favorite tv shows

[Moosferatu]

What are your favorite tv shows?

I never really watched that much tv, so I don't really have that many. When I was growing up my favorites were Batman: The Animated Series (just got it on dvd. sweet.), Spiderman: The Animated Series (strangely enough not on dvd yet), Beast Wars, and Darkwing Duck. Yeah, I know most of you probably don't like Beast Wars, but I grew up on it and I'm ashamed to admit that I never saw the original Transformers. Oh, and I forgot Home Improvement.

Then I moved to Hungary and didn't really watch any tv what so ever for all of high school. When I moved back I discovered that Futurama is just about the best thing ever, and bought all four seasons. I also enjoy Family Guy, though I don't think I'd ever buy it on dvd. A friend of mine as the first two seasons of Samurai Jack. I watched the first season and absolutely love the art style, but the episodes themselves feel a bit formulaic. hmm... I feel like watching more now. Other than that there's always The Daily Show and The Cobert Report, but those don't really count.

So, yeah, I haven't really seen much. What do you guys like?

[baconian]

Lost. and what you said. and The Day Today. Look around You was great too. Write that down in your copybook.

[elmuerte]

Series I currently follow:

• Simpsons
  
• Family guy
  
• American dad
  
• Malcolm in the Middle
  
• Prison Break
  
• My name is Earl
  
• Everybody hates Chris
  
• Scrubs
  
• That 70s Show
  

Soon:

• Futurama
  
• Surface (next season?)
  
• Dr Who
  

Favorites that have ended or cool series from the past

• Red Dwarf
  
• Chef
  
• Tripping the Rift
  
• Penn and Teller Bullshit
  
• Dilbert
  
• Duck Tales
  
• Reboot
  
• Transformers
  
• Darkwing Duck
  
• Gooftroop
  
• Home Improvement
  
• Married with Children
  

I'm sure I forgot a couple

[brkl]

Battlestar Galactica

My Name Is Earl

Lost

Battlestar Galactica

Samurai Jack

Family Guy

American Dad

Battlestar Galactica

Deadwood

Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica

[Lechimp]

I agree, they need to release the X-Men and Spiderman cartoons on dvd. Well actually, they have released a few episodes on dvd, but they're really bad releases that have random episodes, they aren't in season format. But until then, I watch it on tv on a Disney channel (but not THE Disney channel, this is a channel that's just for cartoons)

I don't really watch many shows that haven't ended or have been cancelled, the only ones I can think of right now are

• Doctor Who
  
• Lost
  
• Daily Show and Colbert Report (if those count)
  
• and sometimes Family Guy
  

and that's it really, I don't watch that much tv I guess.

[elmuerte]

Yeah, young indy rules. They need to release those on DVD.

MacGyver is cool too, forgot about that one.

[Moosferatu]

Is Lost really that good? I've only seen a couple random episodes on tv, and while I'm interested in finding out what the heck's going on, it seemed like there was too much crap to wade through what with the melodramatic flash-backs or what have you.

[Lechimp]

Is Lost really that good? I've only seen a couple random episodes on tv, and while I'm interested in finding out what the heck's going on, it seemed like there was too much crap to wade through what with the melodramatic flash-backs or what have you.

It's a pretty good show but you need to watch the series in order and you can't miss any episodes or else you'll have no clue what's going on. It's certainly one of the better shows on tv right now though.

[brkl]

Is Lost really that good? I've only seen a couple random episodes on tv, and while I'm interested in finding out what the heck's going on, it seemed like there was too much crap to wade through what with the melodramatic flash-backs or what have you.

No one will ever know what's going on in Lost

[elmuerte]

Yeah, I only have a few low quality VHS recordings of those.

Except for a couple of bad "episodes" they all rock. One of the worst "episode" was that dracula one.

[Kolzig]

I've watched a lot of tv, propably too much... but there have been many excellent tv series in the past. Actually there have been so many that it's pointless to list all of them right here, so I'm just going to say that MacGyver is the best tv show ever created.

