I haven’t been watching much in terms of actual shows for a good while, then while listening to a podcast a host casually mentioned they had rewatched Chernobyl, how it still holds up, that there’s a reason it got as much acclaim as it did, etc. So I thought I’d give it a go and wow, loved it (still one episode left to watch).
Had me thinking, what else have I missed out on? What are some “absolute cinema” TV shows that still hold up and and are considered must watch?
Phineas and Ferb; I love their music and evil adventures Dr. Doofenshmirtz
This is PEAK of my last year.
My Fiancee and I just over the last couple of weeks binged the series 12 Monkeys for the first time. Easily one of my favorite shows period, and it’s a show that ended as intended.
If you’ve seen the movie, from other people’s observations (I haven’t watched it), the first season of the show vaguely follows along a similar idea, but it absolutely is not the same afterwards.
It’s 4 seasons and 46 episodes so it’s not a huge commitment, but the payoff is so worth it.
The show is one of the rare ones where it only gets better as it goes on, up to the very last episode. Truly underrated and overlooked.
What’s the genre?
Dystopian Sci-Fi. Time travel Adventure
4400 is that scifi show, although its an old show form the late 2000s. dystopian future that have time travel sublpot, mixed with “superpowers” given to normal humans plucked out of random points in time. i think the show has too much going on for it to continue, 3 large concepts : time travel, superpowers, preventing future events.
I binged that show a few years ago and loved it. One thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about though - it’s been 25 years since the apocalypse; where are they getting all the booze, cigarettes, fuel and bullets from? There’s presumably no manufacturing going on, and looting would have used up existing stocks pretty quickly.
Well, shit. Love the movie, don’t know how I missed that a tv series was made lol. Thanks for the comment!
Personally I only really started enjoying the TV show when I stopped comparing it to the movie. I enjoyed both, but for different reasons.
The sopranos
How can anyone be in this thread without mentioning the wire. One of the best shows of all time. Sopranos was pretty good.
Sopranos > The Wire
Apparently I like War, Mystery, and Comedy. List:
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Andor: Is great, even if you aren’t a Star Wars fan. Each 3 episode arc is better than the last. Only planned as 1 season, but did so well they made a Season 2 and Season 2 is better. You can use Rogue One as a cap to the series.
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Veronica Mars: watched all of it for the first time this year. It holds up 20+ years later.
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Ted Lasso: Comedy about a college American Football coach coaching English Football/soccer.
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The Good Place: Strangely a philosophy heavy comedy. It slows in places, but is absolutely worth watching.
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Schmitt’s Creek: Comedy about unlikeable rich people becoming poor. It takes a bit to start, but each season is better than the last and nails the landing.
Possibles:
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Altered Carbon (Season 1): Great murder mystery set in a cyberpunk, dystopian future.
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Shogun: Medieval Japan samurai “game of thrones”-esk show. Only planned as 1 season, but did so well they are making a Season 2.
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Band of Brothers: War show about American rangers in WW2.
Veronica mars is great. Really scratched that Buffy itch for me, but with added noir. I’m enjoying high potential at the moment, but it’s not to the same level.
Altered Carbon season 1 was so good!
Shame they never made a second season… (/s)
Haha, I feel that. So much potential.
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The good place. I found hysterical but the ethics it tried to teach was even better. I’m a 48 year old male and I legit bawled like a baby when the series wrapped
I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve watched this series, and the ending makes me cry every time.
Nobody seems to have watched it, but “Counterpart”. It’s a mind fuck Science Fiction show. Only 20 episodes, so manageable.
It was cancelled, but the writers knew beforehand and wrote an absolute perfect conclusion for the last episodes.
Also it’s best to go in blind. There are events predicted in the show that later happened for real (I don’t want to spoil it), and it’s fun to think “oh that is how and why it happened”!
Also J.K. Simmons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpart_(TV_series)
I can’t recommend this show enough.
Widow’s Bay is a recent horror comedy series starring Matthew Rhys & Stephen Root that’ll be getting a second season. I consume all media and I highly recommend this gem, especially for the person who’s seen everything in these comments. It has excellent, subtle comedy, ramping lore-building in the vein of the best years of LOST, and the story of the week combined with overarching season arc structure of classics like X-Files.
100% recommend this. I haven’t laughed at a show this much in a long time. Matthew Rhys is the king of reactions.
Well put!
I expect the actors loved doing this show, most of them get to perform two versions of the same character. They all knock it out of the park.
Terrific show.
I think most people know that J.K. Simmons is an amazing actor, but he’s rarely the lead character in anything. I’m glad I got to see him as the lead in this, what a performance!
Counterpart
It’s a unique show. Cold War spy games in Berlin involving a gateway to a parallel universe. Mood is somber and intense. Looks great.
