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Underrated TV Shows.

Corner Gas. Everyone I know who I know discovered this show after its 6 year run has loved it. It's one of our Canadian jewels of broadcasting.
 
From this season: Running Wilde Not GREAT, but clever

On that subject, Arrested Development never got the incredible praise and ratings it deserved.

I think 30 Rock is the greatest thing since, well, Arrested, but there's a lot of people who seem to despise it for some reason, and it's never been a ratings darling.


AD got insane amount of praise, but never really the ratings. It was much more of an HBO show than a Fox show. HBO should have picked it up, I really don't know why they didn't.

I'm one of those 30 Rock haters. :lol:

I'm watching Farscape, I don't even think it gets enough praise from the sci-fi audience. It's really good, a lot better than Firefly which people talk about all the time.

And Veronica Mars is very underrated, more people should pick up season 1, and only season 1.
 
Stargate Universe
Dangerous alien worlds, aliens that weren't humanoid and didn't speak English, cosmic mysteries, what's not to love? Unfortunately, slow pace, unlikable characters, not being able to go all the way with cutting off ties to the past and too divergent from the franchise to satisfy the old guard.

Invasion
Eerie slow burn take on the body snatchers idea down in the swampy South (which looked great) where you could buy it happening. Emphasis on the slow, I think by the time they got to the nice payoff viewers had already moved on.

Surface
While perhaps not underrated as much as some shows, this was a fun ride in a Spielberg pastiche way that viewers apparently weren't ready to take. Giant sea creatures, Lake Bell in a bikini, c'mon! Averaged 9.3 million viewers but that only took it to 58th in the ratings at the time.
 
Invasion was definitely shaping up into something interesting when it got cancelled.

I don't see a lot of talk (around here at least) about the very clever and hilarious Curb Your Enthusiasm.
 
The 4400 tends to get overlooked as well . . . despite being consistently better than HEROES.
 
The 4400 tends to get overlooked as well . . . despite being consistently better than HEROES.

I see that enough that I need to check that out sometime. Though when it was airing I don't really remember any promotion or discussions. It's weird to see that it ran for four seasons.
 
The 4400 tends to get overlooked as well . . . despite being consistently better than HEROES.

I see that enough that I need to check that out sometime. Though when it was airing I don't really remember any promotion or discussions. It's weird to see that it ran for four seasons.


Well, it was on USA, which wasn't exactly known for its scifi programming. Which may be why it ended up flying under the radar a a bit.

And there might well have been a fifth season--if the writer's strike hadn't screwed things up.

Along the same lines, BLOOD TIES, a recent vampire detective show, tends to get overlooked because it aired on Lifetime of all places!
 
Does that mean the story wasn't resolved in the final season of 4400? I actually have the entire set sitting on my shelf from my GF's family. I dimly remember watching the first 1.5 seasons before getting bored and wandering away back when it was airing.
 
The 4400 ends on a somewhat ambiguous note. It works as an ending, but could have continued if USA had renewed the series.

And, of course, Dave Mack and I managed to get two more books out of the ending!


Another underrated show was THE GATES, which was unfairly dismissed as "DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES with vampires" before it even aired. It actually turned out to be a pretty good show--that, alas, ended up on a cliffhanger!
 
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AD got insane amount of praise, but never really the ratings.
I wouldn't have known that Arrested Development existed if people here didn't mention it. Same with Farscape. I got into it because someone on another board really liked it. If I weren't on the internet, I wouldn't have known about that either.
 
AD got insane amount of praise, but never really the ratings.
I wouldn't have known that Arrested Development existed if people here didn't mention it. Same with Farscape. I got into it because someone on another board really liked it. If I weren't on the internet, I wouldn't have known about that either.


You wouldn't happen to be the one fan of Lone Star that said they didn't air enough ads? :lol:

I saw plenty of ads saying AD was nominated or won awards, it got praise, but praise means nothing if no one is watching the show.

Praise is the only reason we got three seasons of the show. Fox was hoping that the awards would mean more viewers, but it didn't turn out that way.

Viewers talking about it is better than praise ever would be.
 
Enterprise
Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009: seasons 3-4 that is)
Caprica
Dollhouse
Pushing Daisies
Heroes
 
Well, it was on USA, which wasn't exactly known for its scifi programming. Which may be why it ended up flying under the radar a a bit.

And there might well have been a fifth season--if the writer's strike hadn't screwed things up.

Along the same lines, BLOOD TIES, a recent vampire detective show, tends to get overlooked because it aired on Lifetime of all places!

Another vote for Blood Ties from me. I quite enjoyed it.

4400 was worthwhile and I thought Jericho improved towards the end.
 
Firefly
Enterprise
V (2009)

the Bionic Woman remake had its problems, but it also had potential.
 
I liked Heroes Vol 2-3, call me nuts. I thought the first half of S3 ("Enemies", right?) was the best of the show.

That said, the last two volumes were pretty lame ;)
 
Well it's anecdotal, but on another talkforum somebody who was watching repeats of Voyager on Virgin 1 enjoyed "Dark Frontier" and posted that he/she felt genuinely angry at the disproportinate amount of nerd rage inflicted on Voyager (however he/she didn't like "Unimatrix Zero" that much and also liked DS9).
 
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