Great tv shows that are still being aired and have not been cancelled:

Battlestar Galactica

Deadwood

Lost

Veronica Mars

Stargate SG-1

Gilmore Girls (yes, I like this show very much, thank you)

Justice League Unlimited (actually I think they are ending this one and the fifth season is the last one)

King of the Hill (same goes to KotH, tenth season is the last one...) Fox pulled a big one, KotH just got a 11th season green lighted

Family Guy

I'm not sure about American Dad though, it's definitely weaker than FG, but it's still an ok show.

[ysbreker]

Battlestar galactica

Southpark

Arrested development

The 4400

Lost

Allo! Allo!

Mac Guyver

The Classic Batman series

I think they're pretty much in the right order of greatness...

[n0wak]

I can't get into the habit of watching new TV shows. I always get distracted and forget about them and never see them. I just saw my first episode of the US "The Office" last week since the pilot!

The only shows that I watch on a regular basis:

Daily Show

Colbert Report

Battlestar Galactica

NHL Hockey (Centre Ice)

once, though, before the internet... I watched a LOT of TV. I saw all those shitty 90s Fox sitcoms, and those not so horrible (Get a Life, Parker Lewis, Herman's Head). I saw all the various sci-fi shows, from SeaQuest to Earth2 to "Space: Above and Beyond" (now that I watch BSG, I really want to see that show again. BSG reminds me a LOT of S:AaB.) I saw a lot of the Fox after-school cartoons (Batman, Gargoyles). I watch a LOT of TV in the early 90s... and, you know what, I don't miss a lot of it. I know that if I were to watch some of those shows again, my nostalgia will be ruined and I'd realize that they sucked. Hell, I used to watch "Evening at the Improv" at 11pm on A&E.

So I'll stick to the my copies of "The Office (UK)" and "Spaced" and "The Newsroom" (CBC show, was great) and "Futurama" and "Babylon 5 (season 3-4)" and be done with it.

--

Although, if I were to ruin some of that nostalgia, I'd really like to see some old "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" episodes. I've seen half of a crappy VHS rip once and that's it.

[Lechimp]

Wait, nowak, you're canadian, you watch hockey, but you don't watch Hockey Night in Canada?

[Jayel]

I don't have a TV so I miss a lot of good shows.

I like Columbo. I watch (parts of) the Daily Show and Colbert Report on comedy central website.

[miffy495]

Damn you n0wak! I though I was going to be the first one to mention The Newsroom. Ken Finkleman rocks, and as I live in the same city as her and get involved with independent film stuff from time to time, I've had the honour of meeting Karen Hines a few times. Wonderful woman, very very nice, and took my initial reaction of "HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP YOU'RE KAREN HINES!!!!" very well.

Other shows I'm into:

South Park

Penn & Teller: Bullshit!

Rescue Me (Yeah, Denis Leary can only play one character, but he plays him so damn well it doesn't matter )

Dead Like Me

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Futurama

This is Wonderland

Also, I follow the Daily show and Colbert Report religiously. But that just seems to be the norm around here, so it's not really worth mentioning, is it?

[Kolzig]

Well well, Fox wants KotH to become like the Simpsons and be on air for too long. KotH just got green lighted for 11th season.

The Simpsons got two seasons more, I mean then it's going to be 19 seasons, man that's just way too long for one show. Simpsons went downhill a long time ago already.

[brkl]

Oh yeah, King of the Hill is awesome. I don't know if the quality has dropped, though.

[nsps]

I watch these shows religiously:

Arrested Development

Lost (which you do need to start from the beginning)

The Daily Show

The Colbert Report

I sort of like these shows, but feel that their quality isn't what it used to be:

The Simpsons

Gilmore Girls (quality varies widely, but the dialogue is sometimes entertaining)

Shows that I love that have been cancelled

Freaks and Geeks

Firefly

Home Movies

Futurama

Wonderfalls

Undeclared

The X Files (minus the last couple seasons)

Shows I enjoy, but don't make a great effort to watch:

Everybody Hates Chris

My Name is Earl

The Office

I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff, too.

