Struggling to find a new TV show to watch? Check out my Google doc detailing shows I've watched, shows I'm currently watching, and shows I want to watch. All with IMDB links and ratings.
Link to Google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hc-Ti6Pff_qUZLAfzzL7WjhFNh2m_XPvMkdYBL6mLzI/edit?usp=sharing
I created this document a while back and update it every couple months. There's an Introduction tab with guidance on how to browse the spreadsheets, which I've copied below for reference:
(1) This document outlines various TV shows and is broken up into 3 tabs: Watched, Watching, and Want to Watch.
Watched: Shows I've completed through series finale or given up on. Some of these were canceled early.
Watching: Shows I'm actively watching day-to-day or shows in between seasons that will air new episodes in the future.
Want to Watch: Shows I haven't started and want to watch. Many of them are recommendations I jotted down to avoid forgetting, so this list will sometimes be unalphabetized.
(2) Certain columns of information were exported directly from IMDB, and the page for each show is linked in the rating from the IMDB column.
(3) On the Watched and Watching tabs, there are columns for Recommend? and Notes to provide background that will help decide what to watch. Don't let any of my negative comments stop you from watching a show you're interested in.
(4) The Recommended? column is divided into the following categories: Must Watch, Yes, Maybe, No. These are all based on personal opinion with extra discussion/information in the Notes column.
(5) I've shared this with most people using View Only permissions, so download the Excel file (or copy to your Drive account) to filter columns by genre, rating, and personal recommendation.
Disclaimer: not everyone will have the same tastes as me - that's okay. I welcome any disagreement about how I've rated shows and hope to get some discussion going.
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What shows have I missed that I need to watch?
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What shows did I strongly recommend that you didn't like?
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What shows did I give up on too early?
I expect to take some heat for quitting Brooklyn 99 around season 3.
- What shows haven't come out that I should keep an eye out for?
Like Jack Ryan which debuts this month.
- How can I improve the document?
I considered including a column with the show's network or where it can be legally streamed, but this is pretty tedious given the nature of broadcast rights.
I'm gonna vouch for this show. Easily one of the best sketch comedy series of all time, with a huge variety of humor types so odds are there's a sketch from it that you'll love.
Extra kudos for the last sketch of the series. Absolutely hilarious way to end the show.
Commenting on this for the show "Peep Show" by the same people. Some of the best comedy I've ever seen.
Peep Show is one I rewatch all the time. The Holiday episode... pure comedic genius.
Man, those guys make me uncomfortable. They're absolutely hilarious, but I often have difficulty watching people be that socially awkward on TV ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's how I felt with Nathan For You, which is even harder to stomach because everyone he interacts with doesn't realize they're on a docu-reality comedy show - at least Peep Show is all fictional. You just have to roll with the awkwardness though.
Why did I love Candid Camera as a kid but his show makes me want to vomit. Is it his "I'm so much smarter than these people" attitude?
I don't really get that kind of attitude from him even though he's often preying upon people's stupidity (or generosity) because he makes fun of his own weirdness at the same time. Even though it's exaggerated, his persona in the show is borne out of reality.
Yeah, I love Peep Show, but it's literally painful to watch. I still haven't managed to finish it to this day.
I need to move that to the Watching tab. I started the first couple episodes months ago but then got sidetracked when other shows started back. I’ve enjoyed all the one-off skits I’ve seen linked online especially the corner shop skit.
I noticed that on your Want to Watch list you have American Gods. Not sure if you read the book or are familiar with Neil Gaiman's work, but I just wanted to give you some of my thoughts on it.
American Gods is probably my favorite book of all time, Neil Gaiman is my favorite author. I love all his stuff, I read all his stuff, I buy his books multiple times since I wear through them so much. With that being said, I thought the show was OKAY. Even knowing the book very well, the show was REALLY hard to follow. Because its just so...abstract with very little in the way of transition. And so much weird stuff is going on in the story anyways, that without a really really solid flow it feels very jarring. I only ended up watching up to episode 6 I think so I didn't quite finish the first season. But my recommendation would be to at least read the book first so the flow makes more sense.
Do you think having read the book negatively impacted your perception of the show? It does seem to be pretty well reviewed. I wonder what percentage of viewers have read the book.
