Suggest me an intelligent TV show... please

LUniqueDan · Mon 03/08/2009 12:03:55

Hey guys!

Here's my couch potato profile :

-- Loving --
*House M.D (Nice but he's on detox until september)
*Eleventh Hour
*Penn and Teller B*S (still running, but it's olny once a week)

-- Fed up --
* Monk (became sadistic porn imao)
* Stargate SG-1 (fed up since season 2 - Still watching)
(I guess you can see a pattern here)

-- Borderline --
* Mythbuster

Anyone know something really worth watching? I mean, something that's not insulting ppl intelligence?

Please?

Trihan · Mon 03/08/2009 12:25:49

Heroes
Smallville
Lie to Me
Dexter
The Big Bang Theory
The IT Crowd
Mock the Week
Scrubs

DoorKnobHandle · Mon 03/08/2009 12:40:03

Animated TV shows an option?

LUniqueDan · Mon 03/08/2009 12:53:03

Thanks, Trilian, I'm wikipeding your titles.
(Already watched Heroes and Dexter for 1 full season each, but... not my kind_)

Quote from: dkh on Mon 03/08/2009 12:40:03
Animated TV shows an option?

Why not? Go ahead.

DoorKnobHandle · Mon 03/08/2009 13:03:53

How about South Park, The Simpsons and Futurama then? You'll probably have to get used to them, especially South Park with the high-pitched voices but if you're looking for intelligence on television and aren't afraid of political content, then go ahead. You can watch Southpark for free (legally) on southparkstudios.com - it's the studio's page and they want as many people to see their content as possible. The Simpsons are of course classic, you must know them already. I find Futurama easier to get into as it features a way smaller cast (and less episodes) - it just depends on whether you "get" the humor or not. In any case, they are also filled with intelligent reflections on various things ranging from everyday life, over family situations to politics etc.

Another show I like (non-animated) is Malcolm in the Middle. Of course, it targets younger people and you will have to "ignore" parts of the story-line sometimes for being transparent and clichÃ© and so on but it also features great ambiguity and acting.

There are more shows I like and might suggest but if these mentioned don't do anything for you then we don't share the same humor and I'd be wasting my time.

arj0n · Mon 03/08/2009 13:34:36

futurama!

Anian · Mon 03/08/2009 14:14:50

If you're up for animated, and like comics, not new but still great: "Batman the animated series" first and second season are brilliant.

And Smallville is not an intelligent tv show it's a soap opera pretending to be a action series about a comic book hero.

SpacePaw · Mon 03/08/2009 14:23:41

Red Dwarf?

Eggie · Mon 03/08/2009 14:25:21

For the record, I think Dexter hits it's stride in a big way at Season2.

As for other intelligent (as if I'm in any position to judge that) shows around at the moment: Ugly Betty shallow, camp sitcom exterior hides a hidden level of equally shallow and even more camp soap opera which itself hides a level of intelligent satire, loveable (or just lovably grotesque) characters and a refreshingly sincere desire to entertain (but still camp, wouldn't want it any other way).

Adult Swim's The Venture Brothers started off a somewhat smug Johnny Quest parody and quickly developed into one of the most inventive (and plot-heavy) shows on television, it's also painfully, painfully hilarious.

Apparitions is a completely wicked Supernatural drama starring Martin Shaw as an exorcist; the first series got stupidly overlooked by the usual crowd for this sort of drama... presumably because it's on the Catholics side and not ashamed of it, in my opinion that puts it a cut above. It's perfectly fine to not believe in the devil, but denying his awesomeness as a TV show villain is just plain arrogant.

The Street is kind of a longform drama/soap-opera hybrid by Jimmy McGovern; each episode focuses on a different story from a different inhabitant of... well, the street. The plots are tight, hard-hitting and emotionally intense but it never slips into the usual 'gritty drama' trap of being so unremittingly bleak it becomes dull.

Mighty B! is a kids cartoon about wacky girlscouts and... it's done about as well as that premise could possibly ever be done. There's been a slight renaissance for this kind of show lately, but this one sticks out for having an usual sense of setting (San Francisco), a strong female influence in the writing and slightly better jokes. The animation's also great but depressingly only animators ever seem to care about that...

Hope I covered enough bases there.

Trihan · Mon 03/08/2009 14:46:30

See, people dismiss Smallville as a shallow superhero soap opera all the time, but if you look closely at it there are several moments in the show, subtle nuances that are easy to miss, that are quite simply genius, in my opinion. The episode where Clark first tells Lana his secret, for example.

Snarky · Mon 03/08/2009 15:17:54

Quote from: LUniqueDan on Mon 03/08/2009 12:03:55
-- Fed up --
* Monk (became sadistic porn imao)

Would you mind explaining this? It's just that Monk strikes me as a very all-ages, cosy, no-discomfort show. I can see people finding it bland or dull, but offensive?

