I was lukewarm about Netflix's The haunting of Hill House miniseries, mainly because it's a totally different story only tangentially related to the book. But I felt the need to watch something Halloween-ish and I've been enjoying it.

You have to be up for grim family tragedies involving PTSD, suicide, and addiction, however.

On the up side, it has Timothy Hutton.

Have we talked about Atlanta? Mostly I just don't know what it is.

Atlanta the city is great. They have a mayor named Lance Bottoms.

If you've not watched Killing Eve, you really should. It's very very good, and quite unlike anything else.

Work and life events have been so stressful I find I don't even have the patience for a 40-45 minute show, especially when it's "Prestige TV" so I've been going through Trailer Park Boys and started binge watching Bob's Burgers.

Seconding 4, watched it a couple of months ago, it's great.

I find Bob's Burgers a bit annoying at times, but I have caught myself walking down the street singing "She does her BM in the p.m."

I can't handle Bob's Burgers at all.

Jane the Virgin is fun, I'm finally finding. Telenovela-inspired but in a self-aware way; mostly female and non-white cast; helps you follow the convoluted plot with narration and explanatory captions.

Jane the Virgin really is great. And so pleasant, not stressful in the least.

Very late to this, but I started watching The Good Place a few weeks ago and binged it all in a few days. Also unlike anything else.

This Is Us has a lot of serious problems, but it is exactly an escapist family drama that isn't too stressful. There are some of shows that I realize I think are bad that I hate watch, or wish I could disengage from watching. TIU has a lot that's bad about it, and some that's good, but I haven't at all considered stopping watching it, because it's basically soothing and pleasurable even when it isn't consistently delivering quality.

Haven't seen the new season yet, but I really liked the first season of Glow, which seems like it might be a good fit for you.

Speaking of Hutton, the A & E Nero Wolfe is just about the best thing ever.

Yes, most of the problems in Jane the Virgin are due to good people coming into conflict with each other for understandable reasons, and where it's not, it's campy crimelord stories.

11. I also came to The Good Place late. It's a great binge-watching show, because the episodes are 20 minutes long and feel like 10, and the storyline is fairly simple but constantly surprising. Also, it's very lighthearted and not stressful, which is a top requirement for tv for me these days.

Also, could someone recommend a mystery tv show for me? Basically I want to only watch Foyle's War or something exactly like it, forever. Cozy, but not too cozy, with a charismatic lead actor who doesn't talk too much, points for being set before 1950. So far I've tried and rejected Broadchurch (too serious), Midsomer (too cozy), Miss Fisher and Grantchester (annoying leads), Inspector Lewis (eh). I really enjoyed the campy Bill Nighy Agatha Christie miniseries on Amazon.

The Good Place and Red Oaks are both great.

16 sounds perfect. I'll give it a watch.

17: Have you tried Endeavour? Set in the 60s, as a prequel to Morse.

I hadn't heard of that. Thanks.

20: I'll try it. Thanks!

19: Awesome! It goes in interestingly unexpected places, so it's best to avoid spoilers, at least until you finish the first season.

17 meet 14. Also, the George Gently series is decent. It wants to be a 60s Northern Foyle's war and almost is.

14: But what if I hated the Nero Wolfe character in the books, is that going to be a problem?

re: 17

First series of Broadchurch is really good, but yeah, it's not a light chocolate box watch. Great lead performances, though, from all of the main actors.

3 people already beat me to recommending The Good Place. It seems like everyone I know who's even vaguely intellectual is watching it.

We're watching The Marvelous Ms. Maisel off and on. The first three episodes were great, the fourth was painful (not in a triggering sense, just in the sense of cringe comedy like on a sitcom, which was very different from the first three), but I'm pretty sure we're still going to finish the show.

If you're into superhero stuff, Daredevil season 3 is getting good reviews. Only one episode in so far personally.

25: Very possibly, but I'd still give it an episode.

Also, could someone recommend a mystery tv show for me?

The first two seasons of Death In Paradise were solidly decent. A bit predictable, but satisfying comfort TV.

27.last I don't like superhero movies or comics but one of my go to mindless TV shows is The Flash.

I'm watching The Good Place with Jammies! It is a lot of fun. I think we just finished Season 1.

