Caught up with Whiplash last night on Amazon Prime. Gosh, you can hate J K Simmons in that movie. But what a score. And I don’t know how much of the drumming was Miles Teller, but boy could he play…
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Yeah its an awesome movie. I love JK Simmons - I’ll pretty much watch anything he’s in just because he’s in it.
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Im trying to watch classic tv shows that Ive missed. Sopranos and The Wire (both partially watched but never finished) -any other recommendations?
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JK Simmons - see if you can find “Counterpart”, an EXCELLENT spy thriller he made a few years ago, which got cruelly cancelled after series 2, I think. He’s 10/10.
I’d have to sign up for Starz to watch it 
Might still have a look what they’ve got
Babylon 5 is clunky but amazing, Breaking Bad is just consistently great. The Wire is extremely rewarding and highly recommended.
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To tie this into the J.K. Simmons thread, I’ve heard good things about Oz, but never watched it myself.
Breaking Bad was also mentioned, but its prequel Better Call Saul is also good (and in its final season). Along those same lines, Sons of Anarchy was good (especially the first few seasons).
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Oz is utterly brutal
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So I am halfway through Moon Knight and gosh Oscar Isaac is good. Like, really, really good.
The show itself is okay. I like the romantic lead, she’s neat, and the bad guy is appropriately evil, but I’m basically watching Isaac chew the scenery for an hour and loving it.
On the flipside from that I watched the first three episodes of Severance, and it is not at all what I was expecting, but it is very good.
But so many characters I hate. So many long walks down white hallways. Adam Scott is damn good at those transitions between his two characters, though. Really looking forward to more of it.
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We are 6 of 8 episodes into Outer Range (Amazon Prime). It’s a good mix of personal and family drama mixed in with “what is going on?” It reminds me of Dark in that way, but I don’t find any of the characters here compelling to watch. Josh Brolin’s lead character is so muted and the storytelling so secretive that it doesn’t hold my attention.
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I want to add some things to @Lordof1 's list (The Wire is my favorite show and the other 2 are great too):
American Crime Story Season 1, that was an amazing season. Didn’t like the second season anymore but every season is their own thing anyways.
Battlestar Galactia, especially the earlier seasons are top notch scifi. I liked the latter ones too, enjoyed the whole show a lot, but opinions differ about the end.
Band of Brothers, something I rewatch every other year… watch the show, read the book, in whatever way you do, you should know it 
It is one of the best shows about WWII.
Boardwalk Empire, a great show about the prohibition. Great actors, setting and production value.
Chernobyl, a very new show (just 2 years old I believe), but what a show… it is a mini series about Chernobyl and it is so amazing.
The Queen’s Gambit, another excellent mini series. You may already know that one.
MAID, another mini series on Netflix. Hard to watch, but for the right reasons. Based on an autobiography. Poor woman…
Unorthodox, a mini series about a woman escaping a community of orthodox jews from Brooklyn to Berlin, Germany. Based on a real life biography and really good.
The Honourable Woman, a mini series about a weapon dealer.
(Aurelio) Zen, a good detective show with 3 episodes each 90 minutes (like the modern Sherlock). It plays in Italy (beautiful places) with Rufus Sewell as the main part. Good actor.
Sherlock Season 1 &2, after that it gets worse and worse in my opinion. But it started as really interesting and modern detective show. Funny, creative, just a good watch.
Oz already mentioned by you
True Detective season 1, that was just wow, unfortunately they wanted to milk it. Didn’t work out that well. So only season 1.
Fargo season 1 and 2, season 1 floored me, I was very sceptical about season 2 but they kept the level of quality which was very impressive to me. Highly recommended! I didn’t get through season 3.
Person of Interest, it has an interesting premise (back when it came out, nowadays it may not seem that new anymore) but the first seasons are almost always case of the week (which is fine) and the show wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t recommend it here just for these seasons. Later they changed it to more and more to a procedural show. And I am really glad about it. The last seasons were really good.
The Americans if you like cold war spionage thriller. It is good, very tense too.
Homeland Season 1, I loved the cat and mouse feeling in that season. Afterwards…it lost me very quickly
The Expanse for another, more modern good Scifi Show. It is slow going but I liked the worldbuilding a lot. Well, it is based on a books series, so no surprises that part is good.
Outlander for a great history drama show with a little bit of scifi (time travel to set up the whole premise), but other than that it is mostly historical. Well done, also based on books and you notice that. It includes a lot of different elements… scifi, history, drama, (sexy) romance. I read the books first and was positively surprised by the adaption. That’s always good!
Deadwood if you like a great Western show.
Rome if you like Roman history (Caesar, Augustus, etc.). No need for more words.
This is Us, if you like feel good family drama. It just feels good to watch that one Last Epsiode of the show will come out tomorrow… time to say goodbye to that one, were some good years!
Friday Night Lights, the show which instilled in me some love for American football. Made me learn the rules and watch games. It is a drama show about a small and poor town in Texas which has nothing except their highschool football team. The show is about all the people in and around the team. Football is just the background, the relationships and everyday life’s problems are the core of the show. Just good to watch imo.
