10 TV Shows like Special Ops: Lioness 

Just finished Lioness Season 3? Here are 10 espionage and Special Ops TV shows to binge while you wait for season 4.

If you watched the Lioness season 3 finale and immediately felt a certain way, then you’re not alone.

That cliffhanger was both satisfying (thanks to the finale reveal) and deeply frustrating — because what do you mean I have to wait another year or two to find out who the mole is and watch the revenge arc play out properly?

One thing’s for sure, we already know what’s going to drive the plot of season 4 (if they renew it). Hopefully it gets renewed soon because it’d be criminal to cancel the show with that cliffhanger. Given how popular Lioness has gotten, I seriously doubt they would, though. 

Season 3 was a smashing hit, even though I expected more from the finale. It was almost as good as season 1. Zoe Saldaña as Joe was fantastic as usual. She took no prisoners. Pun intended. 

Did I have a few complaints about this season? You bet I do. But we’ll get to that another day.

In the meantime, we need a new show to fill the void. If you love espionage, political thrillers, and seeing all the morally questionable things the CIA, FBI, and special forces get up to behind closed doors, here are ten shows to keep you busy until Lioness comes back.

1. Nikita 

IMDb: 7.7/10

The CW, 2010–2013 — Concluded. 4 Seasons.  

Before we started rooting for Joe, we had characters like Nikita in the early 2000s to root for. And for a CW show, Nikita was pretty good for its time. 

Nikita (Maggie Q) was a troubled teenager who was pulled off death row by a covert government agency called Division and trained as a spy and assassin. She’s later betrayed by the only people she’s ever trusted. Three years later, she’s back, and she wants Division burned to the ground. Meanwhile, a recruit named Alex is secretly working with Nikita from the inside. 

Nikita gives us four seasons of tight action sequences, double agents, and badass female leads navigating the murky overlap between government intelligence and personal loyalty. 

Available on Apple TV+. 

2. Quantico

IMDb: 6.7/10

ABC, 2015–2018 — Concluded. 3 Seasons. 

An elite group of FBI recruits arrives at the Quantico training base. They’re the best and the most thoroughly vetted, so it seems impossible that one of them could be behind the biggest terrorist attack on New York since 9/11. 

Priyanka Chopra stars as Alex Parrish, who becomes the primary suspect and fights to prove her innocence as the truth about everyone around her unravels across two timelines.

Like Lioness, Quantico leans heavily on government agencies doing morally complicated things. It ran for three seasons (the first being the strongest) and helped launch Priyanka’s Hollywood career. 

3. Homeland

IMDb: 8.3/10

Showtime, 2011–2020 — Concluded. 8 Seasons. 

Homeland is the gold standard of American spy television, with its first two seasons earning universal acclaim. 

CIA analyst Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is brilliant, bipolar, and absolutely convinced that Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), who’s recently returned after eight years in captivity, has been turned by Al-Qaeda.

Nobody believes her, even though she might be right. 

Audience loved Homeland because it kept everyone guessing about each character’s true loyalties and which one would go next. It’s a brilliant watch if you love complicated, brilliant women navigating missions that blur the line between duty and personal obsession.

4. Covert Affairs

IMDb: 7.3/10

USA Network, 2010–2014 — Concluded. 5 Seasons. 

Fresh out of the CIA training program, Annie Walker (Piper Perabo) is unexpectedly fast-tracked to fieldwork—and quickly suspects her recruitment has more to do with her mysterious ex-boyfriend than her actual talent. 

Her handler is Auggie Anderson (Christopher Gorham), a blind tech operative who becomes her most trusted ally. 

Covert Affairs has a lighter tone than Lioness, but it still shares the same DNA of globetrotting missions, politics, and taking down threats to the United States.

Available on Amazon Prime. 

5. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan 

IMDb: 8.0/10

Prime Video, 2018–2023 — Concluded. 4 Seasons.

CIA analyst Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) is perfectly content crunching numbers at a desk, until he stumbles onto a pattern in terrorist financing that drags him straight into the field. 

