I need a good drama TV series recommendation.

My wife is currently watching Brothers & Sisters; I watch the occasional episode with her. It deals with many current themes in American life and has both humor and heaviness. We're in Japan and it is on satellite TV here, so I don't know if you have it where you are (it's a couple of years old now). There's also Everwood (?) which isn't bad.

It really sounds like you would like the History Channel and maybe National Geographic. They have lots of programs that are pretty interesting and are not dramas that need to be watched in a particular order that if you skip a week you get lost.

Consider the new Battlestar Galactica Series by Ronald Moore on the SciFi channel. Its a little slow to get started with, but the characters are compelling and well acted. The show was always envisioned as a 4 season arc, so the story keeps moving towards a conclusion that is still not obvious (now with only half of the fourth season to go). The feeling of the show is dark and brooding. And its available from iTunes in HD!

I am all fraking set up, mateys. Here's what's going down.

LOST. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. 24 Season 7.

Word*. Awww yeah.
*This one is not a show, just saying, word.

See above. All available on iTunes in HD. Each episode is engaging by itself, though knowing the overall plotline is more enriching. Lost and Battlestar have "quick recap" videos on iTunes so it will give you the run down on what has happened. Lost available on iTunes in HD. Battlestar Galactica available on iTunes in HD. 24 available in iTunes in HD.

Ha! Especially Lost. You're like... almost always, at the end... OMFG! Yet a strange sense of closure in the mini-story they tell from start to end within one episode itself*.

*You'll have to see several episodes to get what I'm saying here.

Fringe, House, and Knight Rider

i would not recommend Lost at this point. Not unless you have a ton of time to catch up. it's highly complex.it's good but this late in the game you might be better off waiting until it ends next year and then jumping on board

I would go with My Name is Earl if you are into quirky,semi light dramedy. And for something more 'real' and a tad heavy, Six Feet Under which I think has at least the first 2 seasons on itunes with more coming. And if you don't mind mindly gross but captiving, Dexter which stars Michael C Hall, also from SFU. it's gross cause it has to do with serial killings so there's blood but usually after the fact. Dexter is a little serial but pretty much only within each season and they are only 13 eps. you still wanna watch the seasons on order but it's not like you have to remember things from episode 101 for 213 to make perfect sense (which you do with Lost)

Incorrect. Put that away and get The Wire, which is simply without peer. All five seasons have aired, so you can watch from start to finish.

I'm not lying. You'll thank me.

Ugly Betty. It's more than just a sit' com'.

Good choice with Six Feet Under. After you finish Brothers and Sisters, give it a try... It's a bit crazy, but that's always fun. For more insanity, watch Nip|Tuck. It's like... WTF!!!! over and over again.

But... seriously... for me, I'd watch anything by Joss Whedon. Buffy. Angel. Firefly (less than one full season so that's a quickie).

I'll have to give Brothers and Sisters a try myself.

My wife is really into Eli Stone. I think it's kinda stupid. Brothers and Sisters is about as bad as it get IMO. Horrible show.

Tonton, you know Whedon's "Dollhouse" premiers on Fox pretty soon, right? Let's hope Fox doesn't kill it before it can get going.

I guess it's supposed to start on 13th February. I had read about it before but other things have distracted me from paying too much attention.

What ever happened to "Ripper"? I don't mean "Reaper", the TV series with the kids from the hardware store capturing escaped souls (though that's a fun series) but the project with BBC covering Buffy's Giles during his earlier youth. Guess it was another Whedon project that didn't quite get off the ground, though it sounded hugely interesting.

Enjoy!

Really wish we had movies on iTMS here in Japan...

Yeah, I remember talk of that. I had thought it was pretty far along, but I guess not.

I have never understood why such an obvious talent who works in such populist genres seems to have such a hard time getting work, when such obvious shit gets produced all the time.

And I don't mean "obvious shit that you can see where the network execs thought it might have a certain base appeal", but "obvious shit that anyone not recently hit in the hit in the head with a shovel would have laughed out of the room the day it got pitched."

Damages.

For stuff that's been on for a while:

Lost
BSG
Life (give it a few episodes)

For stuff that's on cable:

Dexter
Weeds
True Blood

Absolutely. The Wire is one of the greatest things that has ever been on television.

Can you access Hulu.com or use Joost?

And, hey yeah, Life! I never see it given props, but it's really pretty great. Took me a while to get over how odd and distant Damian Lewis had become after his time in WWII, though.