I also like Aaron Sorkin’s shows a lot. They are witty and funny shows with a pretty left and liberal message. And always with optimism. That’s my jam to be fair. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The West Wing and the latest one The Newsroom.
I skipped the whole comedy genre because that deserves its own list (and this list is already pretty long), but if anyone is interested, I would be more than willing to write one down 
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I only watched Season 1. It has great atmosphere, but that only gets you so far and I don’t think the story holds up in retrospect. Never bothered with season 2.
Whereas I have only seen Season 3 and liked it very much. Scheduling oddities and not being on the right stream service has prevented us from seeing the others.
I don’t have (well, make) much time for TV, but I’d be interested in lists of shows which are not only good from the get-go but which remain at least nearly as good as they began (if not better) all the way through to the end – and which end in a satisfactory way. If I’m going to invest that kind of time in something, I just want it to not end up being a let-down. The “leave them wanting more” principle seems to be applied relatively rarely in this field. (The “milk it until it’s bad” principle seems to me to be more popular).
If it’s an episodic formula with no overarching story, it doesn’t much matter if, say, only the first couple of series are any good (provided you know that in advance : ) but if they keep stringing you along for a supposed story and it all fizzles out or just becomes really dumb… I’m very happy to avoid those.
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All of the shows I mentioned (B5, Breaking Bad, The Wire) fit into this category… you could argue The Wire S5 is a slight dip in quality but it’s not much of a drop and it’s still fantastic.
I loved Fargo S1 but I must admit I found myself thinking ‘the film did all this too and much more succinctly’.
I watched Chernobyl and whilst I thought it was amazingly well done it was a little less accurate where the facts were involved (the radiation death toll was much less than shown here).
Better Call Saul I love but it’s a different beast to Breaking Bad. Less immediately satisfying but a wonderful slow burner.
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I am going to add a few series that I really enjoy, but I don’t know how easy they will be to find out:
-Luther: Idris Elba at his best. Short seasons of 6 or 4 episodes, each one an independent case. Doesn’t let you down.
-Big Little Lies. Only two seasons, the first one based on a novel from Liane Moriarty. Great characters and great performances from anybody involved. To a lesser degree Nine Perfect Strangers, also based on a Moriarty novel, is worth a watch too.
-I definitely jump on the wagon of classics like Breaking Bad, Sopranos or Rome, plus short high quality series like Band of Brothers, Queen’s Gambit and Chernobyl. I would add The Pacific, which does have a worse storyline than Band of Brothers, but I like how it goes deeper in the consequences for the three main characters.
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Yes I’ve seen all that - it got very weird at the end!
Yes I’ve just finished my 10th watch of it. @Chewy77 mentioned The Pacific which I’ve not enjoyed as much but I might give it another watch now
Another one I started and never managed to finish. This is going on the list!
Yes seen both of these. Loved Queen’s Gambit
These all sound interesting - I’ll take a look.
I really enjoyed 3. And 1&2 for that matter. Shame 4 doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere over her at the moment.
Yes I have looked at that - I’ll stick it on the list with your recommendation.
Lots of people have recommended this to me - trying to get my wife interested in watching it but think it is possible to hard sci-fi for her.
Both great series! I’d like to rewatch Deadwood but doesn’t seem to be streaming over here at the moment.
Love this show. I’m a big football fan (I even played at Uni, although British University Gridiron is a LOT different to the States…)
Similar - West Wing is one of my favourite shows. I never got around to the Newsroom - I heard it wasn’t as good.
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The Newsroom is liberal porn. I loved it! Also, if you’re an NFL fan, Olivia Munn is Aaron Rodgers’ ex. Full disclosure, The West Wing is one of my favourite ever tv shows.
If you want more US TV with billions of episodes, we’re rewatching ER currently and I still love it.
The Americans is really, really good. The best show that no one has heard of.
We started Friday Night Lights yesterday because of this thread, but our Fire Stick is not connecting properly at the moment and it kept freezing.
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Since you didn’t mention it in that list of the ones you’ve seen, the one I’d pounce on is Person of Interest. Absolutely brilliant. Goes amazing places later on.
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I didn’t think, season 3 was bad, I just stopped in the middle of it. Season 1 and 2 were better though imo, so you should watch them
It seems, we have a similar taste with a lot of these shows
The Newsroom may not be on par with The West Wing, but it is still just more of the same. West Wing was about a president, Studio 60 was about a late night comedy show (like Saturday Night Live) and Newsroom about a tv news show. The setting is different in every case but the content is basically always the same. A lot of liberal witty funny dialogues making you feel good in the end about contemporary problems or events (when the shows were written)
Compared to something like Battlestar Galactica which is kinda cute with its 70s sci-fi setting…yeah Expanse is very hard sci-fi 
I didn’t mention Pacific because while I liked it I also found it subpar in comparison with Band of Brothers.
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Yeah looks like it!!
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