Best Shows Like Better Call Saul, Ranked by IQ Score

Better Call Saul (IQ 171, Masterclass) does something most spinoffs can't — it surpasses the original. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould took six seasons to render the slow professional and moral corrosion of Jimmy McGill, applied a legal-drama institutional eye to it, and produced one of the most patient character studies in television history.

Closest matches: Breaking Bad (163) is the obvious one — same universe, same showrunner. Mad Men (171) is the parallel-track patient-character-study masterwork, applied to Madison Avenue rather than Albuquerque. The Americans (164) extends the same architectural patience to a Cold War marriage. Halt and Catch Fire is the underseen Better Call Saul-adjacent show — same patient pace, applied to 1980s computing.