After 5 months have finally finished Breaking Bad and rather good it was too.
So the question is what next?
I’ve got the first 3 series of Mad Men,the first 2 series of The Wire and the first series of Treme.
All have been bought cheap (i.e charity shops and boot sales) and none have been looked at yet.
Which way to go people?
Your recommendations are welcomed.
Finished Breaking Bad – Now What?
6 seasons of Justified await you. IMHO even better than BB
What is Justified on?
A strange planet called KentuckyBourbon. They do things differently there.
Better Call Saul.
Don’t bother with Treme unless you enjoy being bored to sleep. Other opinions, etc.
Daredevil, mind. That’s a good show. Park preconceptions and prepare for a beautifully acted, written and shot drama.
Is Daredevil a Netflix series?
Yeah, and it’s chuffing ace.
I’ll second the Daredevil recommendation.
Forget the duff movie this is a (slight) super hero take on the Wire and its great.
It’s on Netflix and I can’t wait for the companion show Jessica Jones to start in October.
Yeah, Better Call Saul too, absolutely. It’s great.
Mad Men is a seductive, addictive work of art, ideal for binge-watching. There are also some fabulous blogs devoted to the show which provide great insight and further enhanced my enjoyment of it.
Get a life possibly?!? ☺
can really recommend “Sons of Anarchy”, “Boardwalk Empire” was pretty good and I thoroughly enjoyed “Penny Dreadful” even if no one else I know did.
oooh oooh i’m enjoying Penny Dreadful. We got as far as episode 8 of season 2 and then the feckers took it off ‘On Demand’…
i’ve since, er, located the missing episodes, but it’s good fun alright!
With all their resources, I can only imagine the wealth of top-notch drama series that the BBC have treated us to recently.
Yes, it is rather telling that the Beebs ouevre is usually notably absent whenever this subject is raised.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was recently rather Brilliant BBC show.
BBC shows tend not to appear in these lists because people like discovering and binge watching 5 or 6 seasons of some show that’s gone unnoticed by mainstream TV. So this tends to rule out the short runs of UK TV.
oh dear…
Oh dear what ?
….can the matter be?
Mad Men. Masterpiece.
Unmissable….
The Wire
West Wing
Deadwood
Battlestar Galactica
Bubbling under…
Mad Men
Boardwalk Empire
Friday Night Lights
Late to the party on Breaking Bad. In all honesty I’ve struggled a bit so far (halfway through the first series) but I’ve been instructed to stand firm as things pick up considerably. Fair?
Re: Breaking Bad
Stand firm, Dadwardo, and your mind will be comprehensively blown.
Yes stick with it.
Well worth it.
I’ve just finished the 1st series. The first half of the series was good, the second half of the series made you realise why you needed to stick with it.
So advised. I’ve had to ‘stay the course’ a couple of times before – most notably with the Wire, with two unsuccessful attempts before finally summiting. Totally worth it.
House of Cards I enjoyed, largely for the 2 leads.
My recommendation here is the same as it always is: the original series of Edgar Reitz’s “Heimat” from 1984 (11 episodes running a total of 15 hours). The story of life in a German village from 1919 to 1982. Brilliantly written, directed and acted, and profoundly moving. An unqualified masterpiece – it will stand.
Boston Legal.
It never ceases to amaze me how little known this wonderful series is here in the UK. It’s honestly one of the very best that I’ve ever seen, and bares repeat viewing . Splendid acting all round (the core being William Shatner and James Spader). It somehow manages to perfectly blend comedy, satire, complex human relationships and gripping legal drama all in one. All five series are superb and it’s doesn’t flag at all. The kind of top quality comedy drama that the Americans do so well.
True Detective last year was excellent and series 2 is just starting to get going although a little bit derivative.
Line Of Duty
Wolf Hall
The Fall…yes the ending of series 2 was rubbish
Four , all available via Netfilx
Better Call Saul
Gotham (just love the penguin in this)
House of Cards
Daredevil
Enjoy!
Grace and Frankie.
