Best shows like Cobra Kai
NetflixWith Cobra Kai now drawing to a close, these are shows that will fill the Karate Kid-shaped hole in your life.
Cobra Kai was a wild ride, taking a film from the past and turning it into a YouTube show in the present, which Netflix then acquired and turned into one of the best Netflix shows of all time and one of the most beloved series on the planet.
Season 6 Part 3 crowned the winner of the Sekai Taikai tournament, tied up loose ends, and ended the rivalry between Daniel and Johnny, once and for all.
So while you’re waiting for LaRusso to return in Karate Kid: Legends this May, the following are some Karate Kid-adjacent shows to keep you going.
Friday Night Lights
NBCGenre: Sports
Release date: October 3, 2006
Cast: Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, Taylor Kitsch
How long is it? 5 Seasons (6 episodes)
What it’s about: Inspired by the 2004 movie of the same name – which in turn, was based on H.G. Bissinger’s acclaimed non-fiction novel – Friday Night Lights revolves around a High School American Football team in the fictional Texas town of Dylan, with the players, their coach, and their family and friends dealing with everything that life throws at them.
Why you’ll like it: Friday Night Lights shares DNA with Cobra Kai in that the show focuses on a group of young athletes trying to achieve sporting greatness while navigating their teenage years. But where Cobra Kai is pretty light, Friday Night Lights goes dark, regularly tackling major societal issues head-on. While if you thought Daniel and Johnny’s inspirational speeches were good, just wait until you hear Coach Taylor preach to his players…
Glow
NetflixGenre: Comedy-Drama
Release Date: June 23, 2017
Cast: Alison Brie, Betty Gilpin, Mark Maron
How long is it? 3 Seasons (30 episodes)
What it’s about: Set in the mid-1980s, Glow concerns a group of women struggling to make ends meet, who find work at a wrestling organisation that promotes them in a TV show as the “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.”
Why you’ll like it: Cobra Kai is nostalgic for the 80s, with Johnny in particular missing the dumb action movies and even dumber heavy metal of the era. Glow is the 80s, the show filled with the sights and sounds and fashions of the era. But underneath the bright colors and bad hair is a group of beautifully written, perfectly played characters; their stories funny, sad, and frequently touching. Cancelled before those stories fully played out, Glow was gone way too soon.
Warrior
MaxGenre: Action
Release Date: April 5, 2019
Cast: Andrew Koji, Olivia Cheng, Jason Tobin
How long is it? 3 Seasons (30 episodes)
What it’s about: In the 1870s, a martial arts virtuoso emigrates from China to America in search of his missing sister, only to become embroiled in San Francisco’s Tong Wars.
Why you’ll like it: Even though Ralph Macchio and William Zabka are a bit old and rusty, Cobra Kai features decent karate action, especially from some of the skilled guest stars. But for true martial arts brilliance, Warrior is where it’s at. Lead actor Andrew Koji is skilled in both taekwondo and kung fu, while his co-stars include some of the most badass action stars on the planet, including Joe Taslim (The Raid, Mortal Kombat), and Marc Dacascos (Crying Freeman, John Wick 3). The result is an entertaining period piece with the best fight scenes on TV.
The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers
Disney+Genre: Sport
Release Date: March 26, 2021
Cast: Emilio Estevez, Lauren Graham, Brady Noon
How long is it? 2 Seasons (20 episodes)
What it’s about: When he’s cut from the successful Might Ducks ice-hockey team, 12-year-old Evan Morrow sets up his own club, collecting together a rag-tag band of misfits, and convincing former Ducks coach Gordon Bombay to coach.
Why you’ll like it: Game Changers follows in Cobra Kai footsteps, in that The Mighty Ducks was a successful movie back in the day, and the show revisits those same characters to see where they are now, while introducing a new group of kid characters to keep things fresh. Emilio Estevez is great as Gordon Bombay, bringing just the right amount of pessimism and world-weariness to a character who slowly rediscovers his love of the game, while some of the hockey scenes are superb.
Squid Game
NetflixGenre: Thriller
Release Date: September 17, 2021
Cast: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon, Lee Byung-hun
How long is it? 2 Seasons (16 episodes)
What it’s about: In South Korea, people in financial difficulty are offered a way out by competing in a series of secret contests for a huge cash prize. But what they don’t initially realise is that each game is a matter of life and death.
Why you’ll like it: Squid Game took the world by storm when it launched in 2021, quickly becoming the most watched show in Netflix history. And it might not seem like an obvious companion piece to a Karate Kid sequel, but contestants die in the squid games, and as we learned in Season 6 Part 2, competitors die in Cobra Kai’s Sekai Taikai tournament, with Mr. Miyagi killing an opponent in the past, and Kwon being killed by an ‘Eunjangdo’ in the present. So while plot, character, and tone might be different, the outcome is very much the same.
All six seasons of Cobra Kai are streaming on Netflix, meaning you can now check out out our Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 3 recap and ending explainer, as well as articles on the amazing Rocky homage, the hilarious Back to the Future joke, and the truth about Mr. Miyagi’s criminal past.