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When it comes to watching series I'm a bit particular. Not to say that I'm selective and don't watch rubbish, just that I like to wait until a series is completely finished before watching it from start to finish. I do occasionally break this rule but generally speaking that's what I do.

I'm currently watching The Expanse. Only 2 episodes in but it looks good so far. Let's see what the next 6 seasons brings.

After The Expanse I have a long list of shows which I've identified as watch worthy. Just wondering if there are any on the list that I should avoid, or any that I am crazy to have avoided watching for so long. For the purposes of this thread I'll just list shows that have already finished. with no plans to make more. Here's the list:

3 Percent
Altered Carbon (from what I hear the first season is great and the second, and final, season is terrible)
Castlevania
Money Heist (La Casa de Papel)
Marco Polo
Mr Robot (feedback I've had is that it gets pretty terrible towards the end)
Narcos & Narcos Mexico
The 100
The Last Kingdom
The Magicians
Travelers


So that's it. Actually a longer list than I thought it was going to be. Any feedback on these shows is most welcome.



Feel free to recommend other shows that have ended that are not on this list, though chances are I've either already watched them or discounted them.

From this list I've seen:

- Mr. Robot: one of the greatest shows in history IMHO. It's not for everyone since what you see, and what have seen in previous episodes, might just be an allucination or something that was completely invented from the protagonist to evade reality, and that annoys some people. Second season in particular deeply based on this concept. Ending is great. Oh, there's also The Donald in the series, in a couple of cameos (just one reference, which is a lot of fun considering he wasn't president at that time, and an actor in the second case)... if you're a fan of the guy watch something else .

- Altered Carbon: I'm a huge fan of the novels, and the first series is ok since it's a good adaptation from the first book. Second one is definitely worse, it's almost completely invented and only takes a few things from second and third book ending up really messy. I wouldn't recommend watching the series unless you've already read the books.

Supernatural.

15 seasons, and I’ll binge it every year. Yes a fair few seasons really aren’t that great, they still contain some good Monster of the Week content.

Deep Space Nine.

Just watch it.

Person of Interest - 5 seasons. Didn't get cancelled before it could finish, so tells a full story.

Nikita - 4 seasons. Again, got to tell its whole story to the end. Plus, Maggie Q. Always a bonus.

Castlevania- I hadn't realized this was finished, but apparently it is (but for horrible people reasons, not story reasons). Its got enough endings to be satisfactory, but the Season 2 ending is better than Season 4's.

It flails a lot. Seasons 1 & 2 are mostly coherent, though some video game knowledge may help figure out why multiple characters are making such terribly bad decisions.

The third season is basically the main characters wandering into a disjointed and disconnected Lovecraft story for no apparent reason. Some secondary characters get their own intersecting plots far, far away.

Season 4 starts with the intersecting plots from season 3 being rewritten into something completely different, and a 'true villain' is revealed and eventually the whole thing 'yadda, yaddas' its way to an anime boss fight.

Honestly, not much to recommend if you don't enjoy the original games, vampires, or gruesome battles with the forces of darkness. The quality really falls off in the later two seasons, IMO, and can be really tedious if you don't also enjoy American translations of Japanese takes on fake medieval European alchemical philosophy.

I'll second Blackie on Mr Robot, listen not to the naysayers the whole unreliable narrator is established early with a smidge of paying attention

I'll also recommend The Tick, starts way off tone, trying to grimderp something that was a parody of late 80's early 90s comics was unwise but it quickly sorts itself out to be the deeply silly Tick it needed to be

Of the shows you listed, the only ones I've watched are Narcos and the 100. Narcos is, IMO, one of the best high crime shows I've ever seen. I would put it up there with Breaking Bad. The 100 is also a series I love, it's well worth at least trying it out. It's got a very strong YA vibe some people might find off putting, but if that's not an issue for you then you should be good. Some seasons are better than others, and I've yet to watch the final one, but it's a solid show IMO.

