Shows and TV

Years and Years. A miniseries, but fantastic, and I never see people talking about it.

Kevin Can Go Fuck Himself. It's a basic family sitcom, laugh track and all, but only when the husband character Kevin is on the screen. Any other time there's a drastic shift in tone to dark and serious, and the wife character trying to figure how to kill Kevin.

• Dollhouse
• Skins
• Being Human UK
• Misfits
• Wonderfalls

+1 to others recommendations for Dirk Gently and Pushing Daisies

The Newsroom on HBO, 2012-2015. Jeff Daniels. It's about a TV cable news show trying to stick to integrity and real news while losing market share to FOX and CNN. Many, many story lines about the Republican news anchor warning Republicans about the Tea Party and the Koch brothers. If watched in 2012-15, it would all seem dramatic hyperbole but the show warned about far , far worse things to come. This is pre Alex Jones and Donald Trump.

The Day of the Jackal.

It's a captivating thriller about an assassin. It's one of the best shows I've seen in a long time

https://www.justwatch.com/uk/tv-series/the-day-of-the-jackal

I haven’t seen it in awhile but I remember the british show Detectorists being surprisingly sweet/moving (I don’t usually enjoy dramas)

12 Monkeys, the show. Really deep dives into the nuances of time travel. Clearly had an excellent science advisor. Not the biggest budget or greatest script/acting but the writers really puts in the work for sci fi fans (The 100 style).

Danger 5. It's an Australian tv show that had two seasons. It's a surreal, screwball comedy about a ragtag team whose mission every episode is to kill Hitler.

If you want to see a TV show that has Nazis, dinosaurs, cigarette commercials, and a talking bald Eagle, then this is your show.

I can't recommend "Better Off Ted" enough to people looking for something smart and witty.

Idk if it's "lesser known" exactly but it's a comfort show that I can have on in the background at all times: Psych.

It's got a specific pacing and humor that tickles my brain just right. They will let some of the funniest jokes you have ever heard just fly right by if you aren't paying attention.

Not super complicated or deep thinking. Just cheesy fun.

Better off Ted.

I've been really loving the British show Taskmaster.

Basically you take a bunch of comedians and have them perform various inane tasks. Some of my favourites are:drive this barge down a canal and spear 5 rubber dinghies with a lance attached to the barge. Fastest wins. Or draw the rainbow with the correct colours. In the dark. There's often some tricks in these tasks and watching the contestants figure out their own way to solve the task is the best part of the show.

Pushing Daisies: Brian Fuller ran show from the mid aughts. Lee Pace plays a man who can bring the dead back to life if he touches them provided he never touches them again. He is a pie maker that helps a friend out with his detective agency. His bff from childhood and eventual love interest was the little girl who lived next door he touched her once to bring her back...

Moonlighting- This isn't that obscure. It's a show about a former supermodel played by Cybill Sheppard who is facing economic disaster as her managers stole all her money. The only thing she has left is a detective agency ran by David Addison a rabble rouser and ner do well played by Bruce Willis. It's a procedural detective show with some incredible talent on screen. It finally hot streaming a few years back.

I have a bad radar for what is "Well known" so we'll see how this goes...

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was weird, wonderful, and deeply touching. Great performance from Elijah Wood.

Maniac is by the director of True Detective, and its a fucking surreal (literal) drug trip of a show that earns a high spot on the "Holy shit, Jonah Hill is a great actor?!" list.

SAS: Rogue Heroes is a bonkers fun historical drama that feels like a Guy Ritchie movie, and yet is somehow often understating the insanity of the real events. By the creators of Peaky Blinders.

Too Old To Die Young is a collaboration between legendary director Nicholas Winding Refn (Driver, Only God Forgives, Neon Demon, Valhalla Rising) and legendary comics writer Ed Brubaker (Daredevil, Captain America, Sleeper, Criminal). You either have no idea why you should give a fuck about that, or you desperately need to go change your pants right now and are seriously worried that the erection is going to last more than four hours. If you're the latter person, yes, it's everything you're hoping; unbelievably slow paced, weird, dark, contemplative, surreal, and brutally violent. This is NWR in full bore "They gave me too much budget and too much runtime and by God I intend to abuse the fuck out of both" mode. Watch it while high.

The good place

The day of the jackal

Not sure if Black Sails is not well known. The fact that Patriot ended after 2 seasons makes me think it's not well known since it was a truly great show.

EDIT: Patriot ends fine. You can see where it could have continued but where it stops isn't an issue

Lexx is just ... great. yeah that's the word.

Wonderfalls

If you ever take the opportunity to watch these 13 episodes, be sure to read the "planned episodes" section afterwards to see how cursed the world is for Fox not having learned their lesson with having cancelled Firefly too soon.

A 20-something Niagara Falls souvenir-shop worker finds her life is changed forever when inanimate animal figures - toys, cartoon images etc. - begin talking to her. Their cryptic messages set into motion a chain of events that invariably lead her into the lives of others.

The Night Shift (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A6turvaktin), an Icelandic sitcom about the staff of a service station - at least at first. It’s pretty deadpan like the Office or I’m Alan Partridge, and their situation just gets more dire and funnier as the series progress. It got a UK DVD release thanks to the BBC, and I just learned there is a movie too.

Scavenger's Reign

Common Side Effects (still airing)

Dark Matter (SciFi show with similar storytelling to Firefly IMO)

Poker Face

Twisted Metal (especially if you played the games)

Shut Eye

Black Spot (original title: Zone Blanche)
It's about a village in a rural wooded area in France that has a tight-knit isolated community, no cell phone coverage, and 6x the national average murder rate.

Jericho (2006) is a post-apocalyptic drama about a town sheltered from a nuclear catastrophe in the US. Shows it's age in a few spots but still a great watch.

Been enjoying Resident Alien recently.

Rubicon (2010), it's a proper spy thriller based on intelligence analysts as opposed to field agents.

Unfortunately it got canned early, but I loved the story and writing, I have a feeling the show was a little too close to home, but that's a whole other conspiracy theory...

Mr. Inbetween

Tremé

eta:
The Corner (predecessor to The Wire (not prequel))