I don't think it did, personally. I hadn't actually read the book in a couple years by the time I watched the show, and even knowing what was going on, I was VERY confused and had a hard time keeping up. Had to watch a couple episodes more than once to piece together where they fit in the story and how it was related to what else was going on.
At some point I will probably go back and read the book then immediately watch the show to help me. It just...doesn't do a great job at explaining things - it has you take a lot for granted. Which when done well won't cause confusion (in my opinion), but if its not done well it can seem disjointed (which is how I felt American Gods came off a bit).
Would still definitely recommend watching it! I was just saying take it with a grain of salt. :)
I'll keep that in mind. Are there any shows that I've watched you could liken to American Gods in terms of the disjointed nature of its storyline? I'll probably give it a shot regardless. My wife and I usually circle back to this list every few months and watch like 10 trailers in a row then decide what to start.
Hmm, thats a good question. I don't have cable or netflix, so I haven't seen most of what you have listed on your spreadsheet. I guess the only one that even comes to mind would be True Detective - except I think True Detective did it very well. It was able to bounce between future/past, scenes over here, scenes over there, etc very well and tied them together. I think American Gods was lacking in that type of seamless fluidity. But even still, that's a really really really distant comparison.
AG isn't really all that disjointed. There's a 'coming to america' segment in each episode, and two timelines playing out but nothing like the morass of wtf that was Westworld S2. AG's first season was awesome from start to finish. I'm worried it'll go off a cliff now though, switching showrunners. That is almost always fatal to the quality.
I am similar to @F4iR33 in that Neil Gaiman is one of my absolute favorite authors and American Gods one of my favorite of his books.... yet I feel the exact opposite regarding the show; I 100% love it. The story is a bit different than the book and feels far more surreal, but it's not jarring at all, IMO. In fact I actually enjoy the surrealism and zaniness of the show more than the gritty realness the book went for.
The casting is also absolutely incredible. Ian McShane as Wednesday, Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney and Peter Stormare as Czernobog are so absolutely perfect I don't think even the biggest book fanboys could have thought of better actors for the roles in their wildest dreams. Crispin Glover as Mr. World and Gillian Anderson as Media are strokes of genius as well. The only casting choice that I didn't like initially was Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon (the lead role). However even he grew on me as the season progressed since his dry tone and delivery actually fits the "fish out of water" character he is portraying, and the more straight-man / every-man take on the role actually helps ground the story and balance out all the craziness taking place around him.
My only major problem with the show is the fact that both showrunners, Michael Green and Bryan Fuller (as well as Gillian Anderson), will not be back for season 2, so the second season may suck as a result. :( Ah well... at least I still have Preacher.
Wait, American Gods has Ian McShane?? That might be all I need to know about it. I loved him in... everything he’s ever done. Especially Deadwood and Pillars of the Earth.
Thanks for the insight!
No problem and yeah I absolutely adore Ian McShane as well. He fits the character of Wednesday absolutely flawlessly too, since he is (without spoiling too much) also a smooth-talking conman exactly like Al Swearengen but actually even cooler than him (for reasons I can't say without spoiling anything). Like I said before, even the biggest American Gods novel fanboy would be hard pressed to suggest better actors to portray Wednesday or those others I named, IMO.
Preacher's kinda dropped off a bit this season imo. It's not bad, just... kinda treading water, not as good of a story as S1/S2.
Aw dang, that's disappointing to hear (I was waiting for the new season to finish before watching it) but it's honestly not all that surprising given how much they decided to go "off script" from the comic last season. Whenever derivative properties do that, it more often than not just gets worse with time since the originals are classics for a reason and the writers on the derivatives are often worse at plotting than the original author/s.
I noticed a few omissions you might want to add to the list.
Happy! is the best Christmas story ever told. Should run 3-5 seasons if Syfy doesn't do what they do to all good shows and cancel it. I'm kinda amazed they allowed something this violent and crazy in the first place. Less you know going in the better - just let the crazy wash over you. It takes less than three minutes. ;)
Babylon 5 is still the best science fiction show ever made, though you will have to deal with a lot of cheese in the first season. Use the Lurker's Guide to get the episode/movies ordered properly. Bonus: It's in 16:9 HD which is unusual for a 30 year old show.
