I feel sorry for the shows on this fall’s TV lineup. No matter how hard they try — no matter how good or promising or John Stamos-filled they might be — there is one thing these shows won’t be.

And that’s “Narcos.”

What’s that, you say? You’re not watching “Narcos”?

You’re vaguely wondering why your news feed has been filled with status updates about the Medellín cartel?

Look, I get it. If you’d told me a month ago that I’d become completely obsessed with an incredibly violent show about Pablo Escobar and the 1990s Colombian cocaine wars, I would have uttered a “meh” and moved on. Violence and cocaine, not really my thing. Give me a Shonda Rhimes vehicle any day of the week.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from “Narcos,” which dropped Aug. 28 on Netflix, it’s that once you start watching TV dramas about Pablo Escobar, there’s no going back. Everything else is going to pale in comparison.

Here’s why:

You cannot make this up. People say that all the time, but in this case, you simply cannot. While some dramatic liberties have been taken in this show, particularly with the timeline, all of the major events actually happened, and you can Google them after each episode to read up on them. Without giving away too many spoilers, yes, Escobar did actually build his own prison where he was “incarcerated.” The prison, called La Catedral, was staffed with his own guards, and he received visits from prostitutes, friends and professional soccer players. It also featured Jacuzzis, a discotheque, a casino, and a round, rotating bed. Oh, and a waterfall. With prisons like these, we understand why the Colombian narcos were so dead-set against extradition to the US.

Pablo Escobar makes Frank Underwood look like Elmo. To be clear, Escobar was a real person, a violent criminal who caused thousands of deaths, while Frank Underwood is the fictional villain on “House of Cards” (also on Netflix). So we’ll steer clear of proclaiming the former to be “awesomely badass” (although wildly enthusiastic “Narcos” fans on social media have made no such distinction). But from a purely dramatic TV perspective, Escobar’s decisive “action” (via political assassinations, blown-up buildings, seizures of the Colombian Palace of Justice, etc.) makes Underwood’s Machiavellian scheming look slow as molasses. It’s tough to play evil while wearing colorful embroidered sweatshirts, but Escobar (played brilliantly by Brazilian actor Wagner Moura) manages to do so with aplomb.

You won’t get bored. This is not a show to have on in the background while you pay your bills, particularly if you don’t speak Spanish (about half the show is in subtitles). But “Narcos” rewards viewers with a fast pace and something new and surprising happening every 15 minutes or so (“Really, he’s running for Congress?” “He’s building public housing? . . . and blowing up a plane?”).

Best of all, the events are so strange (see “You cannot make this up,” above) that unless you’re extremely familiar with Colombian news from the late ’80s and early ’90s, you’re not going to be able to guess what’s coming next.

Hippos. Hippos are not a major, or even a minor, plot point in the show, but in the opening credits, there is footage of the private wild animal park Escobar built on the grounds of Hacienda Nápoles. The park included elephants, zebras, ostriches, camels — and four hippos. After Escobar was killed and the property was seized by the Colombian government, most of the animals were either abandoned or given to zoos. But hippos are large and have nasty dispositions, and no one wanted to deal with them. The hippos stayed, roaming about the countryside, having relations, and eventually multiplying to an estimated 50 or 60. Twenty years after Escobar’s death, authorities still have no idea how to solve the hippo problem.