Top 77 Television and Streaming Video Series of 2019

53 voters and 586 votes and 77 shows: this is ILE’s Top 77 Television and Streaming Video Series of 2019 a.k.a. “what you’ll be watching to catch up in 2020,” as managed by myself (tabulation, organization and poll-running) and Moka (extremely dope design and images). Each entry will include a link to the program or network’s respective ILX thread, a link to stream the show and an embedded YouTube with a season trailer or a representative clip. For the sake of the page loading easily for everyone, I’d like to request that people please not embed additional YouTubes but instead provide links to favorite scenes.

One more brief point before we start that we might as well call “the sic rule.” As your author is American, the listed provenance and linked website for each show is predominantly going to be for its streaming home in the United States, even when the show hails from elsewhere. Readers are strongly encouraged to provide links for their own local streaming options so that everyone can keep up.

We’ll start small with a four-way, 20 point / 2 vote tie for #74. Once we get past #71, that’ll be the end of our two vote winners.

sounds good, cheers for this ulysses and all others that helped!

https://i.imgur.com/49T6C6F.jpg
#74 (Tie) - Too Old to Die Young (Amazon) - 20 points, 2 votes

A Thread to discuss Too Old to Die Young, an Amazon series from Nicolas Winding Refn

Too Old to Die Young on Amazon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0KO8My-90g

TOO LOW but tbh kind of a perfect placement

https://i.imgur.com/4Th6DRu.jpg
#74 (Tie) - Nailed It! (Netflix US) - 20 points, 2 votes

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Nailed It! on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTW0fUlW42I

Yay, glad this is rolling out!

Nailed It! is an interesting case. My kids and I watched it with tears of laughter rolling down our face. But it's basically one joke and after we'd watched four or five episodes we just felt we were seeing the same shtick again and again and it wasn't funny anymore. Then again, the vast majority of shows don't even have ONE shtick that funny so it deserves some credit.

https://i.imgur.com/QeFN6El.jpg
#74 (Tie) - Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey (Netflix) - 20 points, 2 votes

Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN3IEfn8cFg

for the confused (and I am among them):

Ainori is a reality program where seven young men and women travel the world riding a pink bus. The program is reminiscent of a travelogue; as of December 2008, the show has followed the bus across 90 countries as participants explore both famous tourist attractions and more off-the-beaten-path places. The participants are led across each country by a native who serves as tour guide, bus driver, and friend. Upon reaching the border with another country, the bus stops and participants head out to their next destination country to meet their new tour guide and get into their new bus.

The show's twist is that the participants are each young, single people whose goal is to find love with another participant and return to Japan as a couple. When a participant has decided they like someone else, they ask the driver for a ticket back to Japan. They then declare their love to the object of their affection, and ask that the two return to Japan together. After a night's consideration, the person who received the love declaration can either answer with a kiss, after which both participants leave the bus for Japan. Otherwise, the jilted participant is left to return to Japan alone. Besides the love declaration, participants are forbidden from talking openly about their love interests with other participants, but inform the TV audience of their feelings through diaries and confessions to the camera (shot when no other participants are present).

After people leave the bus, new people are added to the program, to keep the total at 7 members. They are seen on the side of the road with a painted cardboard sign (appearing to be hitchhikers) and brought aboard after a self-introduction.

The First Lap Around the World ended in May, 2003, and the Second Lap ended in March, 2007. After that, the bus visits the countries which has never been visited on the show, without the route. The 400th episode was aired on May 5, 2008.

As of March, 2009, 44 couples have found love through the program, and there have been 8 marriages (though one couple has divorced). On March 1, 2005, the first "Ainori Baby" was born, and as of mid-2008 there have been 4 babies born in total.

haha
haven't heard of any of these

here's another marquee favorite

https://i.imgur.com/pKakZ2O.jpg
#74 (Tie) - GeoWizard's Mission Across Wales (YouTube) - 20 points, 2 votes

thread of youtubers whomst are not terrible

GeoWizard's Mission Across Wales on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7w986ni7_g

TOO LOW

My #2, could have been 1. The greatest gonzo documentarian of our age

Ainori was my #6 too. How they manage to combine compelling reality romance with bonkers in-depth informative travelogue, seemingly on the fly and with a minuscule budget, is insane

Aww, forgot to vote for it (I skipped the yt list in noms), but yes, I enjoyed that h/t lj

His recently concluded mission across Europe might be even better btw

I keep meaning to watch this Wales thing because people keep saying it's amazing and I can't quite fathom how it could be amazing

The first few eps of this were good but my interest level waned after that.

https://i.imgur.com/XlNAuBy.jpg
#73 - Jessica Jones (Netflix) - 20 points, 3 votes

Marvel's Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DBKS2qH51I

booooooooooo

xp If the opening theme music doesn't get you maybe don't bother. It will though. And then twenty minutes later you'll watch a man with a Go Pro using a broken bridge to cross a torrent, with nothing but sheep fields on all sides, as he narrates his own plight

watched and enjoyed season 1 but never felt compelled to go back for 2 + 3.

I would like to think the Marvel TV experiment crashed and burned so badly because the series were all so obviously mediocre and poorly paced, but I'm sure it had more to do with the Disney takeover / launch of Disney+.

Ainori is amazing for (amongst many other things) showing all the grittier seams of the production of a romantic reality TV show. Invariably the production crew are dragged into episodes and the whole thing has this slightly lurid manic insomnia offset against genuinely eye-opening documentary about harrowing topics from around the globe. One part of Ainori: Asian Journey sees the seven romantic hopefuls participating in performing operations on children in a hospital without power.

Apologies in advance btw - tt and I will probably be responsible for quite a lot of the content today. We shall return to our scheduled suggested programming tomorrow!

Tom’s paranoiac outbursts about phantom farmers in Mission Across Wales really made the whole series for me. The absurdity and difficulty of the challenge makes an already interesting reflection on the Welsh countryside genuinely tense and hilarious.

So was JJ season 3 improvement on season 2? I thought 1 was good but too long, 2 was meh and too long, haven't had much incentive to watch 3.

xxp lol, i had almost posted a snarky "one couple has gamed the bottom end of the poll" comment but opted for the better part of valor

And yeah, quite (xps). This Ainori season is the first time I've seen Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan etc) portrayed with any degree of depth...in anything, really. As a bunch of wonderful Japanese losers are being pried to fall for each other

JJ season 3 was all right, definitely an improvement on season 2. Didn't vote for it, but 73 is probably an appropriate placement.

Gutted I forgot to vote for Geowizard

https://i.imgur.com/TmLntrs.jpg
#72 - The Witcher (Netflix) - 20 points, 4 votes

The Witcher on Netflix: more like Dork Three Jackdaws

The Witcher on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndl1W4ltcmg

(final post about Ainori I swear) the current season is doing similarly wonderful things in East Africa - they are game for any experience, any complicated historical message, anyone's house if they take a shine to them. nothing is sanitised (literally)

glad i decided to vote, since one of mine was for Too Old To Die Young. I posted these on the relevant threads:

I'm five episodes in now and I think it's really strong. the manner in which the five leads are all operating in vv different ways on paths of revenge for those who have been wronged is pretty interesting and the whole series being specifically from the very first scene about the violent effects of broken and/or evil men is pretty timely to say the least.
I saw someone online refer to episode 2 as basically Tarkovsky doing "Narcos" and that seems pretty otm, i mean obv not Tarkovsky-level but miles better than any of the bullshit in Narcos. Points to the show for clearly being super contemptuous of the police dept -- i love the Wolf of Wall Street style of Hart Bochner's homicide squad.

William Baldwin is insane in this. and James Urbaniak's villain in episode 5 was one of the most despicable creations I've seen in a long time. Miles Teller makes for a better blank slate than Ryan Gosling.

― omar little, Thursday, June 27, 2019 12:05 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I finished Too Old To Die Young, which for all its promotion may as well have not even existed. I’m still marinating a bit on its themes but as a show that is at least partially devoted to the fascism of the police and features one character whose purpose seems to be visiting unholy vengeance upon men who hurt women, i appreciated it. It was extremely slow in a way that might try the patience of some (I do think the pace was a legitimate artistic choice and it didn’t bother me) and it almost literally lost the plot at the end but it had some incredible moments and I’m amazed that Amazon went anywhere near it. It was very on the nose but also just refreshing in that sense, and another legitimate choice.

― omar little, Friday, August 2, 2019 1:30 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

you'd imagine it would work well as a bit of prestige for Amazon, too. I recognize that any show being touted as "groundbreaking" needs to prove it, and yet i think it really did some interesting shit. i'm not really a Refn apologist per se but this was the type of programming i would like to see more of on streaming, which should have more room for such experimentation.

I suspect the content was too much for the corporate suits. I mean the extreme anti-cop stuff and the sexual content, i can see some cowards in the board room insisting that they completely ignore its existence. I'm sure they were perfectly cool w/the violence.

― omar little, Friday, August 2, 2019 3:40 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think episodes 5 & 8 were very much peak Refn. i *almost* want to call 5 a masterpiece. it really goes some places.

― omar little, Tuesday, August 6, 2019 1:29 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

There really aren’t too many good pieces on this. Most of the reviews I’ve read have been snarky negative pieces from sub-A.V. club types who don’t seem willing to engage with it on its own terms; lots of “LOL nothing happens, style over substance” opinions which I guess just tells me even more than before the very specific pace at which streaming-era TV is supposed to move allows no room for negotiation and that when a show arrives with some actual fervent opinions about America and violence they don’t even register (not that this hasn’t always been somewhat the case with film and TV, cf ppl taking Starship Troopers at face value etc etc). Anyway this is a very admirable bit of filmmaking, imperfect as it is.

― omar little, Sunday, October 6, 2019 1:40 PM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

it really does feel like the first post-The Return series, even if the production timeline almost certainly doesn't allow for that to be true

Xps Sorry, ulysses! We always compile our ballots separately and usually try to engineer them afterwards so they’re a bit less similar. Still, if it means more people end up watching esoteric British YouTube...

Thanks for the Too Old to Die Young write-ups, omar. It sounds genuinely weird - I will have to check it out.

i enjoyed witcher - i don't think it's great television or anything so this is a great spot for it but it's a good guilty pleasure better made than the Xenas and whatever of yesteryore which it gets lots of comparisons to

goes w/o saying that the Cliff Martinez score for TOTDY is outstanding.

tangent: lol, no need to apologize; the whole point was to bring in divergent viewpoints! I was just amused that anyone looking at your ballots would immediately say "well THEY'RE living together..."

https://i.imgur.com/7OnHnbc.jpg
#71 - Infinity Train (Cartoon Network) - 25 points, 2 votes

The New Adventures of ILXor: The Animated Series Poll voting and campaigning thread

Infinity Train on Cartoon Network

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXPZzXeGD6s

there are so many fucking shows

Always on the lookout for new animated shows that are good and not too pandering. What's this like?

i watched two episodes and liked it but got hung up on the glaring and unavoidable fact that it is meant for children and the script reflects that. i may need to retry.

they just wrapped "book 2" btw!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9livZeXARWU

my sneaking suspicion is that I would've been much better off if i had this to watch instead of Silverhawks as a kid but my window of enjoying this stuff is closed until i am watching it with a kid.

I do not particularly like Refn but Amazon tried so hard to bury TOTDY I remain tempted to watch it.

Oh no I just remembered I forgot to vote for the final season of Jane the Virgin! Was it on the list? I hope it shows up.

NARRATOR: But she had forgotten one thing...

https://i.imgur.com/NeYUhjy.jpg
#66 (Tie) - Truthpoint (Adult Swim) - 25 points, 3 votes

OK, which one of you is @BARTSIMSON_REAL?

Truthpoint on Adult Swim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKUQwgNkc1c

go ahead. keep screaming "Shut The Fuck Up " at me. it only makes my opinions Worse

— wint (@dril) March 10, 2018

Ahaha sorry everyone

This is obviously shit but I absolutely love it. Derek is so damn funny

It's the best sort of fiasco. Well, not the best - Tim and Gregg have that on lockdown - but a worthy pretender. *presses toilet effect button*

here's an equally subtle bookend

https://i.imgur.com/E6VFKUm.jpg
#66 (Tie) - The Boys (Amazon) - 25 points, 3 votes

What's good on Amazon Prime Video

The Boys on Amazon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06rueu_fh30

Derek is an absolute master of improvised weirdo irony. Dril is just... This show is all-out chaos.

Hated this

if i ever am in the mood for brainless, testosterone-fueled ultra-violence, maybe i'll give this a shot.

https://i.imgur.com/zyiZCg0.jpg
#66 (Tie) - Rick and Morty (Adult Swim) - 25 points, 3 votes

i'm mr meeseeks look at me rick and morty thread

Rick and Morty on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw6BrzB1drs

if i ever am in the mood for brainless, testosterone-fueled ultra-violence, maybe i'll give this a shot.

― ooga booga-ing for the bourgeoisie (voodoo chili), Monday, 10 February 2020 17:47 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this was a weird season, didn't vote for it. but it was still funny even when it ventured a bit too far up its own ass.

only the snakes episode lived up to the towering highs of season 3.

a good show whose risible fanbase makes this low slotting feel more deserved than it is

I didn't follow the nominations thread, so I'm curious what the criteria were for this poll. How was "series" defined: anything with multiple episodes? Also, I assume it had to air at least one episode in 2019, but are you voting just for the 2019 episodes or for the series as a whole?

