Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

xp to myself
would* = should

I digress. I'm still angry over Old Lunch's Muppets comments upthread. So many wrong observations. The Muppets isn't even one of the my top 5 or 6 shows on right now but lousy comparisons to 30 rock and complaints of having a sitcom share templates/elements from other sitcoms are really ignorant. How can you look in the mirror in the morning? How can the child in your heart not smile at green flailing arms? Let go of all the bad dramas you watch and let The Muppets tickle your 'hamster dance', goofball innocence that you seem to have purged from your life.

You misconstrue! Partly because I haven't seen anything beyond the commercials for the new Muppet show, but more because I love (like deeply love) Henson-era Muppets and still watch that stuff all the time. I've been burned by enough post-Henson product to realize that it's probably just not for me. And a lot of the reason for my disfavor is that I think the newer performers aren't quite able to recapture what was so magical about what Henson & Co. did.

I'll grant you that I watch some bad dramas, though. Whattayagonnado.

Someone please alert me when modern-era Muppets do something half this brilliant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Xo771IMco

Plus it was me who compared it to 30 Rock, but not before Once-ler had compared it to The Office.

It was the character to character comparisons that bothered me. Like Scooter to Kenneth (very different personalities). And who came first - Miss Piggy or Jenna?

Also the writing on 30 rock involved trying to hide a joke in every line; whereas The Office was more realistic on that front.

The Swedish Chef doing hip-hop is brilliant.

Yeah, that was me too.

(I did comment a couple of posts later that actually the Muppets had always been like that and maybe it was 30 Rock borrowing from it.)

on last night's moonbeam city episode rad's list of blues names gag was excellent

Best part of an episode that was probably the best yet.

the opening of this week's Limitless features a few seconds of X's "Los Angeles" and a prominently placed vinyl copy of the last Skeletonwitch album, clearly it is after my heart

Adventure Time is back!

yep, new ep every night for a while, then the 8-ep (!) miniseries.

AXS broadcasts of NJPW
scream queens
moonbeam city
brooklyn nine nine
adventure time

of shows airing atm, in roughly descending order of greatness:

Leftovers
You're the Worst
Jane the Virgin
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Adventure Time
Nathan for You
Last Week Tonight
Kingdom
The Knick
Limitless

supergirl is incredibly cheese and silly but I like it (also true for the Flash, which I started watching on Netflix. haven't dealt with arrow yet beyond the first episode).

I'd say Fargo and Nathan for You are the two best shows currently running; they are compulsively watchable and super great for totally different reasons and both will make you uncomfortable.

Others in my current top eight:
Last Week Tonight
You're the Worst
Adventure Time
Drunk History
The Knick
Jeopardy

I'm about ready to toss The Affair and How to Get Away with Murder; they are both very stupid right now. I haven't tried Homeland yet this season. Supergirl was terrible.

I need to watch:
The Returned s. 2
Ash vs Evil Dead s. 1

I think I may like Crazy Ex Girlfriend! Need to watch a bit more but the fifteen minutes I caught of episode 3 were surprisingly clever.

Last season of Getting On starts next week, it's amazing television and you should all be watching it.

I find Fargo beautiful to look at and listen to but kind of empty tbh

I did like what I saw of the last season of Getting On, kudos to HBO for giving a decent shot to such an obviously unpalatable series

well this is the last six episode run so the entire series will be a little under 18 episodes and nine hours. It's not much longer than Olive Kitteridge and much cheaper

never even heard of that show, but since it has Todd from The Last Man on Earth, maybe I'll give it a shot

Mel Rodriguez is a really good and fun to watch actor but of the key four man cast of Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and Niecy Nash he is actually the least engaging. They're all so goddamn good.

if it matters to you, Molly Shannon and Alia Shawkat are regulars as well

definitely enticing! haven't seen Alia Shawkat in years

Alex Borstein is best known as Lois Griffin on Family Guy and from Mad tv
Niecy Nash is best known from Reno 911 and for a style network reality show called clean house
both of them have knock out good acting chops and should be massive stars. it's a fucked up world.

i skimmed the amazon PILOT SEASON and most of it is hot garbage but the Tig Notaro/Nicole Holofcener "One Mississippi" pilot was perhaps predictably a pure gem and certainly the best thing I've ever seen diablo cody associated with. i hope to god they get at least a season out of that creative team

It's strange how hit or miss the Amazon pilots are. Almost all of the the comedies have looked like low budget syndication from 1992 but there are some well produced dramas (Man In The High Castle, the one with Hellboy).

