Favorite TV Shows?

faeyr

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I spent a few minutes making up a top 10 favorite films list for another thread and thought it might be fun to have one for TV shows too. I've hit the point in the quarantine/work-from-home haze where the urge to make cultural lists is rising and I've also had trouble sticking with shows lately when I could be playing games, so crowdsourcing recommendations seems like a good idea.

Ten possible favs in no particular order, except the first one which is definitely my favorite:

X-Files
Twin Peaks
The Prisoner
Six Feet Under
Deadwood
Battlestar Galactica (not the original)
Babylon 5 (I haven't watched it in 20 years though, so it may not hold up)
The Simpsons (the middle seasons, haven't watched the new ones in many years)
Toast of London
Batman: The Animated Series (Superman, Justice League, included)
 

PsychedelicDiamond

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First is The Prisoner, second is Twin Peaks, that much is unambiguous for me.

Outside of that, in no particular order...

Fargo
The Young Pope
Utopia
Revolutionary Girl Utena
Blood Drive
Sopranos
Serial Experiments Lain
Venture Bros

I guess those would all be in my Top 10.
 
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Phoenixmgs

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-Firefly
-Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
-Arrested Development (original run)
-Seinfeld/Curb Your Enthusiasm (Larry David represent)
-The Simpsons (the classics obviously)
-Legion
-Westworld (Season 1)
-Scream Queens (Season 1)
-Altered Carbon (Season 1)
-Jessica Jones (Season 1)
-The Good Place
-Parks and Recreation
-Scrubs (like the 1st 4-5 seasons)
-Brooklyn Nine-Nine
-The IT Crowd / Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
-Terriers
-Life (Damian Lewis cop show)
-Veronica Mars
-Buffy
-Batman: The Animated Series
-Archer
-The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
-Pushing Daisies

Blood Drive
Haha, I loved the camp of this, an android becoming sentient from an orgasm, not much else left to be said.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD!!!
 
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Trunkage

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In no order:

Babylon 5
The Expanse
Battlestar Galactica
Parks and Rec
Archer
Fringe
The Shield
Band of Brothers
Deadwood
Breaking Bad
Carnivale
Wire in the Blood
The Wire

And a potential one for the Witcher. Need to see more to decide
 
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BrawlMan

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No order:

Avatar: Last Airbender
Shaman King
Digimon Adventure
Fresh Prince
Family Matters
Hey Arnold
Powerpuff Girls
New York Undercover
South Central
Alex Mack
All That
In Living Color
Samurai Jack
Cowboy Bebop
Samurai Champloo
Trigun
FMA: Brotherhood
Outlaw Star
Tenchi Universe
Married With Children
Static Shock
Batman Animated Series
Batman Beyond
Justice League
X-Men 90s Cartoon
Dr. House (everything before season 5)
KND: Kids Next Door
South Park
Living Single
 
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happyninja42

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I don't really watch tv shows much anymore, other than the occasional netflix series. But the ones that I can remember that I enjoy, and like to watch multiple times:

Babylon 5 - One of the most influential shows for me personally.

Sense8 - This show hit so many fun buttons for me. The general theme of "we are stronger together" being illustrated in various scenes where the other members of the cluster would show up always made me grin and get choked up. And Leto was hilarious. My god that actor, he was SOOO good at playing a latino drama queen, but also could be a badass when the scene required it. The music hit a lot of the right things for me, and just overall the positive outlook it had just really always gets me.

Yeah, I can't really think of any others. I mean I'm sure there are some other shows where if I remembered them I would be like "oh yeah! that's a favorite too", but like I said, I don't watch much TV or movies these days, haven't for past decade or so. So my memory of tv shows that I like is getting rusty.
 

Hawki

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Not going to rank them, and I'm probably going to miss some. That said, I can probably nominate:

-Babylon 5 (best sci-fi show I've ever seen, though I haven't got round to season 5 yet)

-The Simpsons (while its best days are long behind it, I think it deserves a mention because of the heights its reached, plus the pop culture influence it achieved)

-Avatar: The Last Airbender (while other cartoons have impacted on me more, I'm going to list TLA here because of its solid writing, characters, worldbuilding, and storytelling - basically, TLA does everything right, and remains accessible to both children and adults. This deserves all the praise it gets)

-Game of Thrones (there'll be debate as to when the show declined, and I haven't seen the final season yet, and you could argue that its strengths are entirely due to the books, but still, this is easily one of my favourite TV shows. Even at its worst, it's still better than most fantasy shows I've seen)

-Futurama (I'm including this here because while Futurama didn't last as long as the Simpsons did, I'd say it did a better job of maintaining its quality. However, the reason it's here, and not in honourable mentions, is that I feel its penetration in pop culture (e.g. "shut up and take my money," "oh you were being serious, let me laugh harder," etc.) does warrant a 'best of all time' position.)

