Unopened Boxsets that I liked the look of from the Pilot: The ILX Television 51 Show Countdown Extravaganza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bleak how? i'm guessing you don't mean in a same way that say Psychoville is bleak.

I would like to know how many SBs have taken place in this topic by the time it comes to a close.

I had no idea that Veronica Mars was... good. I was aware of its existence, but I guess it's got bad adverts (in the UK) or something.

I've seen no more than an episode or two of almost everything listed, so I'm getting some rich pickings here. Excluding How I Met Your Mother, which I am confident is rubbish.

Peep Show's bleaker, I think, because it's much more about real life.

xpost

yeah i guess. just never really thought about it that way, i don't feel attached to that real life-ness. maybe that is because super hans is my favourite character.

So glad VMars trumped US Office. First two seasons, especially the first - brilliant. The third had its moments but it was obvious the show wasn't really suited to the smaller story arcs the network kinda forced on them.

Agree on bleakness of Peep Show (my #22). Single episodes are great fun, but I watched series 1 at a sitting & by the end it just felt like a grim portrait of two evil, mentally ill men living together.

Mark and Jez's weird dependency on one another is pretty depressing.

yeah i guess. i was never a really big fan and got into it pretty late & haven't seen it in full so i guess i just ain't seeing all this bleakness, just a bit of it.

Toni the next-door neighbour was great in the first two series.

Such a cow!

That one time when she was hate-fucking Jez and shouting abuse at her husband in the next room... Jesus.

17. Spaced (22 votes, 3040 points.)
http://a2.vox.com/6a00c11413eb21819d011017aa1a42860e-500pi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sqSQ5Vu8vM

RE Peep Show, I think it's depiction of London life is dead-on - the claustrophobic tower blocks, the banalities of work, striving for entertainment through drinking and hanging out with your weirdo friends.

I also like how it gives you these two archetypal characters, both deeply flawed, and basically forces you to pick one to sympathise with.

I have never heard of Spaced until this very second. (Some of the other British shows, I at least heard mentioned on ilx before.)

Ranked Veronica Mars #14. Would rank it higher now, but then again I'm still a ways away from the third season, which people say isn't so good. (I actually ranked Monk much lower than I would have if I didn't think it got useless after a couple years, fwiw.)

i think Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are hilarious but renting "Spaced" recently it was a little dull and felt like a tentative dry run by comparison...maybe it's 'more' British or something, though, because some stuff seemed to kinda go right over my head.

YAY. I love Spaced.

one of these days i'll rewatch all of Veronica Mars and see if there was some kind of real dropoff, but i really thought season 3 was fine, plenty of really good episodes and the dialogue was as strong as ever, even without as satisfying a story arc.

Spaced is being shown on Dave at the moment and I can't see anything good in it at all.

I'm surprised by Spaced placing so high, certainly surprised by it beating Peep Show. Suspect it is at least partly driven by nostalgia.

I didn't vote in this, but definitely would have been another of the Monk crew. Somehow don't think that it would have made the difference, though.

spaced is great, warm but also inventive. its a little old now, but still rewards repeat viewing...

Spaced is totally a ILX demographic thing, even if Simon Pegg is doing a lot to make people dislike him. Basically Daisy Steiner is a bro, Mike is funny and I enjoyed it. Can no longer watch it because Marsha is too much like my mum and it wigs me out a little.

count me another one surprised by Spaced. I enjoyed it, but as said above, it does feel like a dry run for their later movies, and it feels REALLY dated now in certain aspects. and only the second season was even in this decade.

that said, the series gave me immense hope for the upcoming Scott Pilgrim movie!

put Spaced at #25 based only on the second series as first was '99. It's had a few threads and there's always been love/hate arguments about it. It was probably the first UK comedy to be directly influenced by The Simpsons in terms of direct joke-biting but also joke style and the constant references to other films, TV shows etc. which were usually done very well.

