I haven’t been watching much in terms of actual shows for a good while, then while listening to a podcast a host casually mentioned they had rewatched Chernobyl, how it still holds up, that there’s a reason it got as much acclaim as it did, etc. So I thought I’d give it a go and wow, loved it (still one episode left to watch).
Had me thinking, what else have I missed out on? What are some “absolute cinema” TV shows that still hold up and and are considered must watch?
With no regard to how big stuff is/was, because OP hadn’t seen Chernobyl.
‘Chernobyl’ is up there. Brutal indictment of a hypercorrupt dying empire that only cares about power and is built almost entirely on lies contrasted with the people it happens to, who largely embody the ideals their government lies about; the heroism of a dead culture striving to save everyone from some of the fuckers who killed it.
‘Andor’ star wars, but about antifascism instead of wuxia bullshit or daddy issues. Some of the best TV ever made. Weaves in links to history and obscure star wars apocrypha. It’s everything it should be and more with amazing layered deliberate fast-slow-fast pacing. There’s a long-payoff joke that is also the serious culmination of the first season’s meta-arc (the first season of that show would be about five seasons of anything else) and half the fans didn’t even notice.
‘Severance’ or the ~decade earlier whedon-directed much more sex focused show it was linked to, ‘dollhouse’ if you need fast pace or a slightly more dramatic version of what the internet is now. Low-scifi corpo-surrealism about the ways we treat identity. The two versions come to very different conclusions.
‘Scavengers’ reign’ beautiful uncanny man-vs-nature space narrative, haunting sound track, amazing in every way that matters.
‘Westworld’ only season 1. Its About Things. No not just the robots. They left some plot threads unresolved for season 2, but they’re not really what’s important and each season is exponentially worse, riding the first season’s nonstop hitting. Season 2 is still okay I guess.
‘daredevil’ Netflix version, season 1 only. There’s more but its not the same quality.
‘Cowboy bebop’ everybody’s favorite film noir space (neo?)western. Dripping with cool. Remade a few years later in a historically accurate Japan right after the consolidation of the Tokugawa dynasty with arguably 10% less style and 30% tighter production.
‘Kaos’ though it was left extremely unfinished. High budget modern Greek mythology soup. As gay and misothiest as you would ex0ect if you had actually read any.
‘Peacemaker’ murder-himbo realizes he might be one of the bad guys while trying to save the world with/from the CIA immediately post-‘the suicide squad’.
‘Harley Quinn’ batman villain fucks around, continues fucking around, occasionally finds out. But lesbianly, sharp unhinged comedy.
‘Futurama’ fox seasons/original run only. Occasionally heart wrenching SciFi comedy that’s not trying to be as edgy as ‘rick and Morty’ later would. Definitely aged, but smart enough it’s aged gracefully.
‘True detective’ season 1 only. The rest are fine, I guess. Southern Gothic neo-noir ambiguously fantasy.
‘Star trek: deep space nine’ a space station on the edge of falgsc utopia orbiting space-palestine as the toned down space zios do space-zio things. 90s in all the best ways and very few of the worst.
Or the more woo-scifi version which aired I think simultaneously, ‘Babylon 5’.
‘Community’ very few comedy shows age this well.
‘Lovecraft country’ endritch horror and american racism standing in frame next to each other, while the arc and the anthology flirt over a meal of ‘how to love SciFi as a marginalized person?’. The most beautiful wholesome profound bed covered in gore you’ve ever watched coincidentally ‘is this gay, and if so what kind?’ sex on.
I’ll add more later, and there are more certain people need to see but others don’t necessarily.
Just wanna quickly applaud the writing in this comment. Conveying a show’s vibes this effectively in just a few sentences is not easy.
(What’s the long-payoff Andor joke though? I may have missed it.)
‘What we do in the shadows’ if ‘the real world’ house was set in the ‘vampire: the masquerade’ setting, but everyone is just as petty and cringe despite being 500 year old vampires. Spun off from feature film of the same name.
