Derry Girls
Dag - a Norwegian show about a couples councilor that believes people should be alone.
Pingu
Resident Alien
That was a good one! Got a little weird at the end, but they wrapped it up well.
I’ve been rewatching Community recently and it definitely fits the bill. It has incredibly good writing.
But more than that, Community gives me the impression that is has an infinite budget. Not a ridiculously big budget like some shows and movies do… an infinite budget. The difference being that they don’t waste a cent. There isn’t a single thing on screen that doesn’t serve a purpose. No ridiculous effect or expensive crane shot added in just to flaunt their budget. But if an episode’s script actually called for a particular shot to be done, they would move heaven and earth to make that happen. That’s what it feels like.
In my head I compare it to having unlimited vacation days at work. Case studies have shown that workers take fewer vacation days when they can take as many as they want, compared to when they have a set number per year. So in the analogy, a show with a set ludicrously high budget will use every last cent of it even for pointless frill, whereas a (hypothetical) show with an unlimited budget would only use however much money is necessary to create the show. Somehow, Community became that show. … It probably has to do with how frequently they actually went way over budget in practice.
I fucking love Community.
Absolutely no comedy series comes close to being as in depth and well thought out as community was. Community is actually art for the ages.
Dan Harmon has said the producer did this magic for him. He would often telling Dan that, no, they were over budget when they weren’t, so he could then say yes to the best ideas, actors/cameos, etc.
I’m a huge superfan. My ringtone is Professor Professorson’s.
They spent all their money on overdubbing lines.
The Good Place. It starts off deceptively shallow but by the end it became one of my favorite shows of all time.
Dark. The constant time travel makes it hard to keep track of what’s going on a lot of the time but if you can manage, it’s very rewarding. Great character development. Not the best ending, but good enough.
Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad have some poorly written characters but the well-written ones are very well-written.
I didn’t include any shows based on books because I felt that would go against the scope of your question.
+1 for Good Place. That show is phenomenal.
In reverse chronological order:
- The Good Place.
- The Sopranos
- Seinfeld (maybe not the character depth, but the writing)
- Shogun (6-episode miniseries, does that count?)
- The original Bob Newhart show, the one with Suzanne Pleshette.
Bojack Horseman
- Mister Roger’s Neighborhood
- Twin Peaks
- Frasier
- Futurama
- The Wire
- NCIS S1 to like S5
- Fringe
- Peaky Blinders
- Orphan Black
- The Good Place
- Severance
- Fringe but only to the two or third season
Firefly.
Andor
Agreed.
There’s several examples of >2min speeches that hit super hard: Luthen’s “I need all the heros I can get”, Karis’ “random acts of rebellion”, the “one way out” speech, Mon Mothma’s final speech.
There’s huge character growth and complexity for most of the main characters. Although I guess Syril never had much character growth, but that was kinda the point of his obsessive character. And they really showed how the rebellion grew from basically nothing
So good.
Can’t believe Ted Lasso hasn’t been mentioned
House. I remember fuckall from the past 40 years of watching tv but that one show is etched in the feels.
King of the Hill
Star Trek: Deep space nine
Kira: From hot headed terrorist to level headed leader
Nog: petty criminal to first of his kind in Starfleet
Yessss! Garak wound up being my favorite character at the end!
Including his lies?
Especially his lies.
especially his homoerotic relations with Julian
Don’t forget O’brien who start as an engineer and become the most important personne in starfleet
I love how in Lower Decks, Garak is married to a Holo-Bashir
Edit: Changed Holi to Holo, though the idea of a Desi Bashier…
Babylon 5 too.
Came to say this.
