Good tv series to watch

Since I watch an outrageous amount of television series I shall limit the below list to subjectively good shows I have watched in their entirety. For ones still on air this means that I'm actively keeping up with them whenever new episodes come forth.

To make my life a touch easier the list is in alphabetical order, as opposed to some kind of order by quality.

• 666 Park Avenue: a very engaging (and unfortunately cancelled) series about a couple that accepts an offer to manage a beautiful, old apartment building in New York City, which soon turn out to have a supernatural past. Scary and mad things ensue.
• American Dad!: a Seth McFarlane show similar but, in my opinion, superior to Family Guy. It is less puerile, which is a fine thing.
• The Americans: an ongoing period drama centring around the lives and miseries of two married KGB spies in Washinton DC during the Raegan era.
• Archer: an intelligent and very funny animated comedy about an international spy agency. Think of it as a satirical take on James Bond with an outstanding sense of humour.
• Better Off Ted: a comedy about Ted Crisp, the head of research and development at Veridian Dynamics. The show presents a compellingly cynical view of the blurry ethical boundaries of large corporations.
• A Bit of Fry and Laurie: a sketch show from the late eighties and early nineties starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (of House fame). In it they engage in sophisticated and witty hijinks about almost all things imaginable. It is a consistently good and (slightly more) modern Monty Python.
• Breaking Bad: a drama about a high school chemistry teacher who, upon being diagnosed with lung cancer, turns to a life of crime in order to attempt to secure a nest egg for his family. The Internet ought to have made it clear how stellar this show is.
• Californication: a rather more adult comedy about Hank Moody, an author whose life is quickly becoming less about writing and more about a balancing act of sex and drug addictions and not destroying his family.
• Community: one of the few comedies about nerds or geeks or whatever you'd like to call us that presents a fair and accurate view of what makes us both lovely and silly. Instead of making a fleeting reference to Doctor Who (like, say, The Big Bang Theory) they'll spend a whole episode on the subject.
• Continuum: I have my reservations regarding the third season that just begun, but it is still one of the best science fiction dramas on air. It is about a police officer from the year 2077 who, due to a tampered with execution device in a prison, find herself in 2012 along with the eight terrorists that were supposed to have been killed.
• Damages: a very dark character drama in the world of high stakes litigation in New York. It features season long stories and is very well written.
• Doctor Who: The longest running science fiction series there on telly. I adore it, many other loathe it; it seems to be fairly polarising. It is about the Doctor who, along with one or more companion, travels through space and time.
• Dollhouse: an action drama that revolves around an underground establishment that provides reprogrammed people, known as Actives, that are implanted with whatever personalities and skills the customer desires. To my great sorrow the show was cancelled, but the two seasons we did get are terrific.
• Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23: a comedy that features the two very different lives of two very different women who happen to find themselves sharing a flat in New York.
• Elementary: incongruous title aside, it is a compelling Sherlock Holmes adaptation which, being American, doesn't suffer from the short seasons that BBC's ever popular Sherlock does. There are artistic licenses being taken I don't necessarily agree with, but I still enjoy it.
• Entourage: a compelling and rather unfiltered show about the life of an actor on the rise in Hollywood who, along with his two childhood friends, his brother and agent navigate the very high highs and low lows of this life. There's also a film scheduled for release the summer of 2015 which makes me very happy.
• Firefly: is a brilliant space drama around the lives of the crew of Serenity, a Firefly class spaceship who live don't necessarily care very much about the law. It is very short due to having been cancelled (courtesy of Fox airing the show out of order) yet managed to get a film made some time later due to how very vehement the fan base is.
• FlashForward: a science fiction show that is very rare in that it is better than the novel it is based on. The central mystery is a global event in which everyone on the planet lose consciousness for one hundred and thirty-seven seconds. During this interval people see what is apparently their lives six months in the future; they all flash forward.
• Futurama: takes all that was good with the Simpsons and is lovely in just about every way there is.
• Game of Thrones: is one of the most compelling adaptations of a series of novels I've seen. The books are better, but the show is still outstanding.
• The Good Wife: is perhaps the most genuinely good show currently on television. It centres on the live of a wife and mother who must both take care of her family and go back to work after her husband's very public sex scandal and political corruption gets him put in prison. Contrary to just about every other show I've seen it just keeps getting better.
• Graceland: somewhere in southern California a pretty beach house was seized by the government after a drug raid: this house is made the undercover residence for a set of top agents from the DEA, FBI and US Customs, from where they tackle the drug cartels.
• Gravity: is an odd and melancholic series about a support group for people who have attempted to commit suicide.
• Gruen Planet: (formerly Gruen Transfer) is an Australian panel show featuring high-ups from the advertisement business. It deals with how advertisement works and what it does to us.
• Homeland: a character drama about a prisoner of war who, after many years, returns home to the United States as a hero in the eyes of all but one, a CIA officer who believes he has been turned by al-Qaeda.
