Author Topic: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor (Read 88830 times)

urlwolf · « **on:** June 05, 2009, 12:27 PM »

What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind, need successor.
But everything else seems super crappy (fringe, by Adams as well, is not as good as Lost).
Any suggestions?

TucknDar · « **Reply #1 on:** June 05, 2009, 12:30 PM »

I love Dexter! Highly recommended!

wraith808 · « **Reply #2 on:** June 05, 2009, 01:17 PM »

Any of the Joss Whedon shows are good if you like that sort of thing. In order I'd recommend Firefly, Angel, then Buffy.

Josh · « **Reply #3 on:** June 05, 2009, 01:20 PM »

House MD! Or if you are animation-oriented, south park - family guy - simpsons - king of the hill.

gexecuter · « **Reply #4 on:** June 05, 2009, 01:59 PM »

Breaking Bad is simply awesome, Bryan Cranston is incredible all the way trought every episode.

40hz · « **Reply #5 on:** June 05, 2009, 02:03 PM »

The Inspector Morse and Hercule Poirot series that originally ran (in the US) on PBS as part of the Mystery! program.

Also that classic sci-fi sleeper Space: Above and Beyond. One of the better and more intelligent riffs on the theme of "special forces in space." Exploits of the 58th Mobile Marine Attachment (Wild Cards) assigned to SCVN Saratoga. Very good character and plot development throughout. Now even more poignant in the wake of recent history. If you liked Haldeman's book The Forever War, you'll probably like this.

Innuendo · « **Reply #6 on:** June 05, 2009, 03:14 PM »

I would have suggested if you were a sci-fi buff to watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but it got canceled.

40hz · « **Reply #7 on:** June 05, 2009, 10:40 PM »

I would have suggested if you were a sci-fi buff to watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but it got canceled.
-Innuendo (June 05, 2009, 03:14 PM)

What is it with Summer Glau? Any series she's on seems to get canned.

Shades · « **Reply #8 on:** June 05, 2009, 11:50 PM »

Maybe she should start playing different roles...in all the series she played in (that I know (Firefly, Sarah Connor Chronicles) she is a psychosomatic personality.

i think she is so good in that she chases even the "money men" away

However, I love her work...Firefly FTW!

MilesAhead · « **Reply #9 on:** June 06, 2009, 12:29 AM »

I like Asian sitcoms w/eng. subs. Usually there's a super gorgeous evil chick who is trying the steal the boyfriend and job/scholarship/whatever of the girl next door goody two shoes babe(too nice to resort to the same underhanded tactics as the nasty babe.) Only trouble is, they must do a lot of food product placement because everyone is eating all the time. I have to do one snack after another while watching these things!

nosh · « **Reply #10 on:** June 06, 2009, 01:47 AM »

Maybe she just lacks the right people...

CleverCat · « **Reply #11 on:** June 06, 2009, 01:57 AM »

House MD! Or if you are animation-oriented, south park - family guy - simpsons - king of the hill.
-Josh (June 05, 2009, 01:20 PM)

House is priceless! We got our Dish just in time to start from Season1 - he's our daily late evening 'fix'!

lanux128 · « **Reply #12 on:** June 06, 2009, 07:50 AM »

we normally catch House MD, Heroes and My Name is Earl but Lost is the reason i finally opted for the cable.

during the beginning of the 2nd season, i remember chatting with someone from DC about the Dharma Initiative but i can't recall who exactly was it, so if you're reading this please let me know.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #13 on:** June 06, 2009, 08:04 AM »

Two shows just starting up again in the US - "Weeds" and "Burn Notice"

Having said that I don't live in the US so I tend to not watch live TV anymore - there is hardly anything worth watching theses days on UK TV.

My all time favourites in recent years (on DVD) are The West Wing and Boston Legal.

Been watching Grey's Anatomy on DVD recently (missed it thus far on TV - and most doens't seem to get shown in the UK). Really enjoyed it - especially the early series which are very funny.

Innuendo · « **Reply #14 on:** June 06, 2009, 09:45 AM »

Boston Legal was great, too. I felt they switched cast members too often, though.

I seem to think that we're all just shooting in the dark so far. It'd help immensely if the OP would let us know what they were looking for & refine their criteria for what they think is a good TV show.

Heck, just coming back and posting something in the thread would be nice. The OP hasn't posted again in this topic since they started it.

lanux128 · « **Reply #15 on:** June 06, 2009, 10:01 AM »

i remember when i was a kid watching old shows on a rerun, titles such as The Land of the Giants, The Man from UNCLE, The Lone Ranger and many others. i wonder why there are no remakes of them.

AndyM · « **Reply #16 on:** June 06, 2009, 10:50 AM »

I used to watch Lost to unwind, need successor.
-urlwolf (June 05, 2009, 12:27 PM)

Nothing wrong with what's been mentioned (except for Wraith808 who was so right but completely wrong - it's Buffy, then Angel, then Firefly

)

But you've all missed the obvious one...