As for Penn & Teller's Bullshit, which a few people have mentioned, I kind of discuss how I liked the show but feel it lost any journalistic credibility here:

http://forums.idlethumbs.net/showpost.php?p=55484&postcount=6

[miffy495]

Yeah, but I don't think Bullshit has so much a "corporate funded agenda" as it is that P&T actually happen to believe this stuff. Not many corporations are too interested in legalizing marijuana or shutting down the funeral industry, but they did episodes about that too. I myself am quite libertarian, so I don't mind that slant so much, but I don't try to fool myself into thinking that it's not there. As long as you remember to take it with a grain of salt, this show can be really damn good. Anyway, topic's been derailed enough, so I'll shut up now.

[nsps]

Well, I guess it's "idle banter" and it's about TV shows, so it's kind of OK to get derailed. So here we go...

My big problem with the show is that it claims to follow science and avoid spin, or bullshit. And when I was first watching, I thought it did just that. It made me reconsider certain things that I held for granted, until I realized that I was taking the show's credibility for granted. Since they lied and/or deliberately mislead on the shows about second-hand smoke (as a smoker has admitted), the environment, genetically modified food and other topics, I have trouble taking them seriously on other subjects that I know little about, even if I've enjoyed some other episodes, especially the one on creationism. I also think that many of the shows are based not on any libertarian agenda, but on the duo's love of Harry Houdini and his crusade against frauds and supernaturally charged superstitions. But Houdini would be ashamed to see his followers sticking to any party agenda whenever it came to political interpretations of science.

If they called the show "Penn & Teller's Actual Bullshit from the Libertarian Think Tank of Which Penn is an Honorary Member," then I'd be expecting the slant. (That's an awful title, by the way. "Snakes on a Plane" would be better.) People watching the show without the knowledge of the non-explicit slant might assume that the "experts" are legitimate experts. I also think that the quality of the writing/humor/organization and focus varies wildly from episode to episode and went completely downhill in season three.

[miffy495]

Yeah, that's plenty valid. They have said several times that they know they really aren't unbiased, but if you just turned it on one day without knowing that, it could be kind of misleading. I think of the show as kind of the anti- "Awful Truth," another documentary show that openly presented with quite a heavy bias. I still haven't seen more than half of the third season, so I can't really comment on that, but what I've seen is still pretty good. I think that the most a show like Bullshit or The Awful Truth can hope to do is to motivate a bunch of viewers to go out and do their own research. It seems to have got you doing so, and I know I've done some reading that I never would have without the show. To me, that makes it a success. As such, I really like it, but your points still stand.

[elmuerte]

I've never though of Bullshit as a fact program. I've always considered the episodes more to be a mocumentary.

That being said, the episode about those paranoid people is bullshit. Nobody ever landed on the moon and JFK was murdered by the state, they just got rid of all the evidence (read: people involved).

mwuahahahaha...

[schepton]

Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis in the Sci-Fi genre.

As for sit-coms, can't go wrong with some Seinfeld or The Drew Carey show.

Icons on G4 is the only show on that network I like.

Off to War on the Discovery Times channel is interesting too.

I also like to occasionally catch old shows like, Macgyver, M*A*S*H, and Boy Meets World.

[twmac]

Has Rodi mentioned Black Books yet? That series is brilliant, also Father Ted is legendary, Mighty Boosh and Nathan Barley, although some hate the latter.

I watched several Icons episodes and they almost make me want to cry, when they went on about Gonpei was handed the window seat after he tried to push the Virtual boy or how The matrix was partly responsible for the Dreamcast down fall (I knew I hated that film for more than one reason); I've had to turn it off for being truly heart wrenching.