Wow, the concept of Rick and Morty feels like a thing from the past for me, did not know it was still on

As mentioned at the top of the nominations thread: "Any series of three or more episodes qualifies as long as at least one of the series' episodes has premiered somewhere in the world in 2019. Acceptable nominations: YouTube/Twitch streamers with a recognizable episode to episode continuity whether fictional or presentational, webseries, streaming series, cable series, game shows, news shows, animation, talk shows. Not acceptable nominations: sports, concerts, one-off documentaries or films, music videos."

Bearing in mind the quality of prior seasons is admittedly kind of unavoidable but these votes should have been cast in the name of the quality and enjoyability of episodes released in 2019; a vote for Riverdale today is not a vote for season one.

https://i.imgur.com/8MxfYco.jpg
#66 (Tie) - Dear White People (Netflix) - 25 points, 3 votes

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Dear White People on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvPbJdDKKds

ty, ulysses

Did not Giancarlo Esposito was on Dear White People! Liked the movie, never saw the show. Anybody wanna rep for it as a fan?

I thought this was the best season of DWP so far! Hugely meta and even more cynical than usual.

do i need much backstory or can i just jump in at s3?

Awwwww -- I am happy that two other people voted for DWP besides me!

why I like this show:
1. nostalgia -- not that I really want to go back to my time as a college student -- but it brings back memories (esp. w/r/t activists and other extra-curricular stuff)
2. a lot of people I know (I am white, they are white) tune out and get defensive about social justice stuff re race because of the didacticism of how it's communicated, and I feel like this show illustrates these concepts in a way that is ... better appreciated by white people

a good show whose risible fanbase makes this low slotting feel more deserved than it is

my main issue with it is the character design, at the risk of sounding like a boomer there's just no personality behind it whatsoever, it looks worse than Family Guy

the writing is pretty good though

https://i.imgur.com/48tB1Ar.jpg
#66 (Tie) - Big Mouth (Netflix) - 25 points, 3 votes

Big Mouth on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70CN9XeDnf0

I think the show really expanded and improved upon the themes of the movie. Plot-wise it doesn’t quite all hang together and a lot of it feels compiled with the urgency of renewal fears, but that’s heavily referenced in the script a la Arrested Development. In S3 there’s a nice show within a show. It’s really enjoyable as a whole and extremely of this moment.

xp hmm...I think start from the beginning. It sets up a lot of enigmas that are only just opening up in S3. You’ll fly through it in a few days though, I think

speaking of hideous character design xp

sarahell otm

I tried to watch this and just couldn't. But it's placed low so I can't really hate...hate is reserved for the stuff you like en masse lol

weakest season of big mouth so far, not enough coach steve or shame wizard. some of it was too gross even for this show, and it wasn't as weirdly heart-warming as it's been in years past. still some belly laughs, though.

https://i.imgur.com/GwlsIB8.jpg
#64 (Tie) - His Dark Materials (HBO) - 25 points, 4 votes

HIS DARK MATERIALS

His Dark Materials on HBO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APduGe1eLVI

I'm teaching the first HDM book to a student of mine! We watched half the first episode of this and it looked pretty competently done. The books themselves, while very good, aren't free of fault (they're a bit fussy in tone and there are a few baked-in inconsistencies) so I'm fine with a bit of creative license. Seems fairly reverent though. I've only seen half an episode, as I say - maybe I'll watch some more at some point when the backlog is exhausted

Lack of Coach Steve was a massive boost to the last season of Big Mouth fuiud

Not a lot of note seemed to happen compared to previous seasons tho

https://i.imgur.com/5UB50xk.jpg
#64 (Tie) - Brockmire (IFC) - 25 points, 4 votes

Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

Brockmire on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt4IiGtyuTs

^ highly underrated show in general and this season was as well written and acted as it has ever been
post-Apu Azaria is among my fave actors

HDM was a bit disappointing to me, a massive lover of the books.

What is this most similar to? I’ve never heard of it and it looks pretty great.

brockmire is one of those shows i get a bunch of promoted ads for and was convinced no one had actually ever watched so i'm very surprised to see this place

premise looks good! will check it out

watched and loved the pilot years ago, but never kept up.

does this stream anywhere?

as noted on the post, Brockmire streams on Hulu.
it's very very good and very funny and very filthy.

here's another highly underrated show worth streaming on hulu:

https://i.imgur.com/6w1FREf.jpg
#62 (Tie) - Ramy (Hulu) - 28 points, 4 votes

Ramy on Hulu

Ramy on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4Ek09B9YaY

(NB that you do not need to know a thing about baseball to appreciate Brockmire; i imagine knowing something about baseball will only improve the show)

https://i.imgur.com/X8D6hOJ.jpg
#62 (Tie) - Documentary Now! (IFC) - 28 points, 4 votes

Documentary Now!

Documentary Now! on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4wEp3U_LYE

Last one for the day here; we'll add more over the week:

https://i.imgur.com/eQe7v4j.jpg
#61 - SB Nation's Chart Party (YouTube) - 28 points, 5 votes

SB Nation’s Chart Party on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_SsIKgwvz4

ramy and d now! are shows i've been planning on checking out, but as i mentioned before: there are too many shows.

always found Documentary Now! more "impressive" than actually funny

didn't vote for any YT shows, but i love chart party. jon bois is one of the world's funniest people.

Jon Bois rules obviously

oh damn I should've voted for this, it's weirdly transfixing

Had to vote Bois. Bob Emergency and Saddest Punt were truly exceptional content and he's an original

if you guys wanna enjoy jon bois in text form, check out his old 'breaking madden' and 'nba y2k' series on sb nation.

https://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/6/3/5772796/nba-y2k-series-finale-the-death-of-basketball

Also one of a very few people worth following on Twitter. And yeah, a deep dive is strongly recommended. Wait til you reach his Farming Simulator videos...

61 - SB Nation's Chart Party (YouTube) - 28 points, 5 votes
62 (Tie) - Documentary Now! (IFC, stream on Netflix) - 28 points, 4 votes
62 (Tie) - Ramy (Hulu) - 28 points, 4 votes
64 (Tie) - Brockmire (IFC, stream on Hulu) - 25 points, 4 votes
64 (Tie) - His Dark Materials (HBO) - 25 points, 4 votes
66 (Tie) - Big Mouth (Netflix) - 25 points, 3 votes
66 (Tie) - Dear White People (Netflix) - 25 points, 3 votes
66 (Tie) - Rick and Morty (Adult Swim, stream on Hulu) - 25 points, 3 votes
66 (Tie) - The Boys (Amazon) - 25 points, 3 votes
66 (Tie) - Truthpoint (Adult Swim, Stream on YouTube) - 25 points, 3 votes
71 - Infinity Train (Cartoon Network, stream on web) - 25 points, 2 votes
72 - The Witcher (Netflix) - 20 points, 4 votes
73 - Jessica Jones (Netflix) - 20 points, 3 votes
74 (Tie) - GeoWizard's Mission Across Wales (YouTube) - 20 points, 2 votes
74 (Tie) - Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey (Netflix) - 20 points, 2 votes
74 (Tie) - Nailed It! (Netflix US) - 20 points, 2 votes
74 (Tie) - Too Old To Die Young (Amazon) - 20 points, 2 votes

that weird interactive webpage he did about the distant future of football was amazing, I've never seen anything like it

That's his ultimate masterpiece so far, yes

17776 (if anyone would like to check it out)

A great first day!! Though perhaps I’m a bit biased... A couple of interesting things to try out too.

if you only watch one documentary now ep the company cast recording satire is the one to see

i saw richard kind do a song from that on a late-night show with no context, and it was glorious.

interested in that one and the bowling one (mainly for tim robinson reasons)

Voted for Documentary Now! but suffers for lack of Bill Hader this season.

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but does Documentary Now continue to be a remake of a famous documentary each episode or do they deviate from that formula?

No, they stick with pastiching existing docs.

Aah I see. It’s a bizarre premise for a show. Maybe I’ll get around to watching more some day.

nailed it is the only one so far i voted for, and that was kind of a throwaway vote - it's cute but repetitive, i mostly voted for it because i like watching it with my kids

Did I vote for Jessica Jones? Anyway, I really disliked one of the main plot developments, but I'll add that season 2 is better than most people give it credit for. Season 1 is still the best Netflix Marvel thing by a wide margin though.

Documentary Now! the only thing I've voted for so far, exclusively on the strength of the Co-Op ep.

i watched two episodes and liked it but got hung up on the glaring and unavoidable fact that it is meant for children and the script reflects that. i may need to retry.

they just wrapped "book 2" btw!

I get this, but IMO Infinity Train is kinda like Steven Universe in that it obviously wants to get some important messages about self-worth and acceptance through to the kids, but the whole scifi/fantasy setting provides a lot to enjoy for adults too, who may find the messages a bit too obvious. (Not saying that it's as good as Steven Universe - what is? - but it's still very enjoyable.) The concept of having each episode take place in a separate train car/micro-world provides with a lot of space to do cool and surreal imagery, and they also apparently intend each season to have different protagonists with different issues means that they shouldn't be stuck repeating the same themes. They already did that in the second season, and it went into some pretty dark and deep waters for a Cartoon Network show (don't want to say anything more not to spoil it). So based on the two seasons so far (they're very short, only ten 10-minute episodes per season), I feel IT has a lot of potential for both kids and adults.

Never heard of Documentary Now! and it's not showing on UK Netflix so guess it's US only?

Thought I was the other voter for Too Old Too Die Young but just checked my ballot and it's not on there. Great show though (if not for everyone) and glad that stuff like that can get made these days even if Amazon did their best to bury it before it was even released.

I got excited when this poll mentioned Documentary Now is on Netflix but it's not in my country. Still have yet to see an episode

I've really only enjoyed the Doc Now episodes with Hader and/or Mulaney involved, but those are great. Hader as the James Carville type in the War Room parody is one of my favorite comedic turns of the last few years.

Criterion is including the DN parody of the Mayseles Brothers' Salesman as an extra on their reissue of that movie.

Haven’t seen Documentary Now! but I did just want to mention (since there doesn’t seem to be any discussion about it) that I think HDM deserves its low position.

Kind of reneging on my own vote here, full disclosure.

I submitted one of those four-vote ballots...There sure are a lot of TV shows I've never heard of.

I'm a four-voter too, and I probably couldn't have found twenty things I saw and liked enough to vote for even if I'd wanted to. This poll is doing a great job of pitching me on stuff I didn't know about that I might at some point watch.

at a meeting now but will be updating with several more in the later afternoon.

https://i.imgur.com/CYEAWZh.jpg
#53 (Tie) - This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC) - 30 points, 3 votes

Alan Partridge comes to BBC America

This Time with Alan Partridge on the BBC 1 Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77IZttD_pU8

that...was a goal

https://i.imgur.com/a4ThCc6.jpg
#53 (Tie) - The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Netflix) - 30 points, 3 votes

The Dark Crystal

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3_owZfYVR8

https://i.imgur.com/xHntUCN.jpg
#53 (Tie) - Repair Shop (BBC, Netflix) - 30 points, 3 votes

The Repair Shop on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0tpFmcChPs

as someone born in the 90s, i am blissfully ignorant of dark crystal.

and these stills aren't convincing me to take the plunge lol

no offense to moka, whose images are immaculate

https://i.imgur.com/gagafsE.jpg
#53 (Tie) - Queer Eye (Netflix) - 30 points, 3 votes

Queer Eye For The Straight Guy WTF

Queer Eye on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SZbVV6eVFk

Love the Repair Shop, just beautiful watching the connection between objects and memory come alive again.

Dark Crystal too low!

Definitely, was at the top of my ballot

Partridge too low

https://i.imgur.com/fFgOxVF.jpg
#53 (Tie) - Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing (BBC) - 30 points, 3 votes

Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishin on BBC 2 Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm6HVs3myvI

The way the colour of each of Moka's numbers is picked off a detail of the image is wonderful, and in the case of #53 made me flat out lol.

in the case of #53?

Yes, as in the Alan Partridge one? I found the colour ref of that one downright funny somehow.

agree, but that needed clarification tbf

Can anyone explain Mortimer and Whitehouse Go Fishing to me? I tried an episode and it was opaque.

as someone born in the 90s, i am blissfully ignorant of dark crystal.

and these stills aren't convincing me to take the plunge lol

as someone born in the 70s, i saw Dark Crystal as a kid, thought it was fine at the time, but have no desire to revisit it

I don't watch enough telly to vote in any meaningful way, but would have voted for Gone Fishing. It's a bit like the Trip in that it's beautiful to look at and it happens to have two old men enacting their dotage in it. The difference here is that it's done with a real light touch.

I'm not a big fan of the 'it gets better in season 9!1!!!' argument but this definitely benefits from accumulation (after 3 episodes, I basically dozed through the rest with my eyes open).

it reminded me of the thing Alan Plater said about the best bits of writing on Z Cars being when they were just sitting in the car and chatting about nothing, it was a welcome change from the constant pressure for things to happen on tv

xxp: Still have the warm feels of seeing Dark Crystal at age 10 (and Time Bandits at 9). I recall my playground mates would hum the deepest chords we could manage, mimicking the urRu/Mystics.

