Must Watch Series

[Buehler445]

All this talk about series, how network TV Sucks, and how hard it is to find quality shows, and some excellent shows that fly under the radar, I need a comprehensive review of all the series I need to see.

For good entertainment, I would be willing to buy DVD sets. But I've recently picked up HBOGO by kiping it from my parents, and recently got Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Here is a listing of shows that I currently own or have seen all the episodes of. If it isn't on the list, just assume I haven't seen it.

Spoiler!

Great Shows – Must See
Game of Thrones
Mad Men
Longmire
Burn Notice
House
Spartacus
House of Cards
Justified
True Detective
Breaking Bad
The Assets
The Wire
Sherlock (BBC)
The Americans
The Walking Dead
Deadwood
Netflix: Daredevil
Jack Taylor
Luther
Bosch

Good shows
Travelers
Ozark
The Leftovers
Conviction
Medici
The Last Kingdom
Firefly
Dollhouse
The Good Wife
Hell on Wheels
Big Bang Theory
Falling Skies
Suits
White Collar
Agents of SHIELD
Arrow
Boss
Rome
Orange is the New Black
Orphan Black
The Knick
Goliath (Amazon)
Iron Fist
Show Me a Hero
Hell on Wheels
Shooter

Mediocre
Robin Hood (BBC)
Vikings
How I met your Mother
Scrubs
Chuck
That 70's Show
Top Gear
Graceland
Hung (HBO)
Gotham
Conviction


Crap
Camelot
Top Shot
Defiance
Legends of Tomorrow

Here is a listing of shows that I'm currently watching

Spoiler!

Great


Good
Boardwalk Empire
Westworld

Mediocre

Crap

Here is a listing of shows on my list to watch (mostly due to this thread)

Spoiler!

The Sopranos
24
Fargo (missed getting it on the DVR )
Band of Brothers
The Pacific
The Comeback
6 Feet Under
John Adams
Battlestar Glactica
Friday Night Lights

I work a ****ton, so it is hard for me catch a series while it is on to get it on the DVR, but I recognize the entertainment value and am willing to go after the Must See shows. Accordingly, I'm not necessarily looking for anything that is still running. I'm up for watching stuff that has run its course.

So what say you, Planet? Which shows should I see?

UPDATED for the shows I've seen recently.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

What’s it like to walk around with half a ****ing brain? What ****ing fishwrap pays you?!...


. . . .


I’m fine, I just wanted to ask that question.

The rants in this were top shelf. Rhys delivery was hilarious also.

[KCUnited]

One thing I can’t get over.

Emily Dodson looks like Ozzie Osbourne. Which I guess ties into the song he recorded about him.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Nah. The feeling old part. It seems like every day there is a reminder that I’m an old man.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I watched Perry Mason all the time as a kid. Everyone I've spoken with that has also seen the original series were either disappointed with the new HBO series or just couldn't get into it because the original was completely different, especially the way he was portrayed by Matthew Rhys.

I was expecting something more along the lines of Bosch meets LA Confidential meets the Golden Age of Hollywood, but it's really difficult for me to reconcile this 8 episode version of Perry Mason vs. the original Perry Mason that I saw on more than 200 episodes of the original series.

Holy crap, I sound like an old fart. Yeesh.

I guess in retrospect I’m glad I haven’t seen the old Perry masons. Because I’m enjoying the hell out of this. If seeing the old ones would ruin it I guess I’m glad I missed out.

[cooper barrett]

I have been trying not to watch, haven't missed an episode

[TwistedChief]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I guess in retrospect I’m glad I haven’t seen the old Perry masons. Because I’m enjoying the hell out of this. If seeing the old ones would ruin it I guess I’m glad I missed out.

This is where I'm at. I thought Perry Mason was some detective and then lo and behold he turns out to be a lawyer? Well, isn't that an unexpected turn of events!

The finale was nice. It's not a top-10 show, but it's extremely watchable and enjoyable. I'll definitely watch the second season, but I'm not exactly pining for it.

On the subject of HBO series, I finished I'll Be Gone in the Dark recently too and that was great. The way they wove it all together was really impressive and thoughtful.

And I'm on the verge of finishing I Know This Much is True with Mark Ruffalo. His acting performance is ****ing brilliant. But man, it's dark and sad. Watching it feels like swimming in your pool with weights dragging you to the bottom.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I guess in retrospect I’m glad I haven’t seen the old Perry masons. Because I’m enjoying the hell out of this. If seeing the old ones would ruin it I guess I’m glad I missed out.

Perry Mason is one of the most popular characters of the last 100 years.

The character first appeared in more than 80 novels, followed by six feature films in the 30's, a radio show that ran for 13 years in the 40's and 50's and most famously, the TV Series starring Raymond Burr, which ran for more than 200 episodes with a follow up series in the 70's and more Movies of the Week in the 80's and 90's.

The HBO series bears no resemblance to any of the novels, radio shows and TV shows of the past, other than the names of the major characters (Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake and DA Hamilton Burger).

I think I would have enjoyed the series exponentially more had they created new names for the characters and called it something else because it's been nothing like the original.

[cooper barrett]

Waiting for "Johnnie Cochran" on the "Cock" (Peacock)...didn't want to bring Clay's dick into this.....

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Perry Mason is one of the most popular characters of the last 100 years.

The character first appeared in more than 80 novels, followed by six feature films in the 30's, a radio show that ran for 13 years in the 40's and 50's and most famously, the TV Series starring Raymond Burr, which ran for more than 200 episodes with a follow up series in the 70's and more Movies of the Week in the 80's and 90's.