I liked Marvelous Mrs. Maisel because I can watch mid-century clothes and furniture forever, but mostly I just want to watch her actually be funny and deliver one-liners and do stand-up sets. I didn't care about the storyline so much.

Jane the Virgin sounds like something I should check out.

(I know This Is Us checks all my boxes in theory, but I have a deep suspicion that I'd hate them all, and not in the fun way like hating the Bluths.)

I really should try to watch that show.

In the chill family/relationship drama category, I vote for Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, Gilmore Girls, and Hart of Dixie. I live in 2004 but it's cool.

I've also heard good things about The Sopranos, but I never got around to watching it

35: The first show mentioned that I've watched (a few seasons anyway). It was pretty good, but not relaxing.

Seconding Glow. I also like Red Oaks.
Juana Ines was really good, Las Chicas del Cable also.

I liked the first season of Legion, but it's fantasy with superpowers. Nice cinematography and music.
Casual and Mindy are both OK.

I have a longer thing half-written about Glow, I will try to finish it.

Take Two is definitely a guilty pleasure. Seems like a clone of Castle except (a) the genders are reversed (in Take Two the male lead is played by an actor I've never heard of, and the character is a no-nonsense badass detective, paired with a ditzy woman with a show business background who somehow makes herself useful to crime-fighting despite that, played by a moderately famous actress; in Castle it was the reverse) and (b) the main characters' romantic relationship progress can be measured in episodes rather than seasons.

37.2 I liked the first season of Legion too, the second season was stylish but very meh.

I found This is Us saccharine, all but the adopted son's storyline and acting.

Maisel was good.

Wow, I watch a lot of TV. There's a fair amount of Bresson available streaming as well.

Oh, Shameless!!

The Fargo TV show is surprisingly good.

I can't find The Rockford Files on Netflix anymore, so I am having trouble with my plan to dress like Rockford.

I liked Fargo, but I disliked the mysterious, aphoristic villain who showed up late in season 2.

I guess I meant season 1 - Billy Bob Thornton's character.

I've mentioned before Mystery Road and Keeping Faith. Difference of opinion in our house about whether the male lead in L'Accident was too ugly.

we watched the first installment/episode/whatever of romanoffs a couple of weeks ago despite near universal bad reviews and we all loved it. it was kind of odd the extent of the chasm between the reviews and our reaction. ??? i watch next to no tv in general. in short, not much help here!

I second the recommendations for Endeavor and Fargo.

I don't know how easy it is to find via conventional routes, but I recently binged an Australian show called Mr. In Between and really liked it. It is not actually much like Killing Eve, and yet Killing Eve is the closest thing I can think of.

My Netflix "continue watching" queue is like a mile of shows I've started and given up on. And recently I've been doing a lot of:

- go to Netflix
- dick around for half an hour trying to find something to watch
- give up

There's a very professorial British guy talking about WWI (mostly) on Netflix. I've been watching a lot of him.

I liked all but the finale of Keeping Faith, when it suffered from the common British television drama ran-out-of-time-for-a-good-ending syndrome. The tendency of drama series here to be absolutely riveting until the last episode leaves you screaming, "WHAT!? That's IT!?" is a really annoying thing.

49: I think BBC have 2 or 3 channels devoted exclusively to that.

This is all the same guy.

If the Rockford Files were on UK Netflix, I would watch the shit out of that.

Are you sure you can tell British war historians apart?

I've been watching less TV lately, but Cassandane has been watching Midsomer Murders a lot lately. Police procedural set in a fictional picturesque English town. Episodes are too long for the OP's request but it seems to fit otherwise, and on Netflix it's easy to pause an episode and return to it later.

For a couple weeks I thought it was a 90s period piece until I read a bit more of the description one day and found that, no, the bad special effects and fashion wasn't a directorial choice, it's a more-or-less accurate reflection of when it was actually filmed. And it wasn't until just today that I found that the series is still ongoing. I wonder what it will look like when Cassandane catches up to the present day.

54: They only all sound alike.

55: I haven't gotten far enough into the new episodes to be used to Not-Troy.

Midsomer Murders has special effects?

