20
votes
Which TV series are most important/meaningful to you? Why?
Adam Savage once said we don't have "favourite" things, but rather things that are important to us, for different reasons. I would love to hear your top series and what put them there. Not just because they're good: Maybe you have a sentimental connection to it, or a particular episode. Maybe it taught you something. Let's hear it.
It definitely holds up. Explosive crying when Zukoh asks Iroh to forgive him.
I'll start with Psych. Someone from IRC recommended it... Not sure who. I remember watching American Duos as the first episode. I didn't like it. But I did give it a second shot and this time started with the Pilot. loved it!
What a chemistry between Shawn and Gus. At the time, my best friend and I identified with the duo pretty strongly. We would sync-watch episodes together on .. oh god, on Teamspeak I think?
I still haven't watched the second movie. I want to, but need to get in the right head space for it. I'm not a huge fan of how the series evolved over the years, it flanderized quite a bit, but the first movie was excellent so I'm not worried about the second one.
One moment that will be burned in my memory forever is being at the airport, severely depressed at one of the lowest points in my life, and singing to myself one of the acapella scenes from a Season 4 episode, doing my best to keep myself together. All I remember is that it helped. You know when people say a particular movie / series saved them? I think that's what they mean.
The second series that rivals Psych in how much it influenced me is Person of Interest. It's a masterpiece, really, and I have talked about it on Tildes before. I think what connected with me the most was the plausibility. It's hard for me to get super excited about sci-fi when it requires me to make these massive assumptions about things that are possible in a near-enough future that would still be filled with recognizable elements from our world. But POI is plausible "today" with fairly mild shortcuts (eg. I consider the inventor to be a characterized representation of a much larger entity, a collection of people).
POI is Nolan's genius before Westworld. Westworld in many ways is a bit of a spiritual successor to POI. If you liked one, you'll like the other. Give season 1 some time though...
Psych is absolutely amazing, and I think that Shawn and Gus's relationship is the primary reason for that. It's just so refreshing to see their relationship throughout the series.
Star Trek is undoubtedly the most influential piece of media to me in my entire life. It's helped me through some difficult mental health crises, and continues to help me live through the nightmare that is modern capitalism. Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future gives me something to hope for and to dream for, and helps me believe that a better society is possible. The show's humanist "humans are fundamentally good" perspective is something that I have really latched on to as of late, and it colors how I think about others and myself. I find myself to be less judgemental of others, more aware of societal factors that cause people to be the way that they are.
Star Trek is just such a shining beacon of hope in our current world, and the fact that it allows me to believe in a better future is something that no other show gives me. It's a future that I want to live in, a future I want to help make reality. It's so great to see such a mainstream show promote Leftist ideas from a positive light; not reimagining the pains and horrors of capitalism, but rather, showing how wondrous collectivism can be, and what heights humanity can reach. A vision of the future where everyone is accepted for their differences, and no one is left behind.
As a series, not anymore it's not, sadly. And I certainly don't want to live in the wartorn, violent, bigotry-filled hellscapes that Discovery and Picard portray. They're just as (if not more) depressing than our current times.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, specifically, is easily the most influential TV series in my life, for many of the same reasons you mentioned. And that's why it especially pains me the direction the series has taken recently. The new CBS All Access shows and J. J. Abrams movies no longer give me any hope like the older shows did, since they completely retconned the better future for humanity that their predecessors portrayed. :(
p.s. Sorry for ranting, and undermining your positivity so much. Star Trek is just a sore spot for me, and I get super depressed whenever it's brought up now. :( I 100% agree with you about the old shows though.
I agree that a lot of what Discovery and Picard have shown is somewhat depressing, but Lower Decks is just as optimistic as 90's Trek was! And season 3 of Discovery shows a broken Federation in the far future, but the goal is to save and improve it! I really think that the time jump was good for Discovery, because now they can show whatever negativity they want to within the context of fixing and changing it. Definitely watch Lower Decks at the very least!
Thanks for suffering through my rant, and injecting some more positivity in spite of it. :) Even so, it's very unlikely I will ever resume watching Discovery or Picard after how much their first seasons (which I couldn't even fully get through) irked me. I have heard similarly good things from other Trekkies I know about Lower Decks though, so will likely check it out eventually.
