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Pillowpants posted:This list includes How I met your mother and Dexter, and has no credibility. Those shows are not necessarily bad, I like them (some seasons of Dexter not as much), friends liked them, people talk about them etc. Also I noticed lately that imdb is apparently Dexter country, it's got top 250 ratings there pretty much. But anyways, I just find those shows to be pretty cool. Also, the multi-cam laughtrack style sitcom, it gets a lot of flack, and I can see why. It's an antiquated format, but when done well if you have a taste for it, it can be so good. Cheers for example. For me HIMYM was sort of a last hurrah for that done well, at least, it's the most recent one I enjoyed. But I found it had a lot of merit. And they'll both be on my list most likely. Well, we'll see about Dexter, but I do enjoy season 7 and 8 as it's own pulpy nutty thing. adhuin posted:My top 20 list. Very cool list! I'll have to check a bunch of those out, and plenty of favs on there. Also, just to throw it out there, it's interesting how anime often isn't seen much on this sort of list. Maybe since people put it in a different slot on their entertainment shelf or something. Plus it has a different forum on here. But it is all TV. So I'd probably have at least a few on a top 20. Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 04:04
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Edward Mass posted:I haven't seen an anime series made this past decade I would put in my Top 10 of television. Top 20 anyway? Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin from 2010 is one of my all-time favs. Really moving and powerful stuff. The second Kaiji series, a lot of Lupin the Third, Jojo, Ippo Rising, Space Dandy, One Punch Man, a buncha stuff for me. (editor's note: I forgot 2010 isn't in for Rainbow) Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 08:21
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Alrighty, here's my list. A few honorable mentions first: Honorable uno - Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010, second season aired in 2012) This deserves to be remembered, just something special. So clever and fun, a nice updating of the classic Scooby-Doo formula. Just one of those underrated shows, I'd put it in the halls of TV glory, it is a masterpiece. Zoinks, jinkies, and quite frankly, lots of really good stuff. For me, perhaps the finest work in the Scoob canon. Honorable dos - Dexter Dexterly Dextering. This show, and especially it's second half, seems to be a laughingstock of this forum. But, I gotta say, for me in a certain context it's pretty good. I didn't enjoy the Colin Hanks season, season 6, but I really enjoyed 5, 7, and 8. I enjoy it for what it's going for, which is not as good as the early seasons. But still a lot of pulpy fun. For me I just set different expectations for the different style. Take say Burn Notice, a show that had its moments, kind of well remembered. These later Dexter seasons to me are a lot better than Burn Notice, and are sort of in this wheelhouse of almost procedural nutty kind of light TV. Whatever it was doing, I enjoyed it a lot, and stayed invested in it. How about that minotaur guy in season 7? Yvonne Strahovski and Ray Stevenson? It's like a buffet of genre cheese, I like it. Honorable tres - Daredevil So nice to finally see a good adaptation of one of Marvel's finest comics. Knocked it out of the park, that first season especially, what a breath of fresh air. While obviously a ridiculously cool premise, the cast really brought heart to it and humanized it all. You really wanted these goofballs to get along and for things to go well for them. 20. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (2012) This is one mighty fine telling of an 80s manga, just adaptation bliss. I love how fast paced and wild it is. We get several generations of epic over-the-top good times. We get Dio! Holy diver, this is must see. 19. Hung Tom Jane! What a cool show. And I'm gonna say it, an even better showcase for him than The Expanse. Though Miller is very very cool. This I feel shows the full range of Jane, what a uniquely charming dude. Jane Adams is so good, when I see her show up in things it's great to see that quirky nervous energy. And again, just a great great role for her here. Season 3 is the one that aired in 2011, and it was a really good one. It's funny, when thinking about and ranking all these shows, some aspects can blend together. They're about people who want to be understood, want to be loved, how people get along. Getting into trouble, digging yourself out, communication, and ways to put new twists on all that in a clever episodic package. Also fun to see a positive show about a sex worker. However it did it, this show stood out to me as one of my favs. Also very funny. 