‘Bojack horseman’ whip smart surrealist comedy/merciless knife twisting too-real drama about a washed up actor in 2010s hollywood. Revels in clever tounge twisters, word play, and sprinkling dry humor on the cringe-horror. Animated, brutally real, suffused with a quiet desperation that can be painful to watch while making the jokes no less funny.
‘The good place’ what if moral philosophy 101 was a funny joke? But like really funny. All four seasons. some of the pop culture references aged a little, but the core premise is rock solid and about half the jokes are about people who have been dead for centuries or mythologies originally inscribed on stone.
‘King of the hill’ and ‘silicon valley’ borderline anthropological studies of turn if the century small town Texas and 2010s silicon valley from the guy who made ‘idiocracy’. Affectionately mocking and mercilessly vicious, respectively. They haven’t aged perfectly, but they’re still brilliant insightful and funny. Some of the bits are timeless, the characters are amusing even if some look different from post-2020, and the depth of understanding mike judge gives these people is truly stunning.
‘Reno911’ a parody of ‘cops’, cops, and the city of reno centering on members of the reno police department. Has aged far too well. Watch an episode or two if you’re swamped in copaganda. I have no fucking clue how this got made. Having lived in reno for a year in my youth and interacted with police, I can say I didn’t know it was scripted for the entire first season.
‘Madoka magicka’ just a really good twee magical girl show from a feminist perspective. Pay no attention to the quiet girl with the shotgun, the uncanny architecture, or the twee magic pet thing’s choice of food.
‘Kill la kill’ the sexualization of young girls is a problem. You, young girl, must save us by dressing extra slutty and doing lots of violence. This one is fine for kids.
‘Ghost in the shell: stand alone complex’ its old cyberpunk, so it’s aged a bit, and is somewhat copaganda, but is still remarkably good. Season two is like a different thing and not any good.
‘Doom patrol’ people with big superpowers and bigger mental illnesses spending basically all their time in every part of comic book nonsense absolutely not allowed in an ‘avengers’ movie-too smart, too weird, too gross, too subversive, too hostile to expectations. A self aware ontologically queer street is a major side character, and that doesn’t even stand out. You need to watch it.
03’s ‘battlestar galactica’ a sequel to an older show of the same name that didn’t really matter. Keeps coming up and I endorse, even if its kind of genx shitlib sometimes.
‘Better off ted’ basically likable upper manager at The Evil Company circa late 2000s.
Not sure if I wanted to include it here, because it’s so god damn basic, but ‘breaking bad’ really is spectacular. The acting, and the way they use death as a motif is really fucking cool. But if you can’t with basic-bitch white heteros, you shouldn’t bother. The spinoff ‘better call Saul’ is also very good, and less cringeily basic-bitch.
Good list.
OP doesn;'t mention how long they haven’t been watching but I would add Arrested Development to the comedy show list.
Yeah, the two best sitcoms of the 2000s, incredibly deep humor, great stories, so much rewatchability (I know, because I do).
I’m always jealous when I hear someone hasn’t seen one or either.
I’d love to piggy back on this (great) list and add that the Netflix Daredevil show’s subsequent seasons are lesser, but if you enjoyed the first A LOT, then you’ll probably enjoy the offers and at least Jessica Jones’ first season as well. It was also pretty great. Subsequent seasons, Punisher, and the first half of Luke Cage were also “good” to me, but clearly not on DD & JJ s1’s levels. (But I thought most of the Marvel Netflix shows save Iron Fist were worth the watch on rewatches.)
And I love to see that the first season of Westworld is still being recommended. Yes later seasons are very disliked, but I found SOME enjoyment in them. Not enough to give a blanket recommendation to anyone even if I rewatched them, but damn, that first season delivered.
Also I hadn’t heard of Scavengers’ Reign. Thanks.