It’s very light, and won’t win anyone’s nomination for greatest TV show ever, but it has an absolutely stellar cast (Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, ‘im from Newsroom), some extremely able support (notably June Diane Raphael) and a nice vibe to it. Well worth a look.
Failing that: Bloodlines is pretty good too.
The BBC (and ITV) fare badly in the box set stakes mostly because they regard 6 episodes as a series, and two series as quite enough thank you (mostly, there are exceptions). That is along weekend, not a binge.
Anyway I add Person of Interest to the pile. And not just because of Amy Acker. Quite a bit but not just.
Just finished watching the third series of this and whilst at times it is ridiculous and unbelievable it is gripping and hugely enjoyable. It has come on a long way from the first few episodes. I’m not a fan of programmes that just have a weekly storyline that is concluded within each episode. POI seemed to be heading that way after the first few episodes but had evolved into a fascinating series
And yes Amy Acker is outstanding in every sense!!
BBC’s White Queen was good, and usually overlooked in threads like this.
The BBC is usually overlooked in threads like this. For good reason.
Nothing to do with the limited number of episodes. It’s a matter of quality, or lack of it in their case.
I can honestly say that I tend to deliberately not watch the BBC. The exception was the excellent Wolf Hall. The rest is largely cheaply produced dreck and talents shows. ( I especially can’t abide their slanted news coverage. It seems impossible to get unbiased and impartial news coverage anywhere- either it’s the BBC’s Guardianista sermons by rote (step up Channel 4), or Sky (nearly, but not always quite as bad) or Owen feckin’ Jones or Galloway spouting off on RT).
yawn
You’ve made me yawn now as well with your engrossing comment.
Bully for you.
It is indeed bully for me, or hopefully will be, when I and many others don’t have to pay for your viewing pleasures. It’s quite simple, but BBC lovers, like most Lefties, are not overly fond of reasonable justifiable opinion opposed to theirs. Self funded ? Pay per view ? I have no problem at all with that, but I have no time for the massive financial in house bureaucratic bollox or ludicrous salaries to the likes of Chris Evans just so I can see someone bake a cake or exotic insects fucking on BBC2, and unfortunately there’s even less of that these days as well. As for the dramas you mention ? Good for you. Seriously, but the nation shouldn’t have to fund the right to watch any television courtesy of the BBC’s protection racket… I mean licence fee.
By the way, I’m not saying you’re a Lefty. I don’t care either way as I’m neither, and I’m sure you don’t care either, which is fair enough off course.
Disagree. The contribution of the BBC to whatever you might define as British culture has been immense. It’s the only institution with the word ‘British’ in the title that I would fight to keep.
Okay, thanks. Some very glib, lazy generalizations in there, but you put them across well.
He meant well, though, don’t you think ?
Some acute, well thought out observations there.
As ever, sarcasm rather than argument when someone disagrees with you. Want to try being pleasant for once?
What’s to argue with when some prat merely responds with ‘yawn’ and ‘bully for you’? Not much meat there.
Prat? How old are you exactly, ianess? Says much about your facile arguments when all you can muster are petty, personal insults. Keyboard warrior of the worst sort.
‘Facile arguments….petty, personal insults….keyboard warrior’ – all this from someone whose earliest contributions to the thead were ‘yawn’, ‘bully for you’, ‘oh dear’, ‘glib, lazy generalisations’ and, from later posts – ‘obsessive’, ‘bitter’, ‘clearly superior highbrow mind’, ‘bizarre logic’.
Speaks volumes about you that you’re the one then complaining about ‘insults’.
Sorry ianess, that simply doesn’t wash. You can clearly string a few words together, so you’re no chump, but plucking words from my posts and comparing them to the straight upfront ‘prat’ that you directed at me is frankly ridiculous. We’re starting to see your true colours, it seems.
