Best piece of recent US televisual programming

[kyser_soze]

My recomendation for watching The Wire - if you can do it in 2-4 epsiode blocks (which you may end up doing anyway) as it's easier to unpick the stories.

I have to say that DVD series/torrenting and having multiple ep sessions adds a lot to a few shows - Lost, 24 and surprisingly, Buffy.

On that subject, I'd like to add Buffy to the list of contenders. It's not recent true, but the Buffython Wry and I are indulging in at the mo has reminded me that as a piece of TV drame aimed at a largely adolescent audience, it's a fucking great piece of TV.

And I have to agree with Ann'O on Ugly Betty. For some strange reason I'm as addicted to that as I was to Sunset Beach, especially with the ludicrous storylines..

 

[Orang Utan]

I've never got the Buffy thing - well, not why adults like it

 

[Idaho]

It doesn't

The characters in The Sopranos were hardly glamourous. What was interesting was that for the most part they were quite mundane. The series really was about the banality of evil.

Isn't the very act of making a glossy tv series about something glamourising it?

 

[Spion]

Isn't the very act of making a glossy tv series about something glamourising it?

by 'glossy' you mean well made? There's nothing glossed over about the treachery, greed and violent logic of the Sopranos, IMO

 

[Reno]

I've never got the Buffy thing - well, not why adults like it

Buffy is not easily understood by watching one or two episodes but unfolds over the course of each season. I didn't get it for a long time and dismissed it as rubbish. Then I came across an episode that I thought was one of the best hours of television ever produced (the mostly dialogue free Hush). I gave the series a try and ended up loving it. Buffy used fantastic events and characters not as an escape from reality, but to create heightened reality which I thought was clever. It was allegorical, not in a thumpingly obvious way Star Trek often was, but in a way that's sly and witty, subverting every possible clichee of horror, sci-fi and teen soaps along the way.

 

[Reno]

Isn't the very act of making a glossy tv series about something glamourising it?

It wasn't glossy, it was quality. Desperate Housewives is glossy. Anyway you already said you "tried an episode once" and it's not a series that is understood by just watching one episode.

 

[kyser_soze]

Buffy is not easily understood by watching one or two episodes. I didn't get it for a long time, then came across an episode that I thought was genuinely one of the best hours of television ever produced (the silent episode Hush) and gave it a try after that. Buffy used the fantastic events and characters not as an escape from relaity, but to create heightened reality which I thought was clever. It was allegororical, not in a thumpingly clumsy way the way Star Trek often was, but in a way that's sly and witty, inverting every possible clichee of horror, sci-fi and teen soaps along the way.

Yup, noticed LOADS of really long played stuff as well - and it covers everything from coming-of-age at 16, 18 and 20, racism, tranvesticism, homosexuality, drugs as well as being smart, snappy and seriously funny.

 

[London_Calling]

I have to say that DVD series/torrenting and having multiple ep sessions adds a lot to a few shows - Lost, 24 and surprisingly, Buffy.

Yup, does for me, as well.

Fwiw, I found Lost to be about 42 minutes an episode (inc. recaps); so 2 episodes = an under average film length, 3 episodes a longish film length. 2 episodes was almost always enough.

 

[Belushi]

I cant watch a single episode of any series now thanks to boxsets and torrents

 

[Orang Utan]

I'd watch 6 episodes in a row if I was allowed

 

[Flashman]

Yeah Buffy was great, Hush was a brilliant episode (that they never show during the re-runs, too scary perhaps) with my favourite Buffy bad guys, The Gentlemen:

 

[Dubversion]

Buffy is not easily understood by watching one or two episodes but unfolds over the course of each season. I didn't get it for a long time and dismissed it as rubbish, but then came across an episode that I thought was genuinely one of the best hours of television ever produced (the mostly dialogue free episode Hush) and gave it a try. Buffy used fantastic events and characters not as an escape from relaity, but to create heightened reality which I thought was clever. It was allegorical, not in a thumpingly clumsy way Star Trek often was, but in a way that's sly and witty, subverting every possible clichee of horror, sci-fi and teen soaps along the way.

all that ^^

it GENUINELY works on a myriad of levels (many things are claimed to do this but the claim doesn't bear scrutiny).

it works as a genuinely affecting look at growing up, relationships, friendships, sex, loyalty, duty etc. As well as being funny as all hell, exciting, ultra-referential / hip. Brilliant brilliant TV

 

[Belushi]

I'd watch 6 episodes in a row if I was allowed

8 episodes of 24 in one sitting is my record

 

[Belushi]

As were talking Buffy heres a nice pic of Willow

 

[London_Calling]

Yes, very fine. Both of them.


Fwiw, I try to keep it to two episodes in the same way I 'try' to restrict myself to two hobnobs.

Even then, when I'm about to start a couple more, I find I re-watch quite a few of the key scenes from the previous episdoe again. If it's good quality, it'll stand up to that and more. Might even argue it deserves that.

Horses for courses, I s'pose.

 

[Jenerys]

LA Law

 

[kyser_soze]

8 episodes of 24 in one sitting is my record

A few of us once did a 15ep session (S4) with a mound of coke and were pracically having coronaries by the end of it.

HEALTH WARNING - DO NOT WATCH TOO MUCH JACK BAUER WITH STIMULANTS

 

[Orang Utan]

I had a panic attack after having a skunk bong and watching 24 once

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

My two dads

 

[kyser_soze]

Wasn't he Burke in Aliens?

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Yes.

He always plays a tit.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I also vote for 'Perfect Strangers'

 

[kyser_soze]

Moonlighting, but only up until they shagged. It was shite after that.

 

[jodal]

Another for The Wire.

Then Sopranos.

Brotherhood is my Sopranos substitute at the moment. Its about two Irish American brothers, one a congressman and the other a gangster recently released from prison.

 

[Dubversion]

i've never seen a single minute of 24 ever in my life

 

[Orang Utan]

Don't bother

 

[fieryjack]

It's long since finished, but The Larry Sanders Show remains the best television series I have ever seen, elevating characterisation, humour, consistency and vulgarity to spectacular levels. Very few good comedies since have gone untouched by it, and the lack of exposure and proper scheduling for Larry on the BBC was a disgrace.

 

[Belushi]

i've never seen a single minute of 24 ever in my life

It's exciting and addictive though by the fifth season you've seen it all before.

 

[May Kasahara]

I'd just like to echo everything that kyser, Dub and Reno have said about Buffy. I never thought that anything could oust it from its number one all-time best show ever made slot in my heart; it took something as exceptional as The Wire to do so. And even then, I still love Buffy more. Truly brilliant television that paved the way for a lot of the high quality aspects of more recent output, IMO.

 

[Orang Utan]

Maybe I should just check Buffy out, but every time I ever caught it on the telly it just struck me as a silly teen soap, like a supernatural Dawson's Creek