El Torro wrote:
I'm currently watching The Expanse. Only 2 episodes in but it looks good so far. Let's see what the next 6 seasons brings.

Just as an advance warning - the Expanse isn't really 'finished'... Season 6 was just the last season they had a deal for. But they deliberately seeded in more plot hooks to keep the story going if they get a chance to make more later on.

It does (mostly) wrap up the main storyline, though.

Altered Carbon (from what I hear the first season is great and the second, and final, season is terrible)

If the first season hadn't been so good, the second season would probably have been fine. It really suffers by comparison, though. Also for the fact that Anthony Mackie was not really playing the same guy in a different skin, but a completely different character.


My recommendation would be Castle Rock. The best Stephen King screen adaption turned out to be the one he didn't write. The fact that it wasn't renewed for a season three is a crime against humanity.

FWIW, this is why I like anime. There's a LOT of excellent, finished shows from Japan.

Chernobyl - Only 5 episodes but it's gritty and brilliant, possibly one of the best TV shows I've ever watched.

I mean if you've never seen *M*A*S*H* it's well worth watching as is Trapper John, M.D.

Lately I've really gotten into watching St. Elsewhere and E.R.

I'd definitely recommend Star Trek TNG and DS9, and probably the Original Series as well, campy though it often is.

Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis are both good also; haven't seen season 2 of Universe but season 1 was underwhelming to me.

There are plenty of classic TV shows I could recommend as well, but it would take a while to name them all.

We recently watched the first 5 seasons of Dexter (unfortunately disappeared off streaming before we could finish it), but that was a really interesting show, great combination of fun and drama and skirting round tropes a lot of the time. And some great guest actors used very effectively (holy cow, is John Lithgow great!)

Lately, the wife and I are enjoying The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Lighthearted, quirky fun. Not sci-fi fantasy but adding because really great perhaps for sharing with others who might leave the room when binging The Witcher.

BTW, second for M.A.S.H. That was on the tube when I was a kid, and stands among the best television ever made, imho. "Suicide is painless..."

 jeff white wrote:
Lately, the wife and I are enjoying The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Lighthearted, quirky fun. Not sci-fi fantasy but adding because really great perhaps for sharing with others who might leave the room when binging The Witcher.

BTW, second for M.A.S.H. That was on the tube when I was a kid, and stands among the best television ever made, imho. "Suicide is painless..."

Show is good, but it really kicks it up a notch once Potter, Winchester and BJ join the cast.

I absolutely love The 100, fantastic series, but it's not necessarily for everyone.

However, don't be put off by Season 1, which starts as a bit of a naff, teen drama.

Stick with it, it gets way more adult as it goes on.

Over the lockdown years we've watched:-

Buffy: the Vampire Slayer (we'd only seen a few episodes in the early 2000's BBC2 era)
The West Wing (never seen it until then)
Castle
Lie to Me

I think in all of them, the appeal drops off, but close enough to the end that it's no big deal to see it through to the end.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
The 100 is also a series I love, it's well worth at least trying it out. It's got a very strong YA vibe some people might find off putting, but if that's not an issue for you then you should be good.

Yeah it has major YA vibes right as it starts, but then it gets super dark really frickin' quickly. Whatever YA stink it may have brought with it vanishes real fast by 3 episodes.

Thanks for all the comments and recommendations, wasn’t expecting that amount of feedback.

Various great shows have been mentioned, a lot of which I’ve seen. MASH is an interesting recommendation, I saw the occasional episode when it was on the TV in the nineties, not a show I’ve ever paid particular attention to.

Of the ones on my list I think Narcos and Narcos Mexico should be watched sooner rather than later. I’ve been interested in seeing it ever since the first season, just haven’t got around to it yet.

Another one to mention is Supernatural. It does seem like the kind of show I’d enjoy. The idea of watching 15 seasons is a bit daunting though.

For Supernatural, the first five are pretty much self contained.

