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?
Curb Your Enthusiasm. Pretty pretty good
Speaking of Chernobyl, watch Andor next (lots of the same actors). Go in ignoring the fact it has anything to do with Star Wars and you’ll have a great time. It’s peak television.
I love me some Sci-Fi but yeah, the fact that it’s Star Wars had me ignoring this one despite all the amazing reviews and hype. Is Andor still enjoyable without having seen anything but the first six movies and the first two of the sequels? I know it’s closely linked with Rogue One and I didn’t watch that either. Still recommendable with that little knowledge of the current expanded universe?
Rogue One is also one of the best Star Wars shows of the modern era, and I generally hate prequels, but it and Andor are phenomenal.
If you’re into sci-fi, I hope you’ve seen Babylon 5. The political storylines have never felt more relevant.
Babylon 5 is excellent. The special effects are still pretty decent decades later, but apparently you need to find the right version, because they tried to upscale some of it for HD at one point and completely messed up the effects scenes.
The actors do an amazing job though, and the fact that it’s a cohesive story that was slowly played out over multiple seasons is so rare.
If you know of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, it was a Babylon 5 ripoff. The creator of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski went to Paramount with his idea and they rejected it. He went to PTEN / Warner Brothers and they made it. DS9 launched just a month before Babylon 5 came out. But, “coincidentally” it took place on a space station next to a wormhole, involved a leader who became a religious figure against their will / knowledge, there’s a fiesty female second officer, an idealistic doctor, a hard-boiled security chief… basically too many things to be coincidental.
I might be wrong, but I’d estimate there are roughly zero mentions of light sabres, force, Jedi etc in Andor.
You’re only slightly off, and the point is well taken that it’s far from the point of the show.
Tap for spoiler
Specifically, there’s the mildly force-sensitive medic on Yavin who gets Bix to believe in something bigger. I think there’s also a few other offhand references.
You can go in with no prior knowledge if you want. Watch Andor and then Rogue One (narrative order is reverse release order)
I have no clue how Disney let them make it.
If you have never seen anything related to Star Wars - watch Andor, if you hate Star Wars - watch Andor, if you love Star Wars - watch Andor
I went in having only seen those movies too, you really don’t even need that much familiarity to enjoy this. Don’t sleep on it, it’s quite good.
I watched Rogue One after I finished Andor and I was pretty disappointed, it’s an alright movie I guess but a huge downgrade from the show IMO.
Interesting, as I thought the opposite. It felt bigger budget and a great extension to the series.
I think the only thing you need to know is the Empire are fascists and baddies. They make that pretty clear even if you don’t know that. Imagine a political spy thriller made by someone who doesn’t care about Star Wars lore, because that’s what it is.
Oh yeah that’s more than enough. If anything all you need is A New Hope, but as long as you know the Empire are the bad guys the story is pretty self-contained.
Rogue One takes place immediately after, so watch it next if you like.
just a heads up to anyone watching andor. the first two episodes are… wait until episode 3 to judge if you like the show or not
Ok, thanks for saying that. I literally gave up after ep.2 as the whole thing was boring. I tried several times watching it - fell asleep, literally
but i’ll give it another go - thanks
im no expert, i just finished ep. 3 yesterday. me and my partner agreed that they should have rolled the first 3 episodes into one 90 inute episode, because the first two do t have any kind of story to them, just setup
TV Shows
Must Watch
- Breaking Bad
- Better Call Saul
- Chernobyl
- Peaky Blinders
- Dinosaurs
Highly Rated (With Caveats)
- The Wire: A timeless masterpiece, but the extremely slow pace requires pushing through the first season.
- Band of Brothers: Excellent, but historically did Captain Sobel dirty—he wasn’t like that.
- Primal: Extremely good, but the story ends at Season 2. Season 3 is an unnecessary overextension.
Good Shows (Minor Caveats)
- Narcos: Enjoyable until Escobar (the star) is captured, then it loses its appeal.
- Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord (El Patrón del Mal): Less dramatic but more accurate and highly enjoyable than Narcos.
- Dune: Prophecy & House of the Dragon: Good overall, but heavily woke. They take too many liberties and squander their superior source materials.
Great for Uniqueness, Story, or Style (Major Caveats)
- Game of Thrones (Seasons 1-4): The absolute best TV ever made. It doesn’t top Breaking Bad only because the later seasons are absolute garbage.
- The Sopranos: Great episodic show, but slow. The overarching story wasn’t the main focus; six seasons could have been condensed into three.
Shows That Don’t Live Up to Their Name
- Dark: Starts great, but convoluted rules in Season 2 and Deus ex machina plot devices in Season 3 ruin it.
- Shōgun (2024): Unremarkable. Unfaithful to the source material due to wokeness, specifically erasing Blackthorne’s protagonism because he’s white.
- The Expanse: A convoluted, messy dumpster fire.
- Westworld: A convoluted, messy dumpster fire.
- Euphoria: Hot Gen Z garbage.
- A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Pure hype with no justification to exist. Spends 7 episodes on Dunk, an absolute loser and terrible fighter.
Anime
Must Watch
- Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Sousou no Frieren): A beautiful, clean, family-safe show with no fan service. The appeal is the whole package.