Titus is a damn good sitcom from the early 2000s, 3 seasons total.
Move Taboo up your watch list, it's great if you're into period drama. That show is slated to run 3 seasons total, first one's out but the filming for the next two is big-budget and will take a lot of time, probably won't see S2 until next year.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who ever saw that show, so seeing somebody reference it here is surprising. Titus was absolutely freaking hilarious, and his standup specials are pretty funny too.
Actually got to see him live a bit back at a local community college. He spent most of it making fun of everybody there for being in community college, calling his son an asshole, and bitching about his ex Erin.
Great stuff.
What other shows would you liken Titus to? I did some research on it and like that it's a network sitcom without a laugh track. Although there are many shows I love with a laugh track, that definitely gets a +1 from me since they're overdone and cheesy more often than not.
The closest thing out there to Titus is probably Family Guy. Titus basically invented the one-off interludes that show is now famous for, though the humor is much better than Seth's usual juvenile schlock. The more fucked up your own family is, the harder you will laugh.
Interesting comparison because Family Guy holds an important place in my younger sense of humor, but I don't enjoy it as much nowadays--except for a handful of early episodes--despite the nostalgia. Titus seems to be promising though based on what I've read (here and on wiki).
Titus is one of the only sitcoms to bring me to blackout levels of laughter multiple times. It's right up there with Spaced in my book. It was only canceled because Titus punched out a studio executive for trying to fuck with his show. I'm surprised Netflix hasn't tried to bring it back or make a sequel.
Added! What other sci-fi would you recommend? Someone else pointed out that my list is pretty thin on sci-fi and suggested Battlestar Galactica, but it's not because I have a problem with the genre. I like sci-fi-ish shows like Westworld, Black Mirror, Stranger Things, and LOST - those aren't really hardcore sci-fi though.
Warehouse 13 is a ton of fun, I'd rank it as the best Scifi/Comedy hybrid I've ever seen, though it takes a couple episodes to find its feet. Five seasons and it was never boring, great cast.
Farscape is my favorite 'tin can in space' style show. Doesn't really click until towards the end of the first season but after that it's great, especially when they got an actual budget to work with. This show also remembers how to have fun with science fiction. I'd call it the 'warner brothers' version of a scifi show.
Dollhouse only got two seasons, but it's a good two seasons - you'd think with Fox canceling every good show Joss makes he'd learn to stop working with those asshats. If you like Westworld, you'll love this. That reminds me...
Firefly wasn't on your list. One season and a movie. Definitely the most bone-headed cancellation of all time. This show is a Western but in a very different way than Westworld.
You can take the plunge with Stargate, but that's a LOT of show - 10 seasons of SG1, 6 of Atlantis, and 2 of Universe if memory serves. I'm still pissed they canceled Universe, it was just starting to evolve into something better than the SG1 franchise. If you do take the plunge on this remember to start with the Stargate film.
Orphan Black is a bit of BBC drama/scifi that you might like based on what you're into for science fiction. The show's notable for watching the lead play five versions of herself on screen at the same time, and nail it.
Outside of scifi...
Boston Legal is another top-notch sitcom that is excellent start to finish. Shatner steals the show, no minor feat given the excellence of the cast.
The Newsroom gets some rough reviews from people who don't agree with Sorkin's politics. I think was an excellent drama, one of the best I've ever seen in fact. Great cast, short and sweet.
Cheers and Frasier both still hold up despite their age as good sitcoms.
Other random SF shows worth watching:
Other Space - short (1 season), fun, wacky. Think Red Dwarf made on a 5$ budget.
Twilight Zone - original series. Classic. British Black Mirror was the closest thing to this in my mind (I have feelings about the American seasons), so if you like that dive in.
Planetes - Depends how you feel about anime (personally, that 'genre' makes me cringe at points, but it can be worth it), but this show is pretty fantastic. Essentially, a realistic take on "garbage collectors in space", looking at cleaning of orbital debris.
Space Dandy - deceivingly wacky, from the guy who made Cowboy Bebop it could be summarized as Johnny Bravo meets Buddhist Eschatology. Gorgeous artwork, excellent sound track and surprising depth given the first half of that mash-up ;). Like Bebop (which is another must-view) it is very much made with western audiences in mind.