Partners In Crime
Wolf Hall
Sherlock
The Fall
The Game
The Interceptor
Norrell/Strange
Peaky Blinders
Happy Valley
Luther
The Village
Top Of The Lake
Last Tango in Halifax
The Outcast
Line Of Duty
The Missing
To name a few. ianess, yet again, you hilariously miss the point. These dramas might not appeal to your clearly superior, highbrow mind, but they are massively appreciated by huge swathes of the British public. No British broadcaster is producing drama on the scale or budget of the various US series cited here, and if the BBC coughed up the megabucks needed to bring them to you, the same people berating them for NOT having such landmark programmes, would attack the corporation for wasting licence-payers’ money.
BBC Comedy could do a lot worse than collate your posts on this site and have Stewart Lee read them aloud. Chortle Award winning TV.
Well it would be good for Lee to perform some well-written material.
‘Hilariously’? The BBC does a sterling job of wasting money already. It would make a change to channel some of it into quality drama. The UK has excellent actors, writers and producers, so why are the BBC not producing high-quality series?
Was ‘The Game’ the sub-sub-Le Carre spy series? Watched it. Waste of some good talent. Woeful.
Which is an opinion. Just that.
Mmm. Crime drama would appear to be something of a theme. Fine if you like that sort of thing, but not much in the way of range. A crime drama that resembled the reality would in itself be something of a novelty. Too dull, prosaic and in liable to veer into dangerous social comment maybe ?
You’re upset by ‘prat’? Give me strength. As you’ve repeatedly shown in this thread and , as I’ve detailed, you’re more than happy to insult and belittle other posters, but react with the usual confected outrage when this is pointed out.
Oh, I’m devastated, obviously.
Nopity-nope. I can’t let these remarks go uncommented. Like what I said on that there other thread, if you didn’t watch BBC last year you missed Marvellous , A Poet In New York , Castles In The Sky, Missing, Murdered By My Boyfriend, Happy Valley, The Detectorists, Episodes and The Trip to Italy. And that’s a shame.
And there are some more, thank you Gary.
Host of shows there of varying quality, including a couple of comedies, none of which set the internet ablaze, as was obvious from the lack of mentions they received until I posted my comment and alerted the usual (yawn) apologists.
Why do they have to “set the internet ablaze”? Is that the current yardstick of success? What’s happened to plain old great reviews and decent audience numbers? And I’m no BBC-apologist. What does that even mean?? Sure, you’ve ‘alerted’ me, but only so I can continue to counter your obsessive and, it has to be said, bitter opinions towards the BBC.
‘Obsessive..bitter’? Oh yes, I’m clearly mentally ill. Apart from MOTD, ‘The Week in Politics and some BBC4 documentaries, I can sincerely say that is about all I watch on the BBC. It’s a matter of regret that it’s set itself up as a competitor to ITV. It occupies the most infinitesmal part of my thoughts.
‘Internet ablaze’ was a reference to the series like ‘Mad Men’, “BB’ etc which, by virtue of their quality, excite a great deal of comment and cause their viewers to recommend them in threads like this.
No ‘apologist’? Not the impression you’ve given.
So just having contrary opinion to yours makes someone an ‘apologist’? What bizarre logic.
You must excuse him, he’s choking on bile as usual.
‘Choking on bile as usual’? Want to try being pleasant for once?
You first.
Merely pointing out the contradictory nature of your posts. On the one hand, giving it the old hippy, flower power bullshit, then attacking me directly shortly after.
Could I, on behalf of all peace loving members, ask the two of you to take the love fest somewhere else before we get all Moddy on you?
Thanks muchly
I’m no apologist for the BBC. I have no comment to offer regarding the obligatory license fee. I don’t live in the country and I watch programmes via filmon.tv. I pay a license fee in Italy for the state channels I literally never watch and sure as hell resent that. i just think the BBC produces some real quality programmes is all I’m saying. Maybe not to your taste, but last year I had more hours of appreciated entertainment from them than I got from American telly and probably more than I got from the film industry.
It’s a matter of taste, isn’t it?
Ianess doesn’t like the BBC’s output. No amount of shouting “Wolf Hall” at him is going to change that.
