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TV Series (Opinions, Recommendations, Flaming, etc) ***BEWARE POSSIBLE SPOILERS***


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I signed up for Netflix and HBOGo back in August, and in the seven months since, I've managed to race through (in order from best to least best; not worst because they were all great):

- Breaking Bad

- True Detective

- Game of Thrones

- The Wire

- Newsroom

- House of Cards

- Entourage

- Hung

So, what should I watch next? I'm looking forward to watching the shows below, but after just finishing Breaking Bad on Saturday and letting it digest, I don't know if I'm going to be able to enjoy them. Maybe you guys can shed some light on them:

- How to make it in America

- The West Wing

- Dexter

- Sopranos

- Deadwood

- Rome

- Boardwalk Empire

- Sherlock

Any suggestions and discussions would be appreciated.

Sopranos and first four seasons of Dexter.

I also highly recommend Spartacus which is now on netflix.

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I am in no way claiming to be an objective viewer, and I know it's an issue in how it affects my enjoyment of things. I do try to limit my exposure to critiques until I actually see something, and as soon as I see it I'll read a bunch of critiques to confirm or contradict my beliefs.

I was just thinking more about this because I'm always annoyed with myself when I hate something that is ok, like I can't just allow a movie/book/show/woman to be "ok" without obsessing over why its not better than ok. Like Interstellar, for instance, and DKR. They're fine movies, but I wanted them to be better because of Nolan and McConaughey and Bale and Hardy, etc etc etc. It is indeed a preconceived notion thing--the expectation that the parts should equal the whole. I can appreciate a decent movie that meets the expectation set by its components. For instance, I liked The Waterboy and Night at the Roxbury because they aspired to be trash and they never pretend to be anything else but a dopey good time. I liked Kingsman for a similar reason: they never take it seriously for a second. But when a movie throws down the gauntlet that it's aspiring to great heights, I'm bummed when it falls short and omg excited when they reach them. It's a walk the talk kinda thing. Plus, I'm a miserable prick.

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The Sopranos and Breaking Bad are 1a and 1b for me. After that it's real close between The Wire and Mad Men. Game of Thrones not far behind them. It's really the golden age of television. I appreciate the heck out of it.

For the newer shows just getting started, I enjoyed both Fargo and The Knick more so than True Detective.

I didn't like true detective until the last two episodes. The first several episodes have a lot of filler and the story doesn't pick up until the end.

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The Newsroom was different and interesting. For whatever reason, I was seemingly always one step ahead of House of Cards. Also, the third season was absolute sh*t. No one gives a **** about claire underwood's UN crap.

 

Dexter I'm afraid of watching because so many friends have told me that now that I've seen Breaking Bad, Dexter's gonna suck. I should have done it the other way around.

 

Mad Men is the only TV drama that I genuinely kept up with because I fell in love with it from the very first episode. So I'm currently waiting in legit anticipation for Sunday night. 

 

I am not sure what the correlation is between Dexter and Breaking Bad, but Slats is dead on.  Dexter was very good the first few seasons.  Then it progressively got worse.

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That's interesting perspective. I think my issue is--and this spans every medium for me--is that I hear the hype and rarely does anything match the hype it receives, which is why I like to see movies I might like the afternoon they're released, before every jerkoff at my job tells me how great something is, only to find out that it's not, in fact, great. I like being surprised by things like Kingsman, which was legitimately cool. Now, when something I see matches the hype? Boner city. Breaking Bad, The Avengers, GoT, fuhggedaboutit.

 

This is why I have completely stopped watching any trailers and reading anything that has to do with something I may be interested in. As difficult as it was, I was so proud of myself for not even knowing the premise of Breaking Bad or GoT other than that it had to do with drugs (didn't even know which drug) and dragons respectively.

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for comedies "The league" is a must watch.

 

 

Especially the first couple of seasons. I love Rafi, but Dirty Randy killed the show for me.

Any Doctor Who love?

 

The league started out awesome. The past two seasons have been generally awful with like three LOL moments laced somewhere in between. In fact, the last episode I genuinely enjoyed from beginning to end was the Belichick Hoodie episode.

 

I still watch the new episodes as they come on though. It's one of those shows that started out so great, and still has one lol moment per show, that I'll catch it just so I don't miss anything. But I hate myself after each successive failure of an episode.

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The league started out awesome. The past two seasons have been generally awful with like three LOL moments laced somewhere in between. In fact, the last episode I genuinely enjoyed from beginning to end was the Belichick Hoodie episode.

 

I still watch the new episodes as they come on though. It's one of those shows that started out so great, and still has one lol moment per show, that I'll catch it just so I don't miss anything. But I hate myself after each successive failure of an episode.

I have not seen the latest season.  I watched the first three almost continually without a break and thought it was awesome. 

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I didn't like true detective until the last two episodes. The first several episodes have a lot of filler and the story doesn't pick up until the end.

 

Whatttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt. Shirley you can't be cereal...

 

I may even put the first full season of True Detective against up against any full season of any TV drama ever. Season one of Mad Men and Season four of Breaking Bad included. 

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Whatttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt. Shirley you can't be cereal...

 

I may even put the first full season of True Detective against up against any full season of any TV drama ever. Season one of Mad Men and Season four of Breaking Bad included. 