2: I started watching Atlanta a few days ago. I'm at the fourth episode and still wondering if the parts that don't seem like comedy are just jokes that haven't had their payoff yet.

oh! remembered that we have watched all of w1a and are now working out way through the prequel re the olympics, i think the guys enjoy it in an uncomplicated way whereas for me i'm always saying things like "yes that meeting was hilarious except that was a hyper realistic depiction of the crap that happens at work all the time and it makes me kind of anxious actually" so as they say ymmv. siobhan's "i'm listening you're just saying the wrong words" has become a family trope. it is occasionally jarring to realize that the main actor in both series is known better to i suppose every other person on the planet that would recognize him for his role in the historical soap opera downtown abbey.

Top of the Lake is excellent. Jane Campion.

The thing I like about Midsomer Murders is how Little Englander it is. It was just lily fucking white for like ten seasons until the creator said something vaguely racist, so now every episode has like two characters of color who do not differ from their neighbors in any way. Every single character in any episode of Midsomer ever voted Leave.

I have no idea if you would like it Heebie, but my wife and I keep pecking away at Call the Midwife and really liking it. British nurses and nuns in postwar gritty London neighborhood, everybody cheery and positive in that postwar way. Social lives of nurses interspersed with touching things because BABIES BEING BORN ALL THE TIME! Maybe a bit overacted in parts but great writing and I like it. I like romcoms too so sue me.

On the subject of TV I really, really like but that may not be to heebie's taste as defined in the OP, let me add Succession and Barry--both on HBO--to the list. Both are among my very favorite shows of the last year.

58: Not like computer effects, but the genitals in the nude scenes are prosthetics.

On the subject of genitals, Big Mouth is pretty hilarious, if a bit one-note.

The full weight of "90s period piece" as a concept just hit me. Too soon millennials, to soon.

67: The second season of "Slow Burn".

I don't even know what that is.

Hopefully, just hour after hour of people going through airport security while drinking water and wearing shoes.

If you're into sci-fi, The Expanse is also a lot of fun. A volatile crew of misfits forced together on a small spaceship (think Firefly or Cowboy Bebop) are coincidentally present during most of the major events in an interplanetary war/first-contact scenario; they're do-gooders who want to do the right thing, consequences be damned (reinforced by their spaceship being named after Don Quixote's ship), and have to live with the political fallout and their conflicting consciences. Pretty good special effects for a syfy show.

67: If anything, it's surprising that it took so long to figure it out. The Wedding Singer came out in 1998.

Every single character in any episode of Midsomer ever voted Leave.

Especially apposite given that they're all living off exports to US TV markets.

Seconding the recommendation of Fargo.

I tried to watch Midsomer, and aside from its excessive cosiness, I was turned off by how hideous it was. It's like the costumes, the sets, even the actors were chosen for maximum awfulness. I'm surprised to learn it was filmed in the 1990s. It looks like a bargain bin Benny Hill corner of the 70s.

Seconding The Expanse and thirding Fargo.

We've just gotten hooked by Ozark. Requires a lot of suspension of disbelief almost every episode, but I like many of the actors (Bateman and Laura Linney are the leads) and for some reason it is oddly comforting to watch a family's life be as continually fucked up as the overall state of today's world.

75: Benny Hill had less incest.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was watchable for a while, but her character is ultimately an amoral sociopath.

Based on Kostko's rec, we just started The Sinner, which I'm liking well enough to keep watching even though it's about violent murder, for which my patience is limited.

The Detectorists and Borderline are thoroughly delightful in different ways.

When do you all watch TV? I am looking for exact timestamps, to the second if possible.

My favorite mindless show is Legends of Tomorrow, which had a dreadful serious first season, and then two excellent silly seasons. It takes the whole first season (which you can safely skip) to settle into the premise of the show: they are running around fixing the problems they caused from their solution to their previous set of problems.

A light-hearted take on the "woman cop-male partner" genre is Lucifer, where the male partner is the actual Devil. The show is aware how ridiculous the premise is, and leans into it.

(reinforced by their spaceship being named after Don Quixote's ship)

Was that Don Quixote's spaceship, or a seagoing vessel?

I have a longer thing half-written about Glow, I will try to finish it.

I definitely already love GLOW. (Is the 2nd season out yet?)

When do you all watch TV? I am looking for exact timestamps, to the second if possible.