Also, definitely second Farscape and Firefly. Stargate whatever can be good, but can drag as well.
Not Amarok, but Deep Space 9 is one of the best serialized sci-fi shows of all time... assuming you can get through the first season. Stargate SG-1 is also brilliant. Atlantis and Universe, not so much. The 2005 Doctor Who revival, while far from being "hard" sci-fi, is also quite fun.
I'm gonna have to disagree with you on Westworld not being hardcore sci-fi though. Imo it hits at the very heart of what science fiction should be: A vessel for questioning the nature of humanity and how technology can change that nature. It may have a fused setting with the Western themes, but as far as I'm concerned it is peak sci-fi.
Thanks for the recs. I guess "hardcore" was the wrong word choice. Maybe more like "mainstream" sci-fi since it's a wildly popular, flagship HBO show. If I'm in love with that specific area of sci-fi--questioning the nature of reality/humanity and the fallout from advancing technology--what else would you suggest other than Black Mirror (which I also love)? I have nothing against the outer space/galactic brand of sci-fi, but the themes Westworld and Black Mirror touch upon are much more compelling to me.
Definitely Dollhouse and Orphan Black if that's your corner of scifi.
Now Dollhouse is one I haven't heard of. Orphan Black is on the list but has been skipped over a few times when it's time to watch trailers and decide on a new show. I'll give those two a look after we finish the most recent season of American Crime Story.
Rather than a trailer, watch the first episode. I find that is usually a lot more telling about a series. Orphan Black and Dollhouse will both tell you with just one episode if you'll like them. So will Happy! (and I cannot stress that show enough). For Babylon 5, the starter is the movie 'In The Beginning' which was filmed during the show's fourth season to fill out the backstory (since fans had been asking for years). Going from that to the pilot movie (which is next up in the chronology) is a bit jarring though since you're going from good budget to no budget. :P
For the newer Doctor Who, it's 'Blink' and 'Silence In The Library' 1 & 2. Warehouse 13 has a droll start but after about 5 eps it finds its stride. For Stargate, the movie will do just fine. Farscape doesn't get solid until the second half of the first season, once Chiana and Scorpius show up it's solid gold to the end.
Watch those eps/films and you'll know if the rest of the franchises are your bag or not.
Since when have you been working on this? That list is positively insane!
Thanks! I checked the edit history on Drive, and it has a creation date of 2 years ago this Saturday. 90-95% of the work you see was all done at the very beginning, trying to remember all the shows I'd watched over the years. Everything since then has just been maintenance and new additions.
IMDB has a pretty nifty feature that allows you to create lists then export to CSV format with all kinds of related data. That's how I got the IMDB links in there to start. Now I add them in manually when dropping a new show in.
I like your list, I've not even heard of plenty of the shows on there, I'm not really a TV show person, I prefer films. But the stuff that you had on there that I've seen I agree with your ratings l, but I was sad to find the list doesn't have my favorite show in the entire world: Battlestar Galactica (miniseries starts 2003 and the actual show starts 2004, which is important because this is a remake of a much older show).
WARNING: EXPOSITINAL SPOILERS AHEAD: this doesn't contain any information beyond the first couple episodes but if you want to go into the show knowing absolutely nothing, read no further.
Battlestar Galactica is set in a world really similar to ours, but more technologically advanced. The people of this world invented robots called Cylons to do their dirty work, but the Cylons rebel and leave the planet for another one. Nothing is heard of them for 60ish years, but in the beginning of the show their back... And they have a plan...
The show is brilliant, and that's not just because I love sci-fi. The storyline is fantastic, the characters are well thought out, and I personally really like the visuals. No show has made me care more about the characters and get more invested in the plot than this show. It's quite slow to start but when it picks up it takes you on a journey that you'll never want to end. Well maybe that was just me, but seriously, I love this show so much. I noticed that your list doesn't contain a whole lot of Sci-fi, but this is unmissable, and it's also structured deliberately as a human drama, if aliens put you off. So yeah, give this show a shot when you have time, although considering the length of your list I'm not sure you'll have all that much :/
Best of luck in your TV show adventures!