And he makes a fair point that, on a thread about which TV shows to watch next, precisely nobody was suggesting BBC content. The Americans do this stuff better, plain and simple – you don’t have to hate the BBC to acknowledge it.
I don’t acknowledge it though. I far prefer the British style. I didn’t particularly like Breaking Bad, have tried and failed to get into The Wire and Mad Men. Give me Happy Valley any day. As you say, a matter of taste.
Exactly. You’re quite entitled to your (incorrect) view. In fact, your incorrectness is what gives you your charm.
I didn’t like Breaking Bad either, by the way. We happy few…
Hold on. The reason that America seems to do this better is because of the sheer fucking volume of television produced.
Let’s take a look. With my current Cable package I can get shows on (and I’m picking from top of head) CBS/ABC/NBC/CW/Fox/TNT/USA/FX/HBO/Showtime/BBCAmerica (who co produce stuff)/TBS/USA/AMC
There are others. Out of all the stuff they produce, you get – or remember – the top drawer stuff. The strike rate for them can’t be much better than the BBC I would imagine. For every Sopranos there’s a Carnivale (which I liked, although apparently noone else did). For every Breaking Bad there’s the execrable The Killing remake; for every Justified, there’s a Terriers (again, I liked it but I was part of a really small demographic)
PBS over here, and BBC America showcase a lot of the ‘better’ British TV shows. I think I might look at many of you and tell you that familiarity is breeding contempt
Strike rate or no strike rate, have a look at the contents of this thread before ianess made his point about the BBC and count how many US vs British TV shows were being recommended.
Oh, and I liked the Killing remake better than the original.
But that’s cos it’s a ‘Breaking Bad, what next?’ thread. Had it been a ‘Happy Valley, what next?’ thread it’d have been more British, n’est pas?
With you on The Killing.
Possibly.
But I’d guess it’s far more likely that people simply responded with their favourite/most recently enjoyed shows.
Or as was mentioned above, the UK tends not to produce “long arc” shows such as end up as box sets.
Yeah, The Detectorists. That was a brilliant programme. Very moving I thought.
Better Caul Saul is the obvious answer, and it is ace. At the risk of being a bore about this, if you do have Netflix and can acquire for y’self a U.S. I.P. you might enjoy Rectify. This scene is a neat summation of tone and theme: Daniel (the white guy) is in a coma and Imagining this conversation with Kerwin, his friend from death row, who has already been executed:
If you prefer action, I’d agree that Justified and Daredevil are terrific.
Dis anyone catch the first 2 episodes of Aquarius last night on Sky Atlantic? Based loosely around the Manson family, it might appeal?? I meant to but forgot, but no doubt on catch up.
Yes, Retro, I did.
Tosh.
For no reason at all:
The average cost of a Breaking Bad or Mad Men episode was approx $3 million
Possibly BBC’s most expensive series, Doctor Who usually costs around $2 million per episode.
Netflix own series meanwhile like House Of Cards or Orange Is The New Black come in about $4 million per episode, and according to some sources exceed that quite often.
BBC annual income is almost $9bn. Better to use that money on Bake Off, Strictly, Voice, Celebrity whatever, I suppose than on well-written, breakthrough drama.
They do make well-written drama. ‘Breakthrough’ is a matter of opinion, obviously. But they also have to find a slice for Bake Off, Strictly and this Celebrity whatever you speak of. Something for everyone, remember?
Sons of Anarchy
Better Call Saul
House of Cards
SoA especially is tremendous stuff. All three are, to be fair.
I’m half way through Season 3 of Fringe (5 in all). It started off as a bit of an X-Files rip-off but has evolved into something way more interesting. I have series one of True Detective to look forward to next and, having loved the last series of Spiral on tv, I’m seeking out previous ones on the cheap.
Oh yes.
All five seasons are excellent, and they kept reinventing the show in very clever ways all the time.
I bought all five DVDs and watching them again was even better. Walter is one of my very favourite characters ever!
Spiral has been a tremendous series from the off. Great characters, superbly acted, suspenseful plots and deeply cynical insight into the French judicial and political elite. Highly recommended.