They seem absent here.

I'd hope DC:AOR has less CGI, greenscreen, and impossible/weightless camera movements than the highlight reel of the trailer. Just charmless for me.

You should definitely give it a go. There's obviously some CGI but it's done with real puppets and sets and had a charm of its own because of that. It's also got a very good story and is absolutely gorgeous to look at.

https://i.imgur.com/UneC7qZ.jpg
#53 (Tie) - Euphoria (HBO) - 30 points, 3 votes

Euphoria on HBO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziMUD0_TTg0

https://i.imgur.com/b1j3nxB.jpg
#53 (Tie) - Bosch (Amazon) - 30 points, 3 votes

"If you can smoke and drink while doing it, it's not a sport" - a thread for BOSCH

Bosch on Amazon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnVtSOTfbEU

hey it's the man in black

https://i.imgur.com/WY1WlGj.jpg
#53 (Tie) - 63 Up (ITV, UK) - 30 points, 3 votes

7-Up (The Michael Apted documentary series)

63 Up Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugw7hUoJ0C0

https://i.imgur.com/VOylam0.jpg
#48 (Tie) - Veronica Mars (Hulu) - 30 points, 4 votes

Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt0QuaQ0huk

The new season of Veronica Mars seemed about on par with season 2 and 3, though I completely forgot it existed from after I finished watching it until right now.

#48 (Tie) - Tuca and Bertie (Netflix) - 30 points, 4 votes

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Tuca and Bertie on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZybYIJtbcu0

^ harshly done by

that said I still haven't seen the final one or two

Never before has a single episode torpedoed my liking of a show as much as the Sex Bugs episode of this did. Struggled on for one more but I was done. Shame as this could have been pretty good

opening minute was enough to torpedo my interest

https://i.imgur.com/Dkr6v5b.jpg
#48 (Tie) - The Dragon Prince (Netflix) - 30 points, 4 votes

The Dragon Prince on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc2gmVTb6-k

https://i.imgur.com/O1yCI0A.jpg
#48 (Tie) - Pose (FX) - 30 points, 4 votes

Pose on FX Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJFCY2mITHY

Not familiar with a lot of these Netflix shows but ... lotta parents of young kids voting here?

Sometimes kid content is great on its own terms. I'm going to be voting (quite high) for the latest Shaun The Sheep in our movie poll for example

Would be nice if a few fans of these shows turned up and talked about why they like them though. Do your job ILX!

(I don't have kids. I am a kid.)

Paw Patrol's gotten pretty repetitive in its later seasons which is why I didn't vote for it

dang this is going fast

totally forgot about the new veronica mars episodes, gotta check those out.

i watched and guiltily enjoyed all seasons of bosch but couldn't bring myself to vote for it since i had no memory of what the most recent season was

Paw Patrol With Five Little Buses Pregnant Elsa Scares Pikachu

would you say it's in... TURBO MODE

To Be Filed Under: Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen

https://i.imgur.com/g7PqUe7.jpg
#48 (Tie) - Game of Thrones (HBO) - 30 points, 4 votes

HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

Game of Thrones on HBO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlR4PJn8b8I

I'm still waiting for a single one of my poll selections to show up! I gather at this point that I must like shows that are either very popular or universally hated.

Paw Patrol With Five Little Buses Pregnant Elsa Scares Pikachu

these vids are thankfully mostly gone from YouTube but still when you search "Paw Patrol" the first few results are not of the show but rather of grown-ass men playing with Paw Patrol stuffed animals. they have like 50 million views each.

Sometimes kid content is great on its own terms.

I love Horrible Histories, better than GOT tbh

https://i.imgur.com/F4Egnij.jpg
#46 (Tie) - Stath Lets Flats (Channel 4) - 33 points, 4 votes

Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

Stath Lets Flats on Channel 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOc_2z34CUc

There's my #1. Jamie Demetriou has saved British comedy

It's covered in...brack

So far 2 things I've watched and 0 that I voted for.

Obviously you don't have to be a Londoner of Greek Cypriot extraction to love this, but everything - the gleeful nonsense dialogue, the pinpoint characterisation, the mounting physical absurdity - is both reminiscent of the absolute heights of UK sitcoms past and something rather syncretic and new. It feels absolutely attuned to the cultural backgrounds of all of its characters while allowing them to stretch out and be wonderfully idiosyncratic. Above all, it's hilarious. S1 was great but S2 is a masterpiece and will take less than 3 hours of your time to devour. Do so if you've ever giggled at Alan Partridge or Fawlty Towers.

https://i.imgur.com/rJXHdiq.jpg
#46 (Tie) - Kingdom (Netflix) - 33 points, 4 votes

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Kingdom on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l-yByZpaaM

Two of my four votes, 63 Up and Kingdom, have already placed. Gonna privilege my own taste here and say they're this low because they weren't widely seen. 63 Up, in particular, is the best thing about death and its approach I've seen this year and maybe ever. (Kingdom, of course, is also about death but in a very different way....)

Kingdom: I really like zombie stuff and have watched a lot of such shows, many of which take the form "it's zombies + [genre x]" but "zombies + court intrigue" is the best such combo I've seen.

Checking from my phone but hope that’s not a remake of LvT’s Kingdom.

Stath Lets Flats is so wonderfully observed that you are almost instantly invested in the lives of each character. It also has the best uses for absurdity in contemporary UK TV. Everyone should watch it now.

It also has the best uses for absurdity in contemporary UK TV.

tbf we are currently watching something else that will place later, and which runs it pretty close in this regard (and would have done for my #1 slot too if I'd seen it a week earlier)

but yeah

https://i.imgur.com/aatf5mI.jpg
#45 - The Good Place (NBC) - 35 points, 5 votes

The Good Place on NBC

The Good Place on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnq6IRgt4yE

too low!

Man, if we'd done this poll last year

I mean, final season was still good I guess, but...the wheels were idling a bit

Still haven't watched the final episode for some reason

oh, i guess most of this would've been the beginning of s4

even a weak season of TGP should still be higher

As I say, last year it would have been unthinkable to not put it in my top ten but this time I couldn't even be bothered to vote for it. I wonder what changed. Maybe I did, man

GOT too high!

Dragon Prince keeps getting better, it's not quite as good as Avatar or Korra at their best but this last season did some challenging things that the other two shows haven't.

yeah, fess up GOT voters

Kingdom: I really like zombie stuff and have watched a lot of such shows, many of which take the form "it's zombies + [genre x]" but "zombies + court intrigue" is the best such combo I've seen.

zombies + court intrigue + hats is an even better combo

I kind of miss the MMA series by the same name

Someone should make a show called Kingdom that mashes up all preceding shows called Kingdom

I am down so long as every episode ends with someone giving birth to Udo Kier.

couldn't possibly bring myself to vote for Game of Thrones, which imo was not only one of the most disappointing shows i've ever seen but in the final seasons one of the most inept, despite the considerable production values and impressive visuals. the first several seasons took place in a deeply lived-in world, it was cleverly and almost remorselessly plotted, it was very sharp and frightening, and it had a key characteristic it lost in later seasons: the characters were generally smart and behaved in logical ways, even if their choices were ultimately wrong or tragic. that was all thrown over once they went off book, in favor of the lead-up to what was basically an amateurishly done version of Avengers: Endgame, minus the earned pathos and tragedy and crafty structure and good jokes. i mean it was a show that was a huge success and nonetheless poor enough that it cost Benioff and Weiss future jobs because they clearly had no idea how to finish the story. i wasn't bored exactly but it was fantasy on the level of In the Name of the King, with better FX and better actors and grandfathered-in goodwill from previous (distantly previous) seasons.

https://i.imgur.com/GFIEwzg.jpg
#44 - Silicon Valley (HBO) - 38 points, 5 votes

Mike Judge's "Silicon Valley" (HBO Show)

Silicon Valley on HBO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYHp-5h1y5o

I voted for Game of Thrones. The last season was so flawed and aggravating (in a bad way). However, there were some good parts. And honestly, the social media moment that was everyone watching that epic battle episode that was too dark and comparing their tv setups and trying to "fix it so they can see better" and/or complaining -- was actually this sociologically amazing thing! .. .

Here's another show that fell off without it being easy to see why. Latest season opener wasn't so bad I guess. Just don't really look forward to it as much. Sad how great shows often burn out

I maybe should have voted for The Good Place. I certainly made a point of watching it and as a whole it's one of the best series in years, certainly the best traditional network show. But I was rating purely on 2019 and the first half of S4 was the weakest material they've done. If I'd voted in 10 shows I would have included it, and 2019 Bojack too, but both were sufficiently off their peak to kick them out of the top four (and both at least partially returned to form in their 2020 concluding episodes!)

As I won the first two (as-yet-unwatched) seasons of GoT, how many more would I be advised to snap up before pretending that the show was tragically and prematurely cancelled?

won = own

you're safe through the end of season 4, it's exceptionally good up to that point.

seasons 5-8 have their moments and standalone episodes which are thrilling but what's interesting i guess is that the best episodes from the latter half of the show's run are the ones which are largely single-location, without a lot of heavy plotting. the battle episodes, basically.

last season of GOT was no worse than previous few seasons, in some ways it was actually better. I think the real problem was one of expectations, also there was a very very vocal contingent who were against their favourite character's heel turn, their views should be discounted entirely. I would suggest you swatch s1-s4 but you'll most likely want to watch the rest after that, and why not? it's an ok show.

The new Veronica Mars -- well, I'm super-glad it existed because these are characters I'm always motivated to spend time with. Halfway through the season I would have rated it highly. Felt it didn't wrap up the plot threads with the satisfying, startling neatness I have come to expect from VM. Would have been in my top 10 for sure.

Like for years I resisted the entreaties to watch GoT because, post-L O S T, my tendency wrt these epic televisual endeavors is to wait until the bow has been tied to see if the gift box contains a steaming turd. Which, based on most of the post-finale responses I've heard, seems to have been a wise choice in this case. I'd probably have much fonder feelings about L O S T if I'd waited to have someone tell me 'just pretend that the final season doesn't exist and you'll have fun'.

i watched and guiltily enjoyed all seasons of bosch but couldn't bring myself to vote for it since i had no memory of what the most recent season was

most recent season did plenty of extra-textual fanservice!! idk, maybe I'm that much of a nerd, but I suspect Ms. Veg is also with me on this. Opie from Sons of Anarchy as a biker PI, J. Edgar doing surveillance on scumbags and then meeting them in a club -- which made me yell, "Dudes, you know that is Marlo, right? You don't fuck with that guy. You will end up skeletal in a boarded-up vacant!"

the heel turn was perfectly fine, it just betrayed everything that the character had shown and happened so abruptly that it was clear they had no real idea of how to arrive at that heel turn in a manner that made sense. also the problem w/that twist and many other big moments was that it was all vv predictable, i've never seen a show which was so accurately forecasted by so many people. vs that big thing from the end of season 3, which was both completely logical and yet unpredictable if you hadn't read the novels.

every time Jay Edgar plays golf in Bosch feels like Wire fanservice to me tho

*the show's final season was accurately forecast, rather. the first few were not.

https://i.imgur.com/Rdd6A4H.jpg
#43 - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX) - 40 points, 4 votes

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgr01hYOrF8

Honestly, I had a more accepting attitude towards the show itself -- like, I did not have super high expectations. I got angrier at popular astrology memes about GoT characters that showed poor comprehension of astrology and the GoT characters.

Arya is so so so so not an ARIES

today seems to be mostly shows i watch but did not vote for

Let's take it to 36 today.

https://i.imgur.com/iWW5A35.jpg
#40 (Tie) - The Expanse (Amazon) - 40 points, 5 votes

Is anybody else watching The Expanse?

The Expanse on Amazon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFdzpVt5rbk

i don't even necessarily believe GOT was markedly worse than or even actually worse than a number of other shows, and it remained watchable, but i think its decline was precipitous enough that it retroactively downgrades the entire thing. i do think arguably S8 was "better" in some sense than earlier seasons, i'm thinking the one where half of it was taken up with uncomfortable silences between Tyrion and Grey Worm and Missandei, broken up by awkward jokes.

The Expanse, fantastic.

better than Battlestar Galactica, and exactly the type of sci-fi show i'd been wanting to see for eons.

Liked and voted for this IASIP series and consider it better than the last one

maybe it's because there weren't that many people voting in this poll, but today is like -- i voted for almost all of these shows.

Anyway, at some point I might post paragraphs about "what each of these tv shows means to me and why i like them" -- but in general, the stuff I voted for, besides being pleasurable as a show, also gave me insight into various personal, social, and philosophical issues I dealt with last year. That includes The Expanse, Jessica Jones, and Silicon Valley

https://i.imgur.com/gXzcu2x.jpg
#40 (Tie) - Gentleman Jack (BBC, HBO) - 40 points, 5 votes

Gentleman Jack on HBO

Gentleman Jack on HBO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uBYRcP44M4

Suranne Jones is one of the best

That's my 3rd (I think) to show up. Stath Lets Flats is fantastic and I completely ignored it because British comedy until imago's incessant positivity got me interested so props to him

Props and thanks

Is Gentleman Jack any good then? Kind of dismissed it as a bog standard BBC period drama

Gentlemen Jack is killer; one of my fave discoveries of last year.

i haven't seen Gentleman Jack, but it's selling point (at least for me) is of the LGBTQ / feminist sort. If you don't care about that, and you don't like BBC period dramas, then it's probably not worth it to you.

