What is your favorite American TV show?

[Inspector]

Oh almost forgot. Vikings! It just started the last season. Gruesome and violent but keeps me riveted.

Pete

 

[Cheshirechappie]

It's going back a bit, but 'Dallas' was quite entertaining in it's time.

UK TV hit a high-water mark with 'All Creatures Great and Small', various Dave Allen series, and 'Yes Minister'. It's gone a bit downhill since then, with an honourable exception for 'Time Team'.

In fact, it became so poor I ditched the telly altogether getting on for a decade ago. By that time I was down to 'Dad's Army' repeats and the Six Nations rugby. Don't miss it one bit.

 

[D_W]

It's going back a bit, but 'Dallas' was quite entertaining in it's time.

My parents are children of the 40s (late 40s). I was a child of the 70s and 80s, which means dallas hit right as I was a young child. We had one "big" TV and watching anything else when dallas was on was a hopeless wish. It's the only show I remember as a kid where I wasn't allowed to talk when it was on.

 

[artie]

Can't wait for the next season of 'Better Call Saul', the best American show since 'Breaking Bad'. 'Mad Men' has to get a mention too...

Wasn't Better Call Saul a spin off from Breaking Bad?
I gave up on TV years ago, but I do binge watch some series on netflix or prime when they give me a free month.

Watching Damages with Glenn Close atm, which isn't bad although a tad overdone.
Could anyone be that sharp?

 

[Nigel Burden]

The Simpsons and South Park.

Nigel.

 

[D_W]

I like Star Trek to escape into so have watched all of them since I was a kid and still look forward to new ones like Picard, Star Trek Discovery and even the animated one from last year.

Prodigal Son is back for a second season in a couple days and that is a must watch, as was Hannibal from a few years ago. Nice and dark. Bates Motel was a very good one that was shot near where I used to live.

Always loved Who's Line Is It Anyway, both from your side of the pond and this side. The new ones are a scream too.

Pete

Before digital TV, it was a big deal to have a continuously running rerun/sydication (now there are 2 to 6 channels for every broadcast network here, so there's reruns of everything all the time. Star trek is one of the shows that seems to have always been in reruns at least somewhere. Seinfeld is the other that comes to mind that still plays somewhere. Fox (the network, not the news channel) didn't have enough of their own content to run current material all the time, so they used to run reruns from about 5-8 every night (always roseanne or seinfeld, and then roseanne sort of went out of style quickly as it was about a struggling family with one person in the trades and another working at a factory and then taking odd jobs. The whole country idealized urbanization after that and out went the shows about marginal folks unless they were fit and young).

But star trek has remained, and now the original is back on here. one of the .x channels (sub network channel) shows the original, TNG, and DS9 and voyager every night. Every single night......I didn't like TNG that much as a teenager, but somehow, it's a better show now than it was then.

 

[D_W]

Well Rosanne was a massively popular show in it's time over here. amazes me that Darleen's boyfriend still looks like he's 15, even in the big bang

I'm surprised it was popular there - it was popular here mostly because it wasn't either:
1) some idealized family with "oh golly ghee" kind of vanilla topics (like the cosby show - an attorney and obgyn living in a multimillion dollar brownstone type house...yeah, that's a typical relatable family).
2) someone who was poor and stupid.

I remember roseanne barr saying that it was tough to get a taker on the show in the first place as they wanted to have a show with fat poor people on it who weren't portrayed as being witless and stupid. Urban and suburban areas here tend not to like it (bad manners, etc), but the rural areas with manufacturing (which is where I grew up) could relate to the people in it, and how the kids and the parents talked to each other without saying "now little johnny, is that what we read in your manners book for bedtime story last night?". My sister tended to be about 1/2 becky and 1/2 darlene.

Roseanne pitched the show as the family being Jewish also (since she's Jewish) and the network execs weren't having it. Looking back at it now (now that she's been "me-tooed"), she managed to get the first same sex kiss on air, address pre-marital "relations" and the dynamics for kids, have a pair of gay friends who had their significant others' on TV, and then have her mom going the other way by the end of the series, and without completely losing a blue collar audience. It was extremely progressive.

(Also, nobody here was ever aware that not long before the show and Roseanne's popularity, she spent 3 years in state (mental) hospitals, committed).

 

[artie]

Queens gambit was a good show.

 

[Chisteve]

Mad men for me at the moment

 

[D_W]

Nobody ever watched the old Columbo TV specials?

 

[billw]

But star trek has remained, and now the original is back on here. one of the .x channels (sub network channel) shows the original, TNG, and DS9 and voyager every night. Every single night......I didn't like TNG that much as a teenager, but somehow, it's a better show now than it was then.

Absolutely loved ST in the TNG/DS9 era. Could easily watch them all over again. Haven't seen the newer ones (series I mean, not the films which are OK)

 

[billw]

My parents are children of the 40s (late 40s). I was a child of the 70s and 80s, which means dallas hit right as I was a young child. We had one "big" TV and watching anything else when dallas was on was a hopeless wish. It's the only show I remember as a kid where I wasn't allowed to talk when it was on.

It was definitely better than Dynasty!

 

[NormanB]

I watchEd every episode of Cheers at least twice - back in the day. Still watch an episode here and there if I stumble upon it, on one of the minor channels. Happy Days kept me amused too.

But I suppose I should mention New Yankee Workshop.

 

[John Brown]

I liked Roseanne.
Also, Frasier.
More recently, Curb your enthusiasm, Breaking Bad, Better call Saul, Mrs Maisel....
The Sopranos was a surprise to us, didn't expect much, but we really enjoyed it.

 

[sammy.se]

Cobra Kai is very witty. I love it.
It appeals to 80s nostalgia. Half the show is cringey young adult romance stuff, but the other half is the most hilarious script I've seen in ages about a guy who is essentially stuck in the 1980s trying to get his life back on track in modern days.

+1 for breaking bad, just excellent.
The XFiles, from a while back, and Mad Men

 

[glenfield2]

S ch itt’s Creek* (Netflix) is our latest favourite - just watching it through for a second time. (If you haven’t tried it, Episode 1 is bad - typical shouty American humour - but it just gets steadily better.)
Manages to be funny and heartwarming - and not violent, a requirement of the boss.
*spelt like this to avoid auto-censoring of naughty word!

 

[Doug B]

The one I remember most was Mr Ed, me & my brother used to chuckle at that.

 

[Cordy]

CNN News

They have a strong dislike of their president

 

[kinverkid]

I am missing Last Man on Earth. Seriously creative comedy.

 

[Derek Cohen (Perth Oz)]

M*A*S*H will always be #1
McGyver stirred the imagination of a young tinkerer
Magnum PI was a fun escape
Seinfeld helped one recognise that that we were all just as hopeless as one another.
Fawlty Towers - I could never watch for more than 10 minutes at a time as it was so intensely cringeworthy. One of the best ever.

Regards from Perth

Derek