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?
So many good answers so i will only add ones i didnt see in the responses.
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Supernatural (seasons ~1-5 before the storyline was extended)
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The Last Of Us
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Dark Matter
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Archer
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Game of Thrones (except the last season unfortunately, but the others are still worth watching regardless)
And since someone has already said black mirror, i would add Love Death & Robots, which is both very similar (tone & thematically) but also all over the place (artistically and storytelling wise).
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It might not be “absolute cinema” and had maybe 5% of the budget of Chernobyl, but given that people have suggested Ted Lasso, I’ll go one step further into the realm of fuzzy feel-good TV and drop a mention for my favourite TV show of all time.
There isn’t a single moment in that programme where any of the characters are mean to each other (save for the when dealing with a rival club). It’s just 20 beautiful episodes of people looking for gold, living their lives, and doing their best to be supportive.
And it’s incredibly funny.
This is PEAK of my last year.
Shogun and Andor
I’m really surprised The Expanse didn’t get more of a mention here. Great scify series, and I don’t like series in general.
Its closer to hard sci fy than prob anything else, it has pretty realistic politics of exploitation, rebellion and inyterdependace in the near (few hundred years) colonisation of the solar system. There’s some gritty pewpewpew in space, balanced out by some space opera, with spectacular characters that have more depth than most and a story arch thats likely to make you binge it.As an added bonus the series is 6 out of 9 (/10) books it is based on. There are some notable differences by the end but still you can… expand beyond what the series shows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexx
It’s old-ish and maybe not the greatest work of art on screen, but I love that it had a very unique world and characters and humour and it keeps on developing and changing throughout.
It’s been too long. I really kind of want to watch it again.
The Good Place. Season one is just to set it up, please stick with it through at least S2. The ending makes me cry every time I watch it
Black Books
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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
Andor. Pluribus. 3 Body Problem. Queen’s Gambit. Babylon Berlin. Alice in Borderland. Shogun (the 2024 series). The Expanse. First two seasons of For All Mankind.
Better than the rest
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The Wire & Homicide: Life on the Street (David Simon Box Set)
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Atlanta
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The Expanse
Comedy
- NewsRadio (for Maura Tierney and Dave Foley and Phil Hartman and Khandi Alexander and Vicki Lewis and Stephen Root)
- Schitt’s Creek
- Ted Lasso (Seasons 1 and 2)
- Murphy Brown
- Sex Education
Sci-Fi
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009)
- Dark
- Devs
- Altered Carbon (Season 1)
Drama
- The Newsroom
- Law & Order (seasons 1-8)
- Succession
- Severance
Intense Drama (TV-MA and little levity)
- Chernobyl
- Adolescence
- Utopia
- MR. ROBOT
- Luther
- True Detective (Season 1)
- Vince Gilligan Box Set (Better Call Saul & Breaking Bad & Plur1bus (has levity))
- Ozark
Anthology shows
- Black Mirror
- Love Death + Robots
Animated
- Rick and Morty
- Samurai Jack (2001-2004, 2017)
- Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008)
- Gravity Falls
- South Park
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Final Space
Perpetually on deck for me
- Fargo
- Andor
- Band of Brothers
- Barry
- Legion
- Letterkenny
- Bojack Horseman
- Scavenger’s Reign
- Fringe
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It feels a bit dated, but Veronica Mars is still an excellent and somehow still underrated show.
I also think Scrubs and Community are both peak television that stand up to countless rewatches.
DARK on Netflix.
It’s not for everybody but I loved every second of it. In summary (without spoilers):
The Great (Hulu) is an all time favorite of mine and almost nobody talks about it.
I always plug Scavenger’s Reign. It’s a a sci fi survival show about a set of people who get stranded on an alien planet animated kind of like a graphic novel. The creators used a bunch of nature documentaries as inspiration to create a truly alien and interdependent ecosystem, but the theme tells you everything you need to know about the tone.
Also, animated sci fi comedy, The Venture Bros
The creator behind Scavenger’s Reign, Joe Bennett, has animated for the FXX series Cake, and he also created Adult Swim’s Common Side Effects, as well as soon to be on Netflix Dealies which is based on one of his Cake shorts.
Everything he does is excellent, even his illustrations for Joe Pera’s bathroom book “A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing but Using the Bathroom as an Escape” are wonderful.
Also the artistic inspiration for Scavenger’s Reign is french graphic novelist Jean Henri Gaston Giraud, also known as Mœbius, if you’re looking for similar artwork.
/infodump
Amazing info. I loved scavengers reign and just started common side effects, but haven’t put the names together as the same creator. Both are mind bending shows, so more from the same creator is a great get.
I had no idea, it just keeps getting better
There’s also a video game that uses a very Moebius style that’s unrelated to all this, it’s called Sable and its a lot of fun.
Loved every minute of Scavengers Reign, still hoping they will make another series of it.
Thanks for the info about Moebius, love this kind of artstyle!
I’d add Pantheon to this list for amazing sci-fi adult animation. I loved both Scavenger’s Reign and Common Side Effects.
I know that Common Side Effects is getting a second season. I really wish Scavenger’s Reign would get another season. That show is amazing.
Edit: Also, not a tv show, but the animated French film Arco was lovely. Beautiful hand drawn animation, set in the far future, and not just another dystopian story. Will also mention another animated French film Mars Express was pretty cool.
Pantheon is dope as living fuck and one of the few scifis about things in the near future that seems hopeful
i loved scavengers rein. that show had some of the best visuals and ideas ive seen in scifi. it really shows the utility of 2d animation for showing fantastical worlds. it would have never worked in 3d, it would have taken forever and billions of dollars to make or it would have been soulless and weightless like most of the stuff studios are churning out these days. i hope we see more quality 2d animation for more mature scifi and fantasy in the future.
Scavenger’s Reign
The most imaginative show I have seen that displays an alien ecosystem. Beautiful and creepy.
The best show I could only get through one episode of. It was just a bit too gruesome horror for me, but if you have the stomach for it, my single-episode impression was that it’s an excellent work.
Great show and themes but the ending fell flat for me. I’m not going to spoil anything but they had a major missed opportunity in creating better character arcs and tying everything together. It also felt more like the characters were only trying to reach a goal (not spoiling) the whole time instead of spending more time appreciating the planet and the journey.
It wasn’t an amazing show but it was definitely good if you’re into sci-fi, survival, and animation.
It also felt more like the characters were only trying to reach a goal (not spoiling) the whole time instead of spending more time appreciating the planet and the journey.
Their focus on the destination and not the journey was a plot point for some of the characters.
I thought the ending fell a bit flat as it felt to me like it was kinda vague in case they decided to continue. It made sense, and worked, but didn’t feel like an ending.
Agreed, almost felt like they planned a sequel, a continuation.