18. Doctor Who Definitely deserves love, plenty of great stuff over these years. Jenna Coleman, various Doctors, potato guy what's his name, just a cool rear end show overall. Not to sell it short, it's got tons of great clever episodic plots, lots of charisma and charm, very memorable. Well deserving of it's legacy. I'm a fan. 17. GLOW What a show, and shame on netflix for cancelling this. At least just postpone it for a couple years. At the very least, they need to make it right with a TV movie in a while like Deadwood. I know that's a slightly different story. But anyhoo, this show has it all, great music montages, lovable flawed human characters, heightened yet immersive style, great laughs, serious heart. It's like a best of TV playbook, played to perfection. 16. How I Met Your Mother Like a last hurrah for an old style, this is the swansong of the multi-cam sitcom for me. At least, it's a style I'm usually not drawn to in recent stuff, and it worked for me here. Loved hanging out with those characters, and Ted's search for love was pretty cool. Reminded me a bit of that vibe of an oldschool anime romance comedy at times oddly enough, Maison Ikkoku for example. And classic rom-coms. I think it's something special. Also, having marathoned Cheers and Frasier during the past year or two, I've found there can be something magical to getting absorbed by a classic sitcom. And since at least one friend roasts me for digging a laughtrack show, I feel some of these shows can be underrated in modern times. Plus, having listened to sitcom people like Ken Levine and James Burrows on podcasts, I really appreciate the craft that goes into a sitcom that is especially well done. And a shout-out to Kevin Smith for his Frasier podcast. 15. Kaiji: Against All Rules (2011) The second series, so drat good. We've got gamblers in debt etc, forced into deadly games. We've got suspense, dark humor, lots of excitement and it really has it's own voice. Plus it introduced me to one of my favorite bands, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 14. Bojack Horseman This is such a nonstop, wall to wall, well written, clever, terrific show. It's just impressive as hell. Great characters, tons of good gags, well done take on tackling some issues, saying some stuff, going for it. Plus it's nice to see a cool varied animated series aimed at older audiences, I feel we could use more of that worldwide. 13. Lupin the Third: Part IV (2015) Incredible stuff, gotta love Lupin. Like Cowboy Bebop in a lot of ways, and going in anime form since 1971. Miyazaki got started on Lupin. Monkey Punch's creation, this beloved gang of adventuring thieves, can't find more charisma. Plus Lupin is like Japan's answer to James Bond in a lot of ways. And just tons of great humor too, and Yuji Ohno's awesome jazzy score. Lupin is the best thing going. 12. Hajime no Ippo: Rising (2013) This is one of the best sagas ever. It is so good, Ippo is a kind young man who happens to have roaring jet engine fists of fury. Great humor, great characters, drama, and such insane boxing action. So invested in this, as say a Rocky movie fan, this to me is the finest realization of that kind of thing. It was so cool to see them make this third series years after the previous adaptations. I sure hope they make another, but there's always the manga. I can't recommend Hajime no Ippo enough, it is so special. 11. Better Call Saul One of my favs, Jimmy is especially one of my favorite characters ever. Such a great vehicle for a uniquely charismatic actor. I care so much about him, and Kim too, and the world is just a cool one to hang out in. Pulpy (or whatever we call Elmore Leonard), fun down and dirty thrills. And that classic TV vibe of worrying about what will go wrong for our beloved guy this time. Yet somehow hoping for the best. I do have some nitpicks with the show. I love Michael McKean so much, but this character's plot I feel takes up too much time. And in general a complaint I have about some TV is that it lingers too much. I feel they could've gotten to the Saul persona a bit sooner, and in general I'd like more focus on Jimmy compared to the rest of the cast. Seems every show is a big ensemble, so it would stand out to have it focus even more so on one person's life story I feel. Just nitpicks, love the show, I just feel like nothing is perfect, and at times the show is overindulgent in areas I didn't feel like indulging in for as long. And maybe it commits too much to the TV rhythm we expect, having to cut to say the construction plot for example, and over to another plot, and then back over to Jimmy. But it deserves respect for going for it, and I love that it's doing it's own thing overall. And I do love Fring of course. What they do works, I just could've gone for even more Jimmy in place of some of that. The last couple seasons have been terrific, the most recent one especially, no complaints for me there. Just gimme more Jimmy/Saul, I can't get enough of that guy. Kim is cool too. Ok I'm not the pro here. Great show! Lots of transcendent TV moments. Any time Jimmy is jamming, and we're like "oh my... here we go again", you know you're in for some good stuff. Also... the last season better rule! I demand ruling. It'll probably rule. 10. Barry Barry is just terrific. Maybe a bit early to rate it so high, but these two seasons rule no matter where it goes. Henry Winkler is one of the all time greats. Bill Hader rocks. The premise is almost too easy of a delight, it's like Dexter meets aspects of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad etc, just prestige TV gold. Y'know, daring us not to love this character. It has cartoonish comedy gangsters. It has Stephen Root. It has a person doing bad things that we care about anyway, plus we do enjoy seeing this kind of stuff in our stories anyway don't we. It's a clever twist on our fav formulas. I say free the criminals, let all the maniacs with a heart of gold go free, I'm rooting for 'em. Barry you're a winner! 