TV Series Criticker - beta

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TonythePony
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TV Series Criticker - beta

Post by TonythePony »

...or is this alpha? Whatever.

With all the talk of a Criticker for TV series in various threads I figured it might be useful/fun to post rankings by tier here. Rather than attempting to figure what a separate TV section/site would look like, it seems easier to rank series supposing they were incorporated into the sites present structure - i.e. just like mini-series.

My upper tiers will be fairly complete, lower tiers for comparison purposes

N.B. I judge series only up to the point I stopped watching (I never skip seasons, returning later), ignoring the ongoing rape of a series. As such I'll note the cut-off, otherwise the entire series is considered.

Tier 10
The Simpsons (S1-9)
The Wire
M*A*S*H
Six Feet Under
The Sopranos
The West Wing (S1-4)
The Larry Sanders Show
The Office (UK)
The Colbert Report

Tier 9
OZ
Homicide: Life on the Street
Carnivale
Deadwood
In Treatment - S2 is not impressing me as much as S1 so this may drop...
Twin Peaks
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Battlestar Galactica - Don't know how I'll rank it after rewatching (considering the ending)
The Rockford Files
League of Gentlemen
Breaking Bad - They better not string this series out too long though.
Hill Street Blues - I've only seen the first two seasons. Need to see the rest before I can rank this properly
Yes Minister/Prime Minister
Cracker
I'm Alan Partridge
The Prisoner
Babylon 5

Tier 8
Foyle's War
Veronica Mars
Dexter - If HBO had made it: Tier 10. Their writers would have done the premise justice.
Sports Night
The Fugitive (1963 Original)
Californication - Only seen S1 atm
Firefly
Star Trek - For the humour (unintential or otherwise) as much as the Science Fiction
Huff
Entourage
Wonderfalls
Weeds - only seen S1 so far
Life on Mars (UK)
Law & Order (S1-8)
Survivors (S1)

Tier 7
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The X-Files (S1-6), 24 (S1-5), Farscape, South Park, The Shield, Lost, Northern Exposure, Monty Pythons Flying Circus, Blackadder, Frontline (Australian Comedy), Futurama, Dr Katz: Professional Therapist, Crime Story, Blake's 7, The Micallef Programme (Australian Comedy)

Tier 6
Angel, Millennium, Malcolm in the Middle, Mission Impossible (1966 Original), The Goodies, Quantum Leap, King of the Hill, Scrubs, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Heroes (S1,2)

Tier 5
Stargate SG-1, Little Britain

Tier 3
Family Guy

Queued up to watch: Mad Men, Rome, Fawlty Towers :oops: , Extras
Considering watching: True Blood, Pushing Daisies, Friday Night Lights

I don't expect anyone else to post such a (insanely) long list, but I'm hoping others post ranks for current series or Non-English language TV series in particular - "Betipul" is partly the reason for starting this thread.

BTW, starting this thread rather than continuing another TV thread is to, hopefully, help with recommendations.
Last edited by TonythePony on Thu Apr 23, 2009 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

AFlickering
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by AFlickering »

if a tv criticker was ever made i'd want it to be by season, rather than just by show. the simpsons being a prime example of why.

i cba doing this right now but i might do later.

MmzHrrdb
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by MmzHrrdb »

hell yes i want to rank tv shows

let's get it on criticker staff

Bojangles
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by Bojangles »

I don't watch much TV but here's some possible tier 10s.

The Colbert Report
The Daily Show
Arrested Development

The Report is the best show I've ever seen. It hasn't stopped being funny for how ever many years it's been on, the man is a genius.

Melvin Smif
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by Melvin Smif »

I think T.V. is too difficult to put into the Criticker system what would you use whole show, seasons, episode? An example I could use is Buffy the Vampire Slayer overall I would give the show around a 75-85, but season five was my least favorite season and I may give it a 60, however season five contains one of my favorite three episodes that I would list as a straight 100. It just doesn't seem to work out very well unless you did each individual episode and that would be almost impossible to pull off, or at the very least be a painfully difficult task to undertake.