If you missed some of the big HBO shows that don't start with an S, I think you should definitely try out The Wire, Deadwood, Generation Kill, and In Treatment. They, along with Battlestar Galactica and maybe The Shield, is what I think of as "intelligent" in that they deal with big ideas in dramatic form. If you're at all interested in politics, The Thick of It is almost like a response to The West Wing, showing the other side of the coin (or Yes, Minister crossed with Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office UK). That show also has a movie "spin-off" out now called In the Loop, about the run-up to the Iraq war.

For pop-culture savvy comedy and overall hilarity, I second The Venture Brothers. Other good comedies include Better off Ted and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - although I'm not sure how to tell how smart they are. They tell jokes that don't feel overly predictable, I guess?

Decent action/comedy shows I'd recommend include Burn Notice, Chuck, and The Middleman. Each comes with a fairly thick slice of cheese, but they make up for it in various ways. Burn Notice has a MacGyver-esque (or Mythbusters-like) penchant for home-made gadgets and tricks-of-the-spy-trade, Chuck offers a self-aware spoof of the secret agent genre, and The Middleman is so steeped in comics and SF lore that it reaches a kind of very watchable hyper-stylization (somewhere in between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the live-action The Tick).

Speaking about hyper-stylized, atone for letting Pushing Daisies off the air by getting it on DVD.

Vince Twelve · Mon 03/08/2009 15:28:59

I have to second The Wire. It is quite possibly the best show ever. And so much more satisfying to watch on DVD without having to wait a week between each episode. I've watched all five seasons twice, and they're even better the second time. I'll probably give them a third go through sometime soon.

Mr Flibble · Mon 03/08/2009 15:31:17

The Wire is the most intelligent TV show I've seen in a long time. It's a police drama on the face of it, but the brilliant thing is that the police and the drug dealers are both characterised to the same extent, so you don't have a case of goodies vs baddies, you actually have a very realistic interpretation of crime in Baltimore.

From Wikipedia:
Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is "really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how whether you're a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or a] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you've committed to."

Despite never seeing large commercial success or winning any major television awards, The Wire has frequently been described by critics as the greatest television series of all time.

There are a list of several citations provided to back up the "greatest television series of all time" claim.

Matti · Mon 03/08/2009 15:33:43

Quote from: dkh on Mon 03/08/2009 13:03:53
I find Futurama easier to get into as it features a way smaller cast (and less episodes) - it just depends on whether you "get" the humor or not. In any case, they are also filled with intelligent reflections on various things ranging from everyday life, over family situations to politics etc.

You're right that there are intelligent reflections on social and political issues, but they are few and they stay in the shadow of often very silly humor based on the characters and the sci-fi setting. The way smaller cast isn't something good imo and though it is a small cast, I consider the characters as rather boring and clichÃ©. While I really like the professor (he can be damn funny), I really dislike Zoidberg (he's just eating everything he sees all the time which isn't funny) and Fry is a bit lame too, just stupid and premature. The other's aren't really interesting too, Bender can be funny sometimes.

The same goes for Southpark. The characters aren't developed well and while they DO deal with some serious issues, often in a rather cool way, there's WAY too much toilet-humor in it, and I don't consider toilet humor as humor. I hope, it really is a correct term btw...

As for the Simpsons: I'm more or less addicted to them. I watched every episode several times, and the really funny ones quite often. On the other hand, I lost interest since the 19th season, they just aren't as good as they used to be.

RickJ · Mon 03/08/2009 17:00:46

Here are a couple non-network shows you may like. Episodes 9 & 10 of "Two Guys..." are a must see.

Two Guys Drinking at a Bar
Drawn by Pain
Stranger Things

JD · Mon 03/08/2009 18:57:59

I second Deadwood and The IT Crowd. Loved/loving both of them. Which explains my avatar!

OneDollar · Mon 03/08/2009 19:08:28

Firefly? Flight of the Conchords?

Phemar · Mon 03/08/2009 22:08:21

Peep Show, The inbetweeners.

Weeds?

voh · Mon 03/08/2009 22:43:42

The before-last Weeds episode made me go "why the hell am I watching it?". After season 2 it became... stupid. Imho, of course, but meh.

Shows I can really recommend are Eureka (SciFi/SyFy), Bones, Castle (new show with Nathan Fillion of Firefly fame, silly but fun), How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory and while I know it's got some ridiculous bullshit in it, I really do like Numb3rs.

And of course Doctor Who and Torchwood. Especially Children of Earth (Torchwood 5-hour, 5-episode season aired a couple of weeks ago).

Why can I really recommend them? Because of all these shows I've watched at least one season and I cant wait until I get my grubby hands on more. All other shows on my list are already in this topic (Burn Notice, House, Heroes, etc.).

I'm a TV show addict, yet I hardly ever watch TV. Huh.

Vince Twelve · Mon 03/08/2009 22:47:42

Hey Voh, I love me some Doctor Who but I gave up on Torchwood somewhere around the dumb Faerie episode in Series 1. The whole thing just wasn't floating my boat. I've heard good things about Children of Earth, though. is it watchable by someone with only the first 7 or so eps of the show under his belt?