Best TV shows past and present (netflix must watch)

Hey, no judgment here. Let your freak flag fly.
 
Mouthwash said:
The 100 is a guilty pleasure for me. It's kind of aimless; was derived from source material which it has since abandoned, but has good enough writing to be interesting.
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I've seen every episode (did a lot of binge-watching to catch up), and I've read the first e-book (there's a series). The book is somewhat different from the TV series. For one thing, there's another main character who isn't in the TV show. I'm looking forward to seeing the new season.

warpus said:
Has anyone ever watched Space: Above and Beyond, btw? It was one of my fav sci-fi shows back in the 90s (I think), but then they got cancelled after a couple seasons. Maybe nostalgia has got the best of me, but I think that show was marathon worthy.
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I never saw that, but I finally got around to watching Terra Nova. That was an interesting idea, and it's a shame they canceled the show.

Seems I'm usually about 10 years behind these things. It was just a couple of years ago that I saw Firefly, and once I got past the "space western" thing it was kinda fun.

Two pluses with that show: I really liked Nathan Fillion as Joey Buchanan on One Life to Live (best Joey they ever had), and some of it is such a silly concept that almost anything goes with fanfic. Someone started a Firefly/Downton Abbey crossover and actually made it make sense! :lol: (they never finished it though :()

EgonSpengler said:
Another criminally-underrated sci-fi show was Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-09). I'm not aware that it's available to stream, so anyone who wants to give it a shot may have to resort to DVDs. It got 2 seasons, a total of 31 episodes, and not very many people watched it. It's a sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day and skips the next 3 films, mostly for the better, I thought.
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Gah. I really didn't care for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The actress playing Sarah looked like she was perpetually scowling, and the way they did the time travel technobabble was basically whatever the plot required; it had no consistency with the movies or within the series itself, and made no sense.
 
I also got into Earth 2, I thought that was a good show, even if the aliens were a bit goofy. If they had that exact show without those stupid aliens, it would have been amazing, IMO. But yeah, I think that one got cancelled halfway too. One of the reasons I don't really get into TV shows these days, most of them get cancelled and you just end up with that stupid feeling of unfinished business.
 
Valka D'Ur said:
Gah. I really didn't care for The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The actress playing Sarah looked like she was perpetually scowling, and the way they did the time travel technobabble was basically whatever the plot required; it had no consistency with the movies or within the series itself, and made no sense.
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Time travel is always a fraught plot device, but I never had a hard time following the story here. I thought this show handled it about as well as anybody does, and better than many.

As for the scowl, yeah, she was obviously no fun at parties. Her paranoia and obsession with 'Judgment Day', and the effect they had on the people around her, were part of the character and show. On another forum, I hosted a "fantasy Star Trek crew" game in which we drafted characters from other sci-fi properties to be the bridge crew for a new series. I chose Headley's Sarah Connor to be my First Officer, partly because I thought it would be interesting to have a combat veteran with PTSD as one of my main characters.
 
Okay, the TV version of Sarah Connor was marginally more palatable than the main character on Revolution (her name escapes me at the moment). The actress had two facial expressions: blank and scrunched forehead. She just could not act to save her life, and the character was so unlikable that she was given the nickname "Bratniss" by the regular viewers on Television Without Pity (in the early part of the show's run her weapon of choice was a crossbow). I never finished watching the show, and from the comments I've seen, I really didn't miss much. It was canceled far later than it should have been.
 
For more sci fi that you can stream, Netflix has both Fringe and Continuum. Neither redefines the genre, but I think they're both top shelf, and if you're a sci fi nerd I would recommend both. Of course, if you're a sci fi nerd you've probably already seen one or both of them.


Link to video.


Link to video.
 
I haven't seen either of those, and am limited to whatever is on Netflix Canada. I'm not sure if those are, but will check.
 
Valka D'Ur said:
Okay, the TV version of Sarah Connor was marginally more palatable than the main character on Revolution (her name escapes me at the moment). The actress had two facial expressions: blank and scrunched forehead. She just could not act to save her life, and the character was so unlikable that she was given the nickname "Bratniss" by the regular viewers on Television Without Pity (in the early part of the show's run her weapon of choice was a crossbow). I never finished watching the show, and from the comments I've seen, I really didn't miss much. It was canceled far later than it should have been.
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Revolution never quite got its hooks in me, either. I think I watched most of the first season, but by the time season 2 started I'd kind of forgotten about it. The alternative take on the post-apocalypse was sort of neat, and it had a couple of actors I like (although I think one of them got killed in the first episode :lol: ), but... meh.
 
Valka D'Ur said:
I haven't seen either of those, and am limited to whatever is on Netflix Canada. I'm not sure if those are, but will check.
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Right, the streaming rights on shows is probably different in every country, which complicates a conversation like this one. Continuum is a Canadian show, which I think aired on Space originally. Fringe is a Fox show. I don't know what either means for Netflix Canada, though.
 
