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What are your favorite series?
II need a series that captivates me. I was watching a lot like GoT, Breaking Bad, Shameless, Simpsons, Famaly Guy, New Girl, Peaky Blinders, ...
Can you recommend series?
II need a series that captivates me. I was watching a lot like GoT, Breaking Bad, Shameless, Simpsons, Famaly Guy, New Girl, Peaky Blinders, ...
Can you recommend series?
As a grown man, everyone laughs when I tell them my favorite series is Friday Night Lights. They sleep.
My favourite TV series include, in no particular order:
Yes, Minister / Yes, Prime Minister
Frasier
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Will & Grace
Futurama
Alien Nation
Sliders (only up to 'The Exodus' in Season 3)
Queer As Folk
Queer As Folk - did you watch the English one or the Canadian one or both?
I've watched both; I own both (albeit, the English version is only on VHS). However, I much prefer the American version (wasn't it only filmed in Canada, but owned by Americans?). The American one is the one I'll re-watch when I'm in the mood.
I prefer the American? (not sure actually) version too.
It's like Russel T. Davies came up with a great idea, but his English series is the first draft and the American series is the polished final product.
Totally agree, especially for Nathan/Justin character.
The English one was fun enough when there was no comparison. I did find that sometimes the American one over explained their emotion.
I really like ST: TNG and ST: DS9 as well as Futurama too :)
I like VOY the most but I can see why the characters can be annoying to other fans.
I'm doing an all-inclusive start-to-finish watch of VOY for the first time (I've seen occasional episodes, but never watched the whole series). It's not as bad as I thought - and it's definitely a good way to wash the taste of DSC out of my mind! (That's why I started watching it: I was disappointed in DSC and wanted some new Star Trek that wouldn't piss me off.)
VOY is probably actually my favorite, taking complete series as a whole.
Going to be careful with spoilers, so just going to say, I love the concept of an actually vast space.
Oh, man. I loved the concept of Voyager. I was just constantly disappointed by lazy writing and the lack of any real sense of peril or consequence. The “Year of Hell” was a great tease of what could have been, then it ends with another press of the reset button. Voyager should’ve been a show about survival, high stakes, frontier engineering, psychological breakdown, and bizarre alien encounters.
Instead we got a ship that remains in pristine condition throughout its journey, a stable and happy crew (despite being composed of Maquis and Federation officers), Space Nazis, and “Threshold.” They also finished the job First Contact began of completely neutering the Borg, which I can never forgive them for.
That said, I did like a lot of Voyager. The EMH may be my favorite character in all of Star Trek. I mainly feel jilted that the show managed to so utterly squander its generous potential, and I can’t help but wonder about the show that could’ve been, if it were handled differently.
yeah...writing was lazy in so many places. They did often tease a good idea and then just sort of abandon it or deux ex machina there way out. I still enjoyed it, but it's probably because I actually really like Janeway (except for any romantic-ish episode), Seven and Torres.
I also liked futurama a lot. I started watching star trek voyager and its very cool, but star trek discovery was painful to watch ':D
If you enjoy TNG and Voyager you might like The Orville. It's hard to believe Seth Macfarlane could make a better Star Trek than Star Trek, but he totally has.
It's got a fair bit more comedy than Star Trek, and the comedy is that of Seth Macfarlane, so, often a bit on the crude side, but if you can get past that, The Orville is fantastic.
The show takes a couple episodes to gain its footing. The first few episodes are rough, filled with too much Family Guy humour hamfistedly shoved in there, too many ex-wife jokes, etc. At first you'd be excused for thinking the show is a parody of Star Trek. It's really not though. It's an homage, a pastiche, a love letter to the genre, TNG in particular.
Yeah, while other Star Trek series will get rewatched by me, DSC won't be one of them. Once was enough.
DSC is unwatchable for me too. A couple good episodes, but otherwise just boring.
If you enjoy GoT, you should check out Rome also on HBO.
are you trying to break hearts?
My quick list:
Guilty pleasures:
Firefly: enjoyable through and through, I can't understand why they cancelled it.
Brooklyn99 and Friends are series I can always watch, no matter in which mood I'm in.
I was one of the few that watched Firefly when it aired and was super lost and gave up. Fox aired it out of order, among other things, and it just didn't work.
Binged it on DVD and loved it.
Oh ok,
One of my roommates introduced me to it 2 years ago and i just loved it.
The Expanse!