So many things I wanna say! Here are some.
Ho boy, I should probably watch X-Files, shouldn't I? I remember downloading it, doing the pilot and not getting into it. Love those other recommendations - good stuff. You might like Solar Opposites; it's by Roiland and has a very similar feel to Rick & Morty.
Before season 4 X Files is extra dated. I say watch all the best standalone and skip the mythos.
If I started today, would you recommend I start with S4E1? Or would I be missing too much context?
The X Files is divided between mythos episodes, that advances the main plot that starts with the alleged alien abduction of Mulder's sister Samantha, and monster of the week standalone episodes that are self contained. You can find the lists on Wikipedia.
By skiping the first seasons you will lose context and some awesome episodes, but this won't matter much if you stick to non Mythos episodes. You will also miss a lot of the character development. It's a tradeoff.
IMHO the standalones are by far the best episodes. Just get a best of list. Make sure to watch every thing written by Vince Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad. And the revival was quite good as well.
Any season without Mulder is crap.
I am kind of interested in the x-files mythos. Is it just not good quality stuff? I'm down for good standalone episodes but I'm also a sucker for the long-term developments -- as long as it's a good quality storyline.
X-Files is a bit before my time. I watched the first 3 seasons straight through a few years ago and really enjoyed it.
The mythos episodes vary in quality but everything about X Files tends to be high quality. With the exception of season 7 to 9, which are dogshit.
The revival is good too.
If you're curious about the mythos, you will be rewarded. Just remember it's a 90s show so a higher degree of inconsistency must be tolerated.
Sold. It's getting back on my watchlist. I'll start with S1 and suffer through it ;)
Definitely go through all of the X-Files. The Monster of the Week episodes are super fun. If you want to go in DEEP, find a chronological guide so you can get the Lone Gunmen episodes in at the right time along with the movies.
Once you're done with X-Files, check out Wellington Paranormal -- which is basically X-Files but if they were local cops and were totally neutral toward spirits and such. Its funny.
Millennium is a show by the same team in the same universe that's even better in some regards -- if you're in a 90s binge for some reason :P
Go from the start. There's so much different content across all nine seasons, that there's something for everyone throughout. The best of the content doesn't really require context, so picking and choosing is fine. Only the "mytharc" episodes need context but those are also the derided part of the show since they don't really go anywhere by the end and don't really take advantage of what made X-Files so good.
What I enjoyed about X-Files, a show I only watched fully in recent years, is that it's a police procedural through and through, like NCIS, CSI, or Law & Order. Except it tackles myths, cryptozoology, folk tales, and more. Mulder and Scully are professionals through and through, always focused on being proper FBI agents first and foremost. They flash their badges all the time, as they should. They speak professionally and discuss theory and hypotheses a lot. They never get personal enough that it takes over the show, like what seems to happen in every other police procedural or X-Files re-attempt (i.e. Fringe). They are consummate professionals.
It's just fun TV in the end. Sure, some things don't age well like how despite being trained FBI agents neither of them seem to learn how to use a gun the entire time or how they keep splitting up when they shouldn't, but the show has a unique feel and sentiment that no other show even tries to match. Also, it's fun to spot all the now-famous people that showed up as bit roles throughout the show.
The first season is pretty weak in terms of production (the writing is otherwise still good) but it massively improves by the second and third season. I also didn't find the latter two seasons as bad as many other people to, I actually like Agent Doggett quite a bit and the twist on the dynamic with him and Scully breathes some new life into the show. Oh, and the rather recent HD remaster of the show is actually one of the good ones.
Something to look out for are the Vince Gilligan episodes. One of them, Drive, is the episode with Brian Cranston that eventually resulted in Breaking Bad.
X-Files is tricky because they rejected ideas about canon and consistency, and they had so many different writers. There's a recurring character called "smoking man". In a modern show viewers would be able to think about who he is and what he represents and what side he's on, even if all of those things were kept ambiguous. But in X Files he just represents whatever the writer of that particular episode wants and so, if you're keeping track over the series, he ends up being an incomprehensible mish-mash of a load of different tropes. And this is true of a bunch of different recurring themes.
