TV series suggestions
My wife and I just had a baby and are now soaking it all in on maternity and paternity leave. Currently, my wife still has a few weeks of recovery before she is mobile so we have a lot of "tv time" on our hands and are struggling to find things to watch. I was hoping Tilderinos might be able to make some suggestions to fill our sleepless days and nights! It doesn't have to be current and we have a range of borrowed streaming logins so the world is your oyster!
I've added some recent favorites from each of us to give you an idea of our preferences, but don't feel like you need to follow those if you are really excited to share something!
Me:
Shogun
Hilda
Good Omens
The Great Pottery Throwdown
What We do in the Shadows
Bad Sisters
Yellowjackets
Sex Education
Alone
Her:
Gilmore Girls
Outlander
Sullivan's Crossing
A Discovery of Witches
My Life with the Walter Boys
Emily In Paris
Valeria
XOXO Kitty
Both:
Great British Bakeoff
Severance
Clarkson's Farm
Designing the Hebrides
The Office
White Lotus
The Last of Us
Winx Saga (weirdly :) )
The Good Place
Younger
Brooklyn 99
Bridgerton
Congratulations on the new addition to your family!
A mix of drama and comedy shows in no particular order:
Common Side Effects
Heated Rivalry
Letterkenny
Dark
Pantheon
Scavenger's Reign
The Mighty Boosh
Arcane
Broad City
Broadchurch
Chernobyl
The Wire
Barry
The Great
Nathan For You And if you like that definitely watch The Rehearsal
Fleabag
Our Flag Means Death
New Girl
Thanks for the suggestions and congratulations!! I'm really excited to try a bunch of these out!
We've seen and love Dark, Broad City, The Wire, and Flea Bag (How did I not add that to the original list!), and New Girl! I personally loved Common Side Effects, Scavenger's Reign, Arcane, Mighty Boosh, Broad Church, Barry, and Nathan for you. Annnnd just started watching the Wire! It really holds up!!
Super stoked to check out LetterKenny, Pantheon, Chernonyl, The Great, and Our Flag Means Death!
Seeing as how you liked Scavenger's Reign, you may want to try The Expanse. Good near-future, mostly hard sci-fi, based on a great series of novels by James S. A. Corey (which is actually two authors, Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham). The authors of the books also served as showrunners and producers, so the story overall sticks pretty close to the books.
The show does not end in a great way - it ends where the book it adapts ends, approximately, but there's like three more books after that. So it doesn't wrap up nicely, and that's a good thing imo. Where it left off, there's a big - like 30 year - time jump in the books, so if and when they opt to wrap them up, they could recast the characters as needs be to match the age changes.
I appreciate the caveat, always nice to know what you're in for, but I'll definitely check it out!
+1 for Barry and Nathan For You. Those are two of the best, most creative comedies I've ever seen.
Man on the inside — same writer as the good place, some of the same people, if you like Ted Danson you’ll love this
Our flag means death — Taika Waititi of what we do in shadows made an amazing and hilarious version of the Blackbeard story
Slow horses — clever spy drama with a lot of humour, might skew more to your tastes than hers but it’s great.
Someone else mentioned Silo, and I agree. Good books too.
My mom is a huuuuge fan of Man on the Inside, I've been promising her to give it a watch and now I'll definitely need to! Ditto for my dad and Slow Horses!
I tried Our Flag Means Death when it came out and was surprised it wasn't my cup of tea - even though I loooved Flight of the Concords - but from all the recs it sounds like I'll be giving it another go.
No sure how I missed Silo but it's definitely going on the list!
My wife and I have both enjoyed Only Murders in the Building and A Man on the Inside lately.
We love Only Murders! My mom also suggested A Mon on the Inside so we'll definitely give it a go!
Because you liked The Good Place and Brooklyn 99, you should give Parks and Rec a shot. The first season is rough, but honest to God it's a great series. It started off trying too hard to copy The Office, before it just went and became its own earnest thing. It's lovely.
Also, it may not be that similar to what you've listed, but Taskmaster is an absolute gem. It's a British panel show, so five comedians doing their thing, but they're given a series of absurd tasks to do (such as "paint the best picture of a horse, while riding a horse"), and judged by The Taskmaster (Greg Davies), who does not care. It's great, and the whole series is on YouTube.
Oh, and let's not forget Ted Lasso. It's a generally feel-good show mixed in with some very relevant contemporary issues and problems. The first season is probably the strongest, and the second and third seasons have their detractors (although not every reason is, well, reasonable), but the show overall is great.
Ooh, great suggestions! I almost threw Taskmaster up there originally but didn't neccesarily want game shows. But I fucking love taskmaster!!!!! Also great recs on Parks and Rec and Ted Lasso. We love those too, but I haven't rewatched Parks and Rec in a while so it's definitely going on the list for binging!!! Thanks for the suggestions!
Have you heard about our lord and savior, Ted Lasso?
Big Ted Lasso fan! Definitely kept the moral up early on in the pandemic!
Here are a couple of Korean shows worth watching:
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
and if you can find it, It's Ok to not be Ok.
I also like Silo, both seasons.
Oooh, I'll be hunting for all of those! Thanks for the suggestions!
you left out game shows... but Traitors UK is perfect for youi
Oh man, my sister has been raving about it! Definitely need to check it out!
Haven't seen a recommendation for Shrinking, which if you like Ted Lasso it's right up y'all's alley.
For All Mankind is a fun alt-history thing, though I'm a few seasons behind at this point. The first several at least are very well done.
Abbott Elementary is a fun school-based comedy similar to Parks and Rec or The Office. There's a couple crossover episodes with It's Always Sunny but that was more a promotional thing than an on going plot point.
The live action One Piece show is a lot of fun. Nails the fun anime spirit while being a much needed (IMO) editing pass that vastly compresses the pacing of the anime.
Primal is a fantastic wordless animated show. Maybe a little out there compared to the shows listed but it's at least an interesting art piece.
Your Friends and Neighbors with John Hamm is entertaining.
If you're watching LetterKenny, Shorsey is also a great series from the same people.
Honorable mention to everything Dropout TV does. I know you said you're probably not interested in gameshow stuff but theirs are mostly an excuse for improv comics to play not about winning, and it makes them really fun.
Heated Rivalry is also by the same director as Letterkenny and the first two seasons of Shorsey and is also a good recommendation imo -- it's definitely not the same genre-wise but is really well-made and popped off when it released at the end of last year for a reason. Jacob Tierney is shockingly talented as a director imo, and I hope he continues to get more recognition outside of Canada.
Since you liked Shogun, I recommend Tokyo Vice. It's also largely in Japanese. It's about an American journalist in 90s Tokyo, getting on a yakuza group's shit list. I watched both shows fairly close to each other, and they have similar levels of drama and detail.
Ooooh, I've never heard of it! I'll definitely check it out, looks right up my alley!