Spoiler tags please. What you mention is a really amazing reveal for people who go in blind.
It’s not a spoiler if you learn this in the first episode.
Yes, Chernobyl or Mr Inbetween.
Chernobyl painted a vivid picture of a time and place, but it was fictionalized, sensationalized, too. Pripyat didn’t really exist under an oppressive green fog, and the Soviet Union of the day wasn’t the Stalinesque nightmare the show suggests.
By all means, enjoy the show, it’s awfully well-done. But I beg you to bear in mind that:
- It’s not a documentary, because
- none of those based-on-a-true-story shows are documentaries.
Severance is amazing and worth watching multiple times.
The Walking Dead through the end of season 6
Futurama
Ted Lasso
The Good Place
3rd Rock From The Sun
Band of Brothers
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (don’t let the trailers fool you— it starts kinda slow but it’s an adult storyline and is phenomenal from like middle of Season 1 on. The last four episodes are iconic for me. You can skip the movie.)
Long Way Round (sequel Long Way Down is excellent also)
The IT Crowd
Marvel’s The Punisher
Chapelle’s Show
Haunting of Hill House / Haunting of Bly Manor
Fringe
The Expanse
Simpsons through season 7
The walking dead? Huge zombie movie fan I didn’t finish all of season 3. It just got to the point where this is ridiculous and I turned it off
The IT Crowd is unique, some of the stuff in it is a bit dated now, but some of the jokes in it are so good that I know people who still quote them decades later.
Absolutely love me some Band of Brothers and Fringe. Been wanting to rewatch Person of Interest too.
Person of Interest is very good also. Really good casting.
Is third rock from the sun really good I tried it but couldn’t get past my hatred for the laugh track but seen enough recommends that i might try to push through to see if i can get into it?
Laugh tracks come with the territory for comedies, sadly, and especially those from the 90s when it was probably at its most egregious levels.
As for the show, yes, please keep going. John Lithgow and Jane Curtin are so perfect together, and then throw in French Stewart craziness, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in one of his first big roles, and Wayne Knight, among many other cameos along the way— it’s definitely a must watch.
3rd Rock a decent turn-your-brain-off 90s sitcom, but if you’re having trouble getting into it I don’t think pushing through is going to change your opinion any.
Another very similar but different series was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neighbors_(2012_TV_series)
I don’t recall if it had a laugh track, but I guess that’s likely.
I loved Severance’s first season. After that, ehh it’s alright
Finally, I was scrolling to see if anyone else mentioned Fringe. I need to rewatch it sometime, I haven’t seen it in probably a decade or so and I still remember it was one of the first shows that made me realize what really good TV actually is (I was in my early teens at the time).
Frieren: Beyond Jouney’s End is absolutely incredible. Even if you don’t watch anime I’d still recommend this as a gateway into the medium.
But you need to be a fan of fantasy.
Your Lie in April, is an anime that anybody with feelings could enjoy.
Yup. Not even as a gateway, just as a standalone piece of visual media. Art, music, writing, all of it superb.
I’ll mention one that hasn’t been mentioned by others yet: Mind Hunter.
What a great premise, gone too soon.
Firefly,
For less cinematic my favorite fun ones are
The good place, and Better off ted
Better Off Ted was classic!
It was ahead of its time in many ways.
Just finished rewatching Firefly again about thirty minutes ago
It’s still top-notch
I guess one that I expected to see her is Sons of Anarchy. I thought it was great. I’m a little disappointed, but not surprised, that I don’t see either Letterkenny or Shoresy on here right now.
My wife and I are just finishing up an immediate rewatch of Yellowjackets and it’s damn good. Think Lord of the Flies but more modern and with a highly-competitive high school girls’ soccer team instead of prep school boys (although their coach and another coach’s sons are there too), and you also get to see how the experience shapes them after the fact.
Some characters you don’t expect to like end up being great, and the acting is fantastic throughout. The pacing for seasons 2-3 isn’t quite as tight as the first season but it’s still really good, hoping the last season holds up too when it comes out.
TBH the second season didn’t do it for me, enough I don’t care to try the third. The first season was alright, but I kept getting reminded of Dexter and the poor writing for the present day characters. The 90s parts with the kids were the best parts and the current day stuff seemed like filler.
It all felt like cheap Showtime writing. After what happened to Dexter after season 4, i basically wrote off all Showtime drama shows, but broke my rule for Yellowjackets and regretted it.
I thought the writing with the adult cast was generally good minus a few bits that they just kind of don’t address (or barely) - think
Tap for spoiler
Taisa’s whole Senate thing and to a lesser extent Simone/Sammy, whatever was actually going on with Adam, what was actually going on with Lottie’s cult, etc
But it was good enough that it kept us engaged.
