All right, I’m sitting here at 1:00 AM watching the Total Recall TV series. I love this show. It never really caught on big, as far as I know, but it’s still very intresting.
Anyway, I got to wondering… what other relatively obscure TV shows out there do you really love? Others on my list include Profiler, The Outer Limits, and Jack of all Trades. Any others out there?
The animated Starship Troopers series. Better than the film, possibly.
With the exception of “Frasier”, most of my favorite TV shows are probably “obscure”.
Where I work I can watch whatever TV I like, as long as I get my work done. We get the Odyessy Channel at work, and I have it on a lot. One show I am hooked on right now (it’s more like a habit, it isn’t like I break into hives if I miss an episode) is “Snowy River - The MacGregor Saga”. (Trivia note: the new up-and-coming star Hugh Jackman, who plays Wolverine in “The X-Men”, is in it.) It’s this western/family show set in Australia.
I also am getting more and more hooked on “Lonesome Dove - The Outlaw Years” (also showing on Odyssey). It has a pre-“Will and Grace” Eric McCormack in it playing an anti-hero. He is very attractive with a beard and wearing western garb!
Other obscure shows I have on tape, or try to watch as much as I can include: “Homefront”, “VR5”, “Alias Smith and Jones”, “Misfits of Science”, “Due South”…and the list goes on.
I remember Due South, but it disappeared in my area before I could really get into it. Didn’t know they made a Starship Troopers cartoon… but they couldn’t have made it worse than the movie if they tried.
One of my favourite shows is one that noone I know has ever even heard of. It’s a British show called Bottom, and it’s about two guys who are really down on their luck and live in an apartment together. It’s got a lot of slapstick kind of humour, lots of British/verbal humour, and quite a bit of the raunchier verbal humour. It played over here on YTV at about 4AM, thus why not too many people have heard of it here. It stars two of the guys from Young Ones, and is the series they did after that series. They also wrote the shows, and even took it to the stage.
Up until this year, it wasn’t really released on video, at least on any other format other than PAL. Now, however, I believe it’s being released in North America. 
If so, I’ll definitely order it, and some more Red Dwarf while I’m at it. Not that Red Dwarf is obscure, it’s just that I don’t have a lot of it on video.
silent_rob you will be pleased to know that Rick and Ade from Bottom have a film out called Hotel Paradiso. Haven’t seen it yet, but it looks like more of the same.
In a totally different vein: Callan. Ugly UK spy series starring Edward Woodward before he got fat and old.
picmr
My favorite shows are all obscure. ‘The League of Gentlemen’ is one–although it’s fairly weird. And ‘French and Saunders.’ I love them.
God bless you, bbcamerica. I don’t know what I’d do without ‘Changing Rooms’ and ‘Later…With Jools Holland.’
I like RED DWARF, that’s pretty obscure. I also like the tv show TASTE with David Rosengarten, but that’s not so obscure I guess. I also like the old TALES FROM THE DARK SIDE show, and of course the original OOUTER LIMITS and TWILIGHT ZONE. Some are more obscure than others.
There was an old sitcom named “Hot L Baltimore” that was absolutely hilarious. If anyone knows anything about it please pass the info along.
A really BAD sitcom (that I enjoyed) was “It’s About Time”.
:: Begging forgiveness ::
The Adventures of Briscoe County Jr.
A classic series by Sam Raimi, a precursor to many of the ‘revisionist’ shows of present, like Hercules, Xena etc.
Millenium
Not everyone’s cup of tea, but very good.
Sapphire and Steel
Worth persisting with for the finale.Checkmate!
Batman of the Future
Ok it’s a cartoon, but some of the stories are very cool.
You know, I was just saying to my wife the last night, “You know, when we talk about Sifl and Olly in public, no one knows what the hell we’re talking about.”
Sifl and Olly was a sock puppet show that played on Mtv at 1:00 am for a couple of seasons. (And to think, it never found an audience.) It was hilarious and bizarre. They sang these two-minute little songs… oh hell, just go to the website. http://www.sifl-n-olly.com can explain it better than I can.
A lot of the little songs and skits are available on Napster, for you lawbreakers out there.
Trip (don’t) Fall
I’m surely going to regret admitting this…
At times in my life I get intensely interested in this game show (used to be on Lifetime, not sure who carries it now) called “Supermarket Sweep.” Teams earn “time” by answering questions, then in the end it culminates in them running at breakneck speed through a mock supermarket, trying to fill their carts with the highest $$ value of products possible in the time alloted. I don’t what it is, maybe it’s just the thrill of running through a supermarket heaving huge hams in the cart that titillates me.
I loved the show Cupid so much that I did up my own website devoted to it.
Yeah, I know. You’re all saying, “Huh? Cupid?”.
sigh
how about the Red Green Show?
Hey, I loved Cupid! It really pissed me off when ABC cancelled it. They have this track record of dumping shows I really like, while keeping crap like “Family Matters” on for years.
Could this possibly be called Batman Beyond? If so then I also watch it.
Hot L Baltimore, eh? Boy, that one is obscure. I can still see the kind of hefty, blousy, red-head woman that played on it, along with the desk clerk (both of whose names escape me). The desk clerk was played by a guy that has become something of a character actor in the movies now. He played the corrupt police commissioner in L.A. Confidential, Ketting of the Ketting 5 in the movie about Larry Flynt, and the General in “The General’s Daughter.”
Like I said, obscure.
The Austrlian Broadcasting Commission (ABC - government owned national broadcasting service) screens educational programs during the midmorning timeslot on weekdays. These are primarily aimed at specific age groups and curiculums in the schools system.
My favourite show amongst these is a masterpiece of shoestring production called The Acme School of Stuff, made by TV Ontario. It takes on the task of explaining everyday technical matters in layman’s terms. It is also fantastic at debunking myths, urban legends and old wives tales when it comes to dealing with common electrical appliances. Great Stuff!
Once a Hero
Astonishingly creative superhero parody that ran for 3 episodes on ABC in the mid-80s before crashing and burning. Nothing has ever come close to it. The best example of their sensibility was casting Adam West as an actor who was sick and tired of being identified with his role as a TV costumed hero.
VR5
A so-so first episode hurt it, but this series about virtual reality took on a life of its own when they killed off someone who everyone assumed would be a regular. From then on, it took everything a step further into conspiracies and reality (I loved the fact that the conspiracy has cliques and factions among it). Anthony Head played a role similar to his in Buffy, though the character was quite different.
Wish You Were Here
Produced by Robert Altman, tells the story of Donny Cogswell, who quit his job to travel in Europe with his camcorder. Each week he sent home a videotape to friends and relatives. The interaction between Donny’s tape (made, like a real video, with no editing) and the reaction of the recipient to Donny’s adventures.
Nighmare Cafe
Surreal show created by Wes Craven and starring (among others) Robert “Freddy Kruger” Englund. Set in a restaurant that flitted about in time and space (If you know of the story “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium,” you get the idea), it wasn’t really horror, though it was often startling. The final episode – about cows and aliens – was a hilarious classic.
I liked Cupid too! ABC (if I remember correctly) also axed my beloved Homefront years ago (Jeff is now on that Early Edition(?) show. I was also a fan of The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.
Cheers!