this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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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?

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[–] SupremeJerk9999@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 1 hour 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 6 episodes on Dunk, an absolute loser and terrible fighter, whereas the show was advertised as being about Aegon Targaryen, who barely gets screen time in the show

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" ending.
  • 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

EDIT:

Forgot to mentione The Last of Us. Pretty good show with story close to the original. I rated it an 8/10 on IMDb.

Issues it has if you liked the game though:

  • Bella Ramsey was severely miscast as Ella. Ellie in the games is a fierce, humorous and lovely girl, who's matured too early. On the show she tries to be but isn't funny, she's aggressive and lacks self control. You'll have to accept it for what it is, two different characters altogether.
  • Season 2 has some noticeable defects
  • It inherits the game's plot, which is amateurish at best *Some parts are rushed
  • Take the already ridiculously written character of Abby Anderson and miscast an actress for it to, and there you have it
  • Kaitlyn Dever was supposed to be Ellie, and i think she'd work really well as her. They miscast that one and they used Kaytlin as Abby, who has a totally different personality

In the end i think it's not a terrible show, but it could easily have been a much better one

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 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.

[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 0 points 6 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 5 days ago

You are free to think whatever you like

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 0 points 6 days ago

wokeness

i assume he dint mean wokeness in the conservative sense, but adding "inclusive" characthers that diverges from the plot , alot of shows are like this.

[–] pleiades@lemmy.ml 0 points 6 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 5 days ago* (last edited 5 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 5 days ago

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 5 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] pleiades@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 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 5 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 4 days ago (1 children)

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?

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

You like death note, simple as that, and there's no problem with it. I went in with no prejudices, actually quite excited cause a friend pumped up my expectations, and by episode 3 or 4 I already dropped it cause the dialogue and the script are, to my taste, completely childish garbage.

I can't see a game of cat and mouse, but two extremely self-important, overstuffed characters portrayed (especially L) as extremely intelligent guys, but they're in fact just dumb.

Actually, not even as a kid I'd watch something like that.

And I like thrillers, Death Note is just not a good one imo.

But again, idk why you've been arguing to the contrary, that's a matter of taste and its subjective. Some people hate evangelion and noragami, for example, whereas they're two of my favorite animes. And I dont try convincing them otherwise

It's okay to dissent