The best original shows you can stream on Paramount+

So, a lot of the originals on Paramount+ are spinoffs, reboots, reimaginings, or continuations. You will see a lot of those on this list, but Paramount+ considers these shows originals, and in many instances we agree. Take “Frasier,” for example. It’s basically a spinoff of the most-successful spinoff ever. NBC’s “Frasier” is a great show. The new flavor of “Frasier” takes him back to Boston and reunites him with his now-adult son Freddy. Freddy steps into the Martin role as the blue-collar, down-to-earth counterpart to Frasier. It’s not as good as the first “Frasier” foray, but few things are. It at least justifies itself by being different enough, and Kelsey Grammer has always crushed it in this particular role.

Paramount+ is, in many ways, a clearinghouse for “Star Trek” ideas. It’s the most popular property that the company has access to. “Lower Decks” is the freshest idea related to “Star Trek” that has come along in a while. It’s an animated show for adults, bringing a level of risqué content rare in the largely anodyne world of “Star Trek.” If you’ve ever wanted to see a twisted take on this world, “Lower Decks” is the way to go.

Notably, our list doesn’t include “Star Trek: Discovery,” but it does include this more-successful spinoff. The characters of “Strange New Worlds” popped up in “Discovery” and were received well enough that they got their own show. Of course longtime fans of the franchise are familiar with many of these characters. Anson Mount stars as Christopher Pike, commander of the Enterprise before James T. Kirk, and Spock and Number One are in the mix as well. Basically, it’s a “Star Trek: The Original Series” prequel with way better production values.

“Real World/Road Rules Challenge” started off casually enough, but it started to snowball into its own thing. Eventually it became “The Challenge,” and then it earned a fervent fan base that cared nothing for “Real World” or “Road Rules.” Hell, a lot of them don’t even remember “Road Rules” existing. In time, “The Challenge” built up its own universe to such a degree it exploded into “The Challenge: All-Stars.” It’s essentially the ne plus ultra of the concept, which has generated four seasons at this point.

Beavis, and also his compatriot Butt-Head, got multiple bites at the apple on MTV. A certain version of the dimwitted duo will forever be associated with the heyday of Music Television. However, in 2022, Mike Judge developed a new conception of Beavis and Butt-Head. It began with a Paramount+ movie “Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe,” which set up a multiverse version of this world. The new, multiple-timeline “Beavis and Butt-Head” aired two seasons on Paramount+ to help bolster the service, but is moving to Comedy Central for its third season.

What’s this? Something akin to an original idea on Paramount+? Not to be confused with “Mare of Easttown,” “Mayor of Kingstown” is a show starring Jeremy Renner as something of a fixer in a small Michigan town built upon the prison industrial complex. The first season was a little dicey, but since then, the show has steadily improved as the world has been fleshed out and figured out.

We should note that both “Mayor of Kingstown” and “Special Ops: Lioness” are Taylor Sheridan creations. Sheridan is the primary creative force at Paramount+, having turned the success of “Yellowstone” into a blank check to do whatever he damn well pleases. Zoe Saldana plays a CIA agent in this spy thriller, which also has wrangled Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman into the cast.

What if you died and still had to go to high school? Sounds like a bummer! It’s also part of the premise of supernatural teen drama “School Spirits.” A teenage girl investigates her mysterious death (which is a mystery even to her) while she still has to deal with the usual teenaged nonsense in the afterlife. It delivers something different, and original, to the Paramount+ audience, which is part of its value.

“The Good Fight” is a holdover from the “CBS All-Access” days, when the streaming service was way behind in the streaming wars. It was also one of the first CBS All-Access shows to get any love. The “Good Wife” spinoff focuses on Christine Baranski’s character Diane Lockhart. It’s a “fall from grace, pick yourself back up” type drama, and it ran for six seasons and 60 episodes. Some prefer it to “The Good Wife” even.

One last “Star Trek” show, one fully indebted to the past. On the other hand, we can’t quibble with more Jean-Luc Picard. Patrick Stewart plays a long-retired Picard who is, naturally, sucked back into the world of Starfleet. The 30-episode story gave the beloved character a proper, robust send-off that made many a “Star Trek” fan quite happy.

When Jordan Peele started to reel in the horror cache, he used it to help bring “The Twilight Zone” back. Each generation gets the “Twilight Zone” it deserves, after all. Peele was placed into the Rod Serling role in this anthology series, which brought in plenty of name actors. While some of the stories were classics from the past, there were new, fresh horror fables as well. The show ended after 20 episodes, but at the behest of the creators who were satisfied with the work they had done.

It took forever for a TV adaptation of the popular “Halo” video game series to debut finally. Development began in 2013, and thanks to matters such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the show wouldn’t debut until 2022. The first season definitely suffered some from the chaos, but the second season of “Halo” was much better. Alas, it was also the last. “Halo” was just too pricey, and perhaps too indebted to a phenomenon from another era, for the show to continue, so it was canceled.

Personally, we feel more ideas like the “iCarly” reboot should be tried. The original was a hugely popular tween sitcom on Nickelodeon. The new version debuted about a decade after the first ended, but it picked up from there. Now, the show was following Carly and friends as adults, and they act like adults. Instead of catering to the same tween audience, the “iCarly” reboot catered to the adults who had grown up on the show. It made for a fun 33-episode run, which was also probably sufficient all things considered.

Well, “Lawman” is merely executive-produced by Sheridan, so at least there’s some variety there. David Oyelowo stars as Bass Reeves, a real man who was the first African-American Deputy U.S. Marshall west of the Mississippi. He lived a wild life in the Wild West, perfect for a modern Western. Now, it only proved to be an eight-episode miniseries, but sometimes, that’s all you really are looking for. Get it, tell a compelling story, and get out.

Based on an Australian comedy series, “No Activity” is about two low-level cops who are, you know, used to dealing with no activity on patrol. Then, they get mixed up in a big cartel bust, putting them in over their heads. Fascinatingly, after three seasons, the show became animated for the fourth season. Alas, it also fell victim to an oh-too-common streaming circumstance. “No Activity,” even though it is a Paramount+ original, was removed from the service.

After the success of the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles refresh “Mutant Mayhem,” the world of that film got the chance to expand itself in a TV show. The cast from the film is all ported over for “Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Building out the new canon for the quartet, it keeps the light tone and fun animation people loved about “Mutant Mayhem.” Sometimes, more of the same is the best thing.