Los Angeles is a famous city known for being a major base for the American film and television industry. Naturally, there are a few television shows set in the area. If a series revolves around the American entertainment industry, it's almost a given that the series will take place either in L.A. or New York City, if not both.
Some series like to portray the glamour of the city as just a fantasy. A few shows have been known to portray Los Angeles as a literal hell on Earth. Even the city's history has been used as a backdrop for stories. However, there have also been mundane series revolving around the lives of people who just happen to live in La La Land. Some of these shows even got to film on location and make use of real-life areas, though others have managed to capture the City of Angels in Vancouver.
10 Zorro (1957)
While many shows set in Los Angeles favor a contemporary setting, at least one famous character had adventures during California's history as a Spanish colony: Zorro, the best swordsman in Los Angeles. 1957's Zorro takes place in the Los Angeles of the 1820s, where it is more formally known as "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles sobre El Rio Porciuncula." The series sees Don Diego de la Vega return to California from his studies in Spain, learning it is under the cruel rule of Captain Monastario. Deciding it's best to keep his sword fighting skills secret, he dons the masked alter-ego Zorro, meaning "Fox," to fight injustice, and help the helpless, under the cover of night.
Of course, Señor Zorro has been avenging people in Los Angeles since the original 1919 novel, The Curse of Capistrano. Naturally, Los Angeles has been the setting of Zorro's later television series as well. Despite this, a few later adaptations have been filmed in Spain or Mexico.
9 BoJack Horseman (2014)
BoJack Horseman revolves around an anthropomorphic horse who had a famous sitcom in the '90s, so the show naturally takes place in Los Angeles. Emphasized as an entertainment hub, even the more sensible and down-to-earth characters include an agent and a writer. Many real-life L.A. places appear in the series' background, usually renamed to have some sort of animal pun, like Château Marmoset instead of Château Marmont.
That said, fans tend to be very adamant that the series does not take place in Hollywood. This technically was the original setting, but after the letter "D" was stolen from the Hollywood sign a few episodes in, the area became known as "Hollywoo." By the end of the series, an attempt to fix the sign ends up reading "Hollywoob." BoJack Horseman fans weren't too happy when Family Guy and The Simpsons both had parodies of the show with an intact Hollywood sign.
8 Angel (1999)
While Buffy the Vampire Slayer took place in the fictional California town of Sunnydale, its spin-off Angel opted for a Los Angeles setting. Angel, a vampire cursed to regain his human soul, moves on to fight evil in the City of Angels as a private detective. While there, he even reunites with Buffy's old classmate, Cordelia Chase, who goes from trying to make it as an actress to joining Angel Investigations. Los Angeles may not be a Hellmouth like Sunnydale, but this won't be an easy task, as the dark forces have powerful connections in the city: lawyers, particularly the Wolfram & Hart law firm. Infamously, by the fifth season, Angel's team ends up taking over Wolfram & Hart's Los Angeles division.
In a roundabout way, this brings the series full circle, as the originalBuffy the Vampire Slayer movie took place in Los Angeles. In the show's canon, Buffy moved to Sunnydale from there, notably after burning down her high school's gym.
7 New Girl (2011)
New Girl is a sitcom revolving around an effervescent teacher, Jessica Day, who, after learning her boyfriend was cheating on her, moves into a Los Angeles loft with three male roommates. The series explores the new friendship between Jess and her three loft-mates and their romantic storylines, which may soon overlap.
The series is set and filmed in Los Angeles, but a lot of areas aren't exactly as how they appear in the series. For example, the loft the characters live in, as it appears in exterior shots, is actually a commercial building. The Griffin, a popular bar that appears throughout the series, is based on two different places: a bar of the same name and a Korean restaurant called The Prince.