Friday night after Jammies goes to hockey and I curl up in bed with my ipad.

82: I meant horse, which is a mammal that functions like a ship in many ways. (To be clear, there are important differences; please check the relevant reference material for details before making any important decisions.)

Look, you can't expect me to keep two nouns in my head at once.

83: Yup!

I moved back to Canada and one of my favourite things is having US politics being optional instead of mandatory. I got really bad anxiety from being an undocumented immigrant in the US (for a week) and didn't leave the house. Which was an over-reaction sure, but it's also so so so nice to not to worry about visas, and NAFTA, and border crossings, and documentation checks, and health care, and camps and my rights being removed. Just the background anxiety of being a non-citizen was getting worse and worse. And I'm a white, middle class, well educated woman so I had it easier than so many (but maybe that's why I was so anxious, because I'm not used to it).

My husband has submitted for residency here which seemed pretty easy to do (although we're in the easiest category) and he's already gotten his work permit.

I also joke that me leaving the US is like breaking up with a boyfriend because you just didn't suit and then he turns into a mass murderer. A jarring switch - I wanted to be all mildly sad and thinking fondly, and now I'm like good riddance.

Bah! Wrong thread, sorry.

TV-wise - For Heebie, yes to Jane the Virgin and you'd probably also like Miss Fisher (for the clothes).

although we're in the easiest category

Red Green Show cosplayers?

My park doesn't have fire towers but basically yes.

Scott & Bailey is excellent. It's a British police show with two great female leads as detectives but it focuses on relationships instead of trying to stump the viewer with contrived mysteries.

Last Tango in Halifax is quite good. Great cast. Sort of like a Brit Parenthood but much less saccharine / emotionally manipulative.

Lovesick is fun.

Scott & Bailey is excellent. It's a British police show with two great female leads as detectives but it focuses on relationships instead of trying to stump the viewer with contrived mysteries.

Last Tango in Halifax is quite good. Great cast. Sort of like a Brit Parenthood but much less saccharine / emotionally manipulative.

Lovesick is fun.

Last Tango in Halifax is quite good.

Heebie might like this (heebie? have you seen it?). The plot lines can get a bit soapy, but it almost never loses its sense of humour. Also: Sarah Lancashire.

Catastrophe is very funny, if you don't mind Rob Delaney (which I don't, but some people really don't like him).

Adding Scott & Bailey to my list.

We've been re-watching The West Wing and boy howdy I didn't notice it at the time but Jimmy Smits' platform is some centrist-ass neoliberal bullshit.

That's what the voters of Alderaan wanted.

Now I'm intrigued by Foyle's War except it doesn't seem to be streaming on either Amazon or Netflix. Or rather, it seems to cost money on Amazon.

We have been watching a lot of the British detective shows; Endeavour really is good, Lewis is not quite as good but still enjoyable, Midsomer Murders is complete trash but there's a lot of it so you never run out.

I keep looking for Lewis, but I never see it. I always liked the guy.

I may have messed up the close tag.

The West Wing... centrist-ass neo-liberal bullshit

But I repeat myself.

59: I don't think so. I think the comedy is just the bait to sell the show, which is mostly horror. I think what it's most like is a fairy tale, but pre-Disney. Like, there are wolves and they eat you.

This is a lot more visible in the second season.

Ooh, I can share my obsession with Fallet, a goofy sendup of brutal Scandinavian mysteries crossed with cozy British police procedurals. The bumbling, neurotic English cop and the trigger-happy Swedish one get sent back to her small Swedish hometown to investigate a man from his town who's been murdered there. It's very Edgar Wright-style humor and I liked it a lot. No one else ever watches it, though

You describe it much more alluringly than the Netflix description. I might try it.

Catastrophe is very funny,

We watched the first 1.5 seasons and loved it. We hit an episode that seemed particularly grim, marital-wise, and hadn't revisited it, but not on purpose.

There's definitely marital discord, heebie, but Bonus Family on Netflix sort of grew on me. Might be less appealing to those whose lives differ more.

102 does sound good. A sort of Nordic Hot Fuzz?

I got all excited for nothing when I heard about "BepiColombo". It's not a TV show.

106: Sort of! But it's more directly a parody of detective stories, I think including Hot Fuzz itself.

