Most surprisingly good show?

ziedth

so how about you?

What show did you give little or no hope for but yet enjoyed?

For me, My OH told me the storyline of modern family and I only really gave it a go because of Al from married with children being involved.

Needless to say I loved the show and feel that everyone should give it a watch.

J-blk

The idea of True Blood on paper sounded like one of the most ridiculous shows I'd ever heard about and the first few episodes seemed like it was going to be a stinker, but I eventually went back and watched the entire first season and I'm now totally hooked...

SoupyNorman

Breaking Bad.

Pushtrak

SoupyNorman wrote: »

Breaking Bad.

Yeah, I have to agree. I didn't have any expectations on it when starting out. No positive or negative preconceptions. Loved it from the first episode.

Haven't gotten around to Modern Family yet, but I will.

evil_seed

i have to say glee. i thought here's a show i'll watch and not like it. it is now my guilty pleasure

Basq

Funnily enough.. I wasn't suprised 'Breaking Bad' was good as the first thing I do when I want to find out about a show is read it's synopsis:

(mild spoilers for 'Breaking Bad' synopsis)

Set and produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Breaking Bad revolves around Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher with many family issues. When White is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he breaks down and turns to a life of crime, producing and selling methamphetamine with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) in a desire to secure his family's financial future.[3]

If it was executed badly.. it could have been terrible but it's such a unique and interesting storyline that I wasn't suprised it was good. I just didn't know how good!

Take the other end of the spectrum, shows like 'Men of A Certain Age' have a synopsis that reads as follows:

(mild spoilers for 'Men of A Certain Age' synopsis)

The hour-long program stars Ray Romano, Scott Bakula, and Andre Braugher as three best friends in their late forties dealing with the realities of middle age.

You could drift off reading the synopsis alone.. while I've heard it's good, the synopsis does nothing for it.

So.. shows that was most suprisingly good - probably 'Firefly' (a sci-fi / western in Space... WHA?!)

ziedth

ya i should prob rename the thread to shows that awful on paper etc. Firefly is a good example, I doubt i would ever have watched it only for the fact i went to see serenity in the cinema. I was one of the ones who saw the film first.

Lemondrop kid

Rescue Me
Thought it would be a US 'London's Burning but with twin towers flashbacks (ie hell) - turned out to be excellent, damn them and their titles/brief adverts of firemen

S.M.B.

The clear winner has to be......

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Dman001

Freaks and Geeks

I didnt think it would be as good as everyone was saying but it was brilliant, especially when you compare it to the tripe they are calling Teen shows these days. Its such a simple idea for a show I cant understand why Producers these days cant make a similar quality show.

Basq

Dman001 wrote: »

Its such a simple idea for a show I cant understand why Producers these days cant make a similar quality show.

Judd Apatow's unmistakeable writing.. that's why!

donmeister

Glee, thought it was gonna be muck but has grown on me alot! :eek:
Modern Family, didnt really have any expectations for it.
30 rock, same as above.

them all.

chalkitdown1

basquille wrote: »

Take the other end of the spectrum, shows like 'Men of A Certain Age' have a synopsis that reads as follows:

(mild spoilers for 'Men of A Certain Age' synopsis)

You could drift off reading the synopsis alone.. while I've heard it's good, the synopsis does nothing for it.

MOACA is effing brilliant. I was doubtful about it too, especially since I hated Everybody Loves Raymond, but I am now a 100% Ray Romano convert. The guy's an amazing dramatic actor. And the show continues to gets better with every episode.

magma69

Arrested Development. Expecting another dreadful American comedy and was served up one the the most refreshing shows to come out of the U.S. in years. Need to rewatch them actually .

CrazyRabbit

The Big Bang Theory. The best comedy for us geeks.

The character Sheldon is just hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyQz8jWAl7s

Catari Jaguar

I really enjoying Hung and Modern Family. 30 Rock is hilarious, I love how bizarre the cut away scenes are. Very Family Guy ish. I find that in Glee too.

Micamaca

I don't know any of these shows yis are talking about. I've heard of Glee, my nieces are commenting on Facebook. The rest of them??

