Long form visual storytelling - the best of TV
We've had a few threads recently criticising the direction of various shows cough Game of Thrones cough and @Amarok suggested a thread celebrating the good stuff on TV instead. Personally, television is by far my favourite means of visual storytelling, a good TV show can go into the kind of depth and complexity that the more time-limited format of movies just can't touch.
A few of my favourite shows then, in no particular order:
House MD - recently rewatched this and it definitely stands the test of time. Sure, there are a few weak episodes here and there but on balance it's solid. Hugh Laurie absolutely nails the role of Sherlock Holmes Greg House and the supporting cast are excellent too. It has one of my all-time favourite endings of all television shows, even knowing what was coming I still ended up a little moist of eye by the end. Also they grade the colour with increasing desaturation throughout season 8, almost to the point of it being monochrome - until the final scene is in glorious, bright colour and I love little touches like that. TV shouldn't just be actors reading lines, there is a whole medium to tell stories with (Game of Thrones also did this kind of thing well).
Detectorists - BBC show about two metal detectorists. Gloriously paced, slow and gentle but insistent in telling it's tale, with really strong characters. Finishes beautifully, at just the right time. A gem of a show, it's very well written and nearly flawless throughout. Mackenzie Crook (writer, director) was offered more seasons but he declined because the show was finished and that takes guts to do but I love that he did. Also features Diana Rigg (Olenna Tyrell) who is never not brilliant.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - I mean what can you even say about Buffy. Might have been the last show where my friends would meet up for a watch party every week, hanging out for hours discussing it and enjoying herbal cigarettes for the evening. Streaming is great and so convenient but in some ways I do miss TV being an event. There was someone very special about getting everyone together once a week to share in that world, and especially with Buffy because the characters were so close in age to me (I'm slightly younger than Alyson Hannigan and I had such a crush on Willow). Sure, it had it's wobbles (the entire Adam story arc, for example) but also some of the best TV moments of the 90s/early 2000s. Once More With Feeling and Hush are fan favourites for a reason.
Hannibal - Produced by Bryan Fuller, who is always good, but absolutely outdoes himself here, and Mads Mikkelson is terrifying in the titular role. Visually it's stunning, the plot is engaging and deeply disturbing, the characters well drawn and believable (Hannibal particularly so, which is all the more horrifying) and the sound design is absolutely astonishing. I bought a whole new sound system literally just for this show and it was totally worth it. Sound design is one of those things which you only notice when it's particularly bad or particularly good and Hannibal is definitely the latter. It's such a well-rounded piece of television, it uses colour and light and sound and all the tools in the TV maker's box. the ending is a little on the weak side but they got axed early - Bryan Fuller had five seasons planned but they only got three.
I could go on, but I won't because I'll go on for ages! Please add a couple of your favourite shows and maybe we can all find a few new things to watch.
I'll plug Babylon 5. (no spoilers intro)
In my mind, that's the finest slice of scifi ever made in a visual medium. The good news is despite being a twenty five year old show, it was shot in full 16:9 HD. The special effects are a little dated, mostly done with Amiga/Lightwave, so they'll remind you of movies like The Last Starfighter and Flight of the Navigator. That has its own charm, and I find it makes a wonderful contrast with modern dark, gritty science fiction. There's a bit of cheese in S1 (the pilot movie 'The Gathering' is rough), but there was more (and worse) cheese in The Orville S1, so don't get the idea that it's all cheese, all the time. There are only a handful of 'filler' episodes, and some of those, such as Passing Through Gethsemane, are among the best food for thought plots on offer in any visual scifi medium.
I can say without reservation that all the stories done by every version of Trek on offer since TOS were done far better and more wisely in B5. Even the Federation's much lauded utopia is eclipsed by other civilizations in this show. I can also promise you B5 stuck the landing every bit as well as Breaking Bad did, it is a note perfect finale that will kick you right in the soul.
It's been billed as 'Casa Blanca in Space' but that's just the 'shape' of the story, it's much more than that. Without this show, the trend towards long story arcs in television would have been delayed. You can thank B5 for paving the way, more than any other show before it or most since, for arc-based storytelling like The Sopranos and The Wire and Breaking Bad. It did that with a budget that was a fraction of the size of other scifi shows. It was the first one to ever do arcs well.
It was easy to miss, because it jumped time slots almost every month and networks almost every season. Despite that, it managed to finish its run and cement its legacy as one of the most important shows in television history.
There are five full seasons for a total of 110 episodes, a pilot movie, and five other made for TV movies that make up the full main story. Watching them in the correct order can be tricky, since they were aired out of order and the movies were made later to be slotted into specific spots in the storyline. The best way to watch it is to follow The Lurker's Guide master chronology. The spinoffs, sadly, are not of the same quality. If nothing in the first film "In The Beginning" grabs you, the rest of the show probably won't either, so you only need to watch the one film to dip your toe in and test the waters.