I watched the first couple of seasons of The Expanse (third season didn't come with Amazon Prime...). It's a fun show. I do wish they went deeper into the politics a bit and did a little more world building. You only get glimpses of life on Earth and Mars and very little historical detail.
I'm a sucker for action, so that's okay with me. Although I would like more historical backstory. It was nice when they covered the history of their space drive.
I definitely wish they went more into the background, history, and political side of things, that's what really interests me. Two things annoy me about the show though. First is the fact that the gravity situation is entirely inconsistent, and the second is that I don't think we saw James Holden even once be happy and not moody haha. But more seriously, it's a really good show if you're into sci-fi. The only sci-fi show I recommend more is Battlestar Galactica, which is absolutely amazing. It's a lot like The Expanse but less colourful, darker, and quite ominous. 10/10 would recommend.
If you don't mind reading, I highly recommend the books if you want more detail about how the world and characters got to be the way they are.
The gravity thing I thought was actually surprisingly good for a show that doesn't just punt and say "artificial gravity". Any time a ship is accelerating or they're at a station/planet, gravity is a given (though the degree would vary), and any other time they're pretty consistent about having the red lights on the boots indicating the magnetic locks are enabled. In the zero-g segments you can usually see them enabling/disabling the locks when they want to float or walk.
Oh yeah, I totally agree with you that the gravity is quite good. I really appreciate the lengths they go to make the gravity seem real. Like you said, I'd much rather have an attempt at no gravity than just the cheap artificial gravity that's usually used, but sometimes it can be a little distracting. For example, even when they have their boots on, their arms and hair should be floating. Their hair is obviously fashioned in a way that it won't really matter if they're free-floating or not, but sometimes I feel a little distracted by the mix of gravity and weightlessness. That's why I put it into the same category as Holden's slight over-moodyness, there's nothing really wrong with it, but occasionally it breaks the story. Maybe that's just me though.
Thanks for the suggestion of the books. I knew it was based off books, but I didn't know if they were any good. I'm a bit busy right now but I'll definitely keep my eye out for them :)
The Expanse is the only series I've ever paid individually for (Season 3 on Amazon) since I started using streaming services. Best sci-fi I've seen in a long, long time.
For me Twin Peaks: The Return was the only other series I've paid for that way (well, a showtime sub for the duration anyway).
The Expanse is absolutely the best SF airing now (well, it was until the season ended :( ), even if it feels kind of rushed in places. I'm constantly impressed at how even though it sometimes felt like they were blitzing through the events of season three, they still managed to fit in all of the details and character motivations to set up the events and keep everyone's actions understandable/consistent.
The books are as good or better, and I highly recommend them to anyone who liked the show. If you want to avoid spoilers for the show, the ending of season three coincides with the ending of the third book, Abaddon's Gate.
The Americans
Boardwalk Empire
LOST
Mr. Robot
Narcos
Babylon Berlin original w/ subtitles
DARK original w/ subtitles
Black Sails
The End of the Fucking World
Utopia
Deadwood
Fargo
The Fall
American Gods
Billions
Taboo
Extras
Bosch
Great list. A couple new ones on there for me. If I had to choose one it would be deadwood. Best description I've heard of it is "Shakespeare rolled in the mud". Desperately hoping the movie is actually gunna be made, although the season 3 finale was fitting in a masochistic kind of way.
+1 for The Americans.
I watched American Gods and liked the ideas. Sadly it feels like they dont know whats behind there secrets and so on and after the first season you dont know anything. Better alternative would be West World for me!
I'm terrible at keeping up with new series since I pretty much exclusively watch TV before bed. However,
my classic go-tos are Star Trek (mostly TNG and DS9, but especially DS9), The Simpsons (which you already watch) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy gets really, really good in the last 3 seasons. If you haven't watched it's a show I'd highly recommend – it's absolutely worth pushing through the pretty meh first season.
Shows that are new to me (or are actually new) that I've been enjoying are the new Star Trek series (Discovery), and Twin Peaks (the original one. I haven't checked out the new seasons yet). For comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt often gets an audible laugh out of me.
Interesting. I think it drops off after Season 5. Season 6 is okay but Season 7 should never have been made. I would have been content if the showed ended with 'The Gift' (as it was planned to, before it was resurrected by the UPN). On my re-watches, I tend to go as far as 'Once More With Feeling', then stop. Although, on my latest re-watch, I did go all the way to the end of Season 6.
