Review with Forrest MacNeil (also just Review but that’s really hard to search on.)
It seems to be streaming on Comedy Central. (You can also buy it on Amazon prime)
In the show, Forrest reviews life experiences (like going to prom, or eating 10 pancakes) and gives them ratings of 1-5 stars. The first few episodes ease you in, but as the series goes on, it gets weirder and funnier and better. About 20 episodes in total.
The U.S. and Australian versions of “Review” are both very funny.
A few more shows I haven’t seen mentioned (but my eyesight isn’t what it used to be):
Love (Netflix, 34 episodes): Paul Rust and Gillian Jacobs date and drive each other (and the viewers) crazy. Claudia O’Doherty should have had her own series, in a just world.
Angie Tribeca (TBS, 40 episodes): A silly police procedural spoof, along the lines of Police Squad/The Naked Gun. Stuffed with ridiculous humour. I thought the third season was a little weak, but the final season was great, with Bobby Cannavale playing Rashida Jones’s teenage son (!).
A Touch of Cloth (6 episodes, available on Amazon Prime): Another silly police procedural spoof, but a bit more moody. Also hilarious.
Another TBS series, which I think only lasted two seasons, was The Guest Book. A sort of anthology series about a cabin for rent. Each episode primarily centers around the cabin’s guests (who write about their experiences in the cabin’s guest book) but there is also an ongoing plot arc with the cabin owners, the owner of a local strip club, and the owner of the neighboring cabin. Season 2 shifts to a beachfront condo for rent but features some of the same regulars from S1. From Greg Garcia, who brought us “My Name Is Earl” and “Raising Hope.”
Seconded! [ I listen to the theme song (by Johnny Flynn) when I want to smile.]
What We Do In The Shadows is also awesome. The movie is great, but the series is a gem on its own.
Without going through the entire thread…did anyone mention that Brits are notorious for doing shows with very few episodes and also
Police Squad!
When Things Were Rotten
Quark.
If you liked Detroiters, try I Think You Should Leave Now. It’s with Tim from Detroiters. The style is very similar to Detroiters but it’s more of an anthology/sketch type show.
Also, her mom on the show was played by her IRL mom, Peggy Lipton (aka Norma from Twin Peaks).
That reminds me, Twin Peaks, excluding the 2017 episodes is only an 8 episode season and a 22 episode season (and a movie).
The bastard stepsibling of The Guest Book might be Room 104, from HBO. It’s from the Duplass Brothers and each episode is set in the same motel room in an unnamed American city. The episodes are all very different.
“I’ll Have What Phil’s Having/Somebody Feed Phil” (PBS/Netflix): the creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond” travels the world and samples the local cuisine then videochats with his parents about what he saw & ate.
Oh man so many good new recommendations here!
The post about Review made me think of How To With John Wilson, on HBO. Sounds like it might be similar. It’s definitely similar to Joe Pera Talks With You. A dorky kinda filmmaker narrator tries to explain some stuff via his camera and things happen. Sounds utterly boring but it actually tugged at my heartstrings. Especially since the last episode (or two?) takes place in NYC when the pandemic started.
I’ll nominate The Wine Show, 3 seasons of two very nice actors travelling and drinking wine. Just very pleasant.
And Letterkenny may be up to 9 seasons, but the episodes are only around 30 minutes long. I find it a friendly ribbing of small town Canada, or really small town anywhere. One of the only shows I’ve actually watched multiple times.
Since last time this thread was active, I found this show from a commercial at the end of another UK show. 3 seasons, 25 episodes.
A clip. (And I better actually say Yonderland so that it can show up in searches.)
Speaking of Canadian television series, I really liked Slings & Arrows. Only three seasons of six episodes each. Set at a Shakespeare festival sort of like the one in Stratford Ontario. In each season, they’re doing a different Shakespeare play. It’s really good.
Also speaking of Canadian shows, I found out that “Cock’d Gunns” (mentioned earlier in the thread) is available on Tubi.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet but IT Crowd. I understand the American version is pretty awful, but the British version is worth watching. It’s pretty funny. I finally got around to watching it when, for whatever reason, I found myself watching bloopers and ‘best of’ clips from it. After a week or two of that I figured I might as well just watch it. Only 18 episodes across 4 seasons.
‘The Booth At The End’ is the best television series I’ve ever watched. Gripping story right from the get-go, fantastic acting, and many unanswered questions. So much is packed into every episode (no filler) and every episode builds on the last; it checks all the boxes for me. I’m very sad they only produced two short seasons. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
It was available on Netflix; I’m not sure if it still is now.
‘Great News’ is also a gem.
Blown Away on Netflix. 10 people in a glass blowing competition. 10 shows, half an hour or so each. Season two just dropped, we’re going to watch the finale tonight.
I was just going to mention this show. After seeing the first season, we took a trip out to Buffalo to visit my wife’s hometown. While there, we drove a loop down through northern PA and spent a couple of nights in Corning. We of course went to the glass factory and guess who was there doing her internship? Deborah Czeresko, the winner of season one. She was working in an area that has bleachers for visitors to watch from. Pretty cool.
Ghosts - made by the same people who make Horrible Histories, it’s about a mansion in Britain haunted by a bunch of ghosts of different eras, and a young woman who is the only living person who can see them.
Worzel Gummidge - A remake, ostensibly aimed at kids, and based on a book series, about a scarecrow who comes to life and has adventures around his farm. Written by, directed by, and starring Mackenzie Crook who also made Detectorists.
Staged - A series created in lockdown that has shades of The Trip to its semi-fictional improvisation mixed with script. Actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen try to help each other while out of work during COVID, but end up antagonising each other instead.
Truth Seekers - Nick Frost and Simon Pegg created. An amateur paranormal investigator, who never ordinarily finds anything despite his obsession, takes on an assistant at his Internet Installation job, and suddenly supernatural events start occurring on the regular.
Timewasters - Four jazz musicians find themselves travelling back in time to the 1920s and need to deal with the racism and weirdness of the Society set.