Doctor Who is my current obsession. And past obsession. A band director friend turned me on to Who back in the early 2000's, before the revival started. During the year I taught high school band, pretty much every day after work we'd hang out and watch an old story from his massive collection of old Who VHS and DVDs. Tom Baker was my doctor, and still pretty much is.
And then I did other things for many years, and never saw any of the revival series, until I sat down to watch it about a year or two ago. wisp had been on board with it before then, and now having caught all the way up we're both kinda wacky for it. It's really the perfect vehicle for storytelling, within the frame of the time-and-space-travelling man, you can pretty much tell any story you want, touch any genre, make any point. There's been a huge amount of great writing put into that show over the last 50 years. And some truly awful stuff, too. Such is life.
We recently finished Orange is the New Black, and I enjoyed it as well.
Frasier is what's on the TV when we just need the TV on for some reason. We've seen every bit of it before, but it's still enjoyable. I consider it the last truly great three-camera laugh track sitcom.
Other shows have changed the game since then - it apparently isn't for everyone, but I think Arrested Development is the funniest show ever made. It's so crammed full of jokes that it rewards multiple viewings - I can't be doing anything else when I watch it, it demands undivided attention. If I'm not focused on it it can just be kind of grating noise, but when I'm watching closely, it's so fucking clever: it's got jokes buried in it that don't pay off until many episodes later, sometimes not even in the same season. Sure, they're not all good jokes. But the vast majority are, and the attention to detail is way beyond what I usually expect from a comedy show.
Other shows that have left an impression on me:
The X-Files.
Daria.
Firefly - I went through a period where Firefly was the greatest show ever made, and I watched it a lot. I still love it, but the jets have cooled somewhat over the years. I still love it, but maybe I just saw it too much or something, I'm less inclined to put on an episode of it than several other things.
Sherlock. The most recent season got a little heavy on the fanservice and light on the Holmes, but it's still compelling television. The Granada Television Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett is the best television Holmes for me, but Sherlock is a better show in the modern sense.
There's a lot of modern stuff I haven't seen - don't have HBO, so no Game of Thrones, or True Detective, or any of their other series. Haven't seen Community. Have seen some episodes of Parks and Rec, and it was really funny, but I haven't sat down to watch the series.
EDIT: I wrote so many words! Fewer now.
Edited by Doctor Pogo, 29 August 2014 - 12:21 AM.