And shown over here on the ….ahem, BBC. Yet another reason to scrap it. DUH!!!
The Good Wife is one of the best shows around.
Would also recommend Mad Men, The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Top of the Lake (more a mini-series, but wonderful nonetheless), House of Cards.
Sons of Anarchy is OTT, but entertaining.
IT’S ABOUT HAVING IT FOISTED ON YOU LEGALLY FINANCIALLY WHETHER OR NOT YOU AGREE. WATCH DIFFERENT CHANNELS ? FUCK THAT. THEY OWN YOUR RIGHT TO WATCH.
(the caps lock thingy ? Useful at last )
Is this about the Waterboys at Glastonbury? 🙂
If you argue with Rob he will show you the whole of the moon.
For me it comes down to how I would feel if the BBC didn’t exist, and I think I would feel worse. So I have no problem with paying for it, or even being “forced” to.
The BBC costs twelve pounds a month. That’s three pounds a week.
I consider that a bit of a bargain.
Radio Three and Four are worth paying such a paltry sum for alone.
You’ve been diddled. Everyone else is paying £2.80. 40p a day. Per household.
Wouldn’t surprise me @chris
A penny bun always ends up costing me a shilling.
Here’s 4 I really, really liked
Friday Night Lights
The Legacy
True Detective – series 1 only (gave up baffled after 2 episodes of series 2)
Californication – extremely rude but wonderful
Nashville – it is a bit of a soap but I love it anyway
In other news
Treme was only OK
Better Call Saul isn’t as good as I’d hoped
Episode 2 TD s2 lost me too; thanks, as I can now scrub the rest from i-player
Can anyone tell me what time HBO are showing the Proms? Or how was their coverage of Wimbledon ? Or what is their next Book at Bedtime? Or the band on their next live session? Or when the local news for Sussex is on? Or how their coverage of Parliament is going?
A dose of HBO-style excessive swearing, sex and violence would liven-up that lot nicely though. I’d like to see that.
Damn – a good argument about the BBC and I missed it
Just talking about British drama – overall it seems to me that it is in thrall to the box set craze and is trying too hard to replicate it – and even if they aren’t it feels like it to me (always happy to assume a contrary position dictated by my own logic). You can just see the discussion between the channel head and the Drama commissioner – ‘We need Netflix or Amazon on board!!’
Apart from Wolf Hall (simply superb) and Downton Abbey (high quality well-written family drama) it just comes across as second rate.
Give some examples!
Ah, good point – can’t really as I tend to not watch it….Ok, The Fall? (ludicrous and spun-out) Broadchurch Series 2 (nice cinematography but terrible plot). Now then – Doctor Who – never has there been something that looks so poured over to be this fantastic statement of what the channel is – the music itself gives away the smugness involved.
Ah, then there was the politically correct madness of The Crimson Field – WWI re-imagined.
Now I have seen good things about Luther and Peaky Blinders – so should try, and as I acknowledge, this maybe just be ill-informed prejudice on my part.
Oh & whilst I’m here – has anyone mentioned Bloodlines on Netflix? Fantastic
Hooray! I mentioned Bloodlines above – it’s ace.
I’m enjoying Bloodlines too, even though the flashbacks/forwards are a bit confusing.
Plus forgot to mention:
Cordon
The Affair, which I thought was quite superb.
The way some people on here defend the BBC is similar to the way that football fans defend their club.
Surely you mean how some football clubs defend?
I am all for continuity, but you could have written that list 40-50 years ago.
I’m guessing that’s a reply to me (apologies if not) but so what?
It doesn’t demonstrate much in the way of innovation in return for a budget of squillions a year. For sure, there is no need to drop the good in favour of the new, but I still think it is telling that there is nothing on your list that has been added in the last half a century.
I concede that my view that the return is poor in terms of the overall expenditure it is only my opinion and it doesn’t mean I am right. But I remain unpersuaded as to why the BBC, almost uniquely, should be funded through a regressive tax.