this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
726 points (97.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

40217 readers
1805 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world


7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I haven't been watching much in terms of actual shows for a good while, then while listening to a podcast a host casually mentioned they had rewatched Chernobyl, how it still holds up, that there's a reason it got as much acclaim as it did, etc. So I thought I'd give it a go and wow, loved it (still one episode left to watch).

Had me thinking, what else have I missed out on? What are some "absolute cinema" TV shows that still hold up and and are considered must watch?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world -1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

TV Shows

Must Watch

  • Breaking Bad
  • Better Call Saul
  • Chernobyl
  • Peaky Blinders
  • Dinosaurs

Highly Rated (With Caveats)

  • The Wire: A timeless masterpiece, but the extremely slow pace requires pushing through the first season.
  • Band of Brothers: Excellent, but historically did Captain Sobel dirty—he wasn't like that.
  • Primal: Extremely good, but the story ends at Season 2. Season 3 is an unnecessary overextension.

Good Shows (Minor Caveats)

  • Narcos: Enjoyable until Escobar (the star) is captured, then it loses its appeal.
  • Pablo Escobar, The Drug Lord (El Patrón del Mal): Less dramatic but more accurate and highly enjoyable than Narcos.
  • Dune: Prophecy & House of the Dragon: Good overall, but heavily woke. They take too many liberties and squander their superior source materials.

Great for Uniqueness, Story, or Style (Major Caveats)

  • Game of Thrones (Seasons 1-4): The absolute best TV ever made. It doesn't top Breaking Bad only because the later seasons are absolute garbage.
  • The Sopranos: Great episodic show, but slow. The overarching story wasn't the main focus; six seasons could have been condensed into three.

Shows That Don't Live Up to Their Name

  • Dark: Starts great, but convoluted rules in Season 2 and Deus ex machina plot devices in Season 3 ruin it.
  • Shōgun (2024): Unremarkable. Unfaithful to the source material due to wokeness, specifically erasing Blackthorne's protagonism because he's white.
  • The Expanse: A convoluted, messy dumpster fire.
  • Westworld: A convoluted, messy dumpster fire.
  • Euphoria: Hot Gen Z garbage.
  • A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: Pure hype with no justification to exist. Spends 7 episodes on Dunk, an absolute loser and terrible fighter.

Anime

Must Watch

  • Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Sousou no Frieren): A beautiful, clean, family-safe show with no fan service. The appeal is the whole package.

Good Shows (Minor Caveats)

  • Noragami: Beautiful, but not a masterpiece; sequels dip in quality.
  • Psycho-Pass: Genuinely good Minority Report-style premise. Season 1 is amazing.
  • Mob Psycho 100: Good comedy, but relies on repetitive tropes after Season 2.
  • One Punch Man: Extremely funny great premise, but the quality drop after Season 1 shouldn't have happened.
  • Dragon Ball / Dragon Ball Z: Legendary but too long (Kai is the shorter alternative).

Great for Uniqueness, Story, or Style (Major Caveats)

  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Very unique. The writer projected his mental issues onto a weird cast, the protagonist is a loser, and it has no proper ending.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: Good, but overhyped. Suffers from forced humor, quality drops near the end, and a predictable "happily ever after."
  • Fullmetal Alchemist (2003): Much darker, serious, and extremely good, but the animation is garbage.
  • Tokyo Ghoul: Only good until Season 2 before major quality dips.

Shows That Don't Live Up to Their Name

  • Death Note: A bad show imo. The premise is amazing but the characters are so obnoxious that i dropped it
[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

wokeness,

I thought you had some interesting insights until I saw you list "wokeness" as a caveat.

Then I saw how you rated one of the greatest Sci-Fi shows of all time, The Expanse, and knew I could discard everything you said.

[–] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

You are free to think whatever you like

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

SEASON 6 of expanse was wierd, and i dint like the "stargate-esque ending.

sandman, why gender swap lucifer, it has always been male, even in other lore. as far as angels go when they posses other humans, they can raceswap/genderswap all theyw ant. its not faithful to source material, there are several others. it would be wierd to do it to Mazikeen to.

neon genesis, is all over the place. rebuild bring some of closure. wish they made the angels have better fights though.

nobody mentioned invincible: season 1 was great, but season 2 and on, has been subpar due to degrading animation of the show. you dont have to hire every FAMOUS celebrity to VA the show, which likely took all the budget of the show. there are VAs for a reason. some of the VA do not match the characters they are playing at all.

