I’ve always love TV.
when i was a kid i spent countless hours in front of the box, watching not only kids stuff, but documentaries, tv magazines, game shows, just about anything the adults of the house would let me watch.
Then i stopped watching.
Pretty much everything seem uninteresting to me , and never seem to remember the days that the few drama shows i like were on.
Some years passed and i discovered torrents ,subtitle files eztv and tvrss.
It all changed.
I started to enjoy good tv shows (at least the ones i really liked) on my own terms.
Ever since that day i have been a very happy user of those tools and follow many tv shows.I enjoy them so much that i always recommend them to friends.
And that is the purpose of this post. I will in the future ,write about some of them ,and go deeper , but i will start with a list and some notes.
But First i will tell something that it’s relevant for every item on the list:
To me, the best tv shows tend to be,mostly, Broadcasted by HBO and SHOWTIME. They are the top cable premium networks in the United States (some of them are present in other countries also..) and being satellite, subscription based companies and not using the publicly owned spectrum, therefore out of the FCC regulatory shadow,they can be riskier with their content (nudity, language, themes…) so they tend to be ¨edgier¨.
Also their target is not the whole society but niches on the different markets, so they don’t have to go go for the lower common denominator giving the creators of those shows more liberty to be creative visually and narrative wise.
I tend to like these network’s show more than the rest.
Drama:
Californication
30 min aprox. now on season 2 12 episode per season showtime
The life and (usually sexual) adventures of hank moody a politically incorrect NYC novelist that moves to LA when is novel gets made into a film.
Very witty script and very good talent. A very funny show that could make you cry in a minute.one of my favorites.
Dexter 
50 min aprox ow on season 3 12 episodes per season Showtime.
Dexter lives in Miami ,is an expert on blood splatters for the Miami police department,and hides a big dark secret.you’d be glad to learn it….
A show worth watching if only for the work of Michael c. Hall (Dexter). One of those characters that you can connect with. Very nice photography and one of the best intros on TV right now. Full of plot twists and subplots that are well tied together.
An anecdote is that the show was originally going to be shot entirely in Miami.The pilot was.
But after the huge rise on hurricane insurance costs that followed the 2005 hurricane season they decided to pull a ¨CSI job¨ so most of the show was shot at studio in california. Aerials and scenary were shot in south florida for the first season, after wich they decided to shot the exterior shots around long beach,california.
CSI is also is shot in California, except the exterior shots that are shot on location on south Florida.
Entourage
30 min aprox. now on season 6 12 episodes per season (average) HBO
what would happen if you best friend becomes a famous actor and takes you and some friends to Hollywood to live ¨the life¨ with him?
A show that let’s you peek at how Hollywood stars are made. Full of inside jokes about he film industry, cameos of big players in the film industry and very good soundtrack.A very fun and funny show. The character of Ari Gold is almost a reason by itself to watch the show.
Heroes
45 min aprox. now on season 3 23 ep. first season 11 second season NBC
Some people are just special.This show is about a bunch of people that have extraordinary abilities and suffer the consequences of it.
I loved the show’s first season. It was about not only unusual feats,but also about the burden that a especial kind of person has to carry for being different.
Then it got simple, more action driven.The plot revolved more around what the characters do than what the characters where and felt.
So the balance changed ,and for me it was a pity,maybe for you it will be not.
Not the best place to find good performances, witty dialogue or uncommon plots (is produced by one of the big networks,NBC,and has to appeal to a massive audience) but the multicharacter plot makes it still enjoyable.
mad men
45 min aprox now in season 2 13 episodes per season AMC
How much have we changed since he 60’s? In a decade when advertisement was becoming more relevant than ever before we take a peek inside the boardrooms where decisions where made that affected the way society behaved and in the heads of the people that design the campaigns that help them do just that.
I have watched just a couple of episodes but from the get-go i find it very interesting.the social connotations are powerful enough to push the series forward. if the talent deliver good performances and the personal subplots,i can see this show becoming one of my favorites.
I’ve found very good reviews around.
sitcom:
the big bang theory
30 min aprox now on season 2 15 episodes per season (aprox) CBS
Two two male prodigies in their twenties, both physicists, both social inadequates , get a new neighbor: Beautiful aspiring actress-waitress born and raised in Omaha. Add two more young scientist, a Casanova attitude and a inability to talk to women, mix it up, and you got yourself a really good sit-com.
I’m not a big fan of sit-coms anymore, thre’s only a few of them with fresh ideas. This one is one of them,¨geekish¨ humor and a couple of really good characters.
Simply, a hit!
the it crowd
30 min aprox now on season 3 6 episodes per season Channel 4
Jenn gets hired by Grondholm industries as the head of I.T. despite the fact that she knows nothing about computers. When she gets down at the I.T. office finds out that her two partners are the geekiest persons she ever met.
I love this show is witty, is absurd at times , and the performances of most of the characters are spot on. A must watch for me.
How i met your mother
30 min aprox now on season 4 20 episodes per season (aprox) CBS
Year 2030 , two kids listening how his father tells them how he met their mother. Introduces the episode and we go to the present.
Ted is a young architect in his twenties living in NYC. Tired of the dating game decides to find himself a wife to settle down.Shares his apartment with his buddy Marshall who’s girlfriend is lilly.Barney is a friend of them.
Those are ,basically, the characters.The strength of the show is on the dialogues and the personality of the characters. Of those Barney Stinson is probably the hook that keeps you watching the otherwise too sweet series. His famous phrases are wildly repeated and have permeated pop culture.
documentaries:
BBC Horizon
50 min aprox since 1964 15 episodes per season (aprox) BBC
This is one of my favorite TV shows of all time,they are very informative, interesting and visually rich.
With topics ranging from astronomy to social science it’s hard not to find an episode that fits your interests.
If you like science documentaries but don’t like the tone in which PBS,Discovery or National Geographic’s documentaries are narrated, i wold try this series.
This American Life
26 min aprox now on season 2 6 episodes per season Showtime
This is also one of my favorites,this are short documentaries,kind of cinema verité in which someone is shot in edited in a way that is very raw.
In any given episode, they introduce a subject or a concept and then develop stories related to that object or concept.
From a boy that can’t do almost anything by himself to a couple that has a bull as pet,a fast food joint where the waitress and the costumers yell at each other,or a 15 year old boy that refuses to fall in love because he thinks is a waste of time.
Most of the stories you’ll find in this show are as unconventional as they are interesting,and the style of the narrative is so compelling that you’ll feel lucky to be able to watch’em.
This are a list of some of the shows i have watch, there are more and i will write about them.
Have you watched this shows? do you like them?
which ones do you like?
July 8th, 2009 | Tags: TV | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (2)