-Foyle's War (this is probably an obscure entry, but easily my favourite detective/mystery show. Well written, good characters, and while I feel it peaked at the end of WWII in its storyline, we still had solid stuff afterwards)

-Lost (people seem to rag on this show a lot; from what I can tell, it's because it kind of went off the rails in its last seasons. And while I kind of agree, I still honestly think that Lost is excellent television. We've got the mystery that's slowly unveiled, and we've got the characters, all of whom are solid, and develop/are revealed over time. I missed Lost when it came out, but binged it on DVD, and there's a reason why I binged it the way I did.)

-Doctor Who (I've actually stopped watching DW; the Eleventh Doctor thing was the final straw on a pile that had been growing since Matt Smith took over. That said, I'm still including it, because DW is a show I absolutely loved at its peak, and I still have immense respect for it at the end of the day.)

-Midsummer Murders/Death in Paradise (these are entirely fluff that are ludicrous when you get down to it, but this is favourite TV shows, not best. And yeah, I'm allowed my guilty pleasures, right?)

I'm also going to give honourable mentions - mainly from what people have listed, even if I don't consider these shows my favourite:

-Battlestar Galactica (reboot): Really like this, even if season 4 doesn't reach the heights of previous seasons. That said, not quite my favourite, as it didn't reach the emotional impact some other shows have)

-Firefly (good, if not great)

-Westworld (only seen season 1, but it's a season that's excellently written. That said, I don't know if I can call it the best, since again, only one season)

-Parks and Recreation (I like this show, but I'd say its quality is like a bell curve - it starts off weak, albeit still enjoyable, with season 1, steadily gets better to when it peaks in season 4, then starts to decline with the last season being the weakest of the bunch. So, lots of fun to watch, but still has distinct flaws)

-The Expanse (again, can't call it a favourite, but very solid sci-fi)

-Band of Brothers (solid WWII series)

-Cowboy Bebop (CB is a bit of a weird one for me, in that while I don't enjoy it that much episode to episode, I still regard the anime highly. Got a great style, and there's a theme of nihilism that comes in towards the end that's very well done IMO)

-South Park (I'm giving this honourable mention status, because like the Simpsons, South Park's managed to be both hilarious and pertinent. That said, I'm leaving the Simpsons in the top spot because while South Park's endured better in the long run as far as I can tell, the Simpsons has managed to be very heartwarming in its best moments, whereas South Park never really has. At the end of the day, if the Simpsons is the venerable dad of the genre that fell on hard times but you love all the same, South Park is the edgy son that never stopped being edgy. And Family Guy is that weird uncle you think you love, but then come to see as being a repulsive human being)

-The 100 (only seen the first two seasons, but for a show that I was initially skeptical towards due to it selling itself on teens with romance, it's astounding how well written it actually is (well, the first two seasons at least)

-The Dragon Prince (only seen the first two seasons, but as a close cousin to TLA, I feel this deserves a mention. It doesn't reach the same heights, but all the strengths of TLA can be found here.)

-Farscape (I'll always love Farscape. It peaked in season 2, but even then, there's great stuff to be found in its last two seasons. It's such a shame IMO that Farscape is today overshadowed by the likes of Firefly and Guardians of the Galaxy - both of which I like, but Farscape is the one that had sex, drugs, and killer muppets, while also lots of heart)

-My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (you'll probably raise eyebrows here, but I'm including this because at the end of the day, MLP could have simply not tried. It could have been content to go all squee like previous generations did. Instead, we have characters that change over time, good humour, good worldbuilding, and decent morals for children, even if I didn't need those morals. I don't know if I can call MLP a great show, but I can certainly call it a very good show, and there's a reason why it appealed beyond its intended audience.)

-Pokemon (including this because I was enamored with it as a kid, and I feel it has enough influence to warrant inclusion here.)
 

