What we do in the shadows. The show is based off the Taika Waititi/Jermaine Clement film of the same name. And is also written by Jermaine Clement
It's a comedy/mocumentary about a group of vampires. The characters are really well written and it straddles the line between the banality of everyday life as a vampire, and obviously the weird supernatural aspects of vampires. It recently aired it's final episode so you can binge it now and get through the whole thing.
If you like the office/community/parks and rec/I.T. Crowd type of stuff I think you'll really like it
Succession, perhaps the best script I've ever experienced
The Expanse. I forgot how good the earlier seasons were, and looking forward to seeing the newer stuff for the first time.
Older than you are and worth looking at. [available on Youtube]
The Prisoner. Imagine if Ian Fleming and Franz Kafka got together to do a TV show. A government official resigns and is immediately kidnapped. He wakes up in The Village; a lovely little place with nice views, great food, plenty of fun things to do, and no possible escape.
I, Claudius. A very young Patrick Stewart is the least reason to watch this reenactment of the first five Roman emperors.
Connections. Non-fiction. Wonderfully entertaining and informative. The creator's premise is that scientific progress is almost never straight forward. Coffee houses open in London = coffee houses become popular places to do business = coffee house customers join together to invest in ships to the New World = the new 'companies' begin looking for ways to make their ships safer = they start to invest in making pine tar to protect the ships = add two hundred years and you have insurance companies and the chemical industry
I just finished Only Murders in the Building. I love it. Its a whodunit with Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez. The whole cast always feels to me like they're always having a lot of fun!
A lot of my picks are already mentioned so I'll pick an odd one:
Air crash investigator (called Mayday in NA). It's dramatizations of the reports from air crashes, organized like a murder mystery. Surprisingly compelling.
I've never been nervous about flying but this show really underlined how safe flying is, it's actually kinda crazy how thorough the reports are and how often they lead to rule changes. I wish the same institutional dedication to safety was practised in other industries (especially cars).
Episodes that take place in the 80s have you face palming at how stupid the mistakes are, more modern episodes are almost always a combination of many many different small low chance events and minor mistakes from the pilot piling up. I usually skip the terrorist episodes though.
I've been enjoying Skeleton Crew as it releases.
Arcane.
I missed the hype for Arcane season 1, mostly because it didn't really seem up my alley. I figured it'd be boring to me because I wasn't into that specific game, or too juvenile for me, or something.
I was really wrong. Really, really wrong. It stands on its own and season 1 has the strongest storytelling I've seen in anything in a good, long time. You don't need to care about or play League of Legends to watch the show. And it's very much NOT a kid's show even if it starts with kid characters...it touches a lot on crime, poverty, mental illness, etc. It's very honest and truthful and complex and nuanced on these things.
And every aspect of storytelling was strong. EVERY ONE.
What I mean by that is this...in most TV shows, animated or live, you usually have one form of strong(ish) storytelling carrying the entire thing and compensating for other things that are weaker. So a show will have one or two stand-out aspects, and others that are okish to bad, but able to be overlooked because of the other awesome things going on.
Like, you might have a poor script but really good actors who can elevate the poor script with their spoken intonation or physical acting. Or you might have a good script and really good soundtrack but mediocre acting and bland costume/set design. Basically, script, art/costume design, music, and actor ability all play together to deliver a story, and usually you have one or two of those that are strong, and the rest are being carried by the strong parts and ranging from competent-but-not-awesome to mediocre to bad.
Arcane's not like that.
Arcane has top-tier storytelling on the writing level, AND on the art and animation level, and in the choice of songs for the soundtrack. Like, the script itself is fantastic, but then you watch the animation and see they decided not to use common animation shorthand. Instead, they went back to actually LOOK at how humans display emotion and move their bodies and translated THAT into their animation. So you have a strong script AND strong "physical acting". How they frame shots is fantastic too. And if that wasn't enough, all the music is stellar and pertinent to the scenes it's used in. And if THAT wasn't enough, even the design of the characters BEFORE they even move or speak is top-notch. And if THAT isn't enough the voice actors are phenomenal too.
For Season 1, nothing's carrying anything else, everything is strong. And that's EXTREMELY rare in ANY show. So, so, SO rare.