For me it was Scrubs. My husband, who is easily amused, used to be howling laughing watching the early seasons, so I purposely avoided it. Only watched the episode with Colin Farrell in it, cos I heard he agreed to do it because his mammy liked the show. Well, I was hooked on how funny it was. Funny and yet deeper at times. But mainly funny. Till the end of season five...then it went down the road of so many tv series that should have finished but didn't. I watch the first five seasons over and over and I still love it.

ScrubsfanChris

Scrubs for me aswell, I allways knew it was there put only started to watch it at season 4 . Now I have all the seasons on DVD.
Same with Mythbusters, the promo ads seemed pretty stupid to me, but I am now a huge fan.

I could list many more:
House
CSI - las Vegas
Family Guy
Bones

All shows I now love but early on I didn't care about.

IronMan

Come Dine with me.

The concept sounds terrible. In reality though it is fantastic. The awful food, the wretched publicity hungry participants, the genius commentary. Perfect day time television.

pickarooney

True Blood is the most obvious one that springs to mind.

How I Met Your Mother - I was expecting to hate it and everyone who recommended it,but no, I laughed.

Richard Dower

I am gonna say, United States Of Tara....i'm not a hugh fan of HBO shows, but this one i liked.

youngblood

30 Rock
30 Rock
30 Rock

did I mention 30 Rock?

This show has to be the finest comedy show I've ever watched
So fast......I cant recommend it highly enough

Modern Family-United States of Tara
All very enjoyable

Dman001

As for the show I was surprised was so bad.........30 Rock. But thats for a different thread.

KnifeWRENCH

I'm another one who expected to hate True Blood; the only reason I watched it was because Alan Ball was involved and I loved Six Feet Under. It turned out to be one of my favourite new shows.

I thought The West Wing would be deathly dull and serious, but my sister forced me to watch it. It is, genuinely, funnier than 90% of sitcoms and the acting is phenomenal.

I was also skeptical of Skins when I heard everyone go on about how great it was. It took me a while to get into it, but now I love the first two seasons (mainly because of Cassie, who is easily the best character imo)

As for other shows mentioned in this thread, Arrested Development and 30 Rock are both class. United States of Tara is also very good.

Catari Jaguar

I forgot Samantha Who? and Rules of Engagement. Comedy Central is pure gold

I love Come Dine With Me too, Ironman

SoupyNorman

ScrubsfanChris wrote: »

House

House started off amazingly, I'm 10 episodes into season one and I'm so bored watching it already. I have never seen a show stick to such a rigid structure, it does not deviate from the path of....

Hugely rare case.
Noboady can figure out whats wrong.
House's team work tirelessly to no avail.
House does not care god bless him.
At the last second theres the eureka and so on.


It's alot like CSI and that show to me is the pinnacle of TV idiocy.

tony1kenobi

Life On Mars....70s based time travelling cop show on the BBC....sounds sh*te.

3rd best tv show of the last decade.

Thargor

Survivor, everybody dismisses it as "BIG BROTHER ON AN ISLAND MURRRRR" but twenty series later its still the greatest programme ever made, totally unpredictable, edge of the seat addictive tv, new series starting soon.

chalkitdown1

SoupyNorman wrote: »

House started off amazingly, I'm 10 episodes into season one and I'm so bored watching it already. I have never seen a show stick to such a rigid structure, it does not deviate from the path of....

Hugely rare case.
Noboady can figure out whats wrong.
House's team work tirelessly to no avail.
House does not care god bless him.
At the last second theres the eureka and so on.


It's alot like CSI and that show to me is the pinnacle of TV idiocy.

It does deviate from the formula towards the end of season 1 when a new character is introduced, but it doesn't last very long. It's the same for season 2 & 3, there's a mini-arc or two but the majority of the episodes are standalones and very samey. Things don't really change until season 4 which shakes things up considerably, something the show really needed at that point.

Cactus Col

I'd certainly agree with whomever said Firefly. Not only a sci fi western ... but from the chap behind Buffy and Angel. I avoided it, only watching after seeing Serenity and been blown away by it.

Also I'd throw in Leverage. It's just a great fun series.