The HBO series bears no resemblance to any of the novels, radio shows and TV shows of the past, other than the names of the major characters (Mason, Della Street, Paul Drake and DA Hamilton Burger).

I think I would have enjoyed the series exponentially more had they created new names for the characters and called it something else because it's been nothing like the original.

That’s certainly fair.

Although now I feel like a douche for not being familiar with Perry Mason.

[cooper barrett]

I don't care what all the novels, radio, or TV shows portray, I know they all were bedding their respective Della Street's.

Surprised their isn't a porno parody of Raymond doing her on the witness stand

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by cooper barrett

Surprised their isn't a porno parody of Raymond doing her on the witness stand

Raymond Burr was gay

[cooper barrett]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Raymond Burr was gay

OK so, Della with a strap on riding Perry like a horse on sidebar?

So Burr was like Clay? Except for Burr was rich and famous..

Said he was ****ing all the hot women (Natilie Wood) while actually getting his fudge packed outside prying eyes.

"So, to cover his tracks, Burr had begun to invent a completely bogus history for himself.

This included military service he had never undertaken, battle wounds he had never sustained, early marriages to two women who never existed, the birth and death of a son who was yet another figment of his fantasy, and alleged sexual relationships with female Hollywood stars, one of whom — Natalie Wood — laughed the idea to scorn when I asked her about it.

Many of the claims Burr made about his life were accepted at face value by his first biographer, Ona Hill, in a book published in the year after his death. But his definitive biographer, Michael Seth Starr, writing 15 years after Burr’s demise, confronted all the claims head-on, demolishing most of them. His book was entitled Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret Life of Raymond Burr.

Raymond William Stacy Burr was born on May 21, 1917 in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. He was a chubby baby, exhibiting even then the ample girth that would both help and haunt him for the rest of his days.

By the age of 22, Burr, as far as anyone knew, had never dated anyone. But the gossip columnist Ed Sullivan muddied the waters when he published an unsubstantiated rumour that Ona Munson, who had played Belle Watling in the movie Gone With The Wind, was ‘flirting with San Franciscan Raymond Burr’.

There was only one problem about this. Ona, despite three disastrous marriages, was a lesbian who was later linked to both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.

Burr met his first and only wife, Isabella Ward — Bella, as she preferred to be called — in 1943, during his first season as a trainee actor at the Pasadena Playhouse. The couple co-starred in Burr’s first Playhouse production, Quiet Wedding, and were married on January 10, 1948, when he was 30.

The marriage collapsed within months and they were divorced in 1952. Neither would ever remarry. Bella would later comment: ‘Some people are just not marrying people — and I think I’m one of them.’

Burr was later to insist that Bella was not his first wife and that he had been married previously to a Scottish actress named Annette Sutherland, whom he was supposed to have met while he was touring Britain in the early 1940s.

He claimed Annette had died in June 1943 in the same plane as actor Leslie Howard, shot down by the Nazis over the Bay of Biscay."


Do I need to go on?


"In 1959, seven years after his divorce from Bella, Burr began introducing yet another previous wife into his calamitous history. This one was named Laura Andrina Morgan and he claimed to have married her in either 1955 or 1953.

She conveniently died soon afterwards, having lost her battle with cancer just before the couple’s planned honeymoon in the Bahamas. Once again, no one known to Burr ever met Laura and no trace of her has ever been found."


It's an OK series, I don't go out of my way to watch it. but I do watch it.

[Baby Lee]

Rather than diving back into Umbrella Academy, or delving into darker fare like horror or thrillers, I finally started my with through NPH's 'Series of Unfortunate Events' Netflix series.

Only 5 eps in thus far, but pleasantly surprised in an unexpected way.

It's sinister and whimsical in the vein of Pushing Daisies [Sonnenfeld], like I expected. But the sense of humor is very dry and often disarmingly funny.

It's what you might call smart and winking humor, which could come off smug and tedious in the wrong hands. It plays with subverting the narrative and making callbacks and little snarky asides. I sense that a lot of this comes from the brliiance of the books it was based on, and if so I see why they were so popular. But it really delivers at moments. Surprised how often I find myself chuckling almost involuntarily.

EDIT: It was bugging me what the 'smart-dumb' humor reminded me of, and it just struck me. . . . It has a similar sense of humor to Raising Arizona crossed with The Princess Bride . . .

It's definitely reminiscent some of the better young adult books I recall from my childhood.

Just curious, if anyone has seen the whole thing and how it holds up long term. I don't want to overstay the welcome or wade into some of the material if the consensus is it is subpar.

[DaneMcCloud]

Oh, this is probably in an older thread but last year, when I was recovering from back surgery, I binged Parks & Rec.

The first season was a tough watch but I fought through it because the show has been so highly regarded by essentially anyone whose seen it.

But goodness gracious, does that show take off in Season 2! And I have to say I think that it’s was Rob Lowe’s career defining role and he was sooooo freaking good. All of the actors where outstanding, although it took me a bit to warm up to Billy Eichner’s character.


But overall, it’s an 8.9 with the only thing holding it back from a ten is season one.

[lcarus]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Oh, this is probably in an older thread but last year, when I was recovering from back surgery, I binged Parks & Rec.

The first season was a tough watch but I fought through it because the show has been so highly regarded by essentially anyone whose seen it.

But goodness gracious, does that show take off in Season 2! And I have to say I think that it’s was Rob Lowe’s career defining role and he was sooooo freaking good. All of the actors where outstanding, although it took me a bit to warm up to Billy Eichner’s character.


But overall, it’s an 8.9 with the only thing holding it back from a ten is season one.

Agreed. It's not as funny as The Office but it's pretty good.