Easily one of the most intense and horrifying things I watched.  Excellent from beginning to end.  

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'Vikings' is highly underrated. Season 3 just started recently [History Channel] - probably the only thing left remotely related to History on that channel. 

 

Season1 & 2 are 9 episodes each, pretty easy to breeze through.  

 

Lots of slaughter and story turns, kind of like a Norwegian GoT Lite. Love this show. 

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Whatttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt. Shirley you can't be cereal...

I may even put the first full season of True Detective against up against any full season of any TV drama ever. Season one of Mad Men and Season four of Breaking Bad included.

I liked true detective but the first couple episodes are so slow and fillery because hbo ordered a certain number of episodes. A lot of Matthew Mcconeghey sitting in a chair with a beer gut and bad facial hair and rat tail smoking and drinking lone star "alright alright alright ah can look like regular folk too."

The show doesn't pick up until the end of the episode where Woody has to extract that one guy from that neighborhood at night.

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I liked true detective but the first couple episodes are so slow and fillery because hbo ordered a certain number of episodes. A lot of Matthew Mcconeghey sitting in a chair with a beer gut and bad facial hair and rat tail smoking and drinking lone star "alright alright alright ah can look like regular folk too."

The show doesn't pick up until the end of the episode where Woody has to extract that one guy from that neighborhood at night.

 

To each his own. I felt the beginning was actually amazing culminating in that six minute scene at the end of episode 4. That fourth episode is one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen. I actually thought the last two episodes were a drop off from the first six, but even the last two were outstanding television.

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I know I'm going to enrage people but what is the big deal about breaking bad? It's a good show and Bryan Cranston and Gus are great actors but it is not the greatest accomplishment in western civilization.

Sopranos is better, The Wire is 50x better

it was a great show but I don't get the it's unequivocolly the best Eva stance either

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Banshee on Cinemax kicked ass and is highly underrated. Ray Donavan was Good 1st season still have 2 on the DVR. Fargo was def my favorite from last year. Justified now in it's last season was a fun watch.

 

Banshee....I seem to remember reading about it when I was looking up that smokin chick that Woody hooked up with in True Detective (the second one- not his wife). The plot/characters of the show is that good? 

 

Not that it makes much of a difference, I'm probably gonna catch it anyway if she's in it!

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I know I'm going to enrage people but what is the big deal about breaking bad? It's a good show and Bryan Cranston and Gus are great actors but it is not the greatest accomplishment in western civilization.

Sopranos is better, The Wire is 50x better

Breaking bad is just like Gilligan's earlier show X-Files in that people think they look smart and edgy if they talk about how much they love it.

or maybe a very large number of people genuinely love the storytelling and direction. You can disagree without questioning their motives.
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You're on the list.

Let's cook some meth b-tch.

Btw vice made a documentary about the real Walter White who was this legendary meth cook in Alabama. Same background as the character on the show, same name and he even looks like Bryan Cranston. Gilligan swears his story wasn't the basis of the show but it was.

Not a big deal I guess. Sopranos is based verbatim on the Decavalcante crew out of Jersey.

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To each his own. I felt the beginning was actually amazing culminating in that six minute scene at the end of episode 4. That fourth episode is one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen. I actually thought the last two episodes were a drop off from the first six, but even the last two were outstanding television.

 

+1

 

IMO the ending of True Detective was way over the top and I am pretty sure I have seen it before.  The build up was kind of slow, but I found it very enjoyable and the performances were great. 

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Let's cook some meth b-tch.

Btw vice made a documentary about the real Walter White who was this legendary meth cook in Alabama. Same background as the character on the show, same name and he even looks like Bryan Cranston. Gilligan swears his story wasn't the basis of the show but it was.

Not a big deal I guess. Sopranos is based verbatim on the Decavalcante crew out of Jersey.

For me I think it was the WAY I watched Breaking Bad that makes me like it so much.  Just got netflix and week later had to undergo bladder surgery.  Spent three days off my feet at home to let myself heal.  Watched a season per day.  I also had pocket full of pain pills so it kinda added to the surrealism.  LOL  

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I know I'm going to enrage people but what is the big deal about breaking bad? It's a good show and Bryan Cranston and Gus are great actors but it is not the greatest accomplishment in western civilization.

Sopranos is better, The Wire is 50x better

Those shows did it first, but I wouldn't say they were better today. The Sopranos had a couple lulls over the years. I loved The Wire, but thought the final season didn't stand up as well as the previous ones. Breaking Bad had an attention to detail never found before on a TV series. Every pause of the camera over the life of the series had a meaning behind it. And there was never a lull in the action. The story arc of the main characters -aside, maybe, from Marie's kleptomania- were clear and completely plausible. They created some of the greatest peripheral characters in TV history in Tuco, Gus, Mike, and Saul.

A lot of shows I hear about and catch up on (Dexter, The Wire, among them), but Breaking Bad was one I watched from the first episode, and never missed a week. It tops my list, regardless of what the critics say.

And Breaking Bad gets extra credit for doing it on basic cable, without the added leeway allowed on an HBO.

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The Walking Dead

The Americans

TURИ (America's First Spy Ring)

Vikings

Outlander

Castle

Person of Interest

Suits

 

Thats what the wife and I watch (her taste > my taste)

 

It's a good day and age to like TV< so much better content out now than in Network-only times past.

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