Alienware

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Suits
24
Entourage
The Sopranos
Lost
Game of Thrones
The OC
The Good Wife
 

Elvis Starburst

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In no order...

Archer
Riverdale
Futurama
South Park
Megas XLR
Mow Mow Heroes of Pure Heart
Planet Earth
Chernobyl (Does that count?)

Now, if we include anime, that becomes an entirely different list
 

gorfias

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I haven't seen the Orville on this site!!!
But the topic is too big for me. I think TV changed a lot after 2000. I love M.A.S.H. and Hill Street Blues but by today's standards, they have not aged well. Since 2000?

Scrubs
Breaking Bad
Better Call Saul
Ozark
Daredevil (Netflix)

Some honorable mentions:
Preacher
Legion
Fringe
Penny Dreadful
Mr. Robot
Fargo
Crazy Ex Girlfriend
 
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Trunkage

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I haven't seen the Orville on this site!!!
that's because its okay. At the same quality of Discovery but very different. I realised last month that I haven't finished season 2 yet. I still haven't rectified that because it just can't draw me in like The Expanse

Its really bad that I forgot this on my list considering my avatar
 
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Phoenixmgs

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Sense8 - This show hit so many fun buttons for me. The general theme of "we are stronger together" being illustrated in various scenes where the other members of the cluster would show up always made me grin and get choked up. And Leto was hilarious. My god that actor, he was SOOO good at playing a latino drama queen, but also could be a badass when the scene required it. The music hit a lot of the right things for me, and just overall the positive outlook it had just really always gets me.
That just reminded me that I never saw the last episode as I remember hearing that they were going to do a finale movie after it was cancelled.

-Doctor Who (I've actually stopped watching DW; the Eleventh Doctor thing was the final straw on a pile that had been growing since Matt Smith took over. That said, I'm still including it, because DW is a show I absolutely loved at its peak, and I still have immense respect for it at the end of the day.)

-Westworld (only seen season 1, but it's a season that's excellently written. That said, I don't know if I can call it the best, since again, only one season)
I want to say the 2nd season of Peter Capaldi was really good. Just looking over his first season on Wikipedia, it has some fun episodes for sure featuring a great cover of Queen's Don't Stop Me Now on the Orient Express episode. Clara might be my favorite companion (even though a lot of people didn't like her it seems) and her arc ends in Capaldi's 2nd season really well. Her 1st season is with Matt Smith and it's a pretty shitty season, I wanna say aliens show up and save them at the end of episodes like half the time or something, it was ridiculous. I don't think you'd like need to watch it though. But yeah, I don't recall if any of Matt Smiths seasons were good (maybe one of them was) and the seasons with the new chick have sucked (not because of her, just bad writing).

Westworld season 1 works as being standalone so the rest of the seasons can't ruin it, that's why I listed it as well. You can watch season 1 and stop if you want and be perfectly satisfied. Whereas like Lost (as you mentioned it), I loved the 1st season of it but it totally doesn't wrap an arc or storyline in any satisfying manner so it doesn't really work as being standalone.

Its really bad that I forgot this on my list considering my avatar
Legion is IMO the best Marvel live-action show/movie.
 
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Hawki

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I want to say the 2nd season of Peter Capaldi was really good. Just looking over his first season on Wikipedia, it has some fun episodes for sure featuring a great cover of Queen's Don't Stop Me Now on the Orient Express episode. Clara might be my favorite companion (even though a lot of people didn't like her it seems) and her arc ends in Capaldi's 2nd season really well. Her 1st season is with Matt Smith and it's a pretty shitty season, I wanna say aliens show up and save them at the end of episodes like half the time or something, it was ridiculous. I don't think you'd like need to watch it though. But yeah, I don't recall if any of Matt Smiths seasons were good (maybe one of them was) and the seasons with the new chick have sucked (not because of her, just bad writing).
I don't fault Moffat or Smith in of themselves - both of them are solid actors, and you could find decent episodes in both of their runs. In the case of Capaldi, for instance, Heaven Sent may be one of the best DW episodes out there. But Moffat was the main issue IMO. I think Moffat is great at delivering excellent stand-alone episodes, but as a showrunner, it became far too convoluted, and there was a tendency to resolve things along the lines of "just because." Like, Rings of Akhaten. The reason the sun thing doesn't win when it tries to take the Doctor's memories isn't because of any slight of hand the Doctor does, but simply because "he's a Time Lord, ergo long memories, ergo he's awesome." Maybe it's nostalgia, but under Davies, the plots generally felt much tighter.