I voted for the latest season of The Expanse but most of it was too grim for my liking (though this season followed the book pretty closely, I seem to remember finding the travails a lot more gripping when I was reading about them). When there are a few glimmers of hope though I enjoyed it.

the next book is even more grim iirc

still need to catch up on the latest season of always sunny. left off at the thundergun episode.

the show has been getting flowers lately, but i still think it's underrated. it's on an unprecedented run of consistent hilarity for a live-action sitcom. they've been doing this shit for fifteen years. i was singing 'day man' when i was in high school.

just a few comments on things I’ve seen so far...

I enjoyed the Witcher, it’s not brilliant or anything but it didn’t take itself too seriously, felt like the fantasy shit I liked as a kid, in a good way. Would have voted for it.

His Dark Materials was okay, I’ll probably watch season 2 but I’m not totally sold. It felt kinda heartless. I can’t decide if it’s too hard to adapt or if the books are just worse than I remember them. Might’ve voted for it.

I just finished the tail end of season 4 of the good place. The ending was satisfying I think, but not as great as season 1 of course. Tough for a show with the premise it had to do well after the first season wraps so the fact it was still a great show to watch til the end was really impressive I thought. Would've voted for it.

I think everyone covered GOT well, I wouldn't have voted for this season.

Lots a stuff I'm interested to watch now though, great work poll runners.

I have always assumed that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was some kind of How I Met Your Mother-type deal, possibly because they both have long names and I'm not very smart.

I've just read the start of the wiki page, and unless it's a hilarious defacement, Holy Shit.

the next book is even more grim iirc

You're right, but the antagonists are at least more charismatic.

I have always assumed that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was some kind of How I Met Your Mother-type deal

Absolutely perfect footing on which to start watching the show imo - happy trails!

We've been waiting like 15 years to find out why it's always sunny!

the gang tries desperately to meet your mother

The focus group episode of the latest season (of ASIP) deserves its place in the pantheon of all-time great episodes. So jealous of anyone just discovering it

the Silicon Valley focus group scenes were always great -- one of the good things about this last season was it gave Monica more to do as a character. Relatedly, getting to see the main characters interact with others outside of each other, where, after 5 seasons, things were starting to be a bit rote. The Monica/Gilfoyle dynamic was really heartwarming and funny. ... Granted, I still had immense nostalgia for "Hot Dog/Not Hot Dog" and the amazing finale from season 1.

Also ... Menlo Bark. .... sometimes when I feel sad and am taking life too seriously, I think about "Menlo Bark" and "Who Let the Dogs Out?"

Need to watch the rest of the latest season of Silicon Valley. I’m glad Monica is finally made into more of something. For me the pinnacle was ‘billions of breadings’. Peter Gregory still missed.

top Silicon Valley bits for me (I watched all the seasons recently) - unranked:

1. Hot Dog/Not Hot Dog
1a. Hot Dog ---> Dick Pics
2. Hand Job calcs
3. Gilfoyle vs. the smart fridge
4. Menlo Bark
5. Black ops mission at Hoolicon
6. Monica vs. the bros
7. Gilfoyle and delegating
8. SWOT analysis
9. Jared
10. Russfest

Is Gentleman Jack any good then? Kind of dismissed it as a bog standard BBC period drama

it's good: the most auteurist work by Sally Wainwright (creator of At Home With The Braithwaites, Last Tango In Halifax, Happy Valley) and her only period piece. She wrote every episode, and directed half. It's applying slightly-higher-than-bog-standard BBC period drama values to a series whose themes are 100% about womens rights and lesbian "rights" in 19th century capitalism, with whatever resonance to the subsequent 190 years that the viewer chooses to apply. There are strongly continuing plot and romance elements, but it's also written like proper telly in that normal viewers can miss a week and pick up the stakes next time.

I had no idea that’s what Gentleman Jack would be. Thanks for that explanation, will definitely watch. AHWtB and LTiH both incredible.

I think someone mentioned it on one of the queer/trans threads when it came out?

https://i.imgur.com/T45hswJ.jpg
#40 (Tie) - Desus and Mero (Showtime) - 40 points, 5 votes

bodega boys desus nice & the kid mero aka's poll

Desus and Mero on Showtime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecNklJTlwws

love these dudes so much...but i don't have showtime.

it's worth the investment! they also post about half an hour of content every week

on youtube that is.

https://i.imgur.com/CBZhsi7.jpg
#39 - The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon) - 40 points, 6 votes

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76bH1b9XreE

bad + sorta antisemitic show sorry to fans :(

it's worth the investment! they also post about half an hour of content every week

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, February 12, 2020 5:43 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

on youtube that is.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Wednesday, February 12, 2020 5:43 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah that's where i experience most of their stuff (plus twitter, obviously)

first season of maisel was good, feeling pretty ok with my decision to not keep up, especially since i don't have a vote in any major award shows.

Was going to jump in with 'TOO LOW', but saw Mordy's post. The antisemitism has clearly gone straight over my head, but I know the show's creators aren't exactly great with subtlety or nuance, so I'm not super surprised, but can you direct me to what is so off about it so I can understand better?

would like to make it abundantly clear that tt is on her own with this one, even more so than bloody Gilmore Girls, which I gather this is some sort of edgier reboot of

https://i.imgur.com/JittrfS.jpg
#37 (Tie) - Pen15 (Hulu) - 41 points, 6 votes

Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

Pen15 on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdt2COuH4Js

That's my 3rd (I think) to show up. Stath Lets Flats is fantastic and I completely ignored it because British comedy until imago's incessant positivity got me interested so props to him

― or something, Wednesday, 12 February 2020 18:41 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

👌

I barely watch Desus & Mero anymore but that’s more than any other talk show.

PEN15 is great! Thank you ulysses for this one. The pop culture references concerning being a nerdy teen in the early 00s are so painfully on point that I can't not love it. The AIM episode killed me.

https://i.imgur.com/D2FbKtn.jpg
#37 (Tie) - Corporate (Comedy Central) - 41 points, 6 votes

Corporate on Comedy Central

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gmyg43jE_4

and one more just to get me out for the night

https://i.imgur.com/EQOXB9Y.jpg
#36 - Broad City (Comedy Central) - 45 points, 5 votes

ah fuck it it's the BROAD CITY thread

Broad City on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNFRG_qGJ3o

(not 100% sure Mordy doesn't mean Desus & Mero!)

xp to Corporate: And another! This season was so strong. The male makeup episode was one of my favourite episodes of anything last year. The soullessness and labyrinthine contours of the office building are some stunning set design.

Didn't see much Corporate but enjoyed what I did

Corporate maybe my 2nd or 3rd vote to show up. Frequently a riot.

Was going to jump in with 'TOO LOW', but saw Mordy's post. The antisemitism has clearly gone straight over my head, but I know the show's creators aren't exactly great with subtlety or nuance, so I'm not super surprised, but can you direct me to what is so off about it so I can understand better?

sorry didn't mean to drop that bomb and then just walk away. it's that its depiction of jewishness - predominately by a non-jewish cast - feels very caricatured and false/superficial to me I could really hardly watch it for this reason. this emily nussbaum article touches on some of the other problems i have with the show. antisemitic is maybe overstating it but there's just an uncomfortable falseness i feel when i watch it and particularly bc of how it portrays jewishness (and judaism) not in an obviously pejorative way but in a kind of superficial + shallow one.

it portrays everything in a caricatured and superficial tone tbh. it's a total fantasia of show business, of wealth, of creativity, of performed comedy, of social progress, and of cultural jewishness.

first season of maisel was good, feeling pretty ok with my decision to not keep up

I did the same, but caught lots of the later two when my housemate was watching them recently and I think it gets better. there were a couple of eps in S3 that I went back and finished myself bcz I got caught up in the bits I'd seen.

Corporate was good, at least the half season I saw of it. Didn’t vote for it cause I still have five episodes to go.

Need to use more exclamation points in my emails!

Considered voting GoT in one those "give the Oscar to someone to acknowledge their previous snubs" type situations, but couldn't do it. man, the last season was disappointing

Leeee summed up my thoughts on the Dragon Prince rather well so I'll just say more people should check it out

I haven’t heard of Stath Lets Flats but I liked Jamie Demetriou in Fleabag

didn’t think the main character’s turn in Season 8 of GoT was surprising at all, they were autocratic and uncompromising from the beginning, and the events in previous seasons seemed to be predicting it

PEN15 and Broad City were my #1 and #3, respectively. The latter arguably provided the former a template, tho filtered thru an uneasy, uncanny recent-part period filter that is never scared to verge on creepy. Broad City, in an age of shows peaking early and burning out quick (Maisel), somehow managed to roll up shop at just the right time and the finale was gut-wrenching.

Shows I voted for: Dark Crystal. Puppets >>> CGI, amazing turn from Simon Pegg as the Chancellor. Tuca and Bertie. I wasn't totally convinced by the middle, but the last episode or two really made
it worthwhile. Shame it was cancelled.
Shows I have seen and didn't vote for: Mortimer & Whitehouse - a bit too gentle for me. The Good Place - made it through half of the first season, meh.
Shows I might have voted for except somehow I missed that they were nominated: Pose.
Shows I have seen earlier seasons of and wish I could have voted for but they moved to a service I don't subscribe to: The Expanse. Have just found a site where I can stream Picard so might see if they have this too.

didn’t think the main character’s turn in Season 8 of GoT was surprising at all, they were autocratic and uncompromising from the beginning, and the events in previous seasons seemed to be predicting it

The turn itself wasn't surprising, but the actual way it happened came completely out of nowhere, and the rather horrific things the character did weren't really justified by anything they'd done earlier.

Executing a friend for being traitor: made sense with how the character had been portrayed before. Mass murder of innocent people, seemingly on a whim: didn't make much sense.

I think they had done plenty in previous seasons, it was clearly a conflict within the character which finally broke in the wrong direction (the mass murder seemed like "fuck it, I'm going to accept this is who I am now"), in writing terms you could see the path to it laid out - it wasn't written particularly well, that's all.

(the mass murder seemed like "fuck it, I'm going to accept this is who I am now"

But that's exactly why it didn't make sense... In earlier seasons the show had done a lot to make even its villains psychologically complex, and to make their actions coherent with their motivations and goals. A character being, like, "well, I guess I'm a villain now, might as well kill all these innocent people who've already surrendered" is the opposite of that.

But people really do behave in that way, the "motivation and goals" method of character development really fails to capture so much about the way humans really work, especially as applied in this show. If it had been written a little better it would have been exactly right.

there's just an uncomfortable falseness i feel when i watch it and particularly bc of how it portrays jewishness (and judaism) not in an obviously pejorative way but in a kind of superficial + shallow one.

That absolutely follows, and that article is generally on point about the show's easy saccharine choices. I enjoy it (like Gilmore Girls) whilst acknowledging the many flaws, including that the creator has an almost surreal need to shower the central character (Maisel, Rory) with levels of praise beyond the pale. But the costumes are so good.

Would be interested to know what shows you think do portray Jewishness well.

For all its myriad flaws, transparent did a pretty good job of representing my personal experience with Reform Judaism (though the Pfeffermans’ was a distinctly west coast version, I’m east coast)

man i have no idea what 90% of these shows are

Truthpoint is one of the shows I watch but didn't vote for, but it's cool it made it.

i love Corporate. it's occasionally a little try-hard in its jadedness but overall the combo of cynicism and absurdism meshes almost perfectly with my personal tastes. "make-up for men" was definitely a stand-out episode, and the one where jake is trying to stay up to go to his friend's rock show is a masterpiece of goofiness.

I'm sad there's only one season left, feels like they just hit their stride.

oh and Goofy Lance Reddick is amazing to watch

https://i.imgur.com/B5UE0no.jpg
#32 (Tie) - High Maintenance (HBO) - 45 points, 6 votes

High Maintenance - Very good web-series. Discuss.

High Maintenance on HBO Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTL9hSrMhTQ

I'm sad there's only one season left, feels like they just hit their stride.

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Thursday, February 13, 2020 10:18 AM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

really? dang.

Oh I saw the make-up for men episode I think! Great stuff

https://i.imgur.com/k8PtCcU.jpg
#32 (Tie) - Derry Girls (Channel 4, Netflix) - 45 points, 6 votes

Catch yourself on - it’s the Derry Girls thread!

Derry Girls on Netflix Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8fH2Lqc8nY

Too low! But I guess it's U.K. only?

I've seen it in my Netflix. (I'm a Yank.)

yeah it's available in the US, and it's fun

https://i.imgur.com/R26wMxJ.jpg
#32 (Tie) - Dark (Netflix) - 45 points, 6 votes

Dark: the German Netflix series that's like an amalgamation of Twin Peaks, Back to the Future, and X-Files (SPOILERS!)