I should also add that it's mostly in English, though there's some Swedish and a little Finnish subtitled. The mystery elements are ridiculous and over-the-top in both high and low directions, so the ominous black-metal murdery bits as well as the stupidly mundane and ridiculous plot points. And it's short! But I've never seen anything like it and I enjoyed it a lot.

103 gets it right. The Netflix description is something like "He's a cop. She's a cop. But when they get together, they don't do everything right." and then the trailer looks like the dumbest most generic thing ever and you can't even tell it's a spoof because like most of their trailers for non-English material, it doesn't include any dialogue.

To be fair, I wasn't sure if it was a spoof or just entertainingly awful during the first episode. But also Netflix does a terrible job advertising its shows and then also changes the photo used to advertise and I get all confused about what I've seen and what I haven't.

I'm doing some knitting for other people for pay now and watching Netflix while I do means I'm seeing way more shows than I ever have before but not reading enough books.

I thought you could knit, transcribe and read two books at once?

||
What might make a loud intermittent clunking noise under the rear axle of a bus?
|>

Only one book and it slows down both the knitting and the reading because I have to turn pages. If I'm essentially charging someone by the hour for my knitting work, I feel I shouldn't also read. Transcription work was also hourly but if I could meet my benchmarks then who cares what else I do?

113: Michael Cohen.

Too soon.

GRU got him?

I keep looking for Lewis, but I never see it. I always liked the guy.

I think Lewis is a mediocre show, but I watched it anyway, because of my weird crush on Kevin Whately as Lewis.

The new Netflix/BBC Toni Collette show, Wanderlust has sexy sex scenes but is marred by a dramatic misunderstanding of what sorts of shoes you can wear after serious leg injury.

Seems like only Barry has watched Killing Eve. Anyway, Killing Eve.

There's also, Fleabag, P W-B's earlier show, but while that's a comedy, it isn't light viewing.

Ah, and Swope.

Rake (Australian TV show available on Netflix) is a fun show. Sort of like Better Call Saul minus any hint of seriousness.

P W-B's

Price Waterhouse Boopers

Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

P W-B's

Price Waterhouse Boopers

From context it's _clearly_ Gina PrinceWoodstheBy. . . .

120: I liked Killing Eve, too. And I loved Fleabag. Both have really compelling, distinct voices/tones, which is also one of the reasons I liked Barry so much, on HBO.

I want to see Killing Eve but I'm not paying for it a la carte. It's supposed to be hitting Hulu around now.

I'm not even gonna preview: Crazy Ex Girlfriend is really fun but fairly stressful if you don't like people making every possible bad decision. But then singing about it! I want to recommend it but am not sure I can fully recommend it.

I think heebie would like CXGF, I'm still watching and liking it, though I think they've run out of creative steam for compelling musical numbers. (Many in season 1 were clearly heartfelt appreciations of certain traditions; later, pick-a-number stuff like death metal.)

I binged all of Miss Maisel despite finding it resoundingly mediocre. It bothered me most of all that her standup was 100% un-funny. I don't know, I also watched all of Gilmore Girls and only laughed out loud once, though there at least there were characters I liked. MIXED FEELINGS about Amy Sherman Palladino. She seems to identify with Dorothy Parker which no. And it bugs me that reviews always say that her dialog is packed with obscure references.

I could only handle 5 minutes of CXGF before vicarious embarrassment for the character made me want to die.

131 was my experience, except I made it through two or three episodes.

Yeah the musical stuff gets more hit-or-miss but some of them even later on are very fun.

131. I hear "The Good Place" is like that too, with more CGI.

I didn't find "The Good Place" nearly as embarrassing for reasons I can't quite articulate.

Im watching Resurrection : Ertugrul on Netflix with the wife and really enjoying it.

No love for BoJack Horseman? Glow S2 was quite good. The Flash is my guilty pleasure, but it's very sci-fi. It's built on the Buffy model: equal parts dorky/sexy people swooning and superhero action with a friend squad and a season-long Big Bad.

Just watched Romanoffs ep 4. Totally worth it. And you can watch that one first.

Bojack Horseman is fucking amazing, but it's the opposite of escapist TV. You'd have to watch documentaries about genocide to find a more depressing show.