As for Clara, I liked her as well. A lot of the hate that's directed towards her seems to be due to perceived Mary Sueness, like, this is a girl who fragments herself to insert echoes into the Doctor's timeline. Kind of like a self-insert thing. That said, I did like her - she had a good character, and it did feel distinct, in that one sees how the relationship between her and the Doctor frays over the question of Danny for instance. After her, we got Bill, who seems to be an exercise in anti-Sueness; make a character so normal that there's a lack of anything interesting about said character.
 

Trunkage

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Legion is IMO the best Marvel live-action show/movie.
It is one of the most creative showe I've ever seen.

But I also can't get past how they sided with Farouk, who abused a child/man over David who made a few mistakes. That never sat well with me
 

Gordon_4

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My favourite show above all others, is an Australia police drama called Phoenix. Its first series of 13 episodes was a dramatisation of the real life Bombing of Russel Street Police station in Melbourne in 1986. Think of it as an early 90's, distinctly Australian, version of The Wire. What really sets this bad boy above its peers is its writing, specifically the character dialogue. I make it personal if pathetic mission to use as many expressions as I possibly can.


Its also a really, really fascinating time capsule of what I'm informed is pretty true to life policing of the era in Australia. It also lacks the sort of.....glossy feel of most American shows in the genre. The colour is a bit washed out, no one is what I'd call 'television handsome', honestly some of the characters are kind of bastards, there's a fair wedge of casual bigotry going on in many directions but instead of sinking the characters it makes the more human. Somehow. The humour is also pitch black as well, I'm gonna put in a spoiler tag cos its actually pretty off colour:

In one party scene it is jokingly suggested that a Senior Sergeant get moved to another squad, someone suggests the rape squad to which the Sgt replies "Nah mate they won't take me; I get off on reading the reports too much"

Like fucking wow. The confidence you need in your script, your story and your actor's ability to deliver have to be phenomenal to even contemplate such a line.

I could honestly talk for ages about the show.
 

Phoenixmgs

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I don't fault Moffat or Smith in of themselves - both of them are solid actors, and you could find decent episodes in both of their runs. In the case of Capaldi, for instance, Heaven Sent may be one of the best DW episodes out there. But Moffat was the main issue IMO. I think Moffat is great at delivering excellent stand-alone episodes, but as a showrunner, it became far too convoluted, and there was a tendency to resolve things along the lines of "just because." Like, Rings of Akhaten. The reason the sun thing doesn't win when it tries to take the Doctor's memories isn't because of any slight of hand the Doctor does, but simply because "he's a Time Lord, ergo long memories, ergo he's awesome." Maybe it's nostalgia, but under Davies, the plots generally felt much tighter.

As for Clara, I liked her as well. A lot of the hate that's directed towards her seems to be due to perceived Mary Sueness, like, this is a girl who fragments herself to insert echoes into the Doctor's timeline. Kind of like a self-insert thing. That said, I did like her - she had a good character, and it did feel distinct, in that one sees how the relationship between her and the Doctor frays over the question of Danny for instance. After her, we got Bill, who seems to be an exercise in anti-Sueness; make a character so normal that there's a lack of anything interesting about said character.
From your post I thought you had stopped watching Doctor Who during Matt Smith's run and didn't see Capaldi's seasons. Yeah, Davies' seasons were way better than anything afterwards (maybe like the best Moffat season is better than Davies' worst). I feel Matt Smith's biggest issue was that he was too much like Tennant. I remember I kinda dipped my toe in the Doctor Who boards/discussion for like a minute and a half and I thought people didn't like Clara because the show focused too much on her vs the Doctor. Her "Mary Sue-ness" fed into her arc as she definitely done fucked up there at the end.
 