Dark on Netflix Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=810CHvSdXOo

I tried with this but it struck me as portentous and leaden in the worst way

I've never heard of this! I'm surprised given how comparatively high up it is and how insistent Netflix are with their recommendations.

https://i.imgur.com/AAPO8TS.jpg
#32 (Tie) - ContraPoints (YouTube) - 45 points, 6 votes

Chapo Trap House and the rise of the dirtbag left

ContraPoint on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvM_pRfuFM

derry girls is very funny and i voted for it despite each season being approximately 12 minutes long

https://i.imgur.com/OPipxQf.jpg
#31 - Steven Universe (Cartoon Network) - 50 points, 5 votes

Steven Universe

Steven Universe on Hulu Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LMGVx31zso

steven universe would've been my #1 pick if we had ranked voting. another show i love because i watch it with my kids but it's so deep that it works on different levels for everyone in our family. it has cracked through my hard shell and given me feelings.

here's some feelings for gen-xers

https://i.imgur.com/aC3hHsE.jpg
#30 - Catastrophe (Amazon) - 55 points, 7 votes

Amazon Prime (not the leader of the Autobots nor an incredible simulation)

Catastrophe on Amazon Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKhMoy6sDfU

gonna miss this show.

of all the "damn, it's hard to be a cynical white couple in 201X" shows, i think catastrophe did it best

a depressing percentage of shows on my ballot will not be back next year

Lol at Contrapoints tying with SU

Huuuuge Natalie stan here y'all #truthTeller #nevercancelled

love Catastrophe but the last season was weak, amazing it got made at all in context of course

it wasn't at the level of previous seasons, but the final episode was brilliant.

been at a thing all week and havent been able to post yet. moka's images are great again. 77 is too many but there's already some good stuff that has shown up pretty high that i thought would be much higher so maybe 77 is good. Just seems like too much tv, the inclusion of youtube shows helps tho.

catching up a bit and eephus otm about nailed it. really fun for a handful of eps but im done with it now.

https://i.imgur.com/An2O5zE.jpg
#29 - Jeopardy (ABC) - 58 points, 7 votes

Will that guy on Jeopardy ever lose?

Jeopardy on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdVavkM8N6M

y'know, i didn't even think about jeopardy, but it really was great this year.

the GOAT tourney didn't drop 'til 2020, but if i remember it in 10 months, i'll vote for it then.

jeopardy never gets old

aw trebek

i think my cousin was his radiologist a year or so back

<3 the eternal Jeop

james' run made 2019 some top tier jeopardy

yeah he was must watch every night

Is Contrapoints the first Youtube channel to place?

That Scottish road trip one placed too and maybe others

i was sure tim rogers was gonna make it but i don't see him placing this high xp

CP is the first YT to place that still would have placed if I hadn't voted for it. (I did though)

jon bois made it too

saw 2 or 3 eps of derry girls, i can see the appeal but the ones i saw all followed the exact same formula and i didn't really need any more of it.

Catastrophe's brand of cynicism was too uncomfortably sadistic to watch, though I like the two main actors a lot. I thought The Let Down (Australian show on Netflix) somehow negotiated all of the bleakness in a more humane way (and I thought it was funnier).

Speaking of bleakness, I just realized that End of the F***ing World would've qualified for this poll.

season 2 of end of the world was a clear step down, would've made it if i decided to just submit every show i watched in 2019 lol

Catastrophe's brand of cynicism was too uncomfortably sadistic to watch, though I like the two main actors a lot. I thought The Let Down (Australian show on Netflix) somehow negotiated all of the bleakness in a more humane way (and I thought it was funnier).

i felt the complete opposite! loved catastrophe, watched a couple of the let down and found it a bit too cruel/bleak.

https://i.imgur.com/fDD5UrH.jpg
#26 (Tie) - Years and Years (BBC, HBO) - 60 points, 6 votes

Years and Years on HBO Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSOo4_7Pccg

Man, I can't believe we've gotten through almost a week of results without a single one of my picks showing up. I must have amazing taste.

Would like to get to #15 today so i'll try to zap one up every ten minutes or so for the next hour or so barring a surprise.

https://i.imgur.com/tlSjaIs.jpg
#26 (Tie) - True Detective (HBO) - 60 points, 6 votes

TRUE DETECTIVE season 3

True Detective on HBO Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpUznQds8p4

huh i forgot to vote for catastrophe, was it really last year?

dark was my #2, i know it's a bit dour (and hard to follow) but honestly i couldn't really imagine a much better bleak high stakes family soap opera time travel drama.

worried my #1 isn't going to make it now.

https://i.imgur.com/8kTBRUV.jpg
#26 (Tie) - Sex Education (Netflix) - 60 points, 6 votes

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Sex Education on Netflix Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SjeO145JLc

True Detective s3 was its best season imho

old man stephen dorff is my spirit animal

Dorff's best role, imo. Mahershala and Carmen Ejogo also very very good.

https://i.imgur.com/EwOlWkz.jpg
#25 – The Great British Bake Off / The Great British Baking Show (Channel 4, Netflix) - 60 points, 7 votes

On Your Marks, Get Set, Baaaaake! A Thread for Great British Baking Show / Bake Off & all of its sundry delights

The Great British Baking Show on Netflix Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzSTqVUWEzU

yeah true d was one of the last shows i cut. this season was impeccably-acted, and well-plotted as far as true detective ever is, but i missed the gothic atmosphere and flat-out weirdness of season one.

Sex Education is an absolute revelation! It would have been second on my ballot had we not only started watching it a few days ago (still a couple of episodes left to watch in S2). The reality this show is set in is magnificent.

Close to first on mine too. Hang on, more in a bit

need to watch TD S3 but not sure I will based on S2.

I actually liked True Detective S2 -- which, I only remember parts of, but the opening credits made me very happy

need to watch TD S3 but not sure I will based on S2.

― Thybulle on the Dash (Spottie), Thursday, February 13, 2020 4:04 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was in the same boat for a minute, but they really might as well be two totally different series

I think about S1 all the time. I really need to see S3 (I saw a bit of S2, was a bit sick in my mouth and gave up. Do I need to revisit?)

Bake Off makes me want to retch. There is only one thing worse than Noel Fielding and that's golf.

Sex Education is ostensibly a British show set in a nameless British town (in some mythic part of Wales? Somerset? Who knows) featuring mostly British actors. The school however is a like a fever dream amalgamation of every American TV high school rolled into one with some extra 'zones', such as the toilets, which appear to be some kind of unconscious heterotopia into which the adolescent therapeutic formulations of the protagonist can be aired to his 'clients'. There are so many beautiful details to unearth in this mise-en-scene-heavy show. Just a few: there is a disproportionate amount of dungarees, denim, rainbow and pastel colours in the wardrobes of the town's inhabitants; there seems to be some kind brilliant progressive local art scene; there is seemingly only one shop. So many excellent characters, such wonderful storylines. I can't throw enough superlatives at this show.

For some reason tv shows about teens gross me out though it doesn't bug me in other media

Forks can you do a recap post of 76-25? or however far you are going today.

That sounds interesting. I know there was some talk about this show but I couldn't tell if that's just because everything on Netflix seems to get talked about.

For some reason tv shows about teens gross me out though it doesn't bug me in other media

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Thursday, February 13, 2020 1:17 PM (twenty-three seconds ago)

I am kinda with you on this -- for me, it's more like "irrationally embarrassed" --college students I'm fine with, but high school, is a "no" -- they are slightly ahead of "reality shows about nouveau riche stupid people" in terms of things I just don't wanna see

tv shows about teens gross me out

In the case of shows like Big Mouth, me too. This is so hyper-realised and strange and intelligently written that it kind of transcends grossness...it's like a perfect cross between Adrian Mole, 10 Things I Hate About You and idk Lynch.

okay, that's not entirely true -- if there are murders or weird alien shit, I can deal with tv teens and nouveau riche idiots

Agreed that Sex Education is awesome, it's the most life-affirming, empathetic, beautifully inclusive show on the telly right now... Well, besides Steven Universe, of course. Glad to see both of them place, though they're both too low. IMO Steven Universe was the best TV show of the 2010s.

I'd say it would only take two episodes for someone to figure out whether or not they'd like it. 2xp haha there's weird alien shit in a sense

I saw S1 of SE (out of extreme boredom) and don't remotely understand the Lynch reference.

I was going to say all of that honest!

If I may play the Otis to your Maeve, this show is the most convincingly surreal mass-market UK show in...decades? Kitchen sink drama has been cast away, and replaced with some exotic and highly erudite melange of Whit Stillman, Freaks & Geeks, 13 Reasons Why, 10 Things I Hate About You...all the best US teen fare, in essence, transported to our once-dingy, now somehow gloriously exalted isle and pumped full of psychoanalysis and sex hormones (I was gonna say Adrian Mole ffs haha) until it quivers right on the edge of madness. No idea how it was greenlit or made (the SETS) but the fact it's such a success is testament to how hungry the UK viewing public was for something that aspires for our nation to be more than just a vessel for no-nonsense grit. To paraphrase Pynchon, when Britain sleeps, does she dream? And when she dreams, does she dream of America?

All this for a show about horny teenagers *enormous Eric laugh*

okay, that's not entirely true -- if there are murders or weird alien shit, I can deal with tv teens and nouveau riche idiots

― sarahell, Thursday, February 13, 2020 4:23 PM (fifty-three seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

how about vampires, and slayers thereof?

there are too many shows that I am fairly certain I would like that I haven't yet seen ... I also have no desire to watch the cooking shows everyone loves ... life is short, and I am old, yet busy.

Lol isn't there just weird alien shit

The surreal elements must be contained to s2 cause I found the first season almost aggressively conventional

xp voodoo - it's on my list of shows I haven't seen but want to.

Though part of my interest in Buffyverse is that it is a touchstone, "ur-text" for so much else. ... Like so many episodes of Supernatural are basically rewrites of Buffy episodes (or so I'm told) -- which explains the weird gendering of Dean Winchester.

Yes, having spotless boys' toilets and girls' toilets that more closely resemble a derelict jungle lair is totally conventional and in no way any kind of inspired and deeply surreal visual touch (among many, many others)

Maybe you have to be British to really get why it's so deliriously weird idk

Clearly.

Anyway, S2 is 2020's and will be hard to beat on my ballot in next year's poll.

The storylines might be conventional sometimes, but a lot of the characterisation is distinctly strange, and it's the collective details of the town that add up to create something far more than the sum of its parts.

Lynch might be a bit of a stretch (though the surrealness is amped up in S2), but I was thinking particularly of the isolated sets: the derelict bathroom, a perfectly symmetrical 'trailer park' in a valley somewhere, a distinctly old-fashioned restaurant, a breakfast table overlooking a ravine, the busstop in the middle of nowhere.

It's surreal in the way Whit Stillman's Damsels In Distress was surreal - it creates a completely & insanely idiosyncratic world out of familiar materials

Jessica Jones was/has been super cathartic for me. I understand that some people (probably most people) are not viewing it the way I am, so I'm not gonna get all "how do you not see how great this show is" on this thread.

but like, in terms of dealing with the trauma of having been in that kind of an abusive relationship, it felt super real -- and even though that was more of a Season 1 thing, it still carried over into last year's season, because that trauma does stay with you. Also, the Trish wanting to be a hero like Jessica -- that's also been a "thing" in my life, so this past season was also really personal for me.

arresting all of you for watching a show about teenagers fucking

pretty sure Riverdale will place too

it's probably the marvel thing that I find most interesting/best, although the Trish character... maybe it's a problem of bad casting for that.

oh and going back a long ways because I just saw this thread. Dear White People is very good. I like the show better than the movie I guess? Start at the beginning, season 3 was kind of throwaway which they do meta address otm.

I should give Ainori Love Wagon another try.

I'm kinda curious about this Dude Lets Flats show ... would a non-British person be able to appreciate it?

tt: "Say 'yes, watch it, don't be put off by my stupid comments'"

which American TV shows are people in other countries not able to appreciate?

football

Baseball.

xp - I would imagine there are plenty of American shows about American things that people in/from other countries don't find interesting/don't give a fuck about. Idk -- like, I honestly find Seinfeld annoying because it's so much about NYC and I have never lived there and I kinda don't need to be reminded of the self-importance of NYC, which I can envision non-Americans thinking about America as a nation.

the office

i'm kinda surprised IASIP is popular elsewhere

I like baseball (go Rangers, I guess?) and I started watching Brockmire, which seems like it might have legs. Will see where it goes. I do like most TV.

there are a lot of american shows that don't translate well.

fyi we just began S2E5 of SE and it opens with the words "I don't get it" "You're not meant to, it's surreal"

:)

Seinfeld's funny.

The Mike Schur seasons of The Office are a really well-done ensemble sitcom with a genuinely warm & engaging wt/wt.

Always Sunny is a sitcom about terrible people being horrible to each other, like Bottom or Mother & Son or Fat Pizza or most of Galton & Simpson's writing. It's one of the most common sitcom premises!

Brockmire S1 worked absolutely fine without knowing anything about baseball. (Azaria makes his completely reprehensible character far more likeable than the types of rapey oafs who cross from sports commentary into general public awareness in Australia.)