09. The Expanse Very cool show. Since the Cowboy Bebop days, maybe since the Spaceballs days, whatever days they were, it's cool to tool around in a spaceship with a ramshackle crew. Hard sci-fi no less, this is more real than half of the History channel's output. Ok I'm not an expert there, but this show feels lived in, it handles several spheres well like government and cultures and stuff. And it's just a good sci-fi romp too. Full disclosure, I'm still in the middle of season 4, used to marathon it with some friends pre-quarantine. But I'll get back to The Expanse sometime soon. Update: just marathoned the rest of it, great stuff! Char and Amuro of the ol' Gundam epic would be proud of this saga. And a little Wrath of Khan vibe when we first meet our crazy staring vengeance-y space villain. In other words, playing in the sandbox of "hell yeah" ridiculously cool epic space opera. Season 5 is too good, it's what I like to see. What more can I ask for in an epic space struggle with heart. It is just so drat cool.  Season 6 coming up too!08. Breaking Bad What a show. And also one where I felt it got better and better. So many great characters and moments. Saul, Badger, you name it. I like the hint of surreal over-the-top dark humor and whatnot, like say Terry Gilliam or something like that. Tough to describe, but you know what I mean, just a great unique tone to this show. A pleasure to watch. You know what I'm talking about. 07. True Detective That first season, Great Scott. Hard boiled perfection. Rewatchable, compelling, fun, entertaining, with it's own stamp and memorable characters. "I like mowing my lawn!" Season two wasn't my thing, though it was watchable. Season 3 rocked a good bit too, pretty darn cool. To tie it all back to Bruce Campbell, the old man makeup portion of the ongoing timelines did remind me a little of the great film Bubba Hotep. But I joke because I love, it's a really good season. 06. Game of Thrones Very cool show. I haven't read the books, a couple of my friends I watched it with did, so I gather some stuff about how the later stuff went. And I myself have some reservations with where it went, although I did enjoy it overall to the end, with a few things in the last season I didn't love. The last season being just sort of an event spectacle, which dropped the ball on some things, characterization wise etc. But it's about the journey, and this is nothing new to the anime/manga fan, so many otherwise great shows had a made up rushed ending. Although side note, I've really enjoyed how some anime endings for unfinished manga went. X (TV), Trigun, sometimes lemonade has been made. For why GoT is one of my top favs, well, it's metal. It's got wit, it's got flavor, classic drama and payoffs, thrills, adventure, action. And just stylishly and smoothly done all around. It did so much well I almost feel like we take it for granted, even with its flaws, it is a terrific show. Like milk of the poppy, good stuff. A lotta cool songs have been written about dragons, and this is the finest TV show featuring dragons. Also, hot drat, Peter Dinklage, one of the best actors ever. Station Agent is great, and Tyrion is the one he's gonna be remembered for in 200 years. 05. Ash vs. The Evil Dead Oh baby. This is what I need! I've listened to every Bruce Campbell audiobook, and I love Ted Raimi's classic Lunatics: A Love Story. Lucy Lawless fan as well. Army of Darkness is like the coolest thing ever made. Or Evil Dead II. Big Sam Raimi fan. As far as ranking, trying to do a beautiful dance of different vibes and genres. We know that the genre (B movie-esque) stuff like this is not gonna get the votes like the showstopper mega hits. But every type of entertainment has it's own magic to it, and this is such a uniquely cool and specific thing. It just rocks. And ranking is pretty subjective to me anyway. This show delivered the goods. What we wanted for so long, that first ep by Sam Raimi was a masterpiece. And from there, the new cast was a lot of fun, the laughs and clever fun kept coming. And Bruce Campbell, my god, it was so good to see him utilized this well. I mentioned Burn Notice earlier, and it can be y'know baffling at times when a powerful instrument like Bruce, a man with the gift, has to take a backseat. In some Burn Notice episodes he has like two lines. What were they doing. But anyways, this show, it knew what it was doing. It was being groovy. Also the ending rules. 