I'm glad that you brought this up, because I'd actually thought of being more specific with regards to season 7, but for some reason chose not to. I don't like season 7 either (although I don't want to get into the details in this thread since OP may not have watched yet and I don't want to spoil a show in a thread asking for recommendations).
I'll also say that my appreciation of Season 6 is very very new. Like, one re-watching ago new. Up until then I was profoundly dissatisfied with it, save for a few episodes like 'Once More With Feeling.' Now I enjoy the entire season.
I completely didn't consider we might be spoiling...I really hope we haven't for anyone.
I am with you on new appreciation for season 6. I hated it when it aired.
I hope we didn't either! I just started a new thread here so Buffy fans can get down with the spoilers.
Nice. Love the title btw.
What?! Lol, I thought season 7 was amazing! Season 6 had it's rough spots, but it some really good episodes. Though I admit, I had to rewatch season 6 after a few years, before I liked it.
Edit to add: but season 2 is probably my favourite.
I'm with @Algernon_Asimov – I didn't like season 7 either. I felt like it was too much– like Joss was trying to pack in too much action and too many new people. I wanted to be invested in them, but I just couldn't, so they felt like a distraction.
Season 5 is my favourite, although I also love seasons 2 and 3.
I dislike what Joss Whedon did to the mythology of the Slayer in Season 7. First, we get all the Potentials, then we get multiple Slayers (not just like Kendra or Faith, but all of them!). It dilutes the point of being the one and only Slayer: "Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one."
And, with all those Potentials running around in Season 7, it started to feel like Buffy was a supporting character in her own show!
I also didn't like the way that Nathon Fillon was shoe-horned into the final arc of the show, just because Whedon wanted to give him a job after 'Firefly' was cancelled.
Those really are the worst parts... Especially Kennedy.
I really liked Spike's back story. And from season 6, I loved Tara's relationship with Willow, which they basically killed in season 7.
I loved the Tara-Willow relationship. But, as you say, that's not present in Season 7. Kennedy was just annoying, even if she wasn't Willow's new love interest. But, then, I thought all the Potentials were annoying, so... there's that.
I just didn't think the few good parts of Season 7 outweighed the many bad parts.
I have to confess: I've only watched Season 7 twice. Once when it first aired on TV, and once when I first bought the DVD box sets. On all my later re-watches, I've always stopped before Season 7.
Maybe I have rose glasses on because I definitely do pick my favorites. I just felt the grew Buffy a lot as character, which I really enjoyed, but you're right that she does feel quite perierial.
That's why I liked season 6– I saw that season as the one where Buffy grew and in 7 she literally gets crowded out. I also had big problems with Kennedy. There was nothing outright abusive, but there were too many red flags that prevented me from supporting it.
Kennedy was so problematic that she honestly felt like fanservice. And considering Tara/Willow was done so respectfully and organicly, it just made it so much worst.
it may ruin Family Guy for you but,
The Orville Hulu (ducking and hiding) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej24W8gcmXQ
The Ozarks Netflix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hAXVqrljbs
Live Netflix (its subtitled)
Black Market HULU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhbbXBzNrG0
Also if its comedies
unbreakable Kimmy Shcmit Netflix
GLOW Netflix
F is for Family Netflix
Bojack Horseman Netflix
Scubs
Master of None Netflix
SPLITTING UP TOGETHER HULU Official Trailer (2017) Jenna Fischer TV Comedy Series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=denqJWOc6Go
Broad City
Solid list.
It's also available on Fox.com for free. No sign up or subscription required. (It does have ad breaks.)
Orange is the New Black
Jessica Jones
Narcos
The Tudors
Dexter
Okay a lot of other people have brought up a lot good shows but here's a few that I'm showcasing:
Humans - British sci fi about artificial humans that do work for us both at the home and replacing our jobs. It airs on AMC on a delay but the season finale just aired on 4 in the UK. The earlier seasons should be viewable online. If you liked that, then there's the original Swedish show called Akta Manniskor.
Orphan Black - Another close-to-real scifi but this time it's about a woman who finds out that she is a clone of many people, and that there's an organization surrounding her existance and her kind is being killed off. The main character is stellar at pulling off all the different "clones" and a few episodes in you will forget they're all played by a single person. This one's canadian and viewable by Space in Canada and BBC America in the US. The show has completed its run and all seasons are available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
The Good Place - Very different from the previous show. Its by the same creator of Parks and Rec, so if you like that one you'll like this one. It's a comedy about this woman who finds herself in the afterlife called "The Good Place", where people who have done exceptional good deeds during their life go to when they die as opposed to "The Bad Place." The problem is that the system made a mistake and she's actually very morally broken. Lots of characters to love here, especially Janet. It's an NBC show so it's available on Hulu. It has two seasons finished and a third one is coming in September.