I've just started getting into Man in the High Castle. Only a couple of episodes in but I've heard good reviews, and as it finished a couple of years ago it might be worth a go.

Nothing especially obscure so you've probably seen it all, but my 2c -

Halt and Catch Fire is superb and comes with the bonus that you're unlikely to have been spoiled on all the plot beats. It's about four people in the early Texan, and later Californian, silicon boom in the 1980s through 1990s, so lots of references to retro gaming and tech, but it’s really about stuff like creativity and communication. S1 feels a bit like it's trying to be 1980s Mad Men and it's... just okay, but it finds its own identity in S2 and imho gets better every single episode from there until the conclusion. The payoffs are great, and the finale is one of my favorites ever, just a beautiful way to wave goodbye to these folks.

The Terror has two seasons, but they're both distinct one-and-done stories. I would treat S1, about a doomed Victorian naval expedition in the Arctic, as a spiritual cousin to Chernobyl.

Station Eleven is another 10 episode one one and done. I've raved about it elsewhere but I thought it was stunning, geninely stunning. Ostensibly a post apocalyptic story told through a patchwork of timelines and characters, but it’s less about the near extinction event in it than it is about stuff like making peace with grief and the value of art.

 Valkyrie wrote:
I've just started getting into Man in the High Castle. Only a couple of episodes in but I've heard good reviews, and as it finished a couple of years ago it might be worth a go.

Unfortunately the shows degrades pretty hard, probably just since season 3. First season is based on a masterpiece and it's great indeed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Person of Interest - 5 seasons. Didn't get cancelled before it could finish, so tells a full story.

It's the next tv series I'm going to watch. I've always delayed it for no real reason. Time to rectify that.

The 4 Seasons of Combat! is a great watch. The first three seasons are B&W and the last season is in color.

I love this show so much, that I even made a free wargame so I could play it on the tabletop.

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/377662/Combat-Starring-Vic-Morrow--WWII-on-TV-Skirmish-Gaming

Oh, and if you’ve never seen it, Band of Brothers is probably one of the best things ever broadcast on TV.

 Blackie wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
I've just started getting into Man in the High Castle. Only a couple of episodes in but I've heard good reviews, and as it finished a couple of years ago it might be worth a go.

Unfortunately the shows degrades pretty hard, probably just since season 3. First season is based on a masterpiece and it's great indeed.

Agreed that Man in the High Castle falls from grace as it goes along. The ending especially made me almost feel like the show as a whole wasn't worth watching. It does start off very strong though.

 Jadenim wrote:
Oh, and if you’ve never seen it, Band of Brothers is probably one of the best things ever broadcast on TV.

I actually bought the DVD boxed set as soon as it was released, without having seen an episode. I was that sure I'd enjoy it. I was definitely underwhelmed though, I can't remember if I even made it to Episode 10. This was about 20 years ago though so maybe I should give it another go.

Babylon 5 was good for it's time. The special effects are a bit dated and it shows up all the more viewed in HD.

I'll put in another one for MASH. The basic premise is a serial comedy based in the Korean War, but it shows remarkable depth that many dramas of the time struggled to match.

 Easy E wrote:
The 4 Seasons of Combat! is a great watch. The first three seasons are B&W and the last season is in color.

Five seasons (consisting of a total of 152 episodes) with season five being in color according to Wikipedia.

Finshed shows;

Justified - Just fantastic the whole way thru
Stargate Atlantis
Lucifer
Into the Badlands (as long as you don't mind some wire fighting)
Supernatural - Outside of I think S7 (Leviathans) it's pretty great thru the entire run. Though it's a LOT of episodes (300+)

Finishing this Year;
Last Kingdom is gold

 Ghaz wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
The 4 Seasons of Combat! is a great watch. The first three seasons are B&W and the last season is in color.

Five seasons (consisting of a total of 152 episodes) with season five being in color according to Wikipedia.

There you go! Even better than I sold it as. Well worth it.

Edit: On a similar note, Tour of Duty was also a good Vietnam themed TV show.