Shows Like Special Ops
If you loved Special Ops's Mystery and Drama storytelling, these series deliver a similar experience — chosen for tone, narrative quality, and viewer satisfaction. Each includes where to stream it now.
★ Top Picks
The Purge
Set in a dystopian America ruled by a totalitarian political party, the series follows several seemingly unrelated characters living in a small city. Tying them all together is a mysterious savior who’s impeccably equipped for everything the night throws at them. As the clock winds down with their fates hanging in the balance, each character is forced to reckon with their pasts as they discover how far they will go to survive the night.
CSI: Vegas
Facing an existential threat that could bring down the Crime Lab, a brilliant team of forensic investigators must welcome back old friends and deploy new techniques to preserve and serve justice in Sin City.
Barnaby Jones
Barnaby Jones is a television detective series starring Buddy Ebsen and Lee Meriwether as father- and daughter-in-law who run a private detective firm in Los Angeles. The show ran on CBS from January 28, 1973 to April 3, 1980, beginning as a midseason replacement. William Conrad guest starred as Frank Cannon of Cannon on the first episode of Barnaby Jones, "Requiem for a Son" and the two series had a two-part crossover episode in 1975, "The Deadly Conspiracy".
Crime
Detective Inspector Ray Lennox investigates the disappearance of a schoolgirl while battling cocaine addiction and a mental breakdown.
Annika
The sharp, witty and enigmatic DI Annika Strandhed, as she heads up a new specialist Marine Homicide Unit (MHU) that is tasked with investigating the unexplained, brutal, and seemingly unfathomable murders.
Mosaic
Explore the psychological underpinnings of love and murder in a small mountain resort town while following popular children’s book author and illustrator Olivia Lake, whose literary success makes her a local celebrity in the tight-knit community.
Steal
A typical day at Lochmill Capital is upended when armed thieves burst in and force Zara and her best friend Luke to execute their demands. In the aftermath, conflicted detective Rhys races against time to find out who stole £4 billion pounds of people's pensions and why.
The Assassin
Secluded on a remote Greek island, retired assassin Julie has a somewhat thorny reunion with her estranged son, Edward, visiting from England. Armed with questions around new information on his paternity, Edward battles to find the right time to speak to his frustratingly distant mother. But, when the moment finally presents itself, things take a deadly turn as Julie’s dangerous past catches up with her and they are forced to flee the island and go on the run together.
More Shows Like Special Ops
Baretta
Baretta is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer David Toma. While popular, Toma received intense criticism at the time for its realistic and frequent depiction of police and criminal violence. When Musante left the series after a single season, the concept was retooled as Baretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.
A Nero Wolfe Mystery
Genius detective Nero Wolfe and his right-hand man, Archie Goodwin, solve seemingly impossible crimes.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries.
Vigil
The mysterious disappearance of a Scottish fishing trawler and a death on-board the submarine HMS Vigil bring the police into conflict with the Navy and British security services. DCI Amy Silva and DS Kirsten Longacre lead an investigation on land and at sea into a conspiracy that goes to the very heart of Britain’s national security.
Signora Volpe
After years as an MI6 operative, Sylvia winds up in a village in Umbria visiting her sister Isabel and becomes involved in a murder investigation.
Suspect
A Veteran detective is called to a hospital mortuary to identify a corpse only to find it is his estranged daughter. Traumatized by the news she apparently took her own life, Frater sets out to discover the truth about her death.
Strike
A war veteran turned private detective operates out of a tiny office in London’s Denmark Street. Although wounded both physically and psychologically, his unique insight and background as a military police investigator prove crucial in solving complex crimes that have baffled the police. Based on the bestselling novels written by J.K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
Fool Me Once
When ex-soldier Maya sees her murdered husband on a secret nanny cam, she uncovers a deadly conspiracy that stretches deep into the past.
Death and Other Details
How do you solve a murder in a post-fact world? Especially when sailing the Mediterranean on an ocean liner filled with the wealthy and powerful. Everyone on board is hiding something… but is one of them a killer? That’s what the world’s once greatest detective, Rufus Cotesworth, and his protégée, Imogene, aim to discover.
56 Days
When an unidentified body is found in a luxury apartment linked to Oliver Kennedy and his girlfriend Ciara Wyse, Detectives Lee Reardon and Karl Connolly reconstruct the couple's deadly romance across the past 56 days.
Dexter: Resurrection
Dexter Morgan awakens from a coma to find Harrison gone without a trace. Realizing the weight of what he put his son through, Dexter sets out for New York City, determined to find him and make things right. But closure won't come easy. When Miami Metro's Angel Batista arrives with questions, Dexter realizes his past is catching up to him fast. As father and son navigate their own darkness in the city that never sleeps, they soon find themselves deeper than they ever imagined - and that the only way out is together.
Agatha Christie's Poirot
From England to Egypt, accompanied by his elegant and trustworthy sidekicks, the intelligent yet eccentrically-refined Belgian detective Hercule Poirot pits his wits against a collection of first class deceptions.
Why These Shows Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Special Ops (2020): Mystery and Drama themes, similar pacing, and comparable production quality. NoBadPicks uses TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface series most likely to resonate with fans of Special Ops.
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