Alias!

ak_ · « **Reply #17 on:** June 06, 2009, 11:36 AM »

Breaking Bad is simply awesome, Bryan Cranston is incredible all the way trought every episode.
-gexecuter (June 05, 2009, 01:59 PM)

I second that, this show is great.

I don't know if you're exclusively asking for recent show but here : "Six feet under" is the best show ever made, "Oz" is really awesome if you don't mind gruesome events every now and then... You should also have a look at "Spaced", a TV show from England with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost ("Shaun of the Dead"). I'm a big fan of "The office" too (UK and US).

More recent stuff : "30 rock" is nice, "The IT crowd" too...

MilesAhead · « **Reply #18 on:** June 06, 2009, 11:36 AM »

Hmmmmm slipped my mind but on Comedy Central the best show has to be Reno 911 .. at least afa live action goes. I'm not sure if it will hold up since many of the cast have moved on. So far this season it still seems pretty funny though.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #19 on:** June 06, 2009, 11:46 AM »

First 3 seasons or so of Sopranos was great. The story line kind of arced in a lame direction around then I think. Christopher was supposed to become the conduit for Tony, while Tony kept in the shadows. For some reason they decided to have Tony beat and shoot everyone personally and made Christopher a drug addict. Jumped the shark.

True Blood seems to have some humor. Only thing I can't figure is why the top honcho vampire who is this gigantic dude, takes crap from the little skinny guy who is Anna Paquin's boyfriend.

For all time, Twilight Zone had some great shows. I just saw them all way too many times.

Innuendo · « **Reply #20 on:** June 06, 2009, 01:31 PM »

Miles, we loved The Sopranos over here and with no disrespect to your opinion we thought that phase of the series was very well-done. Here was a mob boss who had been expanding his crews areas of influence and operation coming to realize that he was becoming too big of a threat for the authorities to ignore. He wisely decides that he needs to drop into the shadows and put a few layers of plausible deniability between him and the crimes.

He also wisely surmised that he was getting older and he needed to start grooming a replacement to head the crime family. What better choice than Christopher who is blood and he's been mentoring all along? Now here the writers could have taken the easy way out by making Christopher out to be a stunning pupil and protege by taking over the family like gangbusters and taking their crime sprees to new heights.

Instead, we thought it was a much better story point to go the way they did. Christopher was always a screw-up. It should have been no surprise to everyone that when given bigger opportunities Christopher was going to screw up in even bigger ways.

We thought it was always a wonderful plotline that Tony had great things planned for Christopher, but Christopher just wasn't cut out for the life. He lacked the skillset to become a great mafioso & thereby Tony had to resort to following behind Christopher cleaning up his messes because he had a great love for Christopher living in denial that the boy wasn't cut out for that kind of life till the very end when Tony finally realized that Christopher was endangering their entire mafia operation and very hard choices had to be made.

Sometimes the people you choose to follow in your footsteps don't have the motivations or abilities that you think they have or should have and the Tony/Christopher story arc showcased that point perfectly, in our IMHO.

But yeah, if you thought Christopher was going to shine when given his time in the son becoming the new Al Capone or something then yeah...you were sorely disappointed. However, if you go back and look at the early Christopher episodes it's easy to see he was in way over head and wasn't taking things anywhere near seriously enough.

Oh, one last unrelated thing...Rod Serling was magnificent. There's never been anyone remotely like him anywhere.

Coeluh · « **Reply #21 on:** June 06, 2009, 01:37 PM »

Family Guy, That 70s Show (reruns...

), South Park, American Dad!

MilesAhead · « **Reply #22 on:** June 06, 2009, 03:29 PM »

Hmmmmmmmmm see, to me I think the reason they changed the plot line in Sopranos was people liked to see Tony do the dirty work. I guess cable/HBO doesn't have ratings exactly like network TV does, but they still get feedback. I don't think Tony sitting in a dark room smoking a cigar making phone calls would get the adrenalin goin' the same as him pistol whipping some guy who didn't pay the vig.

Just my $.02

Innuendo · « **Reply #23 on:** June 06, 2009, 05:51 PM »

Miles, laughs...that could very well be, but I had always thought the series was going to be the rise and fall of Tony Soprano. What made that show so good, I guess, is there are so many ways to interpret what happened over the run of the show.

And where's that OP? He must be off enjoying all the shows we have suggested thus far.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #24 on:** June 06, 2009, 07:29 PM »

Miles, laughs...that could very well be, but I had always thought the series was going to be the rise and fall of Tony Soprano. What made that show so good, I guess, is there are so many ways to interpret what happened over the run of the show.

-Innuendo (June 06, 2009, 05:51 PM)

Yeah, I was kind of surprised when Tony started talking about staying in the background. I thought, wow, this is really different. But I guess that type of psychological drama would be difficult to maintain over time. For all I know the show may have ended early just because there wasn't enough eye candy. I mean those babes at Badda Bing just didn't do anything for me!! And no wonder those guys were so violent!! Look at the women they had to live with!! Geez!! I think I'd break out the Thompson submachine gun myself!!