I disliked the Red Oaks pilot, but the full season actually turned out to be pretty good. RIYL if you're a sucker for Adventureland. Hal Hartley directs an episode

Ash vs Evil dead is great great great

this ep of You're the Worst felt like a real leap; dark, unfunny, true and subtle. It's coming into its own as a pretty great show this season and every episode is very different from the next.

yeah that was way better than an episode of television called "LCD Soundsystem" had any right to be

I haven't watched the latest but I thought even the last two before that were on another level.

it has been getting better but watching gretchen completely come apart when her dream was dashed was really brutal

what a difference a week makes:

Last Week Tonight s. 2 - HBO
Adventure Time s. 7 - Cartoon Network
Getting On s. 3 - HBO
Jeopardy s. 32 - ABC
You’re the Worst s. 2 - FXX
The Knick s. 2 - Showtime
Nathan for You s. 3 - Comedy Central
Fargo s. 2 - FX
Adam Ruins Everything s.1 - TruTV
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend s. 1 - CW

i may be proven totally wrong after a third episode of crazy exgirlfriend but it seems surprisingly good at jump and i like the politics
Adam Ruins everything is surprisingly fun! Worth a peek.

The only shows I'm watching at this point:

The Affair
You're The Worst (loved Season 1, finally broke down and bought Season 2 from Amazon this weekend)
Sleepy Hollow
Empire
The Good Wife (literally only sticking around because this is the final season)
Mom
Have given up on Fresh Off the Boat, Blackish, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine

It makes me sad that nobody else appreciates Gotham. İt's a good cast and has the campy feel of the 60s Batman show.

i'm enjoying it. benjamin mckenzie really is great as the perpetually scowly gordon, and everyone else plays bigger nicely with him. donal logue is always a treat and sometimes i pretend to myself that i'm watching SuperTerriers. nigma reminds me SO much of a dude i went to high school with also. and penguin is FANTASTIC. if the canon would allow it, i would want this show to jsut go 45 minutes a week of "gordon and penguin vs. the universe"

Hi TV ppl.

I'm going to have a lot of TV-viewing time on my hands for the next few weeks while recovering from surgery. I need a plan. I was thinking trying Show from My Youth that I missed (including Buffy, Gilmore Girls), but maybe Good Wife? I dunno, something that there are A LOT of so I can binge watch and then binge watch some more.

I considered re-watching The Sopranos but I think I need something different.

Oh, and I don't actually have cable or on-demand or anything like that, so I need a show I can watch online. Netflix, Amazon Prime preferred, but I could be talked into purchase.

What would you choose???

Breaking Bad or The Wire are good base level, inarguably worth watching shows if you haven't seen either of them.
Battlestar?

Buffy doesn't hold up that well, I think Angel may be a better rewatch.

Or the X-Files. Pretty sure they're on Netflix still.

they are and i didn't know that!

good wife!

there is so much good wife

top binge-watching recs from me (minus the Sopranos) would be Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Eastbound and Down, Freaks and Geeks, Twin Peaks

Battlestar gets so bad I would say only do that if you are prepared to stop at the end of season 3

I've seen (and loved) Breaking Bad and The Wire. Hung with Battlestar for a bit, but not really my thing and fell off of it. I tried to start Gilmore Girls but it didn't stick, probably because I was drunk I mean tired and fell asleep.

X-Files is a great suggestion. And I have probably only seen a few episodes of 30 Rock.

xpost So Much Good Wife sounds like a good thing. Is it an hour? I was kind of leaning half hour since I'll be on opioids I mean resting, any quick hits you'd recommend?

xp oh for sure. you'll know when you're done with battlestar, the signs are everywhere.

do you have hbo go?

Twin Peaks on opioids uuuuuuuuuuh

Hmmm I don't have HBO to go atm, but maybe I can get it through the Roku for not too much $$$? I will look into it.

I've seen maybe 1.5 seasons of Mad Men. That may be good to pick up again?

Gilmore Girls is a solid pick imo

My mom is a huge GG stan, as is Stevie D and I mean I trust that man.

I'm glad I wasn't the only who got to a point in Battlestar where I kept going "why am I watching this? Why was I EVER watching this?"

GG is awful garbage. I loved Mad Men start to finish (peak is around s3 and 4 imo)

you want easy 30-minute digestible chunks 30 Rock is not a bad way to go, it's p solid for its entire run