happyninja42

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From your post I thought you had stopped watching Doctor Who during Matt Smith's run and didn't see Capaldi's seasons. Yeah, Davies' seasons were way better than anything afterwards (maybe like the best Moffat season is better than Davies' worst). I feel Matt Smith's biggest issue was that he was too much like Tennant. I remember I kinda dipped my toe in the Doctor Who boards/discussion for like a minute and a half and I thought people didn't like Clara because the show focused too much on her vs the Doctor. Her "Mary Sue-ness" fed into her arc as she definitely done fucked up there at the end.
Interestingly, Matt Smith's run was when I really fell in love with Who. I started watching , like regularly watching, when I saw Don't Blink, and I enjoyed Tennant's run just fine, but I dunno, I just really like Matt more. When Capaldi came on board, I watched for about...3 episodes maybe? And I just...lost interest in it. It wasn't anything with the performances, I thought Capaldi and the actress who played Clara were just fine. It was the story lines. They just got...stupid. And I remember hearing from a friend of mine who kept watching, and they continued to be stupid. Then I picked it back up for a bit when the female Doctor came around, but again, the stories were just stupid. The one that broke me, was the one with the spiders, where they tried to paint the American who put the giant, dying spider out of it's misery (after they clearly established it was too big to survive, and was slowly suffocating, which is a TERRIBLE way to die), as the bad guy in that moment. And yeah, he wasn't a very nice person, and the bad events were his fault (that I recall), but a mercy killing of an animal that is doomed to die, so it doesn't suffer a slow, painful death, how is that a bad thing? I mean I fucking hate guns and violence IRL, but even I'm like "yeah, that was the humane thing to do in that situation." But the Doctor and the gang were all like "you monster!" And I just checked out at that point. Also things like that one guy with the neurological disorder or whatever, who couldn't ride a bicycle...yet he can run and aim and shoot a blaster rifle? It just seemed very situational when his ailment was active or not.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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I'll throw some out there.

- Green Wing - one of the few shows I can watch again and again (with space in between of course) it's British Comedy hospital show with some little dramatic elements. It sort of straddles the line between having surrealist moments and character humour as characters end up getting into bizarre situations thanks to the Hospital administrators antics. Th two series and special are basically a continuing set of character stories with the special giving them a variety of endings. It's like a Soap sometimes but played for laughs.

- Killjoys - Sci-Fi space Buffy pretty much

- Firefly - A lot of people bring this one or so I don't need to say much more.

- Better off Ted - Older US comedy show that feels like it's somewhere between The Office and The Big Bang Theory (I know some people hate the show but I liked it because I was willing to laugh at the absurdity of myself and people I know fitting those characters). The show is about Ted who heads the research division at the giant soul-less mega corporation Veridian Dynamics who have their hands in most things. Ted tries to balance the corporate desires and wants he had to fulfil with also generally not making the world a worse place. It was way ahead of it's time with an episode on about lab grown meat before it was even really being done or talked about in public and it even called out the problem with it. It also did one about issues with certain technology and struggling to detect POC which leads to some chaos.

- The Magicians - Harry Potter for adults / Harry Potter meets Skins. It tackles serious topics but can be quite an irreverent show which makes the gut punches it throws hit far harder

- Scorpion - It's Big Bang Theory but doing Mission Impossible basically. They have a problem the team has to solve then they Science the hell of of it to try and save the day.


-Game of Thrones (there'll be debate as to when the show declined, and I haven't seen the final season yet, and you could argue that its strengths are entirely due to the books, but still, this is easily one of my favourite TV shows. Even at its worst, it's still better than most fantasy shows I've seen)
Advice - Do the final season while drinking. You kind of need to it's about the only way to get through it I think

-Doctor Who (I've actually stopped watching DW; the Eleventh Doctor thing was the final straw on a pile that had been growing since Matt Smith took over. That said, I'm still including it, because DW is a show I absolutely loved at its peak, and I still have immense respect for it at the end of the day.)
Oddly Season 11 was probably slightly better than the end of Capaldi's run. However Season 12 starts strong then dives into a cliff into a pool of piss below.

-Westworld (only seen season 1, but it's a season that's excellently written. That said, I don't know if I can call it the best, since again, only one season)
Advice Push through Season 2 it has a bad start and it won't quite reach Season 1 levels by the end but the first few episodes of Season 2 were a very low point and a struggle for me even after loving Season 1 so much.
 

Trunkage

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- Killjoys - Sci-Fi space Buffy pretty much
That's pretty good for a fun romp

- The Magicians - Harry Potter for adults / Harry Potter meets Skins. It tackles serious topics but can be quite an irreverent show which makes the gut punches it throws hit far harder
I got The 100 vibes, not Skins. Also, way too much forcing stupid situations where they get naked and thus sexy times. That being said, I only have access to the first season