Summary

• Realistic elements make fantasy shows more engaging and believable.
• Shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Percy Jackson successfully blend fantasy and reality.
• Combining fantastical concepts with everyday life creates compelling and relatable storytelling.

Fantasy shows can be fascinating to watch, provided they are believable in how they approach the fictional elements and incorporate them into the real world setting. If a fantasy series is supposed to take place in familiar locations, it has to take into how it balances out reality and fiction in a way that works best for the story. While there are shows like The Vampire Diaries that don't appear convincing solely because the reactions don't match up with what would happen in life, there are also examples like Good Omens with its logical timeline and plausible real-world scenarios.

Creating a fantastic world with realistic elements can be tricky, but when done right, the show can take off rather quickly. For instance, the newly released Percy Jackson and the Olympians tells the story of a young demigod, who fights monsters right out of Greek mythology, but its realistic locations, such as Hephaestus' Waterland amusement park from episode 5, woven into the fantasy, make it seem like Percy could be living somewhere nearby. There aren't a lot of shows that can have this kind of effect, but those that can are worth the time spent on them without a doubt.

8 Supernatural

The Winchesters hunt monsters in small-town America

Supernatural had its good years and its bad years in of realistic storylines, but in the earlier seasons, the show managed to stick to its original raw atmosphere. The Winchesters started out as supernatural detectives of sorts, investigating weird cases all over the United States. All kinds of demons, monsters, and even gods ended up being responsible for gruesome murders, and the police were almost always none the wiser — and yet the stories made sense, as they were very similar to real-life unsolved cases. Well-written non-hunter characters who weren't accustomed to any of this were the key success ingredient.

7 Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy slays vampires in the fictional California town of Sunnydale

Buffy the Vampire Slayer had just as much supernatural stuff going on, but it was believable for different reasons. The characters on the show fought vampires by night and were regular people with regular problems by day. Buffy was easy to empathize with because when she wasn't slaying vampires, she was a teen girl who couldn't figure out her personal life. For example, Buffy and Spike's relationship felt exactly like an ordinary romance would even if it weren't between a teen slayer and a centuries-old vampire. Buffy the Vampire Slayer knew how to put the supernatural into a real world.

6 Percy Jackson And The Olympians

Greek gods & monsters are scattered across America

Percy Jackson and the Olympians may be a show that relies heavily on Greek mythology, but it flawlessly combines ancient fantasy and modern reality. Even Mount Olympus' location on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building in New York makes a lot of sense, as the gods tend to move with the times and go wherever the current power center of the world is. The show's realistic portrayal of awkward teenagers contributes to its high quality, and the fact that the demigods can't use gadgets because of the monsters is an appropriate metaphor for the sad truth of today.

5 Wednesday

The Nevermore Academy for supernaturals is located in Jericho, Vermont

Wednesday's contrast between the eerie Nevermore Academy and the quaint little outside world seems right. In season 1, Wednesday has faced a Hyde and Pilgrim ancestors, and she has tried to fit in at her school for supernatural beings, and who is to say what is harder. The series has expertly taken a fantasy world and crammed it into a small Vermont town by allowing even the most fantastic concepts to be routine things. Like any run-of-the-mill school, the Nevermore Academy has evil cliques and two-faced teachers. It will be fascinating to see what Wednesday season 2 has in store.

4 The Umbrella Academy

The Hargreeves stop the superhero apocalypses all over America

The Umbrella Academy's superheroes saving the world premise isn't as tiresome as most superhero projects all thanks to the show's approach to realistic storytelling. The Hargreeves siblings' family history is ridiculous, and yet, over time, every character starts to feel like a real human being with their own non-superhero issues. The series' shtick is that preventing one apocalypse causes another one, and it is essentially a metaphor for problems piling up, which is the most normal thing in the world. The Hargreeves may have superhuman abilities, but at the end of the day, they are flawed people with childhood trauma.

3 Lucifer

The Devil's Lux club is at the heart of Los Angeles

Lucifer was a show about a fallen angel who got tired of running Hell and decided to raise Hell on Earth. The biblical epic shouldn't have been so down-to-earth, but it was exactly that, as its core message and underlying themes hit the right spot. The fact that Lucifer's Lux club, which was the center of all things "sinful," was located in Los Angeles, the city of angels with a bad reputation, was the ultimate irony. Lucifer getting his wings back required a little therapy and a dash of self-analysis, and that was a wonderfully simple and utterly convincing concept.

2 Charmed

The Halliwell sisters banish demons in San Francisco

In Charmed, the Halliwell sisters discovered that they were witches, and they tried to find harmony in their magical duties and personal lives, albeit unsuccessfully. Still, the series, which could have easily become a fairytale for kids, managed to find its footing in the feasibility of the events in the sisters' human lives. Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and Paige strove to be the picture of work-life balance, minus the magic, and that was what made Charmed so compelling. Demon fighting was a nice touch, but it was the sisters' desire for a normal life that kept the show relevant and plausible.

1 Good Omens

Aziraphale & Crowley prevent Armageddon in the fictional British town of Tadfield

Good Omens is a completely nonsensical and most logical story at the same time. An angel and a demon looking after the world since its creation and becoming partners is a great idea for a fantasy show. However, the devil is in the details, and in this case, it is in Aziraphale and Crowley's mundane interactions. What makes the series even more convincing is the bureaucracy of Heaven and Hell, both of which are supposed to be well-run places with someone clever in charge. Neither can be described in such a manner, so the glass of apparent perfection is shattered.