It was great in the 1990s, and I guess it can still be enjoyable, but there are problems with it today.
I'd say the standalone episodes from season 4 to 6 really stood the test of time...
LOST. It was the first show I got really invested in on another level. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seemed like one of the first shows to really transcend into the internet. I wrote reviews on tv.com which I have never done before and I read extensively about theories online. Although I watched the first season on regular TV I pirated the rest because I wanted to be up to date with when it aired in the US so I could read about it immediately afterwards. I watched it in my dorm room with a friend on my laptop. Such great memories. The mystic, the drama, the unknowing was something I have never experienced before. I loved it. That show holds a special place in my heart and that's why it has to be my favorite show.
Now...Quality wise I would hold Breaking Bad to a higher standard than LOST and I love the show too because of that. The episode discussions on the r/breakingbad subreddit made it so much better and I always recommend first time viewers to check them out after each episode. The attention to detail, the pacing, the acting and the shear nauseating continuous downward spiral is just impeccable in the show. I've always had a soft spot for "from bad to worse" kinda shows/movies because the often seem more "real" to me and BB really delivers here. Also BB holds up on every rewatch.
I was DEEEEEP into the LOST theory scene. I had a LOST crew that would come over every week to watch, then we'd essentially have a bible study over it.
I'm with you with regards to it being the first show to really transcend to the internet while it was still running.
One great thing about LOST is that it has not only held up, but I think its improved with time. I did a rewatch last year or so and totally fell in love with it all over again. The sub is fairly active, too, which is fun.
If you haven't already, get your hands on the Chronological edit. Its fun to go through it again in that order and pushes the recital at the end to a standalone prologue.
Yes, I forgot to mention that. The sub is great and surprisingly active.
I've been meaning to do that but I think I'll have to rewatch the original first. The last rewatch was maybe 10 years ago. I really like the idea and the thought of seeing it in a different light.
definitely do it. At the time, I was so mad because they'd say one thing on the podcast then do the exact opposite. With the blessing of time, it has all balanced out.
I still won't read Gary Troup's Bad Twin, however. A friend took one for the team and said it was not worth it.
Westworld. The first two seasons in particular; This show did something special, where it forces us to look into the mirror. It helps with feeling and intuitively experiencing, instead of just factually reasoning about, topics like AI, Ethics, our culture, our future. It gave me a some intuition about:
It did all this while being action packed, having good actors, great visuals, and a bingeworthy story. Some people dont like it all that much so I wonder what those people got out of it...
Whenever I hear the opening theme I get the urge to "just start pondering about life".
Please watch Person of Interest and tell me what you think.
Thread: https://tildes.net/~tv/775/recommendation_person_of_interest_2011_2016
Edit: So?! Did you watch it yet?!? What did you think?! I MUST KNOW
"Without spoiling: throughout Season 2, the series actually completely shifts genre almost unnoticeably, from 'generic police procedural' to 'long-arc Westworld-style tech scifi' "
Well you summed it up perfectly. I have never watched more then 3 episodes of POI because season 1 was a bit 'meh'. But now i read your review I'm kind of excited for the tech scifi style in season 2. So i might have to give this one another chance!
Do!! I got the recommendation from Day9. Back then, I would watch POI on my second monitor while working, and I kind of … tuned off over season 1 so I'd just be glancing once in a while. I clearly remember right around the S1 finale glancing a bit more and more often and realizing "Wait, when did this become good?".
All uphill from there.
Agreed! This was the first major network show that actually got computers mostly right. (Yeah they still had some stupid tropes to move the plot forward, but they got more right than anyone else had.) There was even a line where Finch tells an aspiring young programmer he should be using atomic variables in a multi-threaded piece of code. That's a level of detail you don't usually see in a TV show on a major network. Mr. Robot also got a lot right in this regard, but it came later and was on a basic cable network.
The Leftovers is probably the biggest emotional connection I’ll ever have to a TV show.
I watched it when it first came out and liked it a lot. But for some reason came back to it after my ex fiancé left me a month before our wedding.
All the topics that the show handled just related to me on a whole different level than it did before. Grief, Trauma, Abandonment, rebuilding your life, re-adjusting, all that stuff. The second time around I truly understood what the characters were going through. Watching their reactions and emotions was like a mirror of my own.