Babylon 5 is the single greatest sci-fi show ever and nothing before or since came close to its sheer brilliance. I'm willing to die on this hill.
We also have a small but friendly subreddit :)
The plots of mid-S3 through end-S4 are playing out in the media right now. It freaks me the fuck out how prescient the show's politics were.
And you beat me to it.
Yeah, if you want a show that delivers on GoT’s failed promise of a cohesive story with a satisfying ending, it’s B5.
Hot take, but I think we’re ripe for a reboot. Warner owns the rights so the marketing writes itself: “Game of Thrones in space, coming next year on HBO.” Break it into 8 10-episode seasons and just ratchet up the grimdark. The show was practically made for it. The hardest part would be recasting Londo and G’Kar, but the casting for Clark is obvious: Boxleitner.
Rumor is that some Warner exec is holding a grudge about it, which is why they’re just sitting on it, and why every attempt to revive it is stillborn. Maybe someday...
Part of me thinks any reboot is doomed to fall flat compared to the original. I wouldn't mind seeing a complete redo of the CGI for a blu-ray release, though. Polish the original to a high shine.
I'd much rather take the gloves off of the 'Legend of the Rangers' concept. That's a federation-style galactic republic story waiting to be told. We also have a Telepath War waiting in the wings, and fallout from Crusade. If you're looking for a reboot, Crusade is the one to reboot as part of this. TBS forced JMS to make a lot of changes to satisfy their head-canon idea of what their viewers wanted, which was basically WWE in Space. I definitely want more Techno Mage story too. Galen was the best part of that show.
Let the original stand as what it was, a freak product of 90s television somehow managing to get it all right against impossible odds. Build on that era instead of rebooting it. The storytelling is set up so that almost anything is possible in that framework.
Welp, I'm sold. That's definitely just got bumped up my to-watch list, where it's been languishing for quite a while. Thanks!
For True Detective, don't watch the second season right after the first. The second is good, but pales compared to the first --- but standalone, its still a decent season.
The third season is stellar, and well worth a watch -- but like the second season, don't watch them back to back.
Seconded. That story was hypnotic start to finish and it's on my short list.
I'd like to nominate:
If you guys want to discuss any of them in more details, I'm there.
I don't understand what people liked about Mindhunter, I watched it with a friend of mine and the first four episodes had us completely bored. The overall plot moves at a snail's pace and the psychology it presented felt incredibly shallow and limited, which is arguably understandable given it's supposed to show the early days of criminal psychology, but it never made up for this in any other way.
I think what it has going for it is that it's based on real life. Also the Ed Kemper character is incredible in the show. The way he opens up more and more.
Also we know where the story leads. Their ark Nemesis never gets caught by them. Seeing that playout will be really cool.
Another thing is the cinematography, it's really well shot and if you watch the behind the scenes, it's really cool to see what they went through to respect the look of those years.
I think the main gripe people had was how the relationship developed with the girlfriend. Personally I didn't mind it.
Edit: Oops butchered a name.
Not trying to be flippant but I don't feel like your comment really explains what's good about the show, unless what's good about it is "things happen". Lots of shows are "based on real life" but this is supposed to be a dramatization if I'm not mistaken, otherwise they might as well have turned it into a documentary.
I think you meant Ed Kemper? I found his interviews to be mostly very anti-climatic. It seems to rely entirely on his status as a real-life serial killer and his backstory but the way in which it's handled falls short of an actual psychoanalysis. Not to mention that revealing the killer's motives as being part of deeper psychological troubles has been a staple of detective series for a while now, to a point where it's almost become a joke.
It was vert competently shot to be sure and I don't doubt they went through a great deal of effort for it, but in service of what exactly. It being period-accurate is a nice bonus but not really something I think a TV series can exclusively rely on.
My gripe with that would be that Holden is a doormat with a necktie for a personality and the entire relationship with the girlfriend while I watched was essentially him apathetically being dragged into success, which is neither terribly exciting nor believable.
I can agree with your complaints but I think I like the concept too much and the way it was executed.
You can see this comparison video between the real Ed though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDYBmNYc8IA
It's pretty spot on.
From my understanding, Holden thought he was also a psychopath. It's only at the end that he realizes that he isn't. He is really invested in his work. I will be interesting to see how he behaves next season.
For the cinematography point and what they do to preserve the history, I think it shows that they care. You can look at Chernobyl, they went through a lot of effort to get close to the reality. It shows respect to the real people that lived through those events. (Though I feel like Chernobyl is going even further but maybe that's just me.)
