5 TV Shows To Watch If You Like Elle

Jessica Brooks/Prime

Whether or not you think we need a prequel to the beloved 2001 movie “Legally Blonde,” which stars Reese Witherspoon as the determined and intrepid accidental Harvard Law student Elle Woods, we’ve got one. “Elle,” spearheaded by showrunners Laura Kittrell and Caroline Dries, is set six years before we meet Delta Nu and sorority president Elle Woods as she attends the sunny and fictional California University Los Angeles (CULA, as Elle puts it). In this prequel series on Amazon Prime Video, Elle, played by the genuinely spectacular newcomer (and Witherspoon mini-me) Lexi Minetree, lives in Seattle and attends high school before she becomes the brilliant lawyer we learned to love in “Legally Blonde.”

Across eight episodes in its debut season, “Elle” does, admittedly, feel unnecessary … but if you really can’t get enough of this brilliant and wonderfully charismatic protagonist, “Elle” is definitely the perfect show for you. (Plus, film and TV veteran — and comedian — June Diane Raphael plays Elle’s mother Eva, and honestly, she’s so good in this role that she makes the entire show worth a watch.) Once you’re finished with that short debut season, though, what should you watch next? From other Amazon Prime originals to classic CW shows, we’ve chosen five comedy-dramas centered around the inner lives of teenage girls that might remind you of Miss Woods. Here are five shows you should check out once you finish “Elle.”

Amazon Prime Video

It’s relatively easy to imagine Elle Woods spending a summer torn between two brothers who both happen to be the heir to a beautiful beachfront property — but unfortunately for a young Elle Woods, she’s not the protagonist of the Amazon Prime Video series “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” Based on a novel series by Jenny Han (who also served as showrunner on the series), “The Summer I Turned Pretty” begins its narrative by — you guessed it — chronicling a very special summer for Isabel “Belly” Conklin (Lola Tung), an absurdly nicknamed and undeniably beautiful young woman who always spends her summers in the fictional town of Cousins Beach with her mom Laurel Park (Jackie Chung) at the beachside home of Susannah Fisher (Rachel Blanchard), Laurel’s best friend. So who are the two boys in question? That would be brothers Conrad and Jeremiah, played respectively by Christopher Briney and Gavin Casalegno, who realize, one fateful summer, that their surrogate sister Belly is pretty.

Despite the shallow-sounding premise of the show, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” is a genuinely sweet and even affecting coming-of-age story that devotes quite a bit of its narrative to Belly’s internal life and struggles. By the time the third and final season rolls around, a newly rechristened Isabel has decamped to Paris to start a new life … but will she still end up with either of the Fisher brothers? You’ll have to watch it to find out, and we guarantee that you won’t be disappointed by this breezy, sweet, and compulsively watchable series.

The CW

Do you love “Sex and the City,” but you want to watch something slightly less risqué — and you also happen to be curious about Carrie Bradshaw’s backstory? Like “Elle,” the CW series “The Carrie Diaries” goes back in time and charts the evolution of a beloved romantic protagonist — played, quite famously, by Sarah Jessica Parker on “Sex and the City,” in two films, and in the ill-fated reboot series “And Just Like That” — to explain a character you already know and love. In this prequel series, Carrie, portrayed as a Connecticut teenager by AnnaSophia Robb, is just 16-years-old and dreaming of becoming a famous writer while stuck attending high school in her small town. (Oh, just you wait, Carrie; you’ll be making puns in the Big Apple in no time at all.)

As Carrie struggles with grief for her late mother — and her father Tom Matt Letscher) tries to deal with Carrie’s rebellious younger sister Dorrit (Stefania LaVie Owen) — Carrie takes one day off from school a week for a law firm internship in New York City, which she manages to parlay into a job at Interview Magazine under Larissa Loughlin (Freema Agyeman). Along the way, Carrie falls hard for her handsome high school cohort Sebastian Kydd (Austin Butler — yes, that Austin Butler), complicating her dreams for her future. “The Carrie Diaries” only ran for two short seasons and 26 episodes, but if you love “Elle” — and you’re a long-time “Sex and the City” fan — you’ll definitely want to add this to your watchlist.

