So, last week, I talked about ten movies that you can stream for free over on Tubi. I could easily list ten or twenty more. There’s a lot of good stuff there.

I’m also watching TV shows on Tubi. Of course, a multiple season show takes a lot longer to work through, than a single movie. It’s got some cool animated shows, like Pinky and the Brain, The Looney Tunes Show, and The Pirates of Darkwater. I’ll probably do a post like this on just cartoons.

But today we’ll talk about live-action shows. Now, PlutoTV is terrific for TV shows. Entire channels dedicated to Star Trek shows, mysteries, Westerns, etc.. And I’m leaning into RokuTV (also free). But let’s look at ten shows you can catch on Tubi. Some of the biggest hits are there, but I’ll try to focus on some others.

A reminder: I talked here about how I was finally fed up with all the streaming apps I needed to watch stuff. So, except for Prime (the family orders a lot of stuff from Amazon), I cut the chord on all of them. I’m missing Daredevil, and didn’t watch a single Pittsburgh Penguins playoff game (I did listen to all of them). But it’s going fine.

1 – SIMON AND SIMON

I caught an episode of this here and there over the years, but had never watched it through. I’ve always liked it, and it hasn’t lost its charm. Two brothers barely make a living as private eyes in San Diego. This is the show that launched Gerald McRaney.

It’s definitely a little cheesy, but this is a fun buddy PI show. And love the two theme songs. Hardcastle and McCormick, and Riptide, and T.J. Hooker, are three favorites I’m going to re-watch on Tubi. But I’ll plug Simon and Simon here.

2 – RESCUE ME

I was aware that this was a popular and critically praised show in the early 2000s. I didn’t like Leary much, and I never watched it. But I’m going to give season one of this fire-fighting drama, a try. Leary’s latest show, Going Dutch, just got canceled last week. It had its ups and downs, but I saw every episode.

3 – THE TICK

I loved the animated show. And Amazon’s series was very good. But I was disappointed with Patrick Warburton’s short-lived series when it came out. I decided to give it a re-watch. It’s still my least favorite Tick, but I did like it this time around. I just had to get in the right frame of mind and accept it for what it was. Not how I would have done it, but it’s not a bad watch.

4 – BLUE RIDGE: THE SERIES

I liked the movie that started this off, and I liked season one of the streaming show which followed. It is now on Tubi. It stars Johnathon Schaech, who was the arrogant Jimmy in one of my favorite ‘under-the-radar’ movies, That Thing You Do!.

He’s a kick-ass ex-Green Beret, now sheriff in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A second season dropped last month, and I’m gonna try to find it. Go read my prior post – and you should start with the movie, if you can. But this is a cool show.

5 – DOC MARTIN

I am a big fan of Best Medicine, which had its first season earlier this year. It’s an American version of Doc Martin, a British show featuring Martin Clunes. Clunes actually appeared as Martin Best’s father, in the new show.

I like the new show, and I like the original. Doc Martin is socially awkward, and he’s kind of a butthead. Not in the Dr. Gregory House vein, but he can be difficult to root for sometimes. I recommend both Doc Martin, and Best Medicine.

6 – SHERLOCK HOLMES (JEREMY BRETT)

You may know that my first three years at Black Gate, my column was called The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes. I love me some Holmes. And as I wrote in this three part series, Jeremy Brett is the definitive screen Holmes. They have a bunch (though not all) of Brett’s episodes. HIGHLY recommended.

Tubi has a ton of television and movie Holmes. Even one from 2011 I’d never heard of. I’ll probably do a Ten Things on Tubi Holmes. But Jeremy Brett is a treat.

7 – COLUMBO/MURDOCH MYSTERIES

I am a HUUUUGE Columbo fan. I’m still trying to get together a multi-contributor Columbo series here at Black Gate. I did write about the lieutenant, here. I have the entire series on DVD (no commercials), but I’d be remiss not to point out you can watch it free on Tubi. Possibly the greatest mystery series of all time.