Season 2 is not as good--but that's really just in comparison to how outrageously and unusually good Season 1 was. I'd say in Season 2, the script is not as tight, but all the other things are still as good as Season 1. So the animation/art design/music/etc. carry the script a little in the second season. The script isn't HORRIBLE though...it's mostly the pacing is off and it's missing some appropriate build-up in some parts. I've read they had to cut some scenes, and if that's true it would completely explain the flaws. The second season also suffers a bit in comparison to Season 1...Season 1 did everything right, so anything that's not perfect in Season 2 naturally sticks out. It doesn't make it bad though.
Anyway, yeah. Watch Arcane, if you missed that boat previously.
I love Vox Machina. Give it three episodes though, it needs the Briarwood ark to really get going.
Scrubs
Shrinking is excellent
DanDaDan on Netflix is bonkers.
Halt and Catch Fire.
Set in the 80s, it’s about a company in Texas trying to build a computer to rival IBM. Er, that’s how it starts. I liked it so much, I bought it.
Secret Level.
The OutsiderFrom
!showsandmovies@lemm.ee has weekly discussions thread on that topic
- The good place
- Inside job
- Dogs in space
- Daredevil
- Final space
I'm watching the dune show, it's not great.
I'm also watching creature commandos which is pretty good if you don't mind animation.
I recommend “Severance” on AppleTV. Also recommend “Shining Girls”. AppleTV is free this weekend.
- Shrinking
- Sopranos
- Severance
- SAS Rogue Heroes
Season 2 of Shrinking has been a very emotional ride, but has a good mix of comedy & drama, while addressing some difficult topics.
Sopranos is a classic. Depends if you like long character development.
Severance is a great dystopian show about people essentially hating to work. Season 2 should be out shortly.
SAS is an expensive BBC production following the formation of the SAS during WWII. Has a Band of Brothers type feel to it, with a British twist. They're all madmen. Cinematography is amazing, and the history, while dramatized, is still impressive. It's based on the book of the same name by Ben McIntyre (non-fiction).
- Deadloch
- Colin From Accounts
- Shrinking
- Silo
- Landman
- Arcane
- Lower Decks
The Traitors has just started in the UK. It's essentially a game of Werewolf with tasks.
The first season of this was good, they used regular people. You cared if they lived or died.
The second season is full of your typical big brother wannabe narcissists. You don't care if they die, you just care which ones die first.
It's watcheable. There's also a weird obsession by the production to play shitty emo covers of popular pop songs in tense moments. Baffling choice, but I guess originality is too hard
If you're into something different, a weird Canadian comedy kind of thing: Shoresy It's different, and I like different.
Landman would be good if it weren't pushing so much fucking propaganda.
My kids love Gravity Falls, which as an adult I still love.
Someone else mentioned Silo, I agree.
My wife loves Great British Bakeoff. It's an easy background show.
I also enjoyed Bad Monkey. It's kind of a B- show, but easy to watch.
No Good Deed is really good, although it moves pretty slow.
One Hundred Years of Solitude available in Netflix https://m.filmaffinity.com/en/film463641.html
The mick
Marvelous Miss Maisle is solid from om beginning to end. Not a minute, scene or note is wasted. The writers know how to pack every scene with as much energy and storytelling as possible. Just perfect.
Here's a list of some of the good ones I have seen:
I've recently fallen down an Anime rabbit hole after almost a decade of being out of the loop.
The fact I'm re-watching "Bocchi the Rock" is a pretty big recommendation.
I feel like I'm hating on this thread too much.
Invincible Fight Girl is a surprisingly good (cartoon) show.
I've heard good things about Taskmaster
Just to name a few in the past month or so that I enjoyed.
Still watching: Silo What If…? (Not as good this season.)
Caught up/finished: The Sticky Secret Level Dan da Dan Black Doves Pantheon Arcane Dark Matter Vox Machina Agatha All Along Shield Hero Scavenger Reign Cyberpunk Twilight of the gods Campfire Cooking In Another World Terminator Zero Tomb Raider: The Legend of Laura Croft The Brothers Sun For All Mankind Delicious In Dungeon