I definitely stopped watching a few episodes in because I felt I was too low to keep going. Like I needed a break from all this grief and depression in my life.
That was a few years ago now and I’m doing much better and wonder if I should give it a re-watch again, just for old times sake!
I don't watch a whole heck of a lot of TV but there are certainly some shows that hold specific meanings for me.
Sword Art Online- This was the first anime I had ever watched. I grew up with a very.....racist and toxic father who saw anything animated as too "childish"(even for children) and anything foreign made was an affront to Murica. Seriously, this man had me watching Full Metal Jacket at 6-7 years old because he wanted his sons to grow up to be "warriors". I was working on an ambulance, at the time, and one of the other EMT's was watching the show. The intro song was what drew me in, originally. I don't know why. I'd never listened to anything in Japanese before but it just hooked me. When I had down time, I started the show from the beginning and the entire premise was just......mind blowing to me. A video game that was this life like? A true virtual reality world? I imagined how all of my favorite games like World of Warcraft, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, and Halo would feel in this sort of true VR. And the premise of the show, being trapped until the game was beaten and death in the game meant death in real life? It didn't take long before I'd watched everything SAO that was dubbed. If I'm watching SAO from as objective a mindset as I can, I can certainly see the issues and why it has many detractors. But it's a guilty pleasure and I love it.
Stargate SG-1- SG-1 was the first TV show that I ever really just.....binged. Just sheer nonstop, episode to episode binging. I was completely enamored with Samantha Carter, wanted to be Daniel Jackson, and really wanted Teal'c and O'Neill as best friends. General Hammond and Bra'tac were the stern but actually caring male role models I never really had. But one thing that really drew me in was the shows embrace of mythology, specifically Egyptian, to frame the bad guys. I've had a very passing, casual interest in Egyptian mythology since Brendan Frasers "The Mummy" film first introduced the concept to me and SG-1 was just an extension of that. Another thing that I greatly appreciated was how.....natural....the progression of the shows technology was. The SG teams start off with basic military gear and as the show progresses, they introduce more and more advanced technologies culminating in Earth's first interstellar warships. But in the beginning, the SG teams were at a complete and serious disadvantage and it showed. It made the show feel......like there were stakes. How could SG-1 possibly get out of this situation? But somehow, SG-1's combined strengths would always win out.
Funny, .hack is one of my important series for very similar reasons.
SG-1: are you me? Likewise, one of the first shows I binged. First one was MacGyver, but SG-1 was the first one I really binged.
Riiiiight?! My absolute favourite part about SG-1 is being present for all the technological advancements. It's a shame the show got trapped into one-upping itself, especially with the bad guys => defeat bad guy, bigger badder guy is next. Defeat bigger badder guy => Even bigger badder guy. Until going up against actual, near-literal gods.
100%. I know it's partially because the show was expected to only have 5 seasons, originally. It proved popular enough that they kept bringing it back but it was clear that it was never intended to last as long as it did. I don't even hate the Ori seasons. I rather enjoy them because I really enjoy Vala's dynamic with the team. But the Ori were just copy pasted from the Goa'uld, right down to the staff weapons. . Classic case of "Sure you can copy my homework but change it up so it doesn't LOOK like you copied it".
Supernatural got trapped into this and it's a big reason I stopped watching it.
Amen. Though at least Supernatural seemed to take it in Stride and made a bit of a meme out of it. I did stop watching as well though… lost interest because the stakes were just not there anymore, what with dying becoming meaningless.
Yea I'll grant that they at least gave an in universe reason for it all.
But it still frustrated me. After season 11 or so I was just like......what now? What could they possibly do with this story that makes sense?
And then the shows treatment of any character not named Sam and Dean was also annoying. Especially the female characters.
If there is one show that I'm really grateful for being made in the past few years, I would have to say that it's Steven Universe.
Sure, you can certainly criticize it for how much fluff it has, but that fluff ends up being meaningful since the overall theme of the show is growth and acceptance, and I think those messages are exactly what the world needs to hear more of. I love that the background is this epic story about saving the Earth from a vast alien threat, and it gets saved by this young boy - not because he grew up to be strong, but because he was able to hold on to his innocent ideals as he grew up. His message of acceptance allows the people he comes into contact with to realize that their imperfections and flaws are not problems, but rather things that make them unique, which only serves to make them stronger, better people.