I am currently re-wartching Breaking Bad with the girlfriend. She made it through the first two seasons and stopped because the person she was watching with, their father had received a cancer diagnosis, so it fell by the wayside.
Just getting through the first three episodes I am remembering all the things I liked about the direction and cinematography and acting. And what an intro! Some shows have awful pilots that you have to tell people to tolerate, "it gets better later," etc., but Breaking Bad's pilot is legitimately good right out the gate. There's that iconic shot of Walter, pantsless in the desert, his shirt and gun tucked into the back of his tighty-whities.
I gotta second those comments on Mr. Robot. Season 2 does feel slow compared to season 1, but it ends strong and season 3 makes everything worth it. Season 3 just needs the character development that season 2 did.
Agents of SHIELD
It gets written off as a run-of-the-mill superhero "monster of the week" drama and certainly gives off that vibe if you only watch the first half of the first season. However, the show really picks up from T.R.A.C.K.S and becomes IMO one of the best storytelling dramas on TV; really vindicating the slow start. I think if you want a show that satisfies a fantasy/sci-fi/superhero drama craving AoS is a must watch.
Some non-US tips I very much enjoyed (and all of which are bounded series, with well-tied-up endings):
Borgen (imdb): Danish politics. Minister (a woman) unexpectedly becomes prime minister. Good characters, plausible storylines, and a rare political drama not set in Washington.
House of Cards (the original British 1990 one) (imdb): Similar to the first season of the recent US version. But British. Even if you've seen the other one, very worth it.
Fleabag (imdb): Young woman with dysfunctional British family copes badly with suicide of best friend. Much awkward sex in the first season.
The British House of Cards was fantastic. I watched it between seasons 3 and 4 of the American version and all I could think was, "I hope the makers of the new version have the absolute balls to end the series the same way." I still think about it whenever people bring up great series endings.
Some British TV. These can be gruelling.
The Virtues - https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-virtues https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7186126/
Red Riding - https://www.channel4.com/programmes/red-riding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Riding https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9789804/
All of the This Is England programmes, starting with the Film 4 film-
This is England - https://www.channel4.com/programmes/this-is-england-film
This is England 86 - https://www.channel4.com/programmes/this-is-england-86
This is England 88 - https://www.channel4.com/programmes/this-is-england-88
This is England 90 - https://www.channel4.com/programmes/this-is-england-90
One of the strongest series of the past couple years is The Deuce. Everything from David Simon is awesome, and The Deuce is no exception.
Honorable mentions to Halt and Catch Fire and Mozart in the Jungle. If we go back further I can compile a crazy long list, but for recent series, these really stood out.
Oh, please do. Let's not let the age of a show get in the way. ;)
Here's a list off the top of my head. @DanBC is right about the Red Riding trilogy -- definitely worth a watch. I skipped some really obvious series like Mad Men, Sopranos, The Wire, Fargo because most people probably know them. There are still some titles everybody will know in this list, though.
Fixed the classic
M*A*S*Hmarkdown goof :)I would recommend Dexter TV Series for some justice viewing pleasure.
That show really fell off toward the end.. I've tried to re-watch it a few times now but can never make it much into the last 2 seasons.
I kinda wanted it to end the same way it started. Trawling through the streets with that music and saying "Tonight's the night" or something.. Just anything other than what they actually ended it on..
I bet the fact that the 2 main actors actually met and got married during the show kinda changed the direction of the last few seasons.
Seasons 1-4 are the gold in my head canon. I like to think the show ended right there as a victim of budget cuts rather than as a victim of slow death drawing out a successful franchise. The remaining seasons had some occasional moments but the writing was on the slide after S4 ended.
Lost. No they weren't dead the whole time. However the show is circuitous, intricate, and at times messes with the viewers. Plus it has some amazing character arcs. I believe I've seen it 5 times and each time there is something I didn't notice, or misunderstood.
The Mentalist. Cold reader and former charlatan Patrick Jane's family was murdered by serial killer Red John. He joins the CBI team which handles homicides. Formulaic at times yet inventive, with the lightest take on serial killing I've ever seen. Excellent cast.
I'll stick up for The Mentalist. It wasn't great television, but it was often quite good, just some slow spots now and then. It's fairly formula, but with a twist, much like The Blacklist or Castle or Blue Bloods. There's enough chemistry and interesting character stories in them to keep them from becoming boring. The Mentalist gets bonus points for reinventing itself a bit towards the end, Castle could have used more of that.
I've always wondered why this kind of genre show stopped trading main characters around. Magnum PI, Simon & Simon, Murder She Wrote - all of them showed up in each other's universes once in a while, and it was usually handled well. I'd like to see that sort of cross-pollination make a comeback someday.