Good Shows (Minor Caveats)
- Noragami: Beautiful, but not a masterpiece; sequels dip in quality.
- Psycho-Pass: Genuinely good Minority Report-style premise. Season 1 is amazing.
- Mob Psycho 100: Good comedy, but relies on repetitive tropes after Season 2.
- One Punch Man: Extremely funny great premise, but the quality drop after Season 1 shouldn’t have happened.
- Dragon Ball / Dragon Ball Z: Legendary but too long (Kai is the shorter alternative).
Great for Uniqueness, Story, or Style (Major Caveats)
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Very unique. The writer projected his mental issues onto a weird cast, the protagonist is a loser, and it has no proper ending.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: Good, but overhyped. Suffers from forced humor, quality drops near the end, and a predictable “happily ever after.”
- Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Much darker, serious, and extremely good, but the animation is garbage.
- Tokyo Ghoul: Only good until Season 2 before major quality dips.
Shows That Don’t Live Up to Their Name
- Death Note: The premise is so unbelievable it falls apart and becomes obnoxious in just a few episodes.
The Dropout.
Dramatization comedy about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.
All the scenes with the Walgreens team are hilarious
The Detectorists. It’s a low stakes, peaceful little romp around the english countryside in search of the minutiae of some people’s lives. Very, very funny
Deadwood Invincible Mr. Robot
Comedies that are must watch to understand the media landscape that follows Friends Seinfeld How i met your mother Sex and the city
Top of all The wire Chernobyl Breaking bad The office (the British one) Battlestar galactica Band of Brothers Fargo The West Wing Dark
Incredible, but took a turn for the worse Dexter (s1-3 are good) Game of Thrones (s1-4) Stranger things (s1-4.5) True detective (s1)
Incredible, but cut short Mindhunter Firefly
Animation The last airbender Spectacular Spider man Attack on titan Batman: the animated series Death note South Park (note. There are a lot of seasons. I like 13, but you might very well hate it)
Fringe Classics that are aquried tastes Black adder Fawlty towers Freaks and geeks Twin Peaks
Andor!
Best Star Wars content in a lonngggg time
Better Call Saul! I like it even more than Breaking Bad
Nirvanna the Band the Show
I found out about this earlier this year and I’ve already binged it almost three times. It’s very quickly became my favourite comedy and I’m obsessed with how the creators make film and tv. I think I’ve just got the Dirties to watch and then I’ve seen everything they’ve done.
If you like the fantasy genre Shadow and Bone is great.
Deadwood, Justified, and various Gundam series are the ones I always come back to.
The Americans
Six Feet Under
Deadwood
Sopranos
Ted Lasso. Surface level it’s a “fish out of water” story of an American College Football coach going to England to coach Professional Football (soccer). In actuality it’s a show about loss, growth, relationships, and packs more emotions than you’ll know what to do with. I know a lot of people gush about it, but I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that it might be the most perfect show I’ve ever watched.
Similarly, Schitt’s Creek. A lot of similar themes, also a nearly perfect show. I will say that it took me a little bit to get past the first couple of episodes because it seemed like all of the characters were kinda awful, but that’s really setting things up for character growth.
The characters in Schitt’s Creek are characters you think are awful people who hate each other, but you quickly realize they’ve got hearts of gold and really do love each other.
Heard nothing but good things about Ted Lasso as well so I think this one is now on my list, thanks!
Schitt’s Creek I think I tried to watch way back but don’t think I even got through the first episode for the reason you just said, couldn’t stand the characters.
I promise, if you make it past the beginning of Schitt’s Creek the show will reward you with some real emotional payoff.
Third season of Ted Lasso gets to be pretty saccharine and certain plots are rushed, but by then the characters have built up so much goodwill that you’re willing to ride it out.
Also, if you find him immediately grating, give Ted himself about three episodes at the very beginning to turn into an actual human. It’s worth it.
We will see if the upcoming season four can recapture any of the magic.
Whoa season 4?! Yay: Wednesday August 5th, nice! Thx
Seconding cowfodder’s comment, if you can manage to tolerate the Rose family at the beginning of Schitt’s Creek, seeing the character growth is so very worth it, in my opinion. YMMV of course, but I’d encourage giving it another shot.
Ted Lasso also has some great character redemption arcs. Though in this case the main character (Ted) is immediately likeable, which I think makes for an easier start in comparison. And in case “immediately likeable” infers thoughts of him being a simple or shallow charter, he is not.
Ted lasso was good but I will caveat it- as someone who likes football and that angle the series strayed very far from being about football and went heavy into emotions, etc. Notably season 2 and on.
Schitts is amazing though start to finish.
As someone who hates football, Ted Lasso was wonderful because at no point was it ever really about football.
how it still holds up
Jesus Christ, the show came out in 2019… Are we really asking if things from 2019 “still hold up”?
Scavenger’s Reign
Wicked Little Letters
I agree on Chernobyl it was so good.
Game of thrones was great for the first like 3 or 4 seasons
Hannibal
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
Toast of London
Parade (the hbo one about aristocracy and stuff, very melancholy and beautiful)
