Need some TV Series on Netflix recommendations

[Retrodude]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I really, really enjoy The Good Wife. It's an intriguing combination of courtroom drama and political soap opera with character-driven plotlines and a dash of humor thrown in for good measure. You wouldn't think anyone could do a better legal show than David E. Kelly (The Practice is my favorite of his and in fact, I'm in the middle of rewatching that one), but week after week, The Good Wife does it.

[Gamerforlife]

Not that we didn't like OUaT, rather we weren't hooked - we can usually get 3-4 episodes of a show done in 2 nights. We want to be hooked by the 3rd night, we want to be "excited" to get the kids down and crawl in bed for our show. We will def. get back to it at some point.

I don't mind a show having a formula, but for sure, if there is a seasonal underlying theme, the show is much better. We really enjoy Bones and enjoyed Monk, but both shows were even better when they were putting time into a major seasonal arc, beyond relationships, ie, finding Trudy's killer or the Gravedigger Killer, it seems that both shows got away from those bigger arcs and stuck with "killer of the week" too often, which was good, but could have been great.

We did start Supernatural, it was right after we finished Smallville though and it's always tough to get into a show after watching 100+ episodes of a different show. We both didn't care for Jensen Ackles, he has that "good looking, over-actor" thing going. This might be fixed going forward - we like the 3 episodes we saw, but found ourselves cringing a bit at his scenes. We get this a lot though. We fought off watching Buffy for 3 years after the series had completely ended, largely because we found SMG so damned annoying as an actress in "I know what you did last summer", we just couldn't fathom enjoying a show with her in it. Lo and behold, we dove in and hated her...3 episodes later...we were hooked and by series end, while he didn't care for her as an actress in other things, the truth was she played that character very well and loved her as Buffy...and nothing else.

Jensen Ackle's character has always been a little cheesy. I think it's intentional. He's like a big kid in a lot of ways, and as the show goes on you realize more and more that he's sort of a closet geek. His brother is kind of a nerd. It's sort of funny because they seem kind of like these jock like dudes, but they have so many nerdy and geeky moments over the course of the series and usually make fun of each other for those very reasons.

Once Upon a Time is definitely worth going back to whenever you guys feel the urge. A lot of what happens in season 1 is sort of setting things up for a pretty amazing season 2, which is still currently airing.

On a somewhat related note, I don't know if you have any interest in comic books. Buffy and Angel's story has continued on in comic book form for the past few years. Joss Whedon, the creator of both shows, is heavily involved with them. So it's like an official continuation of their stories. Some big name writers from both the world of TV and comic books have contributed to a lot of the stories as well(including writers from Lost and Once Upon a Time and the Buffy TV show). Should you have the interest, you can check these out:

Buffy season 8 - There are some great moments in this season, though the main plot resolves itself in a rather disappointing way that upset so many fans that Joss actually apologized


Fray - This story is about a slayer from the future, and eventually dovetails into the events of season 8


After the fall is Angel's unofficial sixth season. It's written by Brian Lynch, who was hand picked by Joss Whedon, and it's based off of the ideas that Joss had for the TV show if it hadn't been cancelled after season 5. You can stop reading after volume 4 as everything after that is done without Joss Whedon's involvement and most of it isn't written by Brian Lynch either. From that point on, a lot of the stories are uneven in quality. There were a few good issues I could recommend though if you're interested, including two written about Drusilla by the actual actress who played her on the TV show(Juliette Landau)


Right now, we're in the midst of Buffy season 9


And I saved the best for last, the Angel & Faith series that is currently going on and coinciding with Buffy season 9. I can't stress enough how AWESOME the Angel & Faith series has been and what a fantastic duo they make. It makes me wish I could actually watch these stories on TV with Eliza Dushku and David Boreanez reprising their roles as Faith and Angel(but he's too busy doing Bones now). A lot of fans, myself included, feel like this series is currently outshining Buffy's 9th season.


One more thing you can check out if you're interested is this fantastic, hefty, hard cover collection of stories about many of Buffy's slayer predecessors, one story involving Buffy herself, and some cool vampire tales as well. I have this in my collection and it's the size of a big, school textbook, and even includes a classy red bookmark.


Just thought it would interest you to know that the Buffy franchise is still very much alive and well.

[J T]

I just realized there is no mention of True Blood. That show is awesome.

[indecks]

I just realized there is no mention of True Blood. That show is awesome.

It was ok for the first season. Season 2 wasn't bad, but when they introduced the wolves, and the fucking wereCATS.. good lord it just got stupid. And don't get me started on the stupid witch lady that would not die.

And now Billith? bah hahaha.

Oh and as far as I know, True Blood isn't on Netflix, since it's an HBO show.

[indecks]

They never really resolved the peterless universe concept. Sure, Olivia regained the memories of the old Olivia, but what about everyone else? They more or less erased 2 years of the whole show and never brought it back. I guess that's a personal annoyance more than a plot hole. Why did Walter have to bring the kid to the future? It was established that the kid wasn't actually a kid multiple times, and there were several times where he actually guided the other characters, so the idea that he needed Walter to hold his hand to go to the future was silly. Also, the time travel inoculation didn't seem to actually be necessary. The plot line of the "man who kills olivia" never got picked back up. The idea of walter disappearing from the timeline was also left in a very vague state. Does Peter remember him? Does anyone? Did he simply cease to exist or vanish at a certain point? Peter disappearing at the end of season 3 lead to a completely different world forming, shouldn't Walter disappearing do the same? Would they really be at that same park? Would Peter and Olivia even be together?

