Which of These Original Scripted Programs Produced By The Basic Cable Network FX Do You Most Highly Regard?

You left out Damages

The Shield.

FX has a better than Showtime, doesn't it?

voted justified though louie, sunny, archer, and (briefly) nip/tuck have all given me a great deal of pleasure. note: have not yet seen the shield. and of course looking up there i forgot damages w/ rose byrne but somehow remembered son of the beach so consider a vote for son of the beach a vote for damages (from what i recall basically the same show anyway).

forgot "track record" in there. Rough start to the day.

It's almost unfair to put the comedies and dramas in the same poll.

of course looking up there i forgot damages w/ rose byrne but somehow remembered son of the beach so consider a vote for son of the beach a vote for damages (from what i recall basically the same show anyway)

lol

fx has a profoundly better track record than showtime, take out hbo's big three + larry sanders and fx might be even w/ it.

almost split up dramas and comedies but there's just so few comedies

voting the shield but have v high hopes for justified, second series was str8 fire

when the shield started i had friends that told me it was great but i was highly skeptical of watching any original show on fx (their track record at this point was son of the beach, which was enjoyable - i guess every cable network has to go thru that first and ten phase - but didn't exactly make me think these guys could handle drama, esp out of the box). nip/tuck i started when they were rerunning them late saturday nights and got hooked but by that point the shield had been on a while and built up a lot of backstory so i figured i'd get to it eventually which maybe i finally will this summer.

Philly

justifieeeeed

this lineup is so much better than the lineup of HBO shows in the other poll

son of the beach, obviously.

only one i've seen a whole episode of is Louie, oddly enough

curious about at least six of them, though

why is louis off netflix again? annoying.

its always sunny is the winner 4 me by a loooong margin, genuine genius there - justified which i stayed up til 3 marathoning last night is p great too as is louie, havent seen most of the rest tho - shield and sons of anarchy r just too silly for me to deal with

terriers

but there are at least five fantastic shows on here

would have voted damages, even though the shield and justified are probably technically better.

oh okay i'll vote for son of the beach, whatever that may be

voted terriers

the shield would be silly if it weren't horrifying and traumatic

archer: great!
the riches: killed in its prime, the end of the second season was really going for something big. i loved the kid actors in this, they were three of the best young cast members ever
damages: first season great, second season good, third season okay, what will number four bring?

it will make future iterations of this poll difficult to organize

kinda did a thread like this 2 years ago but obv it didn't have the comedies and more recent shows as options so this one probably won't be very redundant: FX Network hourlong dramas

my picking order for the ones i've watched is Terriers > Damages > Sons of Anarchy > Justified > The Riches > The Shield > Lights Out > Archer > Louie

I loved the first season of Damages and maybe the first half-season of The Shield.

the shield got on to an increasing steep slope of amazeballs. hope justified does the same.

best half-hour comedies than any of the other premium channels by far

FX isn't a premium channel. but yeah it's not like most cable networks are even trying very hard w/ comedy lineups by comparison.

Even though I know there are better shows on this list, I kind of want to vote for The Riches because I feel like it never really got the attention it deserved. It was an interesting show because, as it went on, the characters were really starting to grow more and more worth watching, but the plot contrivances had really painted the writers into a corner that was virtually impossible to escape from. Lots of great performances though.

damn, u guys love the teevee

yeah The Riches was v underrated and had a great cast, even if the plotting did get a little ridiculous over time. when they didn't come back to resolve that season 2 cliffhanger i was like "oh well, it's not like they were going to do anything plausible with that anyway."

damn Morbz u still think there's a huge difference in how worthwhile it is to spend your time staring at a screen depending on what kind of screen it is

The Shield is legendary but ran out of steam near the end. Rescue Me is another that I enjoy and I'm sad to see it go after this season.
Yes, why I do remember Lucky, it was a weird show.

i thought the consensus was that The Shield improved over the time and finished strong? i mean i was not very into the first season but i want to eventually get through it all because of hearing that kind of thing a lot.

