Spinning off (heh - see what I did there) from the King of the Hill thread here. What shows and characters do you find the most realistic?
My choice would be Freaks and Geeks or Undeclared. The characters seeemed like people I know and acted as such. For the most part the situations were funny without being over the top - ok, Undeclared did go off the deep end a few times, like when Adam Sandler (as himself) hung around a dorm room for hours.
You?
Rosanne; at least the first few seasons before it went off the rails. I’m convinced that Lanford is based on the town in Illinois my mother is from (Morris). Lanford was once even described as being 50 miles southwest of Chicago, which is exactly where Morris is, and it seems to be about the same size and demographics.
Ugly Americans.
Sure, you can try and tell me NYC isn’t full of vampires, zombies, succubi, land whales, and man-birds (SUCK my balls!) but I’ve been there before, I know what’s going on.
12 oz. Mouse
But then I drank a lot of cough syrup today.
I understand that Adam 12 is considered the most realistic cop show ever.
Gilligan’s Island
those poor people…
For me, there will likely ever be a fictional show as realistic as Barney Miller was back in the day.
The Sopranos?
Also, ReGenisis has some refreshingly good verisimilitude for a procedural drama about a Microbiology and BioThreat lab/security. The science (for a TV show) is some of the more realistic and well done execution I’ve seen.
I’ve been watching the entire 4-season run addictively on Hulu for the past week and a half, I’m almost done with season 2. Also, it’s weird to see Ellen Page so young.
I give it 4 Macrophages up!
The Wire, of course.
The best portrayal of what work in a hospital is really like is apparently Scrubs, of all things.
Just what I was thinking.
Mork and Mindy
The Big Bang Theory.
Curb Your Enthusiasm. People are dicks.
Saw this thread was still alive and remembered another show I liked that was canceled after only 6 episodes. I remember when watching them thinking “this will never survive; it’s waaaaaay too close to reality”.
United States (1980)
Concur.
The West Wing. I’ve worked with clones of those people!
The show I came in here to mention was mentioned in the OP. Freaks and Geeks. I lived as a geek back then and didn’t have much contact with the freaks, but that circle of geek friends reminds me a lot of my circle of friends.
I don’t know that it’s the most realistic, and certainly plenty of unrealistic things have happened on the show, but the US version of The Office strikes me of a fairly realistic depiction of the American office environment. My sister once mentioned that she can’t stand The Office because “It’s so unrealistic!”, but as I pointed out, she’s never actually worked in an office. I have, and I’ve recognized plenty of things on the show as being similar to my own experiences.
A few years ago I was casually chatting with some coworkers and one of the guys suddenly dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups. I thought this was rather odd, but he was kind of an odd guy. THE VERY NEXT DAY on The Office Ryan started doing push-ups in the middle of a conversation with Kelly in an attempt to impress her. If my sister happened to see this episode she probably thought that scene was unrealistic, but it seemed perfectly plausible to me! Funnily enough my coworker’s name was also Ryan.