Orphan Black. Tatiana Maslany should have won ALL the awards.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. One of the funniest comedies ever. Season 18 (EIGHTEEN!) being shot right now. But awards? They mean absolutely nothing to them.
More like a miniseries, but HBO’s Chernobyl. Some of the best television I’ve ever seen.
As a scifi buff: Battlestar Galactica, and The Expanse were excellent. Nightsky was also a really good watch even though it was slow moving, and was more about relationships than SciFi
Obligatory Firefly mention.
The Wire. It’s the best piece of visual media ever created. Not only is it the best portrayal of the inner city drugs trade but also the decaying institutions and social structures that allow it to flourish, and the corrupting influence of dirty money.
It also is consistently the best written show on TV and is grounded in it’s reality better than anything else. Half the cast were complete unknowns, in many cases plucked from the streets of Baltimore itself and there are standout performances all across it’s vast and diverse cast.
It’s a little slow to get going, the first few episodes have a lot of ground to cover to get the viewer up to speed, it also makes no effort to ease the viewer in, with a lot of jargon, slang and some very thick accents to content with, there’s also no “previously on the wire” to go over key points from earlier episodes so it definitely requires more participation from the viewer than most TV but it’s all the better for it.
I am surprised that I’m the first to mention Bojack Horseman here.
This series is for you if you want to cry out your mental health problems
arrested development
The Good Place. Funny, compelling, I cried through the final episode. It also doesn’t waste your time, things will happen mid-season that any other show would have dragged out for the season finale.
- A&E’s Nero Wolfe
- Agatha Christie’s Poirot (with David Suchet)
- The Expanse
- Star Trek: TNG
- Fleabag (season 2 is a masterpiece, and I don’t throw that word around)
- For All Mankind
- Archane (season 1 is another masterpiece)
- Penny Dreadful (it dips in quality in the later seasons, but worth it for the Frankenstein’s monster story alone)
EDIT:
- Coupling (UK) - Thr first two seasons
- Keeping Up Appearances
- IT Crowd
Fringe. Best Sci-Fi ending that wraps back around to an episode that broke the show open. The last season getting there is kind of rough. But the first 4 seasons are solid.
Fringe is worth it for the White Tulip episode alone. For me that was when the series changed from a monster of the week series to actual art.
one thing that bothers me a lot on shows Is that it always seem they don’t know how to end things. I loved Fringe ending. They tied so many things together in a beautiful scene.
Tried to get into it recently. I don’t think it’s for me. The dialogue and delivery is not great.
You’re not alone. I went in expecting it to be high-quality based on comments similar to the above, then adjusted my sights for trite but entertaining, then realized I was only even entertained when John Noble was on screen (and to be fair, his performance was very fun).
I do recognize that it broke new ground and wasn’t as cliché when it originally aired, but it’s hard to imagine that it wasn’t just as hammy.
Its a victim of its time. There is a decent amount of filler and some episodes have big inconsistencies at one point due to being released out of order since they were filler content, but the overarching quality of the show, and watching it slowly move away from monster/mystery of the week to something that rewarded its fans in multiple intentional and sometimes subtle ways, it truly felt… And still feels… Like something deeply special and really worth recommending, even if you do end up having to work through a decent amount of filler in the first seasons.
Fringe should always benin rotation.
Came for Fringe, found it. Fucking good show and also a very satisfying ending.
The Good Place
Penny Dreadful
Community
Andor is the best piece of Star Wars media and the best TV show I’ve ever seen. You don’t need to like Star Wars. I don’t know if seeing Star Wars would even increase your enjoyment. I think seeing Rogue One would probably be good but otherwise just jump in. No space wizards or laser swords or destiny or whatever. It’s so adult and grounded. I can’t believe Disney let them make this.
Mr Robot
My partner and I tried sooo hard to like this show after so many recommendations online, but we just kept finding it hella cheesy and forced. D:
The first season was groundbreaking at the time, but quickly became cringe in hindsight from its popularity and the romanticization of certain events. Later seasons, which weren’t as immediately popular for spoiler reasons, get more and more serious and become more cinematically rewarding for the viewer.
If you can get past the first season, it gets a lot better. The last season is honestly some of the best pieces of television content I’ve ever seen.
Came here to recommend Mr Robot as well. The ending of the series was perfectly planned, so it loops around perfectly to the beginning of the series. It was a nice contrast to something like Game of Thrones, where they clearly had no good ending planned and just rushed through to get something done.
I remember watching the end of Mr Robot and going “holy shit.”
Farscape