I love 'Humans'. It's a great modern science-fiction show.
The West Wing
Great dialogs, with a good amount of comic relief thrown in, lots of corridor walking/talking, well written characters, but mainly - still really fucking current
If only we had a Jed Bartlett around.
A few I haven't seen mentioned yet:
Jericho. A post-apocalyptic/survival drama about the residents of a small town. I'm baffled at how short-lived this show was. It's so good.
Dead Like Me. Drama/dry comedy about a teenager who becomes part of a group of grim reapers after her death.
The OA. Sci-fi series (only one season currently) about a blind girl who goes missing for seven years and returns no longer blind. I ended up watching the entire thing in a day so... it's captivating.
Sense8. Sci-fi drama about a group of strangers from around the world connected by shared visions/the ability to connect with each other's thoughts. Netflix cut this one short, sadly, but it's still worth watching.
Eureka. A sci-fi light drama about a US Marshall stationed as sheriff in a government town occupied by the world's geniuses and their families. Quite campy, but genuinely enjoyable in my opinion.
I watched Jericho with my family years ago and loved it, even if the ending started to feel rushed. I'm always surprised at how little I see it mentioned.
I enjoyed The OA when I watched it, but also know someone who absolutely hated it, and I think it has a lot to do with what you're expecting going into it. If you're expecting it to be a slow burning hard-sf story you'll probably end up feeling let down, but if you go in knowing it's a storyteller-driven psychological story that borders on fantasy you'll probably like it more.
Better Call Saul I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned already. It's a spin-off/prequel to Breaking Bad centered around "Saul Goodman"'s life prior to meeting Walt. It's a little bit slower than BB, but is easily as good if not even better than Breaking Bad. The next season is coming soon and I'm really looking forward to it.
Better Call Saul is fantastic! Looking much forward to the next season. I'm hoping I can get my girlfriend to watch the first seasons before it starts.
I wanna give a shout-out to the best TV series no one is talking about. Counterpart stars JK Simmons at his best, and it's a smart, complex SF thriller that's better than anything I've seen on TV recently. Superbly acted, superbly written, and it oozes Cold War-era atmosphere in a smart SF setting.
Can't recommend it enough.
If you like cartoons, the new Voltron is really great.
Definitely going to second Buffy, Supernatural, The Expanse, DS9 and TNG, those are some prime binge material. I'd also recommend giving Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis a shot, those are some of my favorite scifi series and I watched them in their entirety years ago when hulu first came out. Fair warning though, SG-1 has both early installment weirdness and late installment weirdness. First season or so is rough in a similar way to early TNG, but it definitely finds its legs by season 3. Then, the series ends in season 8 but nobody told the creators so it kept going for two more. Except there's entirely new, entirely unforeshadowed enemies and half the regulars are replaced by the cast of Farscape. Still pretty watchable but not the same show.
Oh and it's not too much like the other series you mentioned but I've never known anyone who disliked Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Hoo boy.
Taboo Season one of three is out, fantastic, dark period drama during the revolutionary war, dealing with voodoo, slavery, the east empire company, and british-american spy vs spy. Seems too intensely character-driven for many of my friends. Exceptional cast and I love it.
The Newsroom I still don't understand why people hate on this show - easily Sorkin's best work, plus it's short and sweet. If you're wondering how television news and infotainment became the unmitigated shitshow it is now, wonder no more. It's basically a modern retelling of Don Quixote. If you don't enjoy the first episode, it's probably not your bag.
Black Mirror A modern, ultra-dark version of The Twilight Zone? Fuck yeah, sign me up for that on tap forever. You know it's a good show when no one can reach a consensus on what the best/worst episodes were - it covers a lot of ground. Episodes are basically stand-alone dark scifi films.
Farscape Still the absolute best of the 'tin can in space' scifi shows. Early seasons had lack-of-budget problems. Later seasons had excessive amounts of awesomeness problems. Every trope they covered they topped, and the show-long story arc was pretty good once it got going. One of the only scifi shows to never forget that scifi is supposed to be fun - like Doctor Who and Warehouse 13 (which are also recommended).