04. Mad Men Love this show. For me it notably got better and better as it went too. Season 3 was where I knew it was a major favorite, season 4 even more so, and I loved how it kept evolving. So cinematic, comparable to The Sopranos there. Just a very cool life story kind of show, with great dialogue, lots of clever ways of mixing it up, and looking to say some stuff about life, finding happiness. I dig it. 03. Twin Peaks: The Return David Lynch is one of my heroes. I recommend his audiobook Room to Dream to everybody, or in paper form if you prefer. One of the coolest filmmakers ever, such a great mix of surreal, dark, comedy, heart on it's sleeve, experimental, just a unique voice. This felt like a mix of Twin Peaks and his movies like Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, just a treasure for the Lynch fan. I don't know what it is about his vision that makes me love his stuff so much, but he is the definitive surreal filmmaker in our lifetime I'd say. And his particular blend of idiosyncrasies is just really up my alley. "Helloooooooo!" 02. Cobra Kai Good lord Cobra Kai, this show delights me. It is magical, they just nailed it. At times by season 3 it can repeat itself a bit, and it leans a little on it's formula, but it has a recipe for just sublime entertainment for me. It's tough to describe exactly why. It's like it knows what I want to see, and it messes around, goes in different directions, yet it still shows me something that I wanted to see in my soul. And something I maybe didn't expect they'd do, because it's a bit too I dunno 80s genre, or too on-the-nose, or something, but it goes to these majestic places. To try and sum it up, it's not just a parody, you really get invested in it, so it kind of gets to have it's cake and eat it too. And then it throws the cake in the air and kicks it to oblivion! When something plays with convention, it's like music, you know it when you see it (hear it)? Since I've enjoyed so much vintage genre stuff, they're playing me like a fiddle, yet in ways that come across as clever and delightful to me. All I know is, this is the best around! Thank you. 01. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia I hope this show goes forever. At least 20 seasons, but that would be too soon, I need 30. At least several returning specials. Maybe pull a Twin Peaks and make more after some decades. It is comedy perfection, at least, there's no other modern sitcom thingy that rules as much as this. Danny Devito, what can I say, a legend who has ascended to godhood here. In the most recent episode, from last season, the laser-tag one. There's a bit where, as is often the case lately, he has this vacant look like he's this broken shell of a man, who is not in touch with reality in some way. And frankly, I love that, it is the funniest thing ever. The nuances. And the whole cast rules of course, Dennis usually is the showstopper character, but really they all rule. The writing, the chemistry, the creativity, one of the greats. Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 05:05
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Just posting to let you know I edited my list, reordered it. Had to raise The Expanse from #20 to #9 after the mighty fine showing when I caught up on it. That is some cool stuff. Also, that and a bunch of shows mentioned here have some new seasons coming soon, that's pretty rad.
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Nov 21, 2021 10:30
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Children's Hospital is so good for many reasons, but Henry Winkler alone is worth it. I mean, it sure made me a fan, now I'm a Winkler addict, looking for Henry Winkler in anything I can find!
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Dec 24, 2021 00:27
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Bulky Bartokomous posted:Hung is really underrated. If you were to.....package....it with Mrs. Fletcher, you have a nice duo of similarly themed and fun shows from HBO. Cool, added to the list! I'll also hop back on Agents of SHIELD sometime, only saw the first season. So much stuff to check out, lotta TV folks. I just cut and pasted Halt and Catch Fire from near the bottom of the list to near the top, we're making moves here. Yes I have a document. On quality of TV, eras, networks etc, I don't have a strong opinion, but overall I find netflix's original content a bit lacking. Some gems and favs are there too though. I think they're just the new ABC in the 70s or something, everybody has it, and it gets tons of conveyer belt content. It seems the best shows are made wherever the execs aren't paying attention or are allowed to be more loose. Like how Fox kept say Sunny in Philadelphia going on FX in the early days with low ratings, and let them do whatever they want pretty much they say. Or HBO giving cool creators a good run. That's the ideal situation, but both those places are owned by giant devil worshipping media conglomerates as Lloyd Kaufman says, so who knows. AMC has had numerous favs, that company also owns Shudder and IFC, which don't seem to have as much funding etc. Points to Showtime and Starz for giving David Lynch and Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell's Evil Dead some love.
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Jan 3, 2022 02:04
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