Netflix

Looking for a funny, irreverent teen show that features a totally fresh face trying to figure things out? Don’t sleep on “Never Have I Ever.” In Mindy Kaling’s cheeky, self-referential Netflix series — which she co-created with Lang Fisher — we first meet Maitreyi Ramakrishnan’s Devi Vishwakumar when she’s 15-years-old and grappling with the sudden and horrible death of her beloved father Mohan (Sendhil Ramamurthy in flashbacks). After briefly losing the ability to walk thanks to her all-consuming grief, Devi works with her intrepid therapist Dr. Jamie Ryan (the incomparable Niecy Nash-Betts) to recover and develop some sense of normalcy again. Also, Devi is hellbent on losing her virginity so that everyone forgets about her temporary grief-induced paralysis, so there’s that.

Alongside her loyal and endearingly dorky best friends Eleanor Wong and Fabiola Torres (Ramona Young and Lee Rodriguez), Devi decides to completely change her image at her Sherman Oaks high school — and ends up in a love triangle with her academic rival Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison) and the school heartthrob Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet). Amidst all of this, Devi also tries to repair her tense relationship with her mother Dr. Nalini Vishwakumar (Poorna Jagannathan). Oh, and did we mention that, for literally no reason whatsoever, tennis pro and noted misanthrope John McEnroe provides all of the voice-over narration on the series … except for when Gigi Hadid and Andy Samberg take over for Paxton and Ben, respectively? What more could you possibly want?

UPN

Even though Amy Sherman-Palladino’s beloved drama series “Gilmore Girls” is technically a two-hander that splits its narrative between young mother Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) and her precocious teen daughter Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel), the parts that do focus on Rory’s teen years definitely feel like they match up with “Elle” — especially because both shows depict young women with significant intellect. When “Gilmore Girls” kicks things off, Lorelai and Rory are thrilled to learn that Rory has been accepted to study at the prestigious Chilton Academy for the rest of high school; unfortunately, Lorelai, who works at a local inn, doesn’t have the money to cover the hefty tuition. After making a deal with her wealthy and judgmental parents Emily and Richard Gilmore (Kelly Bishop and the late, great Edward Herrmann) to spend Friday night dinners together as a foursome, Rory is able to attend Chilton thanks to their generosity, and Lorelai is begrudgingly reunited with her estranged family.

Across seven seasons and a revival, “Gilmore Girls” gives us an in-depth look at Rory’s struggles, victories, and perhaps most importantly, her love life — giving her three significant boyfriends who affect her life in various ways throughout the entire story. “Elle” might feature a woman from a significantly wealthy and privileged background, but at the end of the day, Elle Woods and Rory Gilmore have a lot in common … and since she’s a noted cinephile, it feels reasonable to say that Rory probably loves “Legally Blonde.”

The CW

Very loosely based on the best-selling young adult novel series by the sharp satirist Cecily von Ziegesar, the deliciously campy and wild teen drama “Gossip Girl” began its run on the CW in 2007 and began its story right as teen socialite Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) returns to Manhattan’s Upper East Side after a strange and conspicuous absence. As Serena’s friends — queen bee Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), Blair’s lifelong boyfriend Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford), and bad boy Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick) — try to figure out what happened and why she’s back, her longtime admirer Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley) watches from afar, as does his social-climbing younger sister Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen). (By “afar,” we mean the borough of Brooklyn, by the by.)

Serena’s reappearance in New York, though, is just the tip of the “Gossip Girl” iceberg. This show goes extremely off the rails in the best possible ways across its six seasons, whether Blair is marrying a prince, Serena gets a random job working for director David O. Russell, or Chuck is buying a hotel. (Dan also gets published in The New Yorker as a teenager, which might be the most unrealistic thing listed here.) Still, “Gossip Girl” is a total classic, and it feels reasonable to say that Blair, always armed with quips and bon mots to take down her enemies, would either befriend or spar with someone like a teenaged Elle Woods. Whatever you do, though, don’t bother with the spin-off series; it’s utterly lifeless compared to the wonderfully bonkers original, a show where Billy Baldwin shows up (and does what can only be described as an imitation of his brother Alec’s performance on “30 Rock”) as Serena’s wayward father.

“Elle” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video now.