SkavauWhat are some lesser-known obscure TV series that went under the radar, that you would recommend?
M.A.S.H.
miskI don’t think it went under the radar of the TV studio because it ran for 11 years and got a Golden Globe for the best comedy series.
[edit] I took the bait, didn’t I? This thread is now about MASH. Well played.
GammaIt’s series finale is still the most watched live tv event in history. They had 106 million viewers, estimated over 60% of all Us households! Calling it a lesser known or obscure show is an objectively false statement lol
It holds up pretty well too. I’ve been watching it for the past 2 years on an off and I’m on season 5. Sometimes it meanders but then you get slammed with 3 great episodes in succession. I don’t want to skip trash though because MASH is my before bed TV that can run in the background.
dandelionI feel like a surprising number of people know about this show, but I suspect because it’s German it doesn’t get the same attention - there was a period where Dark seemed popular in my circles, though.
stravanasuIt depends so much on one’s tastes… But
- Forever
- Street Hawk
- Firefly
- Travelers
I don’t think you can call Firefly “lesser-known” or “obscure” …
I can agree, but could say the same of the others or of other answers. Viewer count may be very different in different countries too. My rule of thumb for “obscure” is: something I mentioned to acquaintances that they’d never heard of.
Fair enough, I don’t mean to override your experience of it as obscure, and it’s a good show. Maybe because I’m a nerd surrounded by nerds, I would consider Firefly only third to Star Wars and Star Trek in terms of fame, but it’s getting old now so this might also be a generational thing. Maybe Stargate is approximately equal to Firefly, but I feel like people love Firefly so much more than Stargate.
Scavenger’s Reign and Pantheon
GarlandScavengers Reign is great.
I hope you have watched Common Side Effects. Joseph Bennett (co-creator) is also the co-creator of Scavengers Reign. It’s excellent. Mike Judge is also EP and voices some roles. It was renewed for a second season last week in advance of the season finale, which aired Sunday night.
I’m in season 2 of Pantheon. It’s quite good.
Snot FlickermanI love Joe Bennett’s (what I call) “American Chibi” style soooooo much. Such weird big heads and little bodies but it works so well.
Bennett also illustrated Joe Pera’s bathroom book. “A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing but Using the Bathroom as an Escape”
Someone mentioned Patriot here the other day, and I think that qualifies as at least lesser-known.
Also going to plug the Canadian TV series Sort Of, about a trans woman who is a nanny for her friend’s two kids.
I was also surprised I had missed Spaced, a kind of surrealist sitcom starring Simon Pegg and directed by Edgar Wright (think: Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead). Not sure it counts as obscure or lesser-known, but it was for me anyway.
Utopia - The UK version though, fuck the American remake.
Monkey Dust - Obscure UK animation.
1hitsongMonkey Dust is great is you’re cool with black humor - well, humour!!!
Boomer Humor DoomergodMrs. Davis
Dirk Gently’s Detective Agency
Space: Above & Beyond
Earth 2
Lucy: Daughter of the Devil
Final Space
The Lone Gunmen
The Maxx
The Oblongs
Parker Lewis Can’t Lose
The Regime
The Secret Life of Machines
ETA: if you want a more recent one, Deli Boys is pretty great
Parker Lewis Can’t Lose
Coolness
I kept waiting for Jonas Quinn to say “synchronize swatches” on SG1
At least throw us a few “Whoooooooa” sfx here and there.
I used to have nearly all The Maxx comic books, and gave them away to a friend when I moved across country.
How about two with Rosa Salazar?
Undone on Amazon Prime, a trippy psychological show about a girl (Salazar) exploring the link to her present and her dead father (Bob Odenkirk). It’s rotoscoped to add to the trippiness
Brand New Cherry Flavor on Netflix, where an aspiring writer gets her career ruined by a director when she turns down his sexual advances. She makes a deal with a witch to get revenge
oo, Brand New Cherry Flavor was fun
I’m going to recommend the 1970s BBC series “Survivors”. It’s kind of like Walking Dead lite, without the zombies.
Avoid the 2000s remake though. It’s ridiculous.
I also recommend the 1971 BBC series I mentioned in another thread, about a futuristic fascist government in Britain: “the Guardians”.
Survivors was a great show! Post-apocalyptic drama at its best. They didn’t need makeup to have (human) monsters.
Station Eleven
It’s absolutely criminal how little attention HBO gave this show. It wasn’t even brought to Europe, so you can’t watch it legally over here. But IMHO it’s one of the best TV shows of the past few years, and it’s a complete story so no cliffhangers. It’s also one of the rare cases of a show being better than the book it was based on, and the book was already a bestseller.
driving_croonerWasn’t released at the same time as covid? It had a bad timing sadly.
Yeah it was, and the first episode hits quite hard on the heels of covid. I’m sure not everyone was ready for something that apocalyptic, but still.
I also enjoyed it, but couldn’t convince my wife to give it a try because she was already stressed as fuck with all the situation.
NoxyLexx, a show about a giant dragonfly spaceship that destroys planets and the creepy cowardly idiot who somehow lucked into becoming the single person in the two universes that it obeys. And an undead assassin-warrior-poet. And a woman who survived a botched “love slave” transformation. And a weird robot head.
It’s outrageously strange and strangely horny and hornily gross. Highly recommend if you like weird TV.
Lexx resulted in my marriage (at a lan bash, we’re all sharing the ol’ yar har haar me maties, a certain young gentleman browses the wares, goes “holy shit Lexx, who has all of Lexx i must find this person” and 20 years later we have matching rings, a house and cats. )
Actually just finished snagging the 1080 rip, makes my dvd boxset look like poo
Life on Mars (2008, the US version.)
The UK one was fantastic. Did you see both and then pick the US one specifically, or is it the only one you saw? I haven’t seen the US one, but I’m interested now!
dumblederpAshes to Ashes is the continuation of the UK Life on Mars.
Murdoch Mysteries is the only show I keep up with weekly. It’s Victorian, Canadian CSI.
Dead Like Me
It was pretty much all over the place but I liked the tone and premise. IMO, I really doubt anyone would’ve been able to make that kind of story work any more than the original folks did but yeah. I don’t think the writing was that good but I liked the cast. That alone would’ve sold me. Also maybe throw in the fact that I found the show while I was kind of starting out on my own during college and so in ways, I related to the main person. Yada yada yada.
🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 I rediscovered this again recently. I watched it when it was new a long while back, and had totally forgotten about it until seeing it pop up while browsing MAX.
bizarrolandI always mention this one, but The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
It's got Bruce Campbell in it (Army of darkness) And he plays a cowboy as the lead character where he goes on wacky steampunk-filled hijinks and adventures through the Old West.
it came out in the early 90s and you can watch it for free on tubiTV.
Fun fact, a lot of the old timey western movies used a particular set and the Adventures of Brisco County Jr. was the last show to use that set.
When they finished it was torn down.
Another fun fact, you've heard the theme song.
It's now used in the Olympics when America plays.
It's a fucking amazing show.
I still remember my favorite character from that show: Bowler.
Children Of The Stones, 1977 British childrens’ horror show. A historian and his young son visit a small village whose residents hold secrets about an ancient stone monument.
Like most 70s British TV, there’s no production budget, and entirely dependent on script writing and actors to create atmosphere.
Sliders
Great show, pity it ended with the ep Exodus pt II
Manchild (2002)
Coming to this late, but both Chris Elliott comedy vehicles that tickle me to this day:
Get A Life
Eagleheart
You, Me and the Apocalypse.
DUMBASSCorner Gas, brilliant comedy about