Beyond that, there are a number of technical achievements that I really appreciate in the production of the show. It features a number of musical numbers that are noticeably underproduced to make the emotions of the singer feel more sincere, and it culminates with the film being a full-fledged musical. By the end of the series (and most notably in the film), they bring back straight-through animation (where an animator will draw the whole action sequentially, frame-by-frame, without using keyframes), which produces a more natural feeling to the motion. This had become very rare in western animation productions, where most of the work usually gets outsourced to foreign countries.
I'm also completely blown away by the mere existence of Steven Universe Future. It's an entire spinoff where the main character deals with PTSD. I've quite simply never seen any piece of art go there before, and I was somewhat surprised to have some of the stupid actions I've made in my past recontextualized by some of these episodes.
spoiler and oversharing
Especially in regards to how Steven acts around Connie and asks her to marry him. I know all too well how it feels like when you feel the need to attach yourself to someone else just to be able to deal with who you are, and I never want to be that person again.The Twilight Zone - by Rob Sterling. It introduced Gremlins, Living Doll and so much more.
Bagpuss because I watched it with my kid and we both sang along with the songs.
Ivor the Engine because I remember watching it with my Ma, sitting snuggled up on the sofa.
I'd have to say Buffy the Vampire Slayer and My So-Called Life. Both are the stories of outsiders trying to get by, and both try to do it not by fitting in, but by making it work with who they are. In addition, the main characters both have a group of friends who also don't fit in. They support each other in ways that family either doesn't or can't and that resonated with me.
Buffy was kind of amazing. I just wish that I knew about it while it was still airing because that was when it would have been much more relevant to my life. Even though I watched it all in the twilight of my teenage years, it still managed to have a big impact on me. It was essentially a manual on how to grow up in those times. Buffy makes many many mistakes, as well as decisions she later comes to regret, and all of them end up making her a better person.
Probably the best way to understand why Buffy remains such a well regarded piece of drama is how it treated Buffy's relationship with Angel. It's full of social taboo; not only is Angel a vampire, he's also a much older man with a very checkered past. But the show itself does not discourage the relationship; it even shows that it mutually benefits them. But then after that it flips the script and shows just how two-faced and abusive that relationship can also be. And that's what ends up making Buffy so well regarded for her strength; not because she has magical vampire slayer super-strength, but because she's strong enough to overcome these kinds of emotional hurdles. Throughout the series, she goes through severe depression, gets PTSD, loses her mother, and deals with so much pain; yet she always manages to overcome it. And as someone who has gone through almost all of those things, perhaps that's why I appreciate it so well.
I never realized until you just pointed it out that Buffy's mental state after her return from the afterlife is a form of PTSD.
These aren't my favorite shows by any means but as someone who doesn't really get that attached to television the exception has been the various feel-good "friends figuring shit out" sitcoms from over the years. I don't know if its just nostalgia for the periods in my life when these were on in the background or just how relatable they were but Friends, How I met Your Mother, and Schitt's Creek were all shows that I felt connected to.
There are only two things I'd say were/are actually meaningful, and they go back to childhood. Sesame Street, back when it was actually good, is the first. I can probably trace major differences in life outlooks and politics with anyone I know to how much Sesame Street they watched as a kid. The second is Japan Video Topics, which is still available via a couple channels on YT. It probably sparked my interest in travel and foreign cultures, as it was one of if not the first consistent looks that I got into life in a country that didn't speak English. Just having that awareness and exposure helped broaden my perspective tremendously.
I've liked various other things over the years, but I don't think I'd class anything else as particularly important.
Both Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown and No Reservations. My dad and I binged both the long summer before I went to college, and we made it a little tradition of making some late night snack beforehand because we would always get hungry watching Bourdain slurp down some noodles. It also made me want to get out of my comfort zone more and travel, which I have been fortunate enough to be able to do in the time since. When Bourdain died it hit us both really hard, and watching them hasn't been the same since. But I'm still very grateful for the many many seasons we got to enjoy.