Babylon 5 Best space scifi there is, no contest. All of the moral fiber and foresight people lament losing from Star Trek is here in spades and done far, far better than anything that ever came out of Trek. Just be prepared to eat some cheese for a season while the show that had an episode budget smaller than star trek's catering budget finds its feet. Bonus: It's in full 16x9. Without Babylon 5, there'd be no Sopranos and no Breaking Bad. One of the very first shows to go balls-to-the-wall with a full five season story arc where the ending was written first, which is why it's got one of the all-time top3 series finales and several hugo/nebula awards. Fair warning - if you watch this, you'll hate on episodic shows afterwards, forever.
Less Serious / Guilty Pleasures
Supernatural of course. Fourteen seasons of on-again off-again CW family drama tied into the supernatural apocalypse motif. 1-5 are a coherent story, 6-14 are attempts that sometimes succeed, sometimes fail to find a point for the season.
Happy! The best (and most fucked up) Christmas story ever told. I'm sure Syfy will cancel it soon, it's clearly too good for them. Seeing Christopher Meloni go from Law & Order to this was as awesome as watching Duchovny's transformation between X-Files and Californication. Same director as the Crank! movies, and he's improved his game, this is Edgar Wright territory.
I'll also second Orphan Black, American Gods, Fargo, West Wing, The Wire. All good shows I enjoyed. BB/BCS go without saying I think, certainly the best of modern TV dramas both of them. First season of True Detective is worth a mention. I'd plug Westworld but it's slowly losing focus, not a good sign - though the first season was great.
I also have to add The Blacklist and Ash vs Evil Dead to the guilty pleasure list - I found AvED a very worthy wrap to the Evil Dead mythos. Blacklist has just barely enough long-term story to keep me interested beyond the typical cop-drama format (well, that plus James Spader).
I need to marathon The Expanse now that S3 is finished, find out what all the hype is about.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the most un-romantic romantic comedy. It's the greatest thing I have ever seen.
This show is hilarious and brilliant. It sets up rom-com or TV tropes and then turns them on their head. It presents a real and relatable portrayal of a character with mental illness (yes, the titular "crazy ex-girlfriend" is "crazy," but the situation is a lot more nuanced than that).
And on top of everything else, it's also a musical. Each episode has 2 or 3 original songs, performed by members of their very talented cast, who have been in self-made YouTube music videos, Broadway musicals, and even a Disney movie or two. This may be seen by some as a point against it, but even if you hate musicals, I think you should give this show a try. You might find that you just haven't seen a musical done well.
The first 3 seasons are on Netflix and its 4th and final season will start airing on The CW in October.
Exactly. They say love makes you crazy, therefore you can't call her crazy.
I'm loving my current watch-through of this show. I tried to catch it when it first aired on broadcast television, but I ended up missing whole chunks of it (when I found out Season 2 was airing, I tuned in - and Greg had left!). I'm now going through it properly on Netflix, and I'm loving it (well, I already did love it!).
It's not only a pastiche on rom-coms, it's also a pastiche on musicals (which I like). Most of the songs are riffs on common musical tropes, and I've burst out laughing at some of the musical in-jokes in the show, above and beyond the comedy of Rebecca's craziness.
You know what? I think I'll have to add this to my mental list of most-favouritest TV shows. It often takes years and multiple re-watches for a show to make that list, but this show deserves to be on that list now.
I first heard about the show just after season 2 had finished airing, from an article about why the lowest-rated show on broadcast TV -- two years in a row -- had been renewed for a third season.
I decided to check it out based on that and I was hooked immediately. I watched all of the first two seasons in a week. It's like nothing else I've ever seen. The first episode is still one of my favorite episodes.
Late, but here are some of my favorites in no particular order:
I'm in love with Deep Space Nine. My first foray into the Star Trek universe (except for one of the movies released this decade).
I also watch everything in the MCU, so that's Agents of SHIELD (Absolutely the best Marvel content on TV, fight me), Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist (not great, but watchable), Defenders, The Punisher.
Stranger Things is just wonderful, I'm eagerly waiting for the next season.
I've recently watched Young Justice, and I was really lucky too, as it was supposed to have ended in 2013, but renewed interest means a third season is coming out in 2019. The authors say they accidentally created a great show for binge-watching before streaming was popular, so when people started watching it on Netflix, the demand for more was great.
I absolutely love Gravity Falls. Among the more recent generation of cartoons, it's the only one where the characters feel more like people than caricatures (my main comparison is with Adventure Time). The show had me hooked completely.
Star Wars Rebels is one of the best told stories in the Star Wars universe.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a wonderful comedy with great characters who develop really well.