• House of Cards: is Netflix's spectacular adaptation of an old British political drama. It is set in Washington DC and tells the story of a Democrat who is denied his promotion to Secretary of State. He promptly decides to exact his revenge on the people who wronged him in doing so.
• Hustle: follows a gang of expert confidence men loose in London. I have a weak spot for all manner of heist dramas and therefore find it irresistible.
• Jekyll: is a miniseries adaptation of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which almost by definition makes it a good time.
• Lie to Me: centres around an agency that specialised in telling when people are telling the truth. It appeals to me for reasons similar to that of good heist films as it follows a similar kind of narrative.
• Love Bites: is a terrific little lost gem of comedy about love and the mad things it makes people do. Unfortunately cancelled, but excellent all the same.
• Masters of Sex: is a period drama that tells the mildly romanticised story of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the two people who almost single handedly pioneered the science of human sexuality half a century ago. It also features beautiful dresses.
• The Mentalist: is a police procedural that blends with the sort of stylistic and narrative choices that make heist dramas excellent. It is far from consistently good, but when it gets it right it is stellar.
• Mom: is the newest venture by Chuck Lorre, the man behind Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, and it it better than both of them. It is about a mother who lives with her mother and two children, one of which in turn is undergoing a teenage pregnancy.
• New Girl: is an adorable comedy about a woman who moves in with three lads. Goody and dorky humour ensues.
• The Newsroom: is an admittedly idealistic but still compelling drama set in a newsroom as they pursue the truth.
• Orphan Black: is the reason Continuum is left as 'one of the best science fiction dramas on air'; this is the other one. It follows the life of a streetwise orphan, upon witnessing the suicide of a woman who looks very much like her, assumes her identity. She soon realises a remarkable truth: she and the dead woman are clones.
• Peaky Blinders: is an historical drama featuring the Peaky Blinders, a crew of gangsters in Birmingham after the first World War. The gang's name comes from their practice of sewing razor blades into the peaks of their caps, which they then proceed to use on the ears of people they need to intimidate as they go about their daily business of illegal betting, selling 'protection' and traversing the black market. It is a truly spectacular series; if you are to take only one show away from this list, let it be Peaky Blinders.
• QI: —short for Quite Interesting—is Stephen Fry's quiz show about things that are just that. Participants are rewarded points for bringing interesting things to the conversation, rather than correct answers to questions.
• Scrubs: is one of those shows I keep coming back to, despite having seen it a dozen times from start to finish, and still I enjoy every moment. It is a quirky and interesting comedy about the lives of doctors in a teaching hospital, yet manages to be remarkably dark and poignant when it is necessary, which is all the more tangible due to the light comedy that surrounds it.
• Seinfeld: is somewhat of an antiquated guilty pleasure. Some people favour Friends, other prefer Seinfeld. The former is fine, but the latter is the master of situational comedy.
• Sherlock: as briefly eluded to in the blurb for Elementary, is excellent (although I didn't much enjoy the third series). It is a very well produced Sherlock Holmes adaptation, which is invariably fun. Its interpretation of both Irene Adler and Professor James Moriarty are top drawer.
• Suits: is a drama that follows the life of college drop-out Mike Ross who, somehow, manages to land a job with one of New York's foremost law firms, despite not formally being allowed to practice law.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: following the end of the second film, the series tells the story of Sarah and John Connor in their quest to stop Skynet from ever being born. I enjoy most things Terminator and this is no exception.
• The Thick of It: is a comedy that satires the inner workings of the British government. A short and sweet series that will have you hear a great deal of excellent profanities as things don't go as planned.
• True Detective: tells the story of two detectives and their seventeen year long hunt for a serial killer. It is an expertly written and very unforgiving crime drama.
• Utopia: is a disturbing thriller. Truly disturbing. It might well have you perturbed for weeks after watching it. It is also worthy of just about every superlative there is. It centres around an unconnected set of people who find themselves in possession of the manuscript for a legendary graphic novel which, apparently, is sought after by a shadowy and murderous organisation.
• Veronica Mars: tells the story of a teenage private detective who, by means of particular resourcefulness, manages to go about her business in a very compelling fashion. There was recently a crowdfunded film made to tie up the loose ends from after its cancellation.
• Weeds: is a tough recommendation. On the one hand the first two or so seasons are thoroughly great, on the other hand it quickly goes completely off the rails after that. It tells the story of a suburban mother who, finding herself both widowed and broke, decides to become the neighbourhood marijuana dealer. When it is good it is the comedy equivalent of Breaking Bad, when it is bad you should stop watching and pick some other show in this list.
• White Collar: is about a con artist and forger who eventually ends up being caught by the FBI. Eventually he is allowed to help their white collar division capture people of his ilk instead of staying in prison.
• The Wrong Mans: is an hysterically funny about two office workers who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and are thus caught up in a deadly criminal conspiracy.

 

If you're one for dark television I wholeheartedly recommend Fargo, FX's new adaptation of the namesake Coen brother's film from 1996. Since he Coen brothers are executive producers for the television series I suspect we're in for a similarly thrilling ride.

The series premiere aired last night and I found it to be very, very good.