Straying pretty far from "best ever" territory here, but another prematurely-canceled show that I liked was Life (2007-09), with Demian Lewis, Sarah Shahi, Adam Arkin, Donal Logue, and Brent Sexton. A cast of non-stars who really came together, I thought. Lewis stars as a Los Angeles police detective recently released from Pelican Bay, a "supermax" prison, after serving 12 years for a murder he didn't commit. Exonerated of the crime, he naturally wants to find whoever framed him, and so goes back to work as a police detective with a nice settlement package. Shahi plays his new partner. Arkin plays his former cellmate. Sexton plays his old partner. Gabrielle Union, Christina Hendricks, Jessy Schram, Garrett Dillahunt, Robin Weigert, Shashawnee Hall, Michael Cudlitz and Lewis' wife Helen McCrory all provide able supporting performances.

TV-series-Life-season-two-006.jpg


The show isn't exactly funny, but I liked its sense of humor. "Quirky" is among the most over-used words in the English language, but I can't think of a better one right now, so I'll go with that (maybe that's why people use it too much). Lewis' character took up Buddhism while attending "gladiator school", and manages to walk a nice line between strangely serene and coiled spring of teeth-grinding rage. Shahi's character is kind of your stereotypical tough-but-hot female detective that drives half of network television, but she plays it well and she and Lewis have a nice chemistry. Arkin, Sexton (The Killing) and Logue (Vikings) are always good, imo.

The series streams on Hulu for free, so hey, why not.
 
warpus said:
Whenever I see "SyFy" my mind races to syphilis and messy bedrooms, which is what the word means in Polish. Unconsciously or not every single SyFy advert that my eyes pick up gets associated with garbage by default.
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"SyFy" is one of the worst rebranding decisions I can remember, and I didn't even know about the Polish thing. :lol: I thought it was dumb when they changed it, and still do.
 
Yeah,

Sci Fi Universal in Poland was launched on December 1, 2007. {...}

Unlike NBCUniversal's other science fiction channels around the world, the Polish channel maintained the "Sci Fi" brand on October 14, 2010. The term "syfy" has negative connotations in the Polish language, because it is a plural form of the word 'syf' (dirt, syphilis), which is why they chose to become Sci Fi Universal rather than "Syfy Universal".
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EgonSpengler said:
Right, the streaming rights on shows is probably different in every country, which complicates a conversation like this one. Continuum is a Canadian show, which I think aired on Space originally. Fringe is a Fox show. I don't know what either means for Netflix Canada, though.
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I don't get the Space channel. That means an extra subscription on top of what I'm already paying, and since I already don't watch much TV, it seems like a waste of money. Maybe if I moved the computer into the same room with the TV, or took up my needlepoint again (I used to spend hours a day on sewing and listening to TV shows or tapes) it would make sense to have the extra channels.

But the CRTC has said the cable companies have to start making it easier for people to get the channels they really want (although there's no choice in the matter if you want the basic; I think I've currently got about 5 French channels I don't watch).

EgonSpengler said:
The series streams on Hulu for free, so hey, why not.
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Canadians aren't allowed to access Hulu.
 
warpus said:
Whenever I see "SyFy" my mind races to syphilis and messy bedrooms, which is what the word means in Polish. Unconsciously or not every single SyFy advert that my eyes pick up gets associated with garbage by default.
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There's a word for "syphilis and messy bedrooms"? Sounds like the title of Russel Brand's autobiography.
 
Valka D'Ur said:
I don't get the Space channel. That means an extra subscription on top of what I'm already paying, and since I already don't watch much TV, it seems like a waste of money.
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I know what you mean. I haven't had cable tv at all for about 3 years. There are some shows that I know I would enjoy but don't have access to (Mr. Robot; Fargo), and some shows that I'm a season behind on (The Americans; Halt and Catch Fire). Even still, there's still plenty available, just through the myriad streaming services. And of course, the streaming services provide access to old shows that we could only dream of 15 years ago.


Link to video.

Valka D'Ur said:
Canadians aren't allowed to access Hulu.
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Yeah, I think any recommendations any of us make have to include the unwritten caveat "...in my country." Global licensing rights are a patchwork; even one particular service like Netflix is obligated to allow only certain content in certain countries, or to pay different licensing fees for different markets, even for the same show. I think the business side of television is all a bit of a mess right now.
 
Manfred Belheim said:
There's a word for "syphilis and messy bedrooms"? Sounds like the title of Russel Brand's autobiography.
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Polish can be a creative language, words can have multiple meanings. Syf means syphilis, but in slang it can also mean a mess. For ex, my mom would look at my room and say: "Clean up this syf!" Syfy is just a plural of this word, so.. it's a bad choice for branding purposes.
 
warpus said:
Has anyone ever watched Space: Above and Beyond, btw? It was one of my fav sci-fi shows back in the 90s (I think), but then they got cancelled after a couple seasons. Maybe nostalgia has got the best of me, but I think that show was marathon worthy.
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I remember it and I liked it. It reminded me of Starship Troopers and Wing Commander. They had one season. I still remember how they

Spoiler :
killed of most of the characters in the last episode(apparently at least).


My favourite one season scifi television series must be(no it's not Firefly) is Earth 2. When I first saw Lost I thought(and still think) it was a lame version of Earth 2 on an island.

edit: I didn't actually noticed you mentioned Earth 2 earlier btw.
 
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