PK2008

"Still Game"

Scottish comedy about 2 OAP's- stumbled across it one night on BBC2- hilarious stuff, dont think they make it anymore though

djkeogh

Loved Carnivale. Hadn't heard too much about it but having loved the Wire, Sopranos and Oz from HBO I decided to give it a go. Much like most HBO shows I thought very little of it for the 1st 3-4 episodes but after that I was hooked. It really is one of my biggest disappointments that the show was cancelled but the 2 seasons that are there are very much worth watching.

chillin_penguin

How i met your mother......completely addicted
Come dine with me.......its all about the voice-over such a funny guy
Big Bang theory...having watched it i dont know why i ever thought i would not like it
House watched two episodes now own all box sets.

tman

SoupyNorman wrote: »

House started off amazingly, I'm 10 episodes into season one and I'm so bored watching it already. I have never seen a show stick to such a rigid structure, it does not deviate from the path of....

Yep, think I made it as far as the third episode of S2, but just couldn't handle any more of it...

They've been mentioned a few times already so far, but here are some of mine.
Skins - "pfft, what do I care about what a bunch of teenagers get up to." Ended up loving it and nearly cried when

Chris dies

Breaking Bad - Didn't know much about the show apart from the fact that it had the dad from Malcolm in the middle in it...
Firefly - Took a few attempts for me to get past the opening battle (not really a fan of "PEW PEW" sci-fi), but I'm so glad that I persevered with it!

civis_liberalis

House.

I know it shouldn't work and am well aware that it generally sticks to a very rigid episode plan, but I still love it.

Richard Dower

I know people won't agree with me, but The Vampire Diaries was/is WAY better then i thought it would be!....again, not a fan of Buffy or anything vampire related.

But i have really enjoyed the show, it's got alot of drama and action, it's *not* Twilight on the TV, it's better then Twilght imo.

Coconut Joe

Veronica Mars - awful idea, great show
Friday Night Lights - should be of no interest to me, love it.

Land Of Idiots

They've been mentioned already but Glee, 30 Rock and True Blood all surprised me. I had written them all off as complete rubbish until I actually watched them. Now I love them all!

Richard Dower

Coconut Joe wrote: »

Veronica Mars - awful idea, great show
Friday Night Lights - should be of no interest to me, love it.

+1 on FNL....i've come to appreciate it's class and quality.

KnifeWRENCH

Land Of Idiots wrote: »

They've been mentioned already but Glee, 30 Rock and True Blood all surprised me. I had written them all off as complete rubbish until I actually watched them. Now I love them all!

+1

I've only seen two episodes of Glee so far but already it's surpassed my expectations. Loved the rendition of "Push It"

30 Rock made me fall in love with Tina Fey *swoon*

True Blood is fantastic

komodosp

The wire surprised me... I thought it would be like just another cop show like NCIS or CSI or Nypd blue, none of which I really liked... It's really very good though , possibly the best programme on telly....

Also the new battlestar galactica, where I thought, "sigh another remake" I actually loved it when I watched it. Haven't seen all of it yet, workingmy way thru the box set

the whole year inn

Andy Rickter Controll the Universe. Watched the first seson and thought it was very good.

Penn

Modern Family. Haven't seen one episode yet in which I haven't burst out laughing at least twice. Brilliant show, but I never would have even considered it if a mate hadn't recommended it

I have to say The Wire, because after watching the first 5 episodes of it, I gave up. Thought it was okay, but just.... couldn't get through it. Then a friend persisted I keep watching until at least the end of the first season. Now I think it's the best show ever. And even having watched those first 5 episodes again now, you see how genius it all is

Arrested Development - Doesn't look like much to begin with, and some of the characters can be annoying at first, but once you get into it, just a really funny show.

Peep Show - Didn't think it'd be funny, the premise of it almost put me off (and the camera and stuff, hearing peoples thoughts etc). But just so damn funny. Really took me by surprise

Shane10

heard ray foley talking about glee so i said id give it a look. thought it would be typical "musical" type show but its really good. funny. defo worth following.

L31mr0d

Breaking Bad: The first 2 episodes didn't really pull me in so I put the show on the back-burner for a good while to watch some other stuff. During a lull I decided to give it another go and it's now up there as one of my favourite shows of all time. It really got into it's stride in season 2.

Dexter: I remember thinking to myself before watching it "*scoff* It's CSI: Miami but now Horatio is a serial killer". Have to admit I was sold once I seen those immaculate opening credits

30 Rock: Americentric comedy... *yawn*. Absolutely love it now. The most consistently funny sitcom on TV atm. So many good characters, such a flawlessly written script and so funny. It features humour from all degrees of the spectrum from nuanced to slapstick.