes everything else feel thin by comparison.

Fame wrapped up in 1987, created by Christopher Gore — and 6 seasons are available to watch from start to finish. Find exactly where it's streaming below, and TV Butler Pro makes it effortless to track your progress as you go. Just search the name, and Butler finds it instantly, tells you which service has it, and remembers exactly where you left off.