I really liked Glow S1, but I haven't heard much talk about S2, so I assumed it was a disappointment.

It's built on the Buffy model...

That's a good explanation of why I find it appealing, though unlike Buffy, the Flash makes a lot of shitty decisions.

Yeah, BoJack is definitely both fantastic and emotionally wrenching. It's been so good for so long, kind of like The Americans was by the end, that people seem to be taking it for granted.

Better Call Saul is another one that, IMO, doesn't get talked about enough. You don't need to care about Breaking Bad to enjoy it, but if you do, so much the better. It's a very different show, and it just keeps adding layers over time.

Glow S2 was great. It got lost in the shuffle bc Netflix puts out So Much Stuff.

unlike Buffy, the Flash makes a lot of shitty decisions.

Also, Iris is no Angel.

hmmm, interesting. may have to try fallet.

the good place has been great with my 11yo. much better than how I met your mother, (so irresponsible and classless, I know. it's no excuse but american sitcoms are his hobby)

I've been sucked into Bojack Horseman against my better judgment. I found it less depressing over time.

I loved the first few seasons of better call saul. But the latest I'm not loving - closing in on breaking bad territory. but essentially, without chuck I just don't care about the relationships much.

Oh yeah, I liked Fallet. The rare procedural that does not start out with hypercompetent detectives.

charley! was actually amused by the complete lack of anyone else watching romanoffs.

very very sad about the demise of filmstruck. 😢 i hate the idea that it was too good to last, and where else am i going to be able to go on a watch-everything-with-greer-garson jag???* and i'm lucky, we've got the castro practically in the neighborhood and the pfa a short train ride across the bay. so depressing it couldn't make a go of it.

julia misbehaves has some astonishingly great stuff in it but man oh man can elizabeth taylor be awful. watch it while you can!

They cancelled American Vandal! What the actual fuck?

147: Agreed. Netflix is cancelling lots of outside productions/co-productions, apparently, as part of a larger business strategy. This is also supposedly a big part of the reason there's been a recent spate of Marvel-related cancellations there.

Counterpoint: Comic books are way overdone right now.

The cancellation of Filmstruck is the worst news that actually affects my life in some time. Is there going to be no way to watch old movies at all without buying DVDs?

Right, and there are other show- and studio-specific reasons, too, but it's not just comic books, as it seems the cancellation of American Vandal would indicate.

151 -> 149

I'm just really sick of all this comic-book stuff.

148: I figured the Marvel cancellations were because Disney is going to be rolling out its own streaming service. I was under the impression that anything Marvel worked on now would (eventually) end up on that competing service.

hopefully criterion will pull off its own streaming service, i think perhaps the tcm links to warner doomed filmstruck? sort of like the cycle where giant beverage conglomerates decide to buy up small wineries thinking they know how to run small, niche businesses, disaster results, they sell off the small wineries to people who have a chance of running them successfully, etc. etc. etc.

150: I'm also really unhappy about FilmStruck. Every time there's a shift to a new medium, a good chunk of older films don't make the transition, and it just seems to be getting worse in the world of streaming services. I have no idea where FilmStruck's titles will find a new home, but I sure hope they do, and soon.

153: Totally fair!

154: That's definitely part of it, as I tried to suggest in 151. My evidence for 148 is primarily here and here (last paragraph).

Yeah the FilmStruck news sucks. I'm glad I've been building a big DVD/Blu ray library, streaming is completely unreliable.

I'm sure I'm a Philistine, but when I heard about Filmstruck I thought "Classic movies! Sounds good!" and when I actually looked at their offerings I thought "So, all classic movies except for any American ones?"

Is a show only a creative success if it goes on for multiple seasons? The impression I got from buzz about AV season 2 is that it was still good but same-y, nowhere near the punch of s1, and I think that's going to be the case with a lot of the really original stuff being commissioned. I wouldn't be too put out if over time standalones become as normal as long-running shows. You'd probably get more original stuff and fewer adaptations as a result too.

158: That was true, but then they added a lot of TCM offerings.

Didn't Criterion used to be on Hulu? Does everybody need their own fscking streaming service?

Oh yes, and Criterion. As soon asFilmstruck added Criterion I subscribed - thought that meant it would become a fixture.