Definitely Steven Universe. Random, ignorant people love to shit on that show just like random, ignorant people love to shit on the entirety of the furry fandom; and it does start more childish and unserialized. But hot damn does it get good later, and it was one of the most-helpful, intelligent, and positive experiences of my life.
Among many things I COULD talk about, I would just like to add that I’ve never seen a more thorough and accurate portrayal of autism than Peridot; and they don’t ever outright say what they’re doing with her, but even the green alien symbolism is there. Also how people respond to her, both positively and negatively, as well as her ability to learn to improve— so smart and good.
I like Steven universe but I think it needed a bit of editing or something with original series. I recall having really good highs and then some meh times in between. I think the future version flowed better. I agree overall it rewards the viewers.
My somewhat spolier-lite to spoiler-free reccomendations:
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I’d also recommend the original movie, but it’s kind of a different beast.
Really well done series that switches between long expository plot sequences, and really well done action sequences, in a pretty good display of budgetary efficiency. The plot exposition, dialogue, and investigative stuff kind of surrounds the action scenes with an actual sense of consequence and meaning, relative to most anime that I’ve seen, and the series as a whole is kind of much more grounded than most other anime, which is also incredibly refreshing. The medium is used in this case more to emphasize subtle differences between this potential near-future reality and our own, rather than kind of just, being an engine for bombastic and outlandish animation and repetitive trope-work. The series bounces between episodically structured plots, or, stand alone episodes, and episodes that deal with an ongoing seasonal plot, or character plot, and there’s a couple little progressions in there that kind of span the series if you’re paying attention. There’s not really any arcs, it’s just a good, focused show, front to back.
The Venture Bros.
Slow start, but it’s also probably one of the better pilot episodes, in my mind, of all time. Plenty of little comic book nerd references in there that are pretty enjoyable, and the comedy is pretty good at times while also tending not to venture into the offensive, except for maybe two or three instances that stand out in my mind, which is maybe somewhat impressive for an early adult swim show. I think, more than that, though, the series’ ability to juggle serial plots and episodic plots is kind of mind blowing and insane. One-off episodes and single characters get spun off into entire fully formed characters with arcs and backstories. Stupid jokes get expanded into much larger things than you would expect. It’s very well done.
Nichijou
Yeah, this one is pretty good, you should watch it.
Jennifer Connelly at her absolute most smoking hot, an amazing story to go blind into and kept me thinking about the meaning of consciousness, identity, and memory for years. 10/10 wish I could Men in Black my memory and watch it again fresh.
I worked as a projectionist when Dark City was coming out and I put that trailer on every single movie that it was applicable to be on. Just so I could watch it 10-20 times a day.
Yeah, I watched it a month or so ago, not really with high too high of expectations, but then after the 1st episode I was like fuck yeah! And it just gets better.
I looked on a torrent site to see if there was a season 2 and noticed that s01 was from 2 years ago and was like shit, did they get canceled, but ends up they’re just delayed from the writers strikes, so they’re working on s02 🥳
Sarah Connor Chronicles. Perfect run time, great pacing, nice gift wrapped complete series ending which still left an opening for further shows in the same timeline.
If you enjoy the humor in this show check out Norsemen. Totally different premise, but very similar dry humor with a lot of jokes and situations that are funny on multiple levels.
I love What We Do In The Shadows, it is hilarious. I could watch Colin Robinson drain people all day!
The series is great as well. I was reluctant because the film is so perfect and I didn’t want it to get draged out and repetitive. They did exactly that but still they managed to keep it super funny with great new vampires.
Haven’t seen anyone mention Severance, which is one of my more recent obsessions. Everyone I watched the first episode with bounced off pretty hard, saying it was too weird. Man the payoff is amazing though, everything slowly ramping up to a crescendo in the final couple of episodes. Highly recommended if you like early Black Mirror.
Severance is an amazing show on every level. Writing, casting, acting, design… every single facet is brilliantly executed. The season finale was insane. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.
I haven’t felt this excited for a second season premiere since the second season of Lost.
Not to mention Ricken. He may be one of my favorite fictional characters ever. He’s an endless well of brilliantly mindless quotes:
A society with festering workers can not flourish just as a man with rotting toes cannot skip.
If you’re as obsessed as I am, you should check out the Severed podcast by Allen Stare. Dude does a DEEP dive into each episode and it’s a great companion to the show.
Right on, I’ll check it out. I’ve also watched a lot of Nautilus Files on YouTube. He does some great character and theory breakdowns.
And agreed on Ricken being an amazing character (caricature?). The fact that >!the severed employees find his book and it becomes their new Bible!< was so perfect.
Fight club was intentionally misadvertised seeming like it would be some dude bro ‘FIGHTING IS HARDCORE AND AWESOME LET’S CHUG A BEER’ bullshit.
Completely ignored it for that reason until there is nothing better on TV so I said fuck it I’ll give it a shot and holy crap did that destroy my mind.
Watched it at a cinema when it first came out - thought it was ok, bit funny, nothing special. Watched it again a couple of months ago on DVD. Completely changed my view of it, for the better. Great film.
Yeah the inversion of a whodunit sounds like it would be boring because you know at the start who the murderer is.
But in a regular whodunit they can’t really focus on the murderer since they’ll give away the game. And you can usually just figure it out anyway because there’s usually a character that has no reason to be there… unless they’re the murder. Then the reveal at the end it’s like, yup that character is the murderer.
The Columbo inversion of this allows for the focus to be on the murderer which is far more interesting. And usually the murderer is a smug rich asshole so watching him pester the shit out of him until he makes a mistake is very satisfying.
It also avoided the trap of getting into the personal life of Columbo. It’s just about catching the criminal, not soap opera bullshit. Sure he mentions he has a wife (and a cousin, and an uncle, etc) but you can’t really be sure if that’s all just made up by Columbo to hustle the murderer into giving something up.
Fun bit of trivia: What was Columbo’s first name? They never said. With HD TV you can make out a name on his ID, but they never said his first name throughout the show’s run. It was all about catching the murderer.
Stargate Universe got a raw deal. It was a really great extension of the overall Stargate mythos. Between SG1 and Atlantis, they’d basically gone as far as they could. The teams had defeated gods, both figurative and literal. They had limitless technology at their disposal and each new season became a slog to another deus ex machina.
SGU essentially reset the entire premise back to zero while keeping the overall accumulated canon in place AND it presented a much better conflict/goal than the typical “we must defeat these new powerful aliens before they destroy humanity”.
But it didn’t fit with the tone of the previous shows so a lot of the fans were turned off. Too much “drama”, not enough zat guns. Plus that was the time when SciFi rebranded to “SyFy” and started showing shit like WWE.
I would LOVE to see them do another season picking up right where they left off. It would absolutely fit within the established timeline.
That show was just bad. It haf amazing production and could have been so much better.
They needed to leave earth/sol alone. The constant connection to home base ruined the show.
Having the goa ould just show up and take over was so bad.
The show had a great set up they ruined by trying to include too much familiar elements.
And i say this as a huge fan of the stargate universe.
Granted i had very high hopes. Felt like the people who made Battlestar Galactica got moved to a stargate project and i was so dissapointed with the direction the show took
The expanse is amazing, if you get over the pacing of the first 2 episodes. (If not, give the books a shot! Actually, even if, definitively give the books a shot, they’re incredible)
This. I have to tell everyone that I recommend this show to to power through the first few episodes as it is not a noir space crime drama that is appears to be when following around some random detective on a space station.
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