I didn't find Seinfeld funny. It seemed like self-absorbed people from NYC having awkward NYC moments. I base this opinion on having watching parts of two episodes. Sorry, that is just how I feel.

https://i.imgur.com/TtkPa5T.jpg
#24 - Last Week Tonight (HBO) - 60 points, 8 votes

Hello, buglers! John Oliver has a weekly show, "Last Week Tonight"

Last Week Tonight on YouTube Website

Last Week Tonight on HBO Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8bJb8biZU

we got him

https://i.imgur.com/L5IOxQt.jpg
#23 - Veep (HBO) - 63 points, 10 votes

A thread for Armando Iannucci's VEEP

Veep on HBO Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCTJFLv78s4

23 - Veep (HBO) - 63 points, 10 votes
24 - Last Week Tonight (HBO) - 60 points, 8 votes
25 - Great British Bake Off (Channel 4, Netflix) - 60 points, 7 votes
26 (Tie) - Sex Education (Netflix) - 60 points, 6 votes
26 (Tie) - True Detective (HBO) - 60 points, 6 votes
26 (Tie) - Years and Years (BBC, HBO) - 60 points, 6 votes
29 - Jeopardy (ABC) - 58 points, 7 votes
30 - Catastrophe (Amazon) - 55 points, 7 votes
31 - Steven Universe (Cartoon Network) - 50 points, 5 votes
32 (Tie) - ContraPoints (YouTube) - 45 points, 6 votes
32 (Tie) - Dark (Netflix) - 45 points, 6 votes
32 (Tie) - Derry Girls (Channel 4, Netflix) - 45 points, 6 votes
32 (Tie) - High Maintenance (HBO) - 45 points, 6 votes
36 - Broad City (Comedy Central) - 45 points, 5 votes
37 (Tie) - Corporate (Comedy Central) - 41 points, 6 votes
37 (Tie) - Pen15 (Hulu) - 41 points, 6 votes
39 - The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon) - 40 points, 6 votes
40 (Tie) - Desus and Mero (Showtime) - 40 points, 5 votes
40 (Tie) - Gentleman Jack (BBC, HBO) - 40 points, 5 votes
40 (Tie) - The Expanse (Amazon) - 40 points, 5 votes
43 - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX) - 40 points, 4 votes
44 - Silicon Valley (HBO) - 38 points, 5 votes
45 - The Good Place (NBC) - 35 points, 5 votes
46 (Tie) - Kingdom (Netflix) - 33 points, 4 votes
46 (Tie) - Stath Lets Flats (Channel 4) - 33 points, 4 votes
48 (Tie) - Game of Thrones (HBO) - 30 points, 4 votes
48 (Tie) - Pose (FX) - 30 points, 4 votes
48 (Tie) - The Dragon Prince (Netflix) - 30 points, 4 votes
48 (Tie) - Tuca and Bertie (Netflix) - 30 points, 4 votes
48 (Tie) - Veronica Mars (Hulu) - 30 points, 4 votes
53 (Tie) - 63 Up (ITV, UK) - 30 points, 3 votes
53 (Tie) - Bosch (Amazon) - 30 points, 3 votes
53 (Tie) - Euphoria (HBO) - 30 points, 3 votes
53 (Tie) - Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing (BBC) - 30 points, 3 votes
53 (Tie) - Queer Eye (Netflix) - 30 points, 3 votes
53 (Tie) - Repair Shop (BBC, Netflix) - 30 points, 3 votes
53 (Tie) - The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Netflix) - 30 points, 3 votes
53 (Tie) - This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC) - 30 points, 3 votes
61 - SB Nation's Chart Party (YouTube) - 28 points, 5 votes
62 (Tie) - Documentary Now! (IFC, stream on Netflix) - 28 points, 4 votes
62 (Tie) - Ramy (Hulu) - 28 points, 4 votes
64 (Tie) - Brockmire (IFC, stream on Hulu) - 25 points, 4 votes
64 (Tie) - His Dark Materials (HBO) - 25 points, 4 votes
66 (Tie) - Big Mouth (Netflix) - 25 points, 3 votes
66 (Tie) - Dear White People (Netflix) - 25 points, 3 votes
66 (Tie) - Rick and Morty (Adult Swim, stream on Hulu) - 25 points, 3 votes
66 (Tie) - The Boys (Amazon) - 25 points, 3 votes
66 (Tie) - Truthpoint (Adult Swim, Stream on YouTube) - 25 points, 3 votes
71 - Infinity Train (Cartoon Network, stream on web) - 25 points, 2 votes
72 - The Witcher (Netflix) - 20 points, 4 votes
73 - Jessica Jones (Netflix) - 20 points, 3 votes
74 (Tie) - GeoWizard's Mission Across Wales (YouTube) - 20 points, 2 votes
74 (Tie) - Ainori Love Wagon: Asian Journey (Netflix) - 20 points, 2 votes
74 (Tie) - Nailed It! (Netflix US) - 20 points, 2 votes
74 (Tie) - Too Old To Die Young (Amazon) - 20 points, 2 votes

around the time Trump became the GOP nominee Oliver's shtick crossed over from funny to tired as fuck for me and it never improved from what I've caught since

final season of veep was mostly good, but the finale was one of the better sitcom episodes i've ever seen.

earned a vote from me.

tbh that goes for pretty much all late night comedy, although for some reason Jimmy Kimmel is still kinda funny

xp

i found oliver's schtick went from repetitive to endearing to me. prolly because I am exhausted as fuck with everyone else's bullshit.

I am amused about how high one of my (our) shows is going to be.

Hai

:D

Veep was my #5 I think. Every time I thought about that final season it rose up my ballot. Phenomenal show with an extremely satisfying arc and v glad it rose above John Oliver. The rare show with 5+ seasons that never truly dimmed at any point, too

konbanwa!

the writing on Oliver's show is so far ahead of regular late-night shows that I don't get how Colbert isn't too embarrassed to do his 'monologue' every night. whoever writes the A Closer Look segments for Seth Meyers is presumably working in an office on their own, as they have a decent structure and more to say than facile appearance and ignorance jokes, although they do have to stay on a "let's let off steam at 1am" tone instead of laying out how the actual functions of a government being hollowed out for authoritarianism is (*checks notes*) alarming

dropped out of Veep midway through the first LA season, dropped back in for the final year and it had improved substantially

Sorry, that is just how I feel.

not arguing with your own opinion! just saying that's how it read to people on the other side of the planet - it was a big success in Australia, ran in repeats year-round on the station that had rights to the bulk of it. (Started on a different network, and later seasons were first-run-only on FTA.) Netflix last year paid c. $600 million for global rights from 2021, up from the $130 million Hulu paid for US rights in 2015, so we can all breathe easy that Steve Bannon will be kept in double shirts through the next presidential administration there's presumably research showing other countries have been able to follow it before.

that never truly dimmed at any point, too

lol xpost

Colbert's monologues were always pretty good in the beginning. I still watch every so often and it's a mixture of decent and "maybe all the writers were sick today"

I like Seth Myers' Closer Look segments (well, my wife likes them more, I probably wouldn't watch 'em on my own) and yes they're good though Myers has such a weird delivery, he talks so fast and trips over himself a lot but I still like him

All I know of John Oliver is the recycled stream of quotes recited by one of my 9-year-old students. I think I like it best that way.

That’s not to say anything either way about John Oliver, I just recommend recycled TV news.

whoever writes the A Closer Look segments for Seth Meyers is presumably working in an office on their own

turns out nearly - it's a former producer for Chris Hayes on MSNBC who writes the scripts overnight (eg from 8pm to 4am), edits to Meyers' notes at the office during the day (9am to 4pm), the writers' room do punch up after rehearsal in front of an audience at 4;15pm, main dude rushes new updates into script if relevant news breaks before taping at 6:30.

Like Oliver's long-form delving, love the stunts, but his delivery never transcends the material. Jon Stewart and Colbert could make me laugh even with weaksauce jokes. And I'll take Sam Bee's writing team over the other Daily Show alumni.

Still none of my 6 picks have shown up, although I expect to see 5 of them.

I don't know why but I find Oliver almost unwatchable, my parents love him to death but I just find it an unbearable smarm exercise

yeah one of my favorite people hates the schtick (oliver) but I have grown quite fond of it.

I like him but tend to watch his videos when people link them rather than week by week so I have no clue how many I saw in 2019 and how many of those were even from 2019

I still like him, but he suffers badly from presumed-male audience syndrome. All of his jokes are directed at men, and there are a looooot of dick jokes. It doesn't offend me, but it is a strangely exclusionary editorial voice for him to adopt.

Also, I find Dark funny. Especially the relentless rain. It can't not be a joke.

https://i.imgur.com/sIkXyF7.jpg
#22 - Unbelievable (Netflix) - 65 points, 6 votes

Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

Unbelievable on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTIkUzkbzQk

All of my top 3 have placed, so the rest of this roll out will be me off to the side quietly shaking my head.

https://i.imgur.com/SZU0N8w.jpg
#21 - When They See Us (Netflix) - 65 points, 7 votes

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

When They See Us on Netflix Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3F9n_smGWY

https://i.imgur.com/GxKaYHC.jpg
#20 – The Righteous Gemstones (HBO) - 68 points, 9 votes

The Righteous Gemstones

The Righteous Gemstones on HBO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS89h7P_nZ8

I wasn't wild about the tidy ending to s1 but overall this was my favorite Jody Hill thing since early Eastbound

https://i.imgur.com/ei5gcph.jpg
#19 - Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020 (Netflix) - 70 points, 6 votes

"Break up caused by meat! Break up caused by meat!" - The official TERRACE HOUSE thread

Terrace House:Tokyo 2019-2020 on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VueM03-5sCI

There it is

to my shame, i avoided the 'hard to watch' acclaimed series of last year. chernobyl, when they see us, unbelievable, etc.

definitely planning on checking out the former two sometime this year, might need some selling for the latter.

gemstones, on the other hand, i voted for. i started off not finding the show very funny, but being intrigued by the family drama and the overarching plot. once i got a hang of the characters (especially when walton goggins showed up), that's when it went from good to fantastic. it's impossible not to laugh at everything that edi patterson says.

Whoever said reality TV was finished hadn't reckoned on Japan and its cultural tendency towards awesomely awkward interpersonal hang-ups that turn the ostensibly simple art of seduction into an intense, drawn-out and operatic game of chicken

Also, this is reality TV insofar as they live together and are on camera, but they still have working lives (albeit that these are often on camera too), which is a far preferable set-up to the usual panopticon (that said, the most panopticon-esque set-up of all, The Circle, is one I should have voted for too)

Gemstones almost worked more for me as a drama than a comedy.

uncle baby billy

https://i.imgur.com/OXyyq01.jpg
#18 - Killing Eve (BBC America/BBC) - 80 points, 8 votes

These Drinks Is Vicious: The Killing Eve Thread

Killing Eve on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVTZhOLpXjI

Unbelievable was really great. The first episode is kind of hard to watch, but the rest of it is Merrit Wever and Toni Collette doing dogged detective work and taking no shit. After watching the police department mishandle the case in episode 1, there is an inspirational thrill in seeing how it should be done with persistence and compassion. Also reminiscent of The Wire in the way it reveals institutional failures.

agreed, superb performances all round

I lost interest in Killing Eve pretty early on in s1 and no one seemed to think s2 was an improvement

i enjoy killing eve but it's pretty ridiculous. mostly in it for jodie comer's performance and clothes at this point. don't think i voted for it.

conversation from the Netflix thread about Unbelievable (which i voted for)

SPOILERS FOR UNBELIEVABLE, DON'T LOOK IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE SHOW
So here's my issue with the last episode of unbelievable which was, overall I think, a really great show: having spent six hours explaining to me how broken and fucked up the system is and how the deck is always stacked in favor of the assaulter and how violent and prone to abuse the cops are, we end on a hour of full catharsis. Marie gets closure with the cop who fucked her over and the police get a complete win with this serial rapist put away for multiple lifetimes. Marie calls Detective Grace from a beach and thanks her for being there, explicitly stating that what made the difference was knowing that someone out there was watching over her, even if she didn't know it... and then she literally drives off into the sunset to her new life.
Now I read the propublica piece (and i recommend everyone after watching this does too! it's astonishing how close the story sticks to the record: https://www.propublica.org/article/false-rape-accusations-an-unbelievable-story ) so i get that they're basically hewing to the actual facts but they certainly do have control over the themes they're touching on. After so much time showing and telling how the system is broken, i couldn't help feeling that the conclusion of the series suggested that what Marie's shitty foster mom hurtfully said ("sometimes the system works") was the moral of the overall story. That left me VERY cold, that they would hint even obliquely, much less openly and blatantly, that though the system is busted it occasionally works and might even be defensible for its occasional wins. Which runs counter to most everything we've been told up until then!
I was really taken with the veracity of the show up until then and the way that it showed rape policing done both as good as it could be and as bad as it could be... but that in both case it amounts to a secondary assault and that no one seems to be addressing how to change that. I thought the acting was outrageously good and that the casting couldn't have been better; as soon as ANY minor character showed up I was jolted with the "ooo they got THEM!" I felt battered after the first two episodes. I appreciated the program's willingness not to give the rapist a voice or any platform whatsoever; the moment of his strip search seemed appropriately cathartic. I just felt cheated that after so much honesty and clarity, we wind up with such an entirely optimistic ending and one that seemed, well, unbelievable. Even if it did happen! There were different and less maintain-the-status-quo endings to be had i think.
Anyways, this is incendiary subject matter and i feel it would be a better conversation than trading of paragraphs but i'm wondering if you had similar feelings.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Thursday, October 17, 2019 10:30 PM