Slo-motion imaginary gunfight with the teenagers probably a highlight scene. The Robot Wars episode was shit tho apart from "ohyeh!Ididdunthinkodat".

and basically forces you to pick one to sympathise with

how can you sympathise with either of them? or anyone in the show?

I needn't have been so forlorn. Spaced rang very true for me.

All available on hulu as well.

http://www.hulu.com/spaced

I watched the whole thing through a month or so back and the first season outstrips the first by some margin with the clubbing episode being the pinnacle.

tried watching spaced the other night and just couldnt get into it. had a couple laughs but it seems so dated.

x-post Agreed on all points.

I watched both seasons a couple years ago for the first time. Would need to watch again to remember specifics.

It is a little dated but I think maybe I watched it with that in mind.

dated like Happy Days

I would say of its time and place (ok, dated), but I lived in that time and place, more or less, so I find it funny.

So, Everybody Loves Raymond at no1?

clubbing episode of spaced is a masterpiece IMHO

I would say of its time and place (ok, dated), but I lived in that time and place, more or less, so I find it funny.

without a doubt

The Spaced clubbing episode did everything Human Traffic was trying to do with more laughs, less pretension and in a third of the length.

tyres makes me misty eyed for the years of shifting wide eyed couriers from my front step.

yay Veronica Mars! i always felt that VM gave me the satisfaction that other people (not me) got from buffy.

another vote over here for Spaced leaving me totally cold when i watched it (and yeah, i watched like six episodes so pbbbt).

cautiously optimistic about League of Gentlemen placing, but probably wrong - also if i had voted later i would have thrown a vote to That Mitchell and Webb Look, which is the peep show guys, right?

yep, same guys, just appeared on netflix streaming so I'm watching them again although I have a low tolerance for sketch comedy.

Spaced was only like 14 episodes long and only half of that made this decade, so I guess 6 episodes is enough JJ.

16. Buffy The Vampire Slayer (19 votes, 3080 points.)
http://buffy-the-vampire-slayer.download-tvshows.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/buffy-the-vampire-slayer.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCtjCYmMTcc

Way too low imo. Voted it second because I had to stay true to my Whedon obsessed 15 year old self.

i like the u.k./u.s. mix of this list. it's refreshing. feel a little bad for canada and the sheepfukkers though. unfortunately, the only canadian show we got in the states post-kids in the hall is the red green show. i might be forgetting something. at least nz has the conchords. as far as australia goes...hmmmm....well there was the paul hogan show and prisoner (of cell block h). oh the dead gator guy! we loved him.

given that this is ilx, i expected buffy to be top five stuff.

wasnt it a 90s show though?

I have never seen a single episode of Buffy.

it was on till 2003.

and basically forces you to pick one to sympathise with

how can you sympathise with either of them? or anyone in the show?

I guess I feel sorry for them, you're drawn in so intimately to their little plans and schemes in each episode through the voiceover, and even if things are going well, you know that they'll find a way to screw it up by the end of the episode.

Their helplessness against their own flaws makes them loveable, in a twisted sort of way. Mark's failure to pull Dobby, who's basically his perfect woman, is a good example of this dynamic I think.

Dobby is a proper guilty WS.

I placed Buffy low-ish (#11) because of the 90s/00s split: the 90s seasons are the ones I really love. But I should have put it higher, tbh. 4-7 still bought me more pleasure than some things in my top ten.

i've never seen the bleak london sitcom, but its reminding me that i want to watch withnail and i for the first time in 20 years. i found a vhs copy.

i might actually do a withnail and i/naked double feature this week.

Season 5 is the best. It is Tara heavy and she is pretty much the best character in Buffy. Then there is the episode where ****SPOILER**** Buffy's mum dies which is the most heartbreaking awesome thing everererer.

Australia also gave the US/UK Summer Heights High, which is much better than the first episode indicates.

Also, Buffy lowish because of 90/00s split here as well. I still think it was excellent in series 4-6 (not so sure about 7, though there is goodness there), but seasons 2 and 3 were the really mindblowing ones for me.