Based on Tom Clancy’s beloved character, the show follows Ryan across four seasons as he goes from reluctant analyst to one of the agency’s most valuable operatives, facing threats from Yemen to Venezuela to Europe. Wendell Pierce, Michael Kelly, and Michael Peña round out a strong ensemble.

The comparison to Lioness is the tone — grounded, geopolitical, and genuinely tense without relying on flashy action sequences to carry it.

6. The Day of the Jackal

IMDb: 8.1/10

Peacock, 2024 — Season 2 in development. 

Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 political thriller gets a modern reimagining in this Peacock original series. An elusive, methodical assassin known only as the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) carries out contract kills across Europe for the highest bidder. 

MI6 operative Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch) notices his latest kill and starts hunting him based on clues from the firearms he’s used. 

What follows is a cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, with flashbacks revealing the Jackal’s military past and illicit beginnings. 

The Lioness parallel here is an intelligence officer doing whatever it takes to stop something far bigger than herself. Redmayne and Lynch are both exceptional, and the show’s pacing is razor-sharp.

7. SEAL Team

IMDb: 8.0/10

CBS/Paramount+, 2017–2024 — Concluded. 7 Seasons. 

Jason Hayes (David Boreanaz) leads an elite Navy SEAL unit, Bravo Team, on high-stakes missions worldwide. It’s a military procedural with a solid start right off the bat that only gets better as it goes. 

We get seven seasons of tactical operations, moral complexity, and the specific psychological toll that repeated combat deployments take on both operators and the families they leave behind. 

The show moved from CBS to Paramount+ after season four and grew significantly darker and more character-driven.

Seal Team and Lioness are both rooted in special operations that take a psychological toll on their characters while refusing to glamorize what these people do. 

Seal Team is your best bet if you want more operational grit. 

8. The Agency: Central Intelligence

IMDb: 7.5/10

Paramount+ with Showtime, 2024 — Ongoing. 2 Seasons. 

Martian (Michael Fassbender) is a covert CIA agent ordered to abandon his deep-cover life and return to London Station. When the woman he loved and left behind suddenly reappears, everything he’s been carefully keeping separate starts to collapse. 

Katherine Waterston plays Naomi, the woman he loved, while Jeffrey Wright, Richard Gere, and Jodie Turner-Smith round out an almost offensively good cast. 

Based on the acclaimed French series Le Bureau des Légendes, executive produced by George Clooney.

Where Lioness explores what happens when your operative’s personal life becomes a liability, The Agency makes that exact tension the entire show. Season one was divisive (some felt it was slow, others thought it was exceptional), but season two was significantly stronger, according to critics.

The Agency is still pending season three renewal. 

9. Reacher

IMDb: 8.0/10

Prime Video, 2022 — Ongoing. 4 Seasons. 

Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) is a former military police officer with no fixed address, phone, or patience for injustice. He drifts from town to town across America, and trouble reliably finds him. 

Each season adapts a different Lee Child novel with a new setting and new set of criminals who have made the catastrophically bad decision to involve Reacher in their problems. 

Ritchson is enormous, deadpan, and genuinely funny — and the show has no interest in pretending this is anything other than exactly what it is.

The Lioness connection is its military background and the particular competence of the central character. It’s lighter in political weight than the others on this list, but the action sequences are some of the best on television right now. 

10. Black Doves

IMDb: 7.2/10

Netflix, 2024 — Season 2 to premiere November 5, 2026. 

Helen (Keira Knightley) is a spy embedded deep inside the British government. She’s married to the Secretary of State for Defense and feeds intelligence to a secretive organization called the Black Doves. They work for the highest bidder regardless of nationality or politics. 

After Helen’s lover is assassinated, her secret identity and nature are at risk of exposure, prompting the organization to send an old colleague (Ben Whishaw) to protect her. What follows is a six-episode, Christmas-set thriller full of London underworld chaos, sharp performances, and a partnership between Knightley and Whishaw that carries it all.

Black Doves is a spy thriller that’s far more intimate than its contemporaries. With just six episodes, you can easily binge it on a Friday night.