Peterless Universe:
They did explain it. The Observers tried to remove Peter from both universes and removed him from the timeline to fix the whole universal collapse thing. When he bridged the universes, he'd 'served his purpose' as it were. But Olivia's emotional bond with him, as well as Walters was too strong. That's why he was able to come back. Even September/Donald said it was pretty strange.

Olivia's Memories:
You pretty much nailed it. They actually DID retcon the previous 3 years. Since Peter was gone, all of the events still happened, only without Peter. Granted, some of this ends up contradicting the show, I wont argue there. (if there was no Peter, there was no reason for Walter to go into the AU and cause deterioration etc). But that's the way it was presented. The 'third' universe that was presented was the Prime Universe, just... rewritten because of Peter's removal from the equation. They kind of explained a little more in that episode with the town, and the townspeople merging with other selves, etc.

Walter and Michael/Walter disappearing
If anything, I viewed it as a final true redemption for Walter Bishop. He caused a lot of destruction, and if he sacrificed himself to take Michael into the future, and 'disappeared' from that point on, he would be righting many of his wrongs by helping prevent the Observers' creation. They also referenced the white lily, which was a big deal to Walter and being forgiven. As for the disappearance, it was a little unclear to me as well but I think what they were saying was they're resetting the timeline... so everything that happened between 2015 and 2036 becomes moot. So they're 'cutting away' a certain length of time, and it's as if Walter just disappeared one day in 2015. Walter even plays a VHS tape for Peter, as a 'letter' stating that he got a letter (back in 2015) and he called Walter about it but couldn't find him, it was as if he had vanished. So no, Walter's disappearance wasn't like Peter's. He just up and disappeared one day. I guess time was 'correcting itself' so instead of Walter leaving our timeline in 2036, it was 'adjusted' and he left in 2015 with Michael. Then, Olivia and Peter were at the park, in that same scene they'd been showing throughout the season with a young Etta. The Observers didn't attack on that day, so the day went on as normal. Except at some point throughout the day, Walter went into the future and 'disappeared.'

Man who killed Olivia:
I honestly don't remember too much about this plot thread. Was it her step father, or something? I thought I remembered something about an animated episode where she killed him in her mind, or something like that. I could be mistaken. But maybe it wasn't all that important so they sorta left it unresolved. Not sure about this one.

As far as stuff like the Time Travel inoculation... I don't have a solid explanation for that, admittedly but if you think about it, a lot of stuff the Observers did made no sense. Their tech looked like old fashioned phones, binoculars, etc but they were very advanced. They'd apparently mastered time and travel through it, but still had to use beacons to find their way, and so on. I think it was just a 'its sci fi, chillax' type thing with them and their tech and ways they did things, lol.

[Gamerforlife]

I just realized there is no mention of True Blood. That show is awesome.

It was ok for the first season. Season 2 wasn't bad, but when they introduced the wolves, and the fucking wereCATS.. good lord it just got stupid. And don't get me started on the stupid witch lady that would not die.

And now Billith? bah hahaha.

Oh and as far as I know, True Blood isn't on Netflix, since it's an HBO show.

I saw the first two episodes of season 1 and thought it was one of the stupidest shows I'd ever seen. When I want vampires, I watch Buffy, Angel, or Supernatural. No other show is ever going to do them better in my opinion

Supernatural had a whole episode making fun of Twilight as they tracked down some REAL vampires

[marurun]

We fought off watching Buffy for 3 years after the series had completely ended, largely because we found SMG so damned annoying as an actress in "I know what you did last summer", we just couldn't fathom enjoying a show with her in it.

This is exactly why my wife and I have been avoiding Buffy, despite being told by others we respect that it is fantastic.

[Jrecee]

I'm sure your answer to walter's disappearance could work. The show played it pretty fast and loose with any actual sci-fi, it tended towards the fantasy side. My problem is they didn't provide those answers. I'd be willing to take any answer they gave as what happened, the problem I had was that they didn't provide any answer. They just went with the vague "it's up to the viewer to figure out the rest" which I don't find satisfying for a show that set up so many mysteries that I believe they would have answered had the show run for another couple seasons.

The man who would kill olivia was from the animated episode. Her saying "he's the guy who kills me" was the final line of the episode, making it a dramatic cliffhanger. The way they sent the show in season 4 surely could have changed the future of that situation, but it was still clearly set up as something to be resolved that never was. Again, they could have explored that with more time.

And I'm not willing to say that just because the show got cut shorter than expected that it's not the writers faults. Because instead of heading into season 5 with a plan to resolve and explain everything, they just started up a brand new story line about an invasion, which besides not feeling very fringe-like, wasn't really necessary and contained a lot of fluff (a scavenger hunt for video tapes?).

[Retrodude]

This is exactly why my wife and I have been avoiding Buffy, despite being told by others we respect that it is fantastic.

The first two seasons are fantastic. Season three was such a huge letdown after the epic finale of season two that I quit watching after that (not hard since the season three finale works as an ending to the series).

[Jrecee]

And to be clear, unlike Heroes, I would still suggest that anyone who likes Fringe watch it til the end. Even with the finale problems, which are going to happen in any show, it still remains entertaining throughout.

Heroes turns into a turd.