I have been spoiled by the excellence of a handful of shows
Battlestar Galactica
The Office (U.K. and U.S.)
Extras
Deadwood
The Wire
Spartacus: Blood and Sand
Mad Men
Curb Your Enthusiasm
The Larry Sanders Show
Dream On
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Entourage
Californication
Weeds
Six Feet Under
The Sopranos
Flight of the Conchords
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
Mythbusters
Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations
Good Eats with Alton Brown
Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern
Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister
Fawlty Towers
Rumpole of the Bailey
Inspector Morse/Inspector Lewis
Seinfeld
Northern Exposure
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (up to season 4)
Picket Fences
Mystery Science Theater 300
Rome
The Tudors
– and now I’m hankering for a new one –
I will absolutely not watch traditional police/doctor/lawyer dramas no matter how good they’re supposed to be (House is out, for example, and so is Boston Legal)
– and I’ve lost my patience for run-of-the-mill sitcoms. I also prefer shows that were made in a situation in which they were free to use adult language, nudity, and sexual situations as they deemed necessary. I find that I tend to prefer shows that were made to be shown without commercial breaks, but this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, obviously.
I’d recommend trying Pushing Daisies. It was an hour-long show on ABC for two truncated seasons (there’s a total of 22 episodes). It’s a sort of a dark comedy, created by Bryan Fuller, who also worked on Dead Like Me (the tone resembles that show quite a bit). Well-written, with interesting characters, it was nominated for several Golden Globes, and Kristin Chenoweth won an Emmy for it. Though, as a broadcast series, it does have breaks for commercials, and while there are some sexual situations here and there, there’s no nudity or heavy language.
I thought Wonderfalls was a good show. Well written and original. However, like Firefly, it was only one season, and not a full one at that. Definitely worth picking up the DVD. Anyone else familiar with it?
It is probably the greatest underwatched and underappreciated show on television. Season 3 just finished but I believe you can watch entire episodes for all three seasons online.
Glenn Close is fantastic. This season also saw Martin Short and Lily Tomlin in starring roles. Non-comedic roles no less. The season long plots are twisted and their flashforwards and flashbacks often leave you wondering what the heck is going on.
Technically I suppose it is a lawyer drama so it doesn’t qualify based on your criteria. But while Glenn Close and Rose Byrne are lawyers, the show is more a murder mystery show than a lawyer show. There are no courtroom scenes for example.
My favorite shows these days are the USA Network dramas:
Burn Notice
Psych
Royal Pains
White Collar
In Plain Sight
Some of them are superficially structured as standard cop or doctor shows, but they all have twists that put them a cut above, and tend to focus on the interpersonal relationships more than anything else…TRM
Saw you had a few crime drams in there, so I’m going to throw my In Plain Sight hat into the ring. I’m a big fan of the show and it’s got drama and action and a really stellar cast.
I’d recommend FX’s great animated comedy Archer. Very smartly written & performed. Also the new BritCom The Inbetweeners.
BTW, am I the only one who thinks that the OP’s list is quite good except for that godawful Brian Benbenbenben shitfest Dream On? Total turd in the punchbowl!
I recently went through all 3 seasons of Veronica Mars in about 4 days. The 1st 2 seasons were excellent. The 3rd was not as good, but still better than most.