I throw shade at anyone not voting for Son of the Beach.

last few episodes of the final season of the shield are insane

man something about 'the shield' in its look or tone i just cld not make it through a full episode. i thought abt skipping the first season & seeing if the later ones were better but that feels too much like 'cheating' idk

probably vote for 'sunny' just for being so consistently enjoyable

The Shield is legendary but ran out of steam near the end.

u mad! completely the opposite

yeah the raves i've heard for the last season of the shield are what's prompting me to finally watch it

man something about 'the shield' in its look or tone i just cld not make it through a full episode. i thought abt skipping the first season & seeing if the later ones were better but that feels too much like 'cheating' idk

― Lamp, Monday, June 20, 2011 4:45 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah those early episodes feel REALLY dated considering they're less than 10 years old, the music and the editing style are all really grating corny to me. also went through the same thing of wanting to skip forward but i'm too OCD about watching things in sequence to ever do that.

Just watch the last two seasons--you'll miss some of the backstory, but you'll still get it.

Shield (best series finale ever), followed by Louis, followed by Justified.

man Terriers is never gonna fully enter the ILX cult canon if they don't put it out on friggin' DVD

terriers is another one where i tried & tried & just did not get what set it apart from a better episode of 'burn notice'

Justified v Louie v Terriers.

Shield and Sons of Anarchy not bad though.

Archer followed by louie followed by idk a bunch of other stuff

sheild, esp. for the arc of the last 5-6 eps

but goddam: louie, always sunny, justified, damages, terriers,

^ all of these shows are unfuckwithable imo

sons can be pretty damn essential at times, but too spotty to rank among the best of these

terriers is another one where i tried & tried & just did not get what set it apart from a better episode of 'burn notice'

― Dr. Frog, B.S., M.S.E., Ph.D (Lamp), Monday, June 20, 2011 8:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

strange reference point! Burn Notice is so fluffy and breezy by comparison!

yeah, if you can watch the episode "Change Partners" or the penultimate and still see the comparison...

1. At a certain point, maybe three or four years ago, you used to ask people "Have you seen The Wire?" and they'd say "No, but I've seen The Shield." Which was sort of like asking for a Transformer for Christmas and your parents buying you a Gobot instead. Now it's different.

2. That Sunny Philadelphia thing. You can't force funny. It's just stupid.

3. Sons of Anarchy was so appalling it was entertaining. But at the end of the second season, when a Californian IRA operative (????) speeds away on a jet boat clutching a baby, well... it just got appalling. I always joke about supporting "The Cause, brother," with my friends who also watched Sons. This is like the kind of Sopranos you'd buy at Giant Tiger, if you have one of those in your town.

u mad. Always Sunny in Philadelphia is some of the funniest shit ever.

strange reference point! Burn Notice is so fluffy and breezy by comparison!

well i watched the first two episodes & mb twenty minutes of the third & they all seemed to be aiming for a slightly more realistic/'character-driven' approach to the unlikely crew solves a mystery of the week thing.

yeah i guess, there are formal similarities, they just feel so so different to me.

powerhouse post from fields of salmon

this is probably a good place to quietly let slip my opinion that veronica mars is a much better show than twin peaks; that the riches is better than big love; that huff is better than weeds.

i also think better off ted is one of the best comedies in the last ten years, so take that all with a grain of salt

remy bean i agree with all of your opinions, except i haven't seen Huff so i guess i need to check that out

naw better of ted was hilarious and like most young comedies only getting better, p aggravating that i got canceled so quick

powerhouse post from fields of salmon

i cant even tell if your being sarcastic anymore or

huff had some p lol moments, also a young january jones looken p fine, but it had a lot of ~issues~

huff wasn't a great show, but it was really enjoyable to watch for the actors, espesh oliver platt, swoosie kurtz, tom skerritt, sharon stone, little anton yelchin, and angelica huston. it struck a sweet spot for me between bathos and comedy.

"Sons of Anarchy was so appalling it was entertaining. But at the end of the second season, when a Californian IRA operative (????) speeds away on a jet boat clutching a baby, well... it just got appalling. I always joke about supporting "The Cause, brother," with my friends who also watched Sons. This is like the kind of Sopranos you'd buy at Giant Tiger, if you have one of those in your town."

Maybe it is because I love "Hell's Angels on Wheels" more than I should, but you put a biker gang TV show on, I'm there and my suspension of disbelief filter is on. It's way more cool to do a show that's goofy about a bunch of bikers than something about a bunch of cops in Vegas or Hawaii.

the biggest problem w/ huff was that is so clearly written by the sort of ppl that appear in new york times style section articles about how everyone teaches their kids to snowboard instead of ski on winter vacations now

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted for Terriers but i just watched the entire first series of Louie and i wish to change my vote to that

Justified, possibly. Louie is pretty next level though, and I'm appreciating it more and more each week.

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