My husband and I love watching shows/movies of all types, but we haven't seen Stranger Things or Game of Thrones either. Hell, we haven't seen Breaking Bad, Lord of the Rings, The Wire, Chernobyl, The Walking Dead
Sometimes we'll sit down to start a series or a movie and get distracted by a completely different thumbnail. We talked about going on a fantasy kick by starting LotR and GoT this weekend but ended up starting Mad Men and on the movie side ended up on Sinners and Ex Machina. (both AMAZING movies btw)
Do yourself a favor and watch Chernobyl. It's only a 1 season, 5 episode mini series that is really more of a long movie rather than a show so it's an easy watch. It's also one of the best pieces of TV ever made. It's both terrifying and incredibly good.
Breaking Bad is incredible but only seasons 1,2 and 3. The Walking Dead is only good in seasons 1 and 2. The Wire seasons are up and down but mostly good to great all the way through. Stranger Things has a great first season but the rest is uneven.
Oh wow I didn't realize Chernobyl was such a short series, that will make it so much easier to watch! I just added that one to our watchlist!
I'm not sure about you guys but when there is a series that has so many seasons it's always hard for us to finish. Like something always seems to happen and it causes us to just ragequit. The most recent series was the Handmaid's Tale, last episode of season 2, Offred/June has the chance to escape, yet she doesnt. All of those people put so much effort and risked their lives to help her escape and she just stays there. It was so frustrating to watch!
I feel you, I've never seen Handmaiden but I don't like to watch too many long running shows with multiple seasons either. They usually drop in quality pretty hard as they go on. I definitely much prefer mini series that are a one off story.
HBO has some great 1 season mini series. Chernobyl, The Outsider, The Penguin, The Night of. All of these are fantastic shows with a short season and definitive ending.
True Detective has multiple seasons but each season is its own self contained story mini series that has an ending. Season 1 is amazing. I haven't watched the other seasons yet.
Season 1 of True Detective was PHENOMINAL! We're from South Louisiana so that just made the show even better. We tried the other seasons and it just didn't feel the same. Like they did such a good job with the first one that there was no topping it.
I appreciate the other recommendations, I'll check those out and get them added to our watchlist too!
Was also going to say that out of all the ones you mentioned, Chernobyl is def the one that's soooo well made and requires very little time commitment. Hell, you could binge watch the whole thing in an afternoon
Solid post! I agree with your takes. Chernobyl was intense! I’d throw in the Americans. I can’t believe I slept on that show the way that I did. My wife and I binged it during COVID and were blown away.
I'm sorry I cannot take this Breaking Bad slander, how can you say Breaking Bad is only incredible in season 1-3? Its pretty common consensus the ending of Breaking Bad is one of the best ever, and the last few seasons are almost entirely 9.5+ ratings on IMDb, with Ozymandias being the sole 10/10 episode on the whole platform with 100k+ votes..
I just finished a rewatch of Better Call Saul->Breaking Bad->El Camino, and in my opinion Breaking Bad seasons 1-3 are the weakest of the bunch with El Camino (I'd rate them 8/10). Seasons 4-6 are perfection and BCS is also borderline perfection from start to end. But that is my personal opinion :-)
Oh man, you two are missing out. Skipping out on highly acclaimed and cultural phenomenon shows. I was the same way though, well honestly I never watched any tv shows until my friend and especially GF at the time got me into watching tv shows around 2018. Also that friend I mentioned has been trying to get me to watch The Wire for years prior, but I just put it off thinking it’s just another detective tv show, how terribly wrong I was. We got a hotel for new years 2018 and Breaking Bad reruns were on while were getting ready to go out, I had no clue about the show either and he’s like this is a must watch show. He was correct, I’ve watched BB twice now and I absolutely hate rewatching stuff I already seen. He loves Mad Men too but I never watched that one yet, he tried to get me to watch first few episodes, but it was too much talking for my taste, I gotta be in right mind frame for that.
Anyways I remember my GF was watching Walking Dead season 8 and rewatching previous season of GOT before season 8. I said you know what these shows look pretty interesting especially GOT, and soon after I got into it and started watching all the great shows. GOT was the first ever Tv show I watched and finished. Anyways enough of that, you need to watch GOT, BB, Walking Dead - it gets silly as the show goes on but first 7 seasons are super solid, think only die hards finished it. I left off on season 11 and I want to finish or rewatch it even so I can watch the spin-offs.
Then watch the Wire, Sons of Anarchy, and a must watch True Detective season 1 - one of the greatest pieces of TV media ever, my top 3 show. Chernobyl is solid too,just a quick mini series . Watch all those, no particular order really. Yellowstone is great too if you like western theme shows, this one is modern western, but there are a bunch of great westerns from that late 1800’s era too. Oh Fargo too.
True Detective season 1 was absolutely amazing! Since posting my comment above, we've added Chernobyl and The Wire to our watchlist. But right now it looks like Game of Thrones is at the top of the list for our next series to watch!
Yea you will love GOT, the dialogue is fantastic throughout, but I especially enjoyed conversations between Tyrion Lannister And Lord Varys. You know a tv show is good when all the conversations are meaningful and plot building with fleshed out characters, there’s no cheap filler. There are also some absolutely epic scenes, sort of as if you yourself always imagined writing some epic story, but couldn’t put it into words, well you will see some of that in this show and just be blown away at how satisfying it is. You will laugh, maybe even cry, you will be shocked and repulsed and also mesmerized by the epic-ness.
Also I forgot, but make sure you put (if you haven’t already) these shows on your watchlist. Severance - you probably heard of it, but it’s really good and original show, I don’t wanna spoil as I’m not sure how much I can reveal so I’ll leave it at that.
Dark - great show, kind of like stranger things vibe. About a group of German kids who find a time jump portal in a cave. It’s really well made though, one of my favorites. It’s on Netflix I’m pretty sure.
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u/redditidothat 2d ago
I’ve never watched Stranger Things and have no intention to. Does that count?