SPOILERS CONTINUE DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED UNBELIEVABLE
yeah i had a quite different reaction! i was afraid that Marie was going to toss herself off the cliff after talking with Duvall, but instead she walked back to her car, and she was more or less ok. yeah, she was still alone in the world (which i can relate to) and had some heavy baggage, but she didn't toss herself off the cliff. and her confrontation with the cop who didn't believe her was clearly so shameful for him. i think the thing that struck me was that he, the guy who deeply fucked her life, DID seem to recognize his role in the system. that was actually hugely gratifying for me to see. in a world where we see powerful people sneering and howling to protect the careers and reputations of Their Boys even though Their Boys are rapists, it felt good to see a doubter squirm & repent. i thought he might kill himself too tbh.
haven't read the propublica thing yet -- but what the show illuminated for me personally was the very clear double-assault nature of this type of violent assault. first, you have the actual assault. then you have the assault of no one believing you/DARVO from people defending the assaulter. in this situation, the rapist had no defenders. not even himself. that was powerful and actually made the show easier to watch.
the casting was indeed excellent.
as stated, i thought singing "mack the knife" was quite tasteless under the circumstances but maybe that is dark humor that i don't get or just an oversight.
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:42 PM

and they did show the other cop that helped push the retraction just kind of blow it all off.
― Yerac, Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:46 PM

WHAT MORE SPOILERS OH MY GOD WHY HAVEN'T YOU STARTED A THREAD WELL I GUESS WE ARE IN A THREAD YOU MAKE A GOOD POINT
Honestly didn't even occur to me that Marie might kill herself on the beach! Obviously your take on he power dynamics is valid and I'm not sure what I wanted or expected... a horrible painful ending where everyone acknowledges that even when the bad guy goes down and justice is in some sense served that the system is equally culpable for generally allowing these sort of assaults to go unreported, uninvestigated and unwitnessed wasn't going to do anybody any good when the actual story does have clearer, less horrendous closure.
I guess I saw an opportunity to use this story to call for change in the way rapes are investigated, reported and in the way police and communities deal with victims and I'm not sure this ending did that at all. My sense was that the directors named the problem but then mostly acted like it was unavoidable. I would've liked more of cri de coeur than a general thumbs up to "good police work". But I can certainly understand how an ending in which repercussions for horrible actions are repaid with imprisonment amidst a great cast of strong, intelligent female leads might trump that concern for you. I guess what offended you about the mack the knife bit was what offended me about the larger, pro-police structure of the whole episode: I don't see how this pertains to the story I've been told up till now and it seems in bad taste.
in the propublica story, i think the other cop is either dead or retired by the time marie comes back so that was probably there to provide some narrative balance.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:57 PM

I listened to the This American Life episode they did about the real life case in 2016, and it's pretty stunning that even after everything that happened the foster mom still thinks it's kind of Marie's fault for not acting the way she should have after being raped
― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Friday, October 18, 2019 7:53 PM

ugh, one way to remove her responsibility from what happened to Marie.
― Yerac, Friday, October 18, 2019 8:55 PM

the show writers went out of their way to show the humanity of pretty much all the female characters except for her.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Friday, October 18, 2019 9:01 PM

i did think the show did an excellent job of illustrating the lifelong reverberations of sexual assault, and that it actually takes a special sort of investigator to interview victims. it highlighted a lot of the failures of the system without being super obvious about it because they were highlighted by the way the two women investigators handled things in contrast to...everyone else.
it did a good job of dismantling elements of rape culture that seem extremely difficult for many people to grasp.
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Friday, October 18, 2019 9:03 PM

including the shitty foster mom
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Friday, October 18, 2019 9:04 PM

perhaps worth adding, shitty foster mom who made it clear that she too had been sexually assaulted
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Friday, October 18, 2019 9:28 PM

IME this is a generational thing.
― akm, Friday, October 18, 2019 9:38 PM

like....I saw my mother recently (she's 72 now) and she laid this bomb on me: that one of her friends had had a child in the late 60's and has maintained that she was raped. She also let it slip that my uncle or someone else may have been the father. and then my mother just said "she says she was raped but I don't believe that." She's still friends with this woman. They're in their 70's. This woman has said she was raped for over 40 years. And my mom still doesn't believe her? Maybe because she implicated her brother? I don't even fucking know. But there is a generation that looks at everything askance if it doesn't fit into their preconceived notions of how people should be.
― akm, Friday, October 18, 2019 9:40 PM

MORE UNBELIEVABLE SPOILERS
Just wanted to chime in that I binged this last night and today, because I wanted so badly to see Marie get some kind of win while she was drowning in a sea of people of couldn't or wouldn't offer the smallest bit of empathy for her.
What else I liked was how the series showed how much backbreaking, beach-combing work the detectives did to find the guy, picking up on the most tenuous threads that led to an enormous pool of suspects and still making sense of all that noise.
But all the same, I kind of agree with Ulysses, that the exceptional case of the system, that's so stacked against women in assault cases, might allow some kind of retroactive justice seems to justify the existence of the same system. OTOH, it does underline how badly the system also depends on empathy for it to have any semblance of serving the public -- in stark distinction of justice being blind. I don't know if it's an optimistic reading or a bittersweet reading, that something abstract like justice depends on people overcoming so many systemic biases, to spend so much time and energy struggling against and through the status quo, when in a better world it should just work.
I'm definitely going to read the PP story at some point, as the miniseries has a few moments that were clearly designed to educate viewers ("this is how Y-STRs work, young intern") and I want to know what's rooted in the actual case.
― HELLA FITZGERALD (Leee), Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:38 PM

ONE MORE SPOILER
One dangling thread is how the guy's encrypted drive remains encrypted, how the prosecutor seems absolutely indifferent about trying to crack that.
Oh and for a family that are both cops, the Duvalls have a hell of a nice spread.
― HELLA FITZGERALD (Leee), Saturday, October 19, 2019 11:58 PM

I kept wondering what happened to the encrypted drive as well. No answers on that was disappointing. Who knows what else that malevolent creep did.
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Sunday, October 20, 2019 12:02 AM

It's a overused statement at this point but the whole time that Rose McGowan quote played in my head “The only perfect rape victim is a dead rape victim."
― Yerac, Sunday, October 20, 2019 1:36 AM

the ProPublica article that inspired the show was expanded into a book - "A False Report" - if anyone wants more background on the case
― Number None, Sunday, October 20, 2019 9:39 AM

i would actually! will hunt it down. Everyone should read the readily available propublica article; it's stunning how closely they stuck to the facts. Some of the dialogue is lifted verbatim!
and along the same lines RE: that encrypted hard drive via reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnbelievableNetflix/comments/d59o54/encrypted_hard_drive/
From the epilogue of the book:
"John Evans, the computer forensics expert] sent the file to the FBI's geek squad, the Cryptologic and Electronic Analysis Unit of the Operational Technology Division. One of the most secretive branches of the agency, the cryptology unit had helped the National Security Administration comb through millions of emails. And its scientists, agents, and coders had helped numerous local law enforcement agencies with tough computer cases. But even the cryptologists could not break open the Wretch."
"On some days, when he is running a route high in the mountains, Bob Weiner's (the DA) thoughts will unexpectedly drift back to the Wretch. It has been years since O'Leary pleaded guilty. He is in prison for the rest of his life. He has never revealed the password. Weiner wonders what it could contain. 'Maybe there's information in there of a murder. I don't know,' Weiner says. 'My mind, periodically reverts back to 'What's going on, what is in there? I still think about it.'"
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, October 20, 2019 8:28 PM

S2 of Killing Eve was pretty poor. Surprised to see it so high

I've never even heard of Unbelievable, but the descriptions of it make it seem like something I would love. guess that'll be my next show

it's remarkable but i continue to be frustrated by how it ties up its loose ends with what could be regarded as a pro-status quo message.

Michael Chabon did script work on it.

Edi Patterson is just a hilarious breakout star on both Gemstones and Vice-Principals.

https://i.imgur.com/TvXozXJ.jpg
#16 (Tie) - The Mandalorian a.k.a. “Baby Yoda” (Disney +) - 85 points, 11 votes

Star Wars: The Mandalorian

The Mandalorian on Disney+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmI7WKrAtqs

Excellent show. Really captured the vibe of the original films.

pathetic

pvmic

I hope none of you paid for it at least

is it that bad?

no

i didn't vote for it, but it's perfectly fine escapism. the xena comparisons are otm, i'll add in the old school incredible hulk as another comp.

i'm not super-mad about it or anything but why post a bunch of spoilers about a show into a thread that's not about that show?

S2 of Killing Eve was embarrassingly bad. I had to turn it off.

Many, many xps: Dark was mostly great but I don't think I can handle another season of people explaining the plot in rooms.

Huge stan for Terrace House (franchise). While this installment isn't necessarily the best, no show has caused me to tune (via VPN) in every week in a very long time, especially for 5+ seasons.

I'm way behind on Terrace House, but yeah it's the only good show

I saw 3-4 eps of the first Netflix season(??) and it was oddly transfixing, but when I saw how many seasons there were I got intimidated and lost interest

https://i.imgur.com/Nbejdf3.jpg
#16 (Tie) - Glow (Netflix) - 85 points, 11 votes

Our Style Is Wild And You Know You Can't Tame Us: GLOW on Netflix

GLOW on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQaCxIJX0J0

xp to NA: because those comments are buried in the middle of an 11k post thread about netflix

Dark was mostly great but I don't think I can handle another season of people explaining the plot in rooms.

Next season is last one though so should tie everything up

10 eps of one long convo in one room

oh right, another thing i meant to watch but didn't find the time.

voted for GLOW, it was once again outstanding. Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin are both phenomenal, which isn't to take away from the rest of the cast, which ranges from good to sublime, but without those two operating at such a high level the show might not work half as well.

https://i.imgur.com/5j8BdJD.jpg
#15 - Lodge 49 (AMC) - 90 points, 9 votes

signs and symbols: AMC's LODGE 49

Lodge 49 on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha2CWFNenfs

TOO LOW

v glad it beat Star Wars Babies tho

pathetic (nb, have never seen this show)

too low

still need to watch the last three episodes (but i don't want it to end forever :( )

this was my #3.

for the uninitiated: a now-axed, wistful-but-funny, and *very* hard to summarize series about "late" capitalism, gentrification, loss, dream logic, idealism, and about a million other things. and no, the early axing doesn't make it not worth the investment.

would've voted for this if I'd voted - not quite finished the first season tho but will do this weekend

This cult of this Lodge 49 is continuing to grow after cancellation at an insane rate. I'm on my 3rd go at it and continue to recommend it to people, all of whom are pretty blown away by the writing/reveals/allegories.

I am so bummed I came into this show too late, seems like it's a common thread with its rabid fanbase.

I'm hoping there's still some minute chance word of mouth spreads enough that it gets another chance somewhere, though I know Jim Gavin already ruled it out. A belated, beyond-all-hope resurrection would be all too fitting.

At the very least I'd love a physical release.

wouldn't we all

ayooo

TOO LOW!

A belated, beyond-all-hope resurrection would be all too fitting.

It really would! Please let this happen, universe. Lodge 49 my number 1, pretty much of all time.

I have been all too happy to spread the gospel.

still need to watch S2 season of L49.

Mandalorian was mostly aimless until the last two episodes. pretty fun fam show overall.

I'm working through season 2 r/n, & I have ilx to thank for hipping me to this beautiful show

Lodge 49 - The most humane, faith-restoring show ever. It unfurls quietly but magnificently, weaving a tapestry of obscure interconnected moments for the viewer to interpret. All of the occulty details are just so fun as well and seem to inspire a genuine child-like awe in the show's fanbase.

Terrace House - My #3. Like Albert said, it's not the best season, but as an entry point it's as good as any, and wow there are still some excellent and confounding moments. Unlike a lot of reality TV, it's genuinely unpredictable, because truths are usually harder won. The panel are still killing it, ofc.

Glow - Still excellent. So good at making me care about all of the characters.

Yamachan is the GOAT reality panellist yeah and he's only getting better

This Lodge 49 discussion is the first thing on the list where the discussion makes me feel like "I should give this show I've never seen that doesn't seem like my kind of show a chance."

https://i.imgur.com/wJeQBEx.jpg
#14 - BoJack Horseman (Netflix) - 90 points, 10 votes

Let's talk about BoJack Horseman, the new Netflix animated series (starring Will Arnett, Alison Brie, Amy Sedaris, Aaron Paul, etc)

Bojack Horseman on Netflix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOGxOQxXjdo

xpost Yeah, I'd seen bits and pieces of it after Better Call Saul and, tbqh, it seemed like just another in the long line of low-effort shows that AMC airs after their big hits and that get deservedly cancelled after a couple seasons, mixed with maybe like John from Cincinnati. But y'all are stoking my interest.