KGB
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by KGB »

I'm just watching the 'Edge of Darkness' mini-series and it is simply genius, one of the best TV shows I've seen. Might make a post about it as soon as I'm done with it. Has anyone here seen it? I think it's quite well known in the UK.

frederic_g54
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by frederic_g54 »

"Edge of Darkness" hey, when I start a new tv show I always check the running time and nr of episodes (don't have much time with college and all)

Since it's only 6 eps, I might watch it this wknd (just read how Spielberg raved about it)

back to topic, I'm enthusiastically awaiting "TV criticker"... name needs some work ;)

KGB
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by KGB »

frederic_g54 wrote:just read how Spielberg raved about it


I didn't know that. I guess that now that I think of it, it does have a Spielberg adventure ambient to it (at least by the end, I'm currently in episode 5 out of 6), if Spielberg was a modest, far more subtle director than he actually is. It does reminds me a bit of the tension built in 'Dual' and 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'. These films have nothing in common with 'Edge of Darkness' but one's atmosphere does reminds me of the other's, although I may just be completely out of my mind.

TonythePony
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by TonythePony »

The fact that there is no reliable recommendations site for TV around is an indication of how difficult it would be to create a TV offshoot of Criticker. My point with the initial post is to set aside the many reasons why it can't be done and assume that it was done. Yes, jamming in full series amongst films would never work, but IF it happened - Gun to ya head, where would you rank the series?

In other threads where people have posted their favourite/best series there is no way to know whose opinion to follow or dismiss as no-one mentions series they think are middling or terrible. By having series placed in tiers you can infer what sort of humour they like (Family Guy vs League of Gentlemen), whether they like hardcore Sci-Fi or more lightweight fare (Babylon 5 vs Stargate SG-1), if they enjoy more verbose, sprawling cop/crime drama's or more visceral confronting types (The Wire vs The Shield).

I don't think it takes that much work to synthesize and quantify your overall thoughts on a series. I have faith in you chaps. You already compare "Decalogue" with "Rabbit Seasoning", "Band of Brothers" with "Le voyage dans la lune". Is it really that much harder to make a rough guesstimate of where a TV series would rank in your tiers?

So, Bazooka to ya balls, where would you rank em? :mrgreen:


Oh, and I've seen "Edge of Darkness" and didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as I'd hoped. I found "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" much more to my liking. I still need to watch "The Singing Detective" though.

and yes "TV Criticker" would be an awful name ;)

paulofilmo
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Re: TV Criticker - beta

Post by paulofilmo »

TonythePony wrote:So, Bazooka to ya balls, where would you rank em? :mrgreen:


Tier 9. Exquisite, but there's room for improvement.


I don't know what other people get everywhere else in the world, and I'm not big on American drama/thrillers, but here's a shot:


Tier 10:
Pretty much anything that David Attenborough is involved with (most film can't compete with what the BBC's doing), almost anything ethnographic - Tribe (US - Going Tribal), Tribal Wives, etc.
The other Science/Ecology programs
Michael Palin's travel shows (bar Europe)
Many of Channel 4's real lives sections (it's not called that, but you know what I mean)
Simpsons 1-9 (some episodes are some of the best entertainment I've ever seen - thanksgiving, moaning Lisa, etc.)
Child of Our Time
Imagine (Alan Yentob)
Most of the one-off dramas
This Life

Tier 9:
QI
Peep Show
Family Guy
(1966) Star Trek

Tier 8:
Ray Mears
Vision of Music: World Jazz
Question Time
Fawlty Towers
Monty Python
South Park
Frasier
Brass Eye


Tier 7:
Top Gear
Have I Got News For You
The Culture Show
Whose Line
The Office (I haven't seen the US version)
Shameless (this has gotten a bit pants)
Alan Partridge
Jools Holland
The IT Crowd (series 2+) - a couple of episodes are some of the best laughs of my life. Others are so-so.
Jonathan Ross
Futurama



But to be honest... the only shows I'm likely to watch of these within a week is maybe QI (if the current series is still going), Question Time, the reruns of Planet Earth, and the odd Simpsons episode that I haven't seen too many millions of times before.

I mostly watch the amazing stuff they get on BBC4 and the SkyArts channels (one-offs, miniseries). The BBC stuff uses up all my bandwidth, and I quite happily have little left for film.

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