Or... the first ~ 2-3 seasons are anyways. The end plot... well. I have some serious issues with, let's leave it it at that. Also, the 3-hour mini-series that was episode "0" so to speak is fucking awesome, like perhaps the best intro to a show of all time awesome.
I agree it's a must watch, but be prepared for it to possibly fall off at the end (endorsed by at least 50% of reviewers on ~'s :P). You should watch it all the way through though, or at least try to.
Also, in this vein if you're not watching The Expanse @Parliament, you should probably get on that.
I 100% agree about the expanse, I started watching it when series 4 was almost cancelled and am now eagerly awaiting its arrival. However, I can't agree with you about the ending of BSG, I think there were problems, but my biggest problem was with the last 5 minutes of the show, just because I didn't feel it was in line with the rest of the show in a few aspects that I can't really explain. I loved the plot to the end, especially picking up towards the end of series three, and I loved the characters even past the end. For me the journey was good enough to overlook the ending, but I'm also wary of over-praising it (which I probably have done here lol) so I'd say take @arghdos's advice in regards to the show as well
Absolutely. It felt a bit like the writers just threw their hands up in frustration and wrote the first thing down they could think of.
I do think I was possibly unfair to the later seasons (because of the ending), but also post-New Caprica there were definitely fewer episodes that grabbed me as viscerally as say 33, Water or Scar did
Is The Expanse the show that Amazon saved from cancellation? Also where can I legally stream BSG in the US? I've always viewed it (whether unfairly or not) as a super nerdy show for people obsessed with sci-fi, and I also might have conflated it with Babylon 5. Would you say they are "cheesy" at all? Specifically the quality of acting. That's basically my ignorance showing - I have this preconceived notion that lumps certain sci-fi shows into a category of cheesy television despite having never given them the time of day. I'm also not a Star Wars or Star Trek fan in the slightest, so that might have contributed to my prejudgment of any outer space-related shows.
That's the one
It's definitely got some nerd credentials, but it's one of the few sci-fi shows (along with the Expanse) I'd recommend to just about anyone.
It's available for free on prime and hulu, and is for sale on google play / itunes (apparently it used to be on netflix, so it might pop up there at some point again), make sure to start with the mini-series (and avoid the 1978 original which is fairly cheesy)
Definitely no cheese. Acting is fairly good all around, Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell having the highest star power. It's an entirely different beast than either SW or ST. Having watched a lot (too much?) sci-fi TV, I would say mostly you're not wrong about the cheese factor. A good portion of main-stream SF shows I've seen have had clearly visible flaws that you either have to just deal with (if like me you love SF), such as poor acting, weird plotlines, or "hey, this is actually just a police procedural set in space".
The Expanse and Battlestar are very different however. A significant portion of the Expanse is a cut-throat political thriller between the various factions in the solar system, the writing is generally pretty good, (most) of the acting is on-point (especially Miller), and the special effects are second to none.
Battlestar Gallactica is in part, a very close examination of how a civilization would react after a nuclear apocalypse (with the exception being, the survivors were all in space during said apocalypse, and hence it's not a radioactive wasteland). It mutates (heh) further into questions of humanity, the limits of hope, and costs / necessary evils of all-out war / survival. The SFX have aged spectacularly well (they went for about as a realistic vibe as you could hope for in a sci-fi show, no sound in space!), and the first few seasons brilliantly balance tension to keep on on the edge of your seat.
A lot of scifi is cheesy as hell at least when it starts in the first season. It's like this curse that we've only recently begun to escape, and even then it's because the casting for science fiction is improving lately. It's no longer a 'dirty nerd genre' and A-list actors aren't afraid to associate with it anymore, probably due to the 'Marvel money'.
I've watched about half of the first season of The Expanse and it's got the same problem, I'm having a hard time giving any fucks about the characters. It obviously gets better or it wouldn't make it to four seasons, but even I have a tough time getting through the cheese sometimes. :P
B5 is the best example of a show overcoming that problem. Their budget for that show was less than star trek's cast catering budget, and they still managed to curbstomp all of the trek franchises for moral philosophy and scope of vision.
Yeah the expanse was the show that was saved, a lot of that was due to the fact that Jeff Bezos was a fan of the show (I think), which definitely helped. I'm not in the US so I couldn't help about that there, I think we bought the box set years ago in a garage sale, so maybe sombody in the US can give help there?
