<3 <3 <3
Babylon 5. Really, just go buy it.
House is cheap on DVD. Also the earlier seasons of Farscape should be possible to find cheap.
(But hurry, as a second edition set exists which doesn’t look nice on the shelf anymore. Grr!)
I second Dexter, Weeds and League of Gentlemen. Short seasons = cheaper boxes.
Having just recently watched most of Babylon 5 on DVD, I think I’d make a more cautious recommendation. It has some good parts, but it starts very rocky, takes two or three seasons to really get going, and then goes back to very poor in the last season
Yeah, but the 5th season is worth it for “Sleeping in Light”.
I think B5’s worth watching across the board, but it’s certainly not consistently as brilliant as its best arcs are. Still…there’s a lot of subtle stuff built into even the early episodes. Notice, for example, that Delenn is actually building her chrysalis in many scenes in episodes before she goes into it, but it’s never really remarked on.
And the commentaries are pretty neat.
One of the key problems with the first season is the awful actor that plays the commander. The later guy is not great, but still a step up.
QFT. Take that $40 a month cable TV bill and put it into Netflix plus GameFly.
I greatly enjoyed watching “Heroes” on DVD. No commericials, no weeks of waiting for the next episode.
Of course now it makes watching the extremely “meh” season 2 even worse because of the fucking commericals. Argh!
Just dated yourself there, Andrew. Though if I live to be 150 years old, I’ll never forget Billy Crystal walking into the house and saying, “What’s this crap about a possessed baby?” To which he’s then lifted into the air and you hear a demonic voice say, “Shut your mouth, faggot!”
SCTV, Larry Sanders, Action!, Alfred Hitchcock Presents…all recent purchases.
I also only watch them on DVD.
24 (first two seasons - stuck in the third)
4400
Battlestar Galactica (first two seasons only)
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: New York
Firefly
Futurama
House M.D. (great!)
Lost
MAS*H
Numb3rs
Prison Break
The Simpsons (up to season 7 so far)
Space: 1999 (didn’t age well)
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (season 4-7 only)
Star Trek: Enterprise (season 2-4 only)
Mini-series:
From the Earth to the Moon
Taken
The Triangle
Oh, speaking of miniseries, The Lost Room cannot be passed up.
Most of what I use Netflix for is TV series watching. I almost never watch regular TV except for sports and the occasional Family Guy episode.
My favorites so far:
Rome (best HBO series)
Supernatural (season 1 had a good opener, followed by a half-dozen lackluster episodes, and then improved for most of the rest of its run so far)
Buffy/Angel
The Office & 30 Rock (both available through Netflix’s “Watch Now” online viewing)
Freaks & Geeks
24 (I watched the first 3 seasons before taking a break)
Disappointments:
Sopranos (it wasn’t bad, exactly, and its characters were memorable, but I don’t feel like it’s earned the notoriety it has. There were also too many slow episodes/seasons.)
Smallville (I’m still watching this, up to season 3 now, but it’s slow going - I’m determined to stick with it. It seemed to improved markedly about halfway through season 2, but still needs work.)
This thread needs more love for The Wire. So:
The Wire
Thankfully someone finally mentioned Freaks & Geeks! I’d like to give another recommendation; it’s a great show.
Shows that I don’t think were mentioned so far:
Spaced
Extras
and… that’s all I can think of right now.
No kidding. I knew I was forgetting something.
If you want to hit the British great ones, also include
Doctor Who - Watch the new series, or start off tasting the old for some wonderful sci-fi. The writing generally makes up for the special effects.
Fawlty Towers - John Cleese classic about a horrible man and his attempts to run an inn and the people he has to deal with there.
'Allo 'Allo! - created by the team who created ‘Are You Being Served’, this is about a French cafe owner who reluctantly works for the French Resistance during WWII.
Last I heard, von Trier decided against doing Riget III after the death of Ernst-Hugo Järegård. Ernst-Hugo played the evil Swedish doctor (the guy who stands on the hospital roof screaming Danish bastards!). His brilliance made a big part of the show
Ernst-Hugo Järegård was, for my money, one of the greatest actors the world has ever seen.
Edit: Just saw madkevin already answered that. Next time I’ll shoot him in the groin first.
Just bought the first season of Mork & Mindy. It is quite brilliant at times.
Deadwood. Deadwood. Deadwood. Read the transcripts. Then watch them again.
Waiting for the John From Cincinnati DVD.
TV DVDs are the way to go. The list is too long to go into, but suffice it to say that I mailed not one but two trunks of 90% DVDs back to the US when I came back from Iraq. As it stands now, the only thing breaking my balls is the lag between a season ending and it coming out on DVD, since I refuse to watch anything other than comedy with ads and a week in between. Well, that and I don’t subscribe to HBO. Which reminds me I need to cancel DirecTV (thanks writers for making it so easy).
I have never seen Twin Peaks as I was waiting for the DVD, and I’m excited about that. The Wire, Rome, Carnivale and Deadwood are probably the definition of shows that belong in that format, although quirky addictions like Flight of the Conchords and Metalocalypse are also well suited to this (“You’ve never heard of ______? Let me show you real quick”…the thrill of unpaid viral marketing).
I tried the Sandbaggers on a recommendation from here, but I guess I’m just too shallow to appreciate a show like that from within its high school play budget. My wife laughing every time she walked by definitely didn’t help, but I can see the appeal for other people. Especially since MI 5 shit the bed, it’s probably a good time to revisit oldies. Ultraviolet, however, was quite good (too short!).
To give credit where it’s due, my wife’s purchase of the Buffy series got me started on this filthy habit.