6 Six Feet Under (2001)
Six Feet Under was an HBO series revolving around a family that runs an independent L.A. mortuary. The family finds themselves impacted by the loss of family patriarch Nate Fisher Sr., leaving the funeral home in the hands of his widow and three children. Death is a central theme in the series, though often played for dark comedy. Each episode opens up with a new death, which eventually transitions into a new funeral. Early episodes even featured tongue-in-cheek commercials for funeral supplies.
The series even ends by showing the final fates of the characters interspersed with a character driving away from Los Angeles to start a new life in New York. Six Feet Under notably shot on location in Los Angeles, with exterior shots filmed around the West Adams neighborhood. A character even once comments that he grew up in West Adams as a reference to this.
5 Black-ish (2014)
Black-ish, or black·ish, is an American sitcom revolving around an upper-class Black family, including the parents Andre, or "Dre," and Rainbow Johnson, and their children, Zoey, Junior, and the twins Jack and Diane. Dre spends the series worrying that his family may become too assimilated in their wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood, a sentiment reflected in the series' title.
The series would go on to become a trilogy of series, all set in L.A. The first spin-off, grown•ish, retains Los Angeles trappings, with Zoey, and later Junior, attending the fictional California University of Liberal Arts, a parody of UCLA. The second spin-off, mixed·ish, revolves around Rainbow's childhood, as her parents move from a hippie commune to the Los Angeles suburbs of the 1980s.
4 Victorious (2010)
Victorious is a live-action Nickelodeon series set at a performing arts high school. The series is reminiscent of Fame, as well as Nickelodeon's earlier Taina, though both series favored a New York setting. After filling in for her sister Trina during a school performance, Tori Vega is given the chance to attend the Hollywood Arts school for performing arts.
Tori soon meets a cast of colorful characters, like the artsy teacher Sikowitz, dark-spirited mean girl Jade West, and bubbly Cat Valentine, played by Ariana Grande sporting bright red hair. Tori and Cat eventually name drop the setting in their duet, "LA Boyz," written in response to getting rejected by a visiting Canadian boy. The series was also very fond of name-dropping Northridge, Los Angeles, which the characters had something of a rivalry with.
3 Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000)
Curb Your Enthusiasm is an HBO sitcom starring Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who plays a fictionalized version of himself. Fans of Seinfeld often describe it as George's pitch for a "show about nothing" brought to life, which was a self-referential description of Seinfeld itself. Alternatively, the series has been compared to a version of Seinfeld where George is the main character. The fictionalized Larry David lives with his wife in Los Angeles, where he technically serves as a writer, although he's rarely seen working, thanks to his net worth.
Curb Your Enthusiasm makes use of various Westside settings, as well as cities like Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. That said, the series hasn't forgotten David's New York origins and spends much of the eight seasons in the East Coast state.
2 Modern Family (2009)
Modern Family revolves around three families living in the suburbs of Los Angeles, all of which are connected through patriarch Jay Pritchett: Jay's new blended family with his wife Gloria and the families of his two adult children.
Some real-life places in L.A., from public schools to parks, have been used for filming by Modern Family. The series also managed to give a nod to the area's baseball team in the Halloween special: when Jay's young stepson Manny is faced with a dilemma, he encounters a friend dressed like one of the Los Angeles Angels and his close-in-age nephew Luke dressed like a devil.
1 NCIS: Los Angeles (2009)
NCIS: Los Angeles is an action series serving as the first spin-off of NCIS. As the name suggests, the series revolves around the Office of Special Projects in Los Angeles, while the original series has an NCIS headquartered in the Washington Navy Yard. This also allowed the series to film in the state it was set, in contrast to the original NCIS.
The series features special field agents Sam Hanna and Grisha Callen, who specialize in undercover work, with the team being led by the well-connected Henrietta "Hetty" Lange. Comparing the two series, NCIS: Los Angeles has been said to have more of a "thriller" feel compared to the original. Later NCIS shows would include NCIS: New Orleans and NCIS: Hawaiʻi. These later series also continued the trend of filming on location.