Lodge 49 is incredible, just a beautiful show

otherwise: you guys watch a lot of garbage

First half of Bojack S6 (the eligible part) was a return to form imo

Discussion of S6 part 2 is BANNED because we still have two episodes left btw

Really enjoyed the last few episodes (not much talk on the thread what's the deal? xp oh) despite the grim trajectory of...most of the characters but esp. the lead

did i vote? no. however: too low

BANNED

also yeah too low etc

i c u

The surprise party episode and the church reenactment episode alone should have had this in the top ten

first half season 6 was pretty excellent, writing was top notch.

need to watch s6 part 2 again to decide which half i prefer, but it seems like the first half optimized the drama/comedy balance a bit better than the second?

either way, this was in my top 5.

lol yes, the surprise party episode was so good.

and don't even get me started on gary, the guy who i met at the gas station!

Out of curiosity, how did everyone come by this Lodge 49 consensus? I'm admittedly unattuned to the zeitgeist but I'm fairly sure I've never heard or seen anyone saying anything about the show one way or another.

^^^not in the lodge

Clearly.

it's okay, I'm not in the lodge either, I see tt go off and wonder what she's doing but she always comes back in the best mood

made a lot of critic top ten lists, but yeah i didn't see much discussion (and i don't know anyone irl who's seen the show that i didn't specifically recommend the show to)

simon h has championed it around here and got quite a few of us to check it out i think.

I admit I thought Bojack s5 was pure water-treading territory so I have yet to check out s6

it's very good imo

4 > 3 > 2 > 6 > 1 >>> 5

s5 wasn't that bad, c'mon

definitely lesser than 2-3-4 but so are most things

All relative. S1 is still great. Sad horse show is all time

Out of curiosity, how did everyone come by this Lodge 49 consensus?

saw it discussed rapturously here + my brother was into it, but what sealed the deal was seeing some RIP tweet from the showrunner about how central Trish Keenan and Broadcast were to the aesthetic of the show and then I was like okay I'm in. It's amazing. Best original show of recent years, hands down.

oh yeah and DJI/my bandmate also repped for it

i voted for lodge 49 even though i haven't seen s2 yet. i don't love it as rapturously as some but i really appreciate the combo of mysticism and general financial insecurity. and it has david pasquesi, i.e. stu the meat man

it's a "critical favorite"

Hmmm, I am likewise intrigued by the Broadcast evocation.

And I do love me some Pasquesi but he's been in some, hmm, not great stuff.

he will always be THE MEAT MAN to me, but tbf Pasquesi is incredible in this, goes places I didn't know he had in him

and hey i just noticed s2 of lodge 49 is up on hulu now!

B Horseman one of my very favorite shows of the recent era but my memory of the 2019 eps is that they didn't quite rise to the level I expected (and indeed I don't remember them that well.) Still probably too low! (Didn't make my top 4 but would have been in my top 10 had I done 10.) I somehow can't get interested in Diane & Guy -- even the name seems to suggest they can't find much to say about the character.

https://i.imgur.com/uDm8zFD.jpg
#13 - Stranger Things (Netflix) - 100 points, 10 votes

A thread for Stranger Things, the "Goonies meets X-Files" new Netflix series (with SPOILERS!)

Stranger Things on Netflix Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEG3bmU_WaI

S3 was so much better than S2

lucky for you I'm already hoarse from previous booing

this show fucking sucks

Rewatched all of BoJack before second half of S6 and S5 was much better second time around. Free Churros is probably one of the (many) best episodes overall.

S6 Part 1 was great and a travesty that Stranger Things has finished above it.

"Free Churros" was the show at its self-indulgent worst for me lol

he will always be THE MEAT MAN to me, but tbf Pasquesi is incredible in this, goes places I didn't know he had in him

― Οὖτις, Friday, February 14, 2020 12:14 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

If/when y'all find yourself in Chicago, make a point of seeing TJ & Dave, the weekly two-man improv show he does with T.J. 'yes, that guy from the Sonic commercials' Jagodowski. It's the only improv I'd ever recommend to the uninitiated and I recommend it highly. They're both amazingly nuanced and intuitive performers. P.S. If Tracy Letts is sitting in for one of them, DO NOT SEE; Pulitzer Prizes apparently do not translate into improv performance skillz.

TJ and Dave are a fun show for sure.

Stranger Things is good, eff the haters, and this season was quite fun. Ethan Uma Jr. was a swell addition to the cast. That said: did not vote for it.

https://i.imgur.com/3Ky6l2m.jpg
#12 - Schitt's Creek (Pop US) - 101 points, 11 votes

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

Schitt’s Creek on Netflix Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mzdm3gzraI

I lost interest in Killing Eve pretty early on in s1 and no one seemed to think s2 was an improvement

This was my reaction to S1, I was kind of dumbfounded out some of the plot turns.

Loved the first two seasons of GLOW, and I threw some points at it for this poll mostly out of fondness for them, because I didn't like the third season at all.

And speaking of dreary sitcoms that I found completely unfunny...

I loathe Bojack. Tried watching the first episode again and bailed halfway through, never so much as a cracked a smile at its humor.

Everyone says this show is good, but I've always avoided it because of it's too-cute title

refuse to watch because canadian but I'm glad we finally produced a new series y'all enjoy, I guess

couldn't make it through more than a few episodes of the first season, no matter how much I love Chris Elliott.

Loathe seems a pretty extreme reaction to a show you've only ever watched one episode of xps

it's very funny and also effectively heartwarming, which is not usually something i enjoy. it does take a few eps to get rolling.

chris elliott is maybe the worst thing about the show, and i'm a fan

YESSSSSSS. Had this been a ranked ballot, I might have put Schitt's Creek at #1. I likewise avoided it for forever because of the title, begrudgingly gave it a shot very recently at my gf's suggestion, and we have very quickly fallen deeply in love with it. The format is straight-up sitcom but man, the performances are great and often hilarious and then out of nowhere incredibly touching and poignant etc. I honestly cannot say enough good things about it. As I posted in the Parks and Rec thread, if you like/love that show, I would urge you to give this one an honest go. And yeah, it kinda takes a season to really get its footing, so stick with it.

i also liked 'Free Churro' and think if you're gonna try Bojack, that's a place to start.
https://observer.com/2018/10/bojack-horseman-free-churro-finds-comedy-in-tragedy-you-get-it-right/

Alternately 'Downer Ending'?
https://www.avclub.com/its-fear-and-self-loathing-in-hollywoo-as-bojack-horsem-1799802691

chris elliott is maybe the worst thing about the show, and i'm a fan

― na (NA), Friday, February 14, 2020 12:36 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Precisely this. Dan Levy is a goddamn MVP and I hope he goes on to very good things after the show ends.

i also liked 'Free Churro' and think if you're gonna try Bojack, that's a place to start.
https://observer.com/2018/10/bojack-horseman-free-churro-finds-comedy-in-tragedy-you-get-it-right/

really? it's obviously a great episode, but also totally singular and won't prepare you for any of the other episodes

downer ending is probably a good starting point otoh, comes in at the end of s1 and was the first indication of the levels of weird and sad the show would eventually reach

Michael Chabon did script work on it.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Friday, February 14, 2020 8:12 AM (two hours ago)

not a selling point for me ... especially after he and his wife thought it would be great for them to script a show about Ghost Ship -- ugh, no. Fuck off Michael Chabon.

So disappointed atm: if "When They See Us" wasn't gonna win, then at least the logical winner should have been the Star Wars Babies show. ...

it's obviously a great episode, but also totally singular and won't prepare you for any of the other episodes

Fuck off Michael Chabon.

https://i.imgur.com/dBoWnD6.jpg
#11 - Watchmen (HBO) - 120 points, 13 votes

Damon Lindelof's Watchmen

Watchmen on HBO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zymgtV99Rko

Top 10 coming up! Give your guesses as to lineup and so on.

Are we going to #1 today?

Also too low

Russian Doll & Fleabag are locks

i'm gonna do my best to knock this out today, yes.

succession, i think you should leave, hopefully joe pera

Hopefully Undone, probably Chernobyl

Mindhunter would be in there, I would think.

I kind of think that The OA is going to get some love? Even on ILX it's mostly a culty following but maybe it makes up for the sparseness with more enthusiasm?

could it be that on cinema does not place somehow?

it definitely will

Watchmen was at the bottom of my ballot.

Barry has a shot presumably, surprised watchmen didn’t make the top 10 but obv ilx is full of detractors for the very idea of it

on cinema
fleabag
russian doll
joe pera
i think you should leave
chernobyl
undone
succession
barry

and uhhh one more

Mindhunter

oh right

I was like "that show looks awful" then I realized I was thinking of the Emma Stone/Jonah Hill thing and not the awesome show I love

No, Mr. Robot? (I've only seen the first 1 1/2 seasons so maybe it got bad)

If/when y'all find yourself in Chicago, make a point of seeing TJ & Dave, the weekly two-man improv show he does with T.J. 'yes, that guy from the Sonic commercials' Jagodowski.

Pretty sure they have not had a weekly gig in Chicago in at least a few years, though they are doing a couple of reunion gigs next month.

love Schitt's Creek, would have been my #1 if i could have ranked it. genuinely wonderful and frequently hilarious, almost always pleasant, and almost sci-fi in its utopianism. Incredible performances from all four of the main cast, w/valuable supporting work all around, and Chris Elliott is fine though the total LVP here if i'm being honest. he's just about the last reason to watch this. This is sort of the antithesis of a cruel comedy show, which doesn't deaden the humor whatsoever. it somehow makes the core premise extremely fresh and increasingly so over its entire run, along w/a lot of unexpected twists and turns and some vv forward thinking depictions. many moments of being blindsided by unexpected emotion etc.

i don't know anything about any ghost ship show

It was announced back in December. It was included in some network PR thing about a package deal Chabon was involved in. It got shared and forwarded to people whose friends and family members died in the fire. There was public outrage and angry tweets, and then Chabon and Waldman, fairly quickly dropped the idea.

at some point i will watch watchmen against my better judgment, primarily because of regina king

https://i.imgur.com/Fg28igA.jpg
#10 - What We Do in Shadows (FX) - 123 points, 13 votes

Taika Waititi

What We Do In Shadows on Hulu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R2dDwzuZ4s

oh

I hope this means undone didn't place

watchmen was my #1 so i should probably say something about it but it was just really well made and smart and the hooded justice origin episode was probably the best episode of tv i saw last year. nb a week later i regretted not swapping it with my #2 vote (which is yet to place)

surprisingly low for watchmen, i had it as #7 or so so i'm not complaining

what we do in the shadows was my #10 so good job everyone

Russian Doll is prob the biggest oversight from my ballot, would’ve been top 5 if I hadn’t missed it in the noms list

need to watch both of those last two -- okay, I am not mad at u ilx

Pretty sure they have not had a weekly gig in Chicago in at least a few years, though they are doing a couple of reunion gigs next month.

― jaymc, Friday, February 14, 2020 12:57 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol, oops, I'm clearly all the way out of the loop.

I kind of think that The OA is going to get some love? Even on ILX it's mostly a culty following but maybe it makes up for the sparseness with more enthusiasm?

― Charlotte Brontesaurus (Leee), Friday, February 14, 2020 12:51 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

No, Mr. Robot? (I've only seen the first 1 1/2 seasons so maybe it got bad)

― Muswell Hillbilly Elegy (President Keyes), Friday, February 14, 2020 12:56 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink\

Both of these were on my very short ballot and thusly heavily weighted, but I wouldn't put money on either showing up at this point, no.

I'm still mad I wasted so much time with Mr. Robot s2 and 3

My still to come guesses:

On Cinema
Russian Doll
Joe Pera
Mindhunter
maybe Doom Patrol but probably not Doom Patrol

As noted in the dedicated thread, Mr. Robot improved a great deal in the home stretch and stuck the landing both better than I ever would have expected and with greater skill than many other shows have managed. I was impressed.

still working through season 4 of mr robot, but it's been pretty solid so far.

didn't vote for it cause i didn't start watching til last month

let's stop guessing and talk about how awesome what we do in the shadows is?

Terrace House! Throw a weighted blanket over me in a hot bath!

i watched the first season, liked it, then forgot it existed though vague memories of it would insert themselves into my recollections of other shows, and I wouldn't remember where they came from.

How does this compare to the film (which I liked)

Would have voted Lodge 49 but only seen the first season

Two shows that I've realized over the past week that I forgot to nominate and possibly would have voted for:

Magic for Humans (a charming and funny Abso-lutely production featuring prestidigitation, which is usually not my thing but is totally my thing in this particular context)
How to Get Away with Murder (a show I never in a million years would've ever thought to watch of my own volition or would've ever thought I'd like but got sucked all the way into last year, completely ludicrous and ott but hella addictive and Viola Davis is just magnificent all the time)

re: shadows -- one of my bff's was telling me about it the last time we hung out, and said it was on par with the film, and that I should watch both, and gave me his hulu login so I could watch it. I haven't as yet watched it, but his summary made it sound great.

OMG -- why did I forget to nominate How to Get Away with Murder?!!!! That is one of my faves!

https://i.imgur.com/MLWqH5h.jpg
#9 – Dr. Pimple Popper (TLC) - 130 points, 13 votes

Hi I'm Captain Pimple.

Dr. Pimple Popper on Hulu Website

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmWrj2ejA48

I am occasional buddies with the lead actor in How To Get Away With Murder /namedrop - he's a lovely and very erudite chap and I keep missing his plays because they sell out