It can feel like a draining and dispiriting scavenger hunt, following an American TV show through the jungly schedules of domestic broadcasters. You think you've got Larry David's comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm cornered at 11.20pm on a Tuesday night, but a blink, a second glance, and it's moved on. Challenging drama Breaking Bad and the wonderfully crude sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia scurry from obscure British channel to obscure British channel, eventually tumbling off our scheduling precipice entirely. ITV4, meanwhile, is for more than a year the home of Friday Night Lights before the high-end sports serial is jettisoned, without explanation, at the end of a second series of five. You're left panting, wounded and wondering: but what did Erin decide to do about the baby?

It's much worse, in a way, when a beloved show is snatched beyond reach like this than when it is cancelled completely, because of the tormenting knowledge that somewhere out there the story continues to unspool without you. On message boards across the internet there are mournful little pleas for information from British viewers: "Any word yet about series three? Any clue? Anything?" It is as if these people are searching for lost pets.

Last month, without fanfare, the first series of American show Community was released in the UK on DVD; belated amends, perhaps, for the fact that this sitcom, arguably the best on mainstream US telly, has been ignored by British terrestrial channels since it began in 2009, buried instead on a remote digital station called Viva. (Inevitably inane tag-line: "Up Your Viva.") It would be churlish not to point out that we do get lots of goodies from America: Glee has been a great success for Channel 4, the Beeb were commendably quick to pick up Mad Men for BBC4 and Sky Atlantic, which debuted in 2011, seems to be trying to cram as much above-average US programming into its schedules as possible to make up for the years of collective neglect. But there are still forsaken gems out there, undervalued or ignored by domestic channels and requiring some serious effort to see. Which are worth the hunt? And where is it best to look?

TV

An easy place to start… you'd think. The best American produce too often seems to be sprinkled at random across channels and time-slots. A watchful eye on the schedules of peripheral Murdoch channel FX, as well as three run by Richard Desmond – Channel 5, 5 USA and 5 Star – should pay off. Beguiling zombie drama The Walking Dead (high production values, a stellar graphic novel as its source, Andrew Lincoln playing a thickly sideburned cop, currently in its second series) shows first on FX before repeating on Channel 5. Meanwhile, Sons of Anarchy, the often violent, frequently touching story of a squad of Hell's Angels, began broadcasting on 5 USA in spring last year and is now into its third series. Channel 5 owns the rights through to the fourth series; if you've missed it to date, you can catch up on the first three on DVD – and be thankful it's that easy. Big Love, an offbeat, Bill Paxton-led drama about a Mormon man married to three women, has staggered all over the schedules. It was on FX for a bit, then 5; its fifth series premieres this month on Sky Atlantic. Watching it has been almost as complicated, you suspect, as a polygamist's home life.

Dave Elliott, sleuth-like editor of GeekTown.co.uk (a must-visit for those trying to keep track of US TV), maintains a handy tracking index of American programmes on his site. But even paying attention to the changing whims of British broadcasters he has often been frustrated in his pursuit of favourite shows and cites two – Chuck, a romp about a reluctant spy, and Breaking Bad, a tightly written drama about a chemistry teacher turned drug baron – as particular sore spots. Chuck's fifth series is its last, says Elliott, "but Sky have decided not to buy it. As it's a final season, there's less incentive for another channel to pick it up at such a late stage. It's possible we may not see it at all in the UK."

The critically acclaimed Breaking Bad has endured even more disrespect. Its critical success in the US (guesses Elliott) has meant the price per episode for UK broadcasters has gone up; Elliott thinks this might be the reason why FX dropped the show after its first season. "Then, with Channel 5's bizarre scheduling of season two – originally running it late at night… over two weeks… over Christmas – you end up with a show that's very expensive to buy but which has already aired on two different channels."

Not, in other words, of great appeal to a new buyer, however many fans are left stranded in the middle of the story. They must look elsewhere…

DVD

There's nothing more satisfying than chewing through an American TV boxset, letting episode run into episode and then (eyes watering from viewing-fatigue, the day having come and gone while you've been watching) thinking what the heck, just one more. Community, its first series just released on DVD by Sony Home Entertainment, is perfect for this: 22-minute episodes that go by at an unceasingly fast clip, charting the dubious higher education of a group of misfits at a community college in Colorado. Pop-culture references abound; in Joel McHale's Jeff the series has introduced a never-ruffled-but-always-baffled central figure to rival Seinfeld's Jerry or Cheers's Sam. The show even gifts a renaissance to long-lost comic actor Chevy Chase, who appears here as an aged hippie called Pierce. The episode in which the sexagenarian Chase dresses in a wig and a muscle suit and takes mind-altering drugs is a highlight of the first series, as well as being fairly representative of the programme's eccentricity.

Buy it – and hope the distributor goes on to release DVD sets of series two and three. Because this is by no means a certainty, the release policy of British distributors being as confused and capricious as that of our broadcasters. The first series of Friday Night Lights, a knotted, angst-ridden drama about a small-town American football team in Texas, is available on DVD and is well worth buying, even if you have no interest in or knowledge about the source sport.

Those of us awaiting a continuation of the story since ITV4 ditched the show some years ago have been left with little choice but to turn to imported discs. Series two and three have been released on DVD in France, and are available on Amazon; they should play on most UK DVD players, the French-language subtitles easily switched off. To continue the story into its fifth and final series, Lights fans will have to import DVDs of that and season four from America; same too, most likely, for those who want to see beyond series three of Breaking Bad or series four of Chuck. Getting American DVDs to play on British players can be a risky, warranty-busting business, involving the scouring of the internet for information that this newspaper would never endorse. So don't do it.