Don't work. Bummer.

Those who live outside of the US of A can use a little programme called HotSpot Shield to trick american sites into thinking you're inside the States (a proxy server), which works perfectly for watching Hulu and other Network sites like ABC, SciFi and so on.

It sits in the menu bar (to the left of the Spotlight icon) and enables to connect and disconnect to and from an american server.

PS: Another vote for Six Feet Under, Dexter, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, Californication, Weeds and 30Rock.

Is there a reverse equivalent? There are a few things I'd like to watch on the BBC iPlayer but can't because I'm in the US (but my heart is in the UK!!).

Just get a US iTMS gift card thingy online.

Jezzus my torrents just went a lot faster. Wow. HotSpot Shield... I'm not sure quite how it works, and I'm being naughty downloading stuff, hope I don't get busted somewhere down the line. Ah well, I'm far away from the US so hopefully...

HOLEY MOLEY my site access speeds and stuff. I wonder if it is just temporary or what. I wonder how long this Hotspot Shield thing will work.
I am at a public WiFi spot, I'll try when I go home in a short while.
Is this safe?
Also I'm getting some much more annoying ads now, it takes up the top 1/10th of the browser window constantly when I'm viewing AppleInsider.
Edit... Using Safari AdBlock. Useful.

Web access is much faster through Hotspot Shield thingy. They are blocking torrent traffic though, it seems. Maybe... Will continue to report back here.

Yup, all great. Rescue Me is also very good

<offtopic>.Mac mail access through Apple Mail is not working when Hotspot Shield is on though... Other than that, web and Vuze videos, sometimes torrents, access is much faster for me.</offtopic>

Battlestar Galactica is without question the best drama on teevee today. Yeah, it's set in space, but that's not really the issue of the whole thing. It's just fantastic.

Dexter is awesome, and M.C. Hall is completely different than his Six Feet Under character. I was nervous at first, because SFU was so incredible and the character he played was so driven by the other characters in the show (and then not) that I though I would perform some viewer osmosis upon him...but it didn't click and I'm grateful for that.

tonton mentions Firefly, and you'd be well served to watch it. If you don't respond favorably to that, well, I don't know what to tell you. You're not cool and you never will be. Heh, OK, that might be a bit rough. But yeah, true. Fuck you for not even knowing about it. You're the reason Fox is still on the air and canceling these awesome shows you asshole. If Dollhouse gets canned I'm coming up to Orca and punching you in the nose.

Oh, I've heard nothing but great things about The Wire, but I can honestly say I've never seen an episode. My bad. I heard it got cancelled or it was on it's last season. I'll probably get it on DVD. If somebody feels it got cancelled prematurely I welcome them to come up here and punch me in the nose. I won't flinch. We could even get a drink later if you like Drambuie.

The Shield is awesome too if you like gritty drama type stuff. Which I do. I wish Whedon was more respected. I think Buffy is absolute genius, if a little dated upon a 2009 rewatching. I also wish Adam Sorkin would do something good again. The first few seasons of The West Wing are absolute fucking bliss.

MacGyver



I have been writing a very long market analysis and technical proposal for the past week. I got a pc to sit next door to my mac. It is indeed playing MacGyver, via Netflix watch-instantly. It is somehow perfect for this because it doesn't require much attention, yet it keeps me from getting too stir-crazy.

He doesn't like guns.

Life on Mars is shaping up to be a good show.

I've seen two episodes and they were great. This is definitely a series I'm interested in investing in.

Glad to hear it!

What you seek is The Wire. This show is so real and thought provoking that it'll cause you to reevaluate the way you look at people in various societal rolls. I still don't know who was "right" or who was "good"... or hell, even who you're supposed to sympathize with. Similarly, The Shield for almost the same reasons.

You come to love characters who do despicable things, downright evil, life in prison things. You'll find yourself sympathizing and identifying with murdering assholes. Then you sit back and say, whoah, what am I thinking? The acting in some of the scenes is so heart wrenching, so intense, so real... that you feel the motivations of the flawed characters. You start to understand how people end up doing evil things, you even start to think, hey, i might have done the same. But then you catch yourself. It'll tear you up inside.

These shows are action packed, profound, morally confusing, and emotional. They'll have you rethinking everything you thought you knew about the human experience. They really are that good.

Enjoy!

When Bodie finally met his end, I literally yelled out "NO!!!"