You know this is a good thread precisely because there are times I feel like I should hunker down and watch one of the 'big' name TV titles, something I've actually done a lot of this year. It's nice to get people's senses on whether say
The X Files is worth it (hey, something something episode written by Vince Gilligan with an appearance by Bryan Cranston something something David Chase considered writing on this show etc.).
The only one on my original list I feel I must get round to seeing one day is Twin Peaks, which I've heard mixed things about. Mind you, that seems par for course for poor old Lynch
Twin Peaks is all over the place. Frankly most of the soap opera stuff bored me to tears, there's whole chunks of the better-regarded first season I don't care for. What works in the show is when it gets really weird and Lynchian (dream sequences especially) and some but not all of the characters (Agent Cooper especially). And while the first season had a lot of really tiresome soap opera nonsense sandwiched between some wonderful slabs of weirdness, season two got really dire, really fast... and yet also has some of the best things to happen in the series run, including a season finale that has to be one of the creepiest mindfuckiest things to ever air on American network television.
It's arguably worth watching in its entirety at least once if you're a fan of David Lynch, but other than that I can't recommend it that highly.
What's the deal with Seinfeld? I like the idea of a comedy show about nothing, but the few episodes of the show I have seen haven't even managed to elicit a chuckle out of me. I don't understand why it's so universally praised. Same goes for Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Totally seconding this. Seen a couple of episodes of both and didn't care for either. Since Seinfeld is much better known and regarded in the US than it is here, I've always had a sneaking suspicion that maybe it's some kind of cultural barrier... but then it's not like I haven't known people who are huge Curb fans (and even Seinfeld fans, but they tend to be Curb fans who discovered Seinfeld through Curb than grew up watching Seinfeld).
It's extremely smug, and it has a litany of problems, but damn if I don't love it anyway. It actually reminds me a lot of Star Trek; smug, pretentious, and melodramatic, but with great characters, some great stories, some really thought-provoking episodes, and a genuine warmth to it.
That's a pretty solid defence. I remember Wil Wheaton of all people comparing Gene Roddenberry and Aaron Sorkin in one of his TNG reviews, in their mixture of earnest liberal politics that could get more than a little didactic.
For some reason, I've never seen The Sopranos. I should probably pick up the DVDs from the library, since they're out of my price range to buy at the moment.
The
Sopranos was the first full length HBO series I watched. It kind of spurred me to watch a dozen more (and now I keep up with a fair few HBO dramas as part of my TV diet -
Game of Thrones,
Boardwalk Empire,
Treme...). But even ignoring all that it was just a fantastic TV show in its own right and honestly there wasn't a season of the
Sopranos I didn't enjoy the hell out of. I'd say checking out the first season or just the Pilot episode is a good sense of testing the waters to see if you'd enjoy it as the
Sopranos is one of those shows that was great from the get-go.
If you like Walton Goggins there's a lot to like in The Shield. I mean, he's a scuzzy slimeball but what a scuzzy slimeball!
Sounds good to me. I know him basically entirely from
Justified, but he's one of the best things about what is a very, very good show.
) Draw your own conclusions. 
).