Murdoch Mysteries has my vote as the greatest Canadian mystery series of all time.

8 -SOAP

I saw a little of Soap during its run, but I was only 10 years old when it started. And I didn’t like it. Obviously, I didn’t understand much of it, as well. I do remember I regularly watched the spin-off, Benson. Robert Guillaume and Rene Auberjonois were terrific in that. But Soap was a critically acclaimed ‘adult’ comedy. I should probably check it out now.

9 – C.P.O SHARKEY

Don Rickles was in his prime before my time. But he was still around as I was a kid in the 70s. He was a comb of Archie Bunker and the yet-to-come Dennis Leary. I don’t watch him, but this is a very nineteen seventies sitcom.

10 – ROUTE 66

I never saw this sixties show. I know the song from the King Cole Trio about Route 66. But only when I came across this on Tubi, did I realize it starred Martin Milner, who would later be on Adam-12. And he was the murder victim in the first episode of Columbo. Apparently it’s kind of a spin-off from The Naked City – another show I’ve heard of but not seen.

MORE

When you browse, you’ll probably say more than once, “Oh yeah. I should watch that again. There’s Perfect Strangers, Barney Miller, The Drew Carey Show, Major Dad, Dead Like Me, Saved by the Bell, and so many more shows from your past.

I definitely think I’ll do a post on animated shows – it’s a treasure trove for that.

I just added close to ten Bowery Boys movies to my Tubi list. It’s definitely filling the paid streaming gap.

Some previous entries on things to watch:

Ten Things: Tubi Movies
The Hudsucker Proxy
Let’s Go to the Movies:1996
Firefly – The Animated Reboot
What I’ve Been Watching – February 2026 (The Night Manager, SS-GB, Best Medicine)
What I’ve Been Watching – October 2026 (Return to Paradise, Lynley, Expend4bles, and more)
What I’ve Been Watching – August 2025 (Ballard, Resident Alien, Twisted Metal, and more)
What I’ve Been Watching – May 2025 (County Line, The Bondsman, Bosch: Legacy)
What I’ve Been Watching – October 2024 (What We Do in the Shadows, The Bay, Murder in a Small Town)
What I’m Watching – November 2023 (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, A Haunting in Venice)
What I’m Watching – April 2023 (Florida Man, Picard – season three, The Mandalorian)
The Pale Blue Eye, and The Glass Onion: Knives Out
Tony Hillerman’s Dark Winds
The Rings of Power (Series I wrote on this show – all links at this one post)
What I’m Watching – December 2022 (Frontier, Leverage: Redemption)
What I’m Watching – November 2022 (Tulsa King, Andor, Fire Country, and more)
What I’m Watching – September 2022 (Galavant, Firefly, She-Hulk, and more)
What I’m Watching- April 2022 (Outer Range, Halo, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, and more)
When USA Network was Kicking Major Butt (Monk, Psych, Burn Notice)
You Should be Streaming These Shows (Corba Kai, The Expanse, Bosch, and more)
What I’m BritBoxing – December 2021 (Death in Paradise, Shakespeare & Hathaway, The Blake Mysteries, and more)
To Boldly Go – Star Treking – (Various Star Trek incarnations)
What I’ve Been Watching – August 2021 (Monk, The Tomorrow War, In Plain Sight, and more)
What I’m Watching – June 2021 (Get Shorty, Con Man, Thunder in Paradise, and more)
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
What I’ve Been Watching – June 2021 (Relic Hunter, Burn Notice, Space Force, and more)
Appaloosa
Psych of the Dead
The Mandalorian
What I’m Watching: 2020 – Part Two (My Name is Bruce, Sword of Sherwood Forest, Isle of Fury, and more)
What I’m Watching 2020: Part One (The Adventures of Brisco County Jr, Poirot, Burn Notice, and more)
Philip Marlowe: Private Eye
Leverage
Nero Wolfe – The Lost Pilot
David Suchet’s ‘Poirot’
Sherlock Holmes (over two dozen TV shows and movies)

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Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, and founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.