And honestly, considering how much I supposedly love sci-fi, I haven't heard of Babylon 5, I've never watched the star wars films (I can't stand the acting), and I've only seen a few star trek things, but I'm by no means a true fan of star trek.
So to answer your question, no from where I'm coming from I don't see BSG as cheesy, I love the actors in it, and I think they did an amazing job. I've always thought that The Expanse falls slightly more into the cheesy section than BSG does, but that could easily be different aspects of it like the colourful lighting, and the fact that it doesn't seem to tackle as dark themes as BSG. If you haven't seen much sci-fi you probably won't have seen Ender's Game, but the expanse reminds me of a weird mix of Ender's game, Firefly (also a great sci-fi show), and BSG. Basically what I'm trying to say is that even though I love sci-fi I've never really seen mainstream sci-fi stuff so I couldn't really fit it into the rest of the genre. I've gone off on a tangent, so I'll stop here, but yeah in my opinion Battlestar Galactica is a great show that takes itself quite seriously and I don't see it as cheesy at all.
I think you've made the case pretty well that BSG deserves a chance. @arghdos said I should start with the 1980 sequel miniseries rather than the original show from 1978. Would you agree? It's available to stream for Prime members, so that's nice.
I've never watched the older stuff, so I don't have any idea what that's like, but I was under the impression that @arghdos was referring to the 2003 miniseries, which serves as an introduction to the 2004 series. It's a little bit annoying in that aspect because if you haven't seen the miniseries the first few episodes make zero sense. I didn't know there was a 1980 miniseries so you'll have to check with him to see what he meant.
I'll stick up for the new BSG as well. You can skip the three previous ones, though.
It's a bit slow and melodramatic at times, the story stalls once or twice, and the ending pisses some people off (I was rather ambivalent about it). All that said, it's definitely one of the finest scifi shows out there, with acting and dialog that's well above the cheese factor start to finish.
Noooo, the 2003 miniseries
I was all ready to rage at the end of Galactica, but that one line at the very end 'you know it doesn't like that name' saved it for me.
Honestly, I think I only watched the last segment there once I was so annoyed by it. I suppose there are more charitable readings out there of what they were going for, but the fact is the reaaaaaaallllllllyyyyyy didn't do enough set-up for me to see it as anything but "well, that was weird."
I very much recommend watching 'The IT Crowd' it's comedic gold. It might not look the best but the writing is by far the highlight of the show.
Love The IT Crowd. My sitcoms on constant rotation when I want something that doesn't require my full attention: The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, The IT Crowd, Arrested Development, It's Always Sunny, Peep Show, Veep, Flight of the Conchords (S01), The Larry Sanders Show, Party Down, and Summer Heights High. I'll usually work through the entirety of a show then move to one I haven't watched recently rather than bouncing around a lot.
I'm a little surprised that Peaky Blinders isn't on the list. It's an extraordinary historical crime drama, with magnificent sets, incredible period accuracy, gorgeous cinematography, stellar acting, and great screenwriting. One of the best series I've seen since Deadwood.
Babylon Berlin is almost as good - somewhat better sets and costuming, but the storyline isn't as consistent.
I just want to thank you for sharing this list from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
I am watching Mindhunter right now, it’s as dark as it gets but great.
I see that you have The Expanse in your watch list, which I will enthusiastically recommend. In my opinion, it's the best science fiction series currently airing. Season 1 is slow to build, but 2 is great and 3 is better.
I'll also recommend Mr. Robot, which is a fantastic hacker-drama. Its efforts at realism are only surpassed by the stunning cinematography. Stick with it until the third season and you won't be disappointed. I'm anxiously waiting for the fourth.
what a list!! I'll have to save that one.
I'm going to throw in for Me Robot as well, then recommend Hotel Babylon https://g.co/kgs/RUVmEf it's a UK drama comedy. The first 3 seasons are great, you could even stop once the main cast all leave and not even bother with the last.
Also going to recommend Misfits Misfits https://g.co/kgs/7xfxr5 I'll just leave the IMDB for the description I'll butcher it. I must admit, again once the main cast left I couldn't finish it. I need to try one day
(I failed at the hyperlink. I gave up)