Easier to turn to another terrific US comedy that has inexplicably failed to find a home on British TV. Parks and Recreation is a mockumentary about co-workers in a minor wing of American local government and their hapless efforts to build a town playground and attend to other municipal tasks overseen by Amy Poehler's cheerfully deluded civil servant, Leslie Nope. Poehler glues the thing together, but in supporting characters April (Aubrey Plaza) and Andy (Chris Pratt), Parks tenders an irresistible will-they-won't-they subplot, this pair serving as a kind of childish, deadpan Ross and Rachel (Friends), an infinitely less cheesy Niles and Daphne (Frasier). Series one has been released on DVD. Two and three? Fingers crossed.

On-demand TV



If you pay for some sort of TV subscription package – via BT, Sky or Virgin – chances are you'll have access to blocks of programming that can be reached through some fiddling with the remote control. Content will sometimes be free to watch and sometimes charged at a pay-per-episode rate, but what's available and what's not is as disordered, in its way, as anything listed above. Still, worthy of note is the fact that BT's on-demand service is currently showing the first three series of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Filmed in deliberately low-budget fashion and set largely in a dingy bar on the American east coast, it is a comedy about five unabashedly self-centred scumbags (one of them played by Danny DeVito) and their increasingly awful methods of making life difficult for one another. It's loud, mean and brilliantly funny. Series one is available on DVD; iTunes, meanwhile, goes further than anyone with series one to six available as part of its video-streaming service...

Online streaming



This isn't a cheap option, generally working out at £2.50 per episode or £20 per series, but Apple's iTunes software offers instantly accessible video feeds – or streams – of certain American shows. Though the US version of The Office currently broadcasts on the Comedy Central channel, iTunes is the only place you can see it up to series six. Too easily dismissed as a lesser sibling of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's BBC original, the US incarnation has evolved since a so-so debut series to have a magic entirely its own. Gervais's cringeing David Brent is here replaced by Steve Carell's subtler, more sympathetic Michael Scott; great texture is added in the later series by the addition of first-rate actors Ed Helms (The Hangover), Amy Ryan (The Wire) and Ellie Kemper (Bridesmaids).

Looking ahead, online streaming service Netflix – a big media-distributing force in the US – will launch in the UK next year and do so bearing an exciting exclusive to lure in new customers. Adored by viewers and critics before its cancellation five years ago, smart, bouncy sitcom Arrested Development, about an extended family of eccentrics, and the career-launching platform for actors Jason Bateman and Michael Cera, will return as a Netflix-only offering sometime in 2013. If priced in accord with the US service, a monthly subscription to Netflix would cost about £6; though the company's roster of TV beyond Arrested Development has not yet been revealed (there has been vague talk of "unlimited TV shows"), this would seem a perfect opportunity to redress the abandonment suffered by British viewers over the years. Will we finally get access to the third series of Friday Night Lights? Will Chuck conclude? How?

Time – and, it's hoped, several hundred hours staring at a screen, dribbling, happy – will tell.

Great shows you might have missed – and where to find them



BREAKING BAD

Drama. Stimulants in suburbia.

See it On DVD and iTunes, series one and two are available.

Looking ahead Channel 5 has said it has no plans to air series three or four. A fifth, final series has been commissioned in the US.

PARKS & RECREATION

Sitcom. Town-hall frolics.

See it On DVD, if you can find it. Series one is currently out of stock on Amazon.

Looking ahead Never broadcast on UK TV; no suggestion it e ver will be. In the US, it is currently in its fourth series.

COMMUNITY

Sitcom. College capers.

See it On DVD, after initially showing on MTV stablemate Viva.

Looking ahead Logical to expect a DVD release for series two. In the US, a third series is under way, though cancellation rumours abound.

THE OFFICE

Sitcom. Brent bettered.

See it On Comedy Central (fifth series). Series one to five out on DVD; six streams on iTunes.

Looking ahead Thriving in America and half way through an eighth series, despite departure of lead Steve Carell.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

Drama. Sporty suspense.

See it With difficulty. Series one is available on DVD (though out of stock on Amazon). Streams of series one and two are on iTunes.

Looking ahead We are so far behind that, in the US, it finished a fifth, final series in February.

CHUCK

Action-comedy. Undercover geek.

See it UK viewers have been left hanging at the end of series four, first shown on Sky Living. Series one to four on DVD and iTunes.

Looking ahead Fifth series (now showing in the US) will be its last.

THE WALKING DEAD

Sci-fi. Undead drama.

See it On FX, currently airing a second series; repeat expected on Channel 5 next spring. The first series is out on DVD and on iTunes.

Looking ahead Record-breaking US cable ratings for series two meant a third recently announced.

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA

Sitcom. Tavern brawls.

See it On iTunes, home to series one to six. Series one is out on DVD; one to three are available on BT on Demand.

Looking ahead A seventh series almost finished in the US; at least two more will follow.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

Sitcom. Playful parenting.

See it On DVD and iTunes, where series one to three are available.

Looking ahead Netflix launches a UK streaming service next year; by 2013, new Arrested episodes are promised.

BIG LOVE

Drama. Polygamy problems.

See it On Sky Atlantic, the fifth series beginning on 16 December. Series one and two available on DVD, with series three out in January; episodes also available on Sky's Anytime Plus.

Looking ahead The fifth is Big Love's last series.

SONS OF ANARCHY

Drama. Trouble on two wheels.

See it On 5 USA, with broadcast of the fourth series planned next spring. Series one to three on DVD and iTunes.

Looking ahead C5 is likely to show series five, as yet unfilmed.