[–] pleiades@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I strongly disagree with these takes on Death Note, FMAB, and Evangelion, especially considering the fact that the endings of all three were great (counting EoE as the ending for Evangelion, since that was basically its purpose.) What do you mean the premise of Death Note is unbelievable? It's not trying to be realistic whatsoever; it's like if I said Harry Potter has an unbelievable premise because magic isn't real. Seasons 5 and 6 of GoT are great too, the last couple episodes of 6 are the best in the show imo (I said this in another comment)

[–] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Evangelion has three endings, and I didn't like any of them. They're all abstract, symbolic, and open to interpretation rather than proper conclusions.

Game of Thrones is excellent through Season 4, and Season 5 is still good, even if it's already slower.

From Season 6 onward, it falls off hard. The Season 6 finale isn't bad, but I don't think it's a masterpiece. It wipes out years of complex storylines in one move just to simplify the plot, and that approach defines Seasons 7 and 8. By then, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss had already decided to end the show earlier than HBO wanted, despite the network being willing to keep it going.

I have high standards for TV, and Game of Thrones never came close to fulfilling the potential of its early seasons.

[–] pleiades@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They’re all abstract, symbolic, and open to interpretation rather than proper conclusions.

This is kind of the point, isn't it? It asks the viewer to consider interesting questions, e.g. loving yourself and others despite the certainty of pain in life. It's fair to say that it's abstract and not for everyone, but it's far from a bad or improper ending.

I can see the case for season 6 of GoT having worse plotlines than the prior seasons, but the direction and cinematography of those last two episodes were phenomenal, and more than enough to counter any issues with the plot. It's some of the most excited I've ever felt watching a TV show, even if the plot wasn't as good. I'm not going to defend season 7 and 8, those were at the quality of marvel movies

[–] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I see you're unhindered by overall bad production, which is fine, you dont have to hate anything you watch really.

Im otherwise very bothered by sloppy production and writing.

Evangelion endings are a waste of time and energy imo, i consider the show fo have no ending and still enjoy it that way

[–] pleiades@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

Sure the show didn't have the best production for the ending, but the production of EoE was amazing. It was well written, well animated, well paced, and resolved the plots in a satisfying way. I guess that any discussion beyond this is purely a matter of personal opinion, so idk what else to say

[–] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Ignore the death note comment. I fed my main points into Gemini Pro and it hallucinated that.

I fixed it now, take a look

[–] pleiades@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Dawg, you did not need to use AI just to make that comment lol. I'm not sure what exactly was obnoxious about the characters of Death Note? I guess they're dramatic, but that's part of the fun of the show. Also, Westworld (Season 1, I've only seen that) was amazing, with a very satisfying conclusion, interesting philosophical questions, and good plot twists

[–] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I have no PC. You wouldn't dare to write and format that on a phone, it'd take an hour or more.

If you can't see the fake intellectuality and garbage dialogue from that show as bad, okay, one can really like any show if their weakest points aren't a bothering factor for me.

I dont like those though, i like state of the art writing and production, and in the anime world Sosou no Frieren is an example: I simply saw no flaw in the show and where it does drop in quality it is negligible, absolutely staying way above garbage-level shows.

That's what makes a masterpiece, not that it's dlawless, but that it is crafted with much care everywhere, and it's consistent. Shows nowadays have quality fluctuate a lot. Doesn't ruin shows but the wider and frequent the variance the harder it is for the producers to keep it all together

[–] pleiades@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago

There is no "fake intellectuality and garbage dialogue" at all imo. It's just a game of cat and mouse where two people are trying to trick and one up each other, and it's not really trying to be anything other than that. Frieren has a higher production quality and better art, but it came out over a decade later so that's kind of a given. In terms of how well the stories are made, I'd give that to Death Note easily. Frieren has a very good story, but no anime besides Steins;Gate or Code Geass had me wanting to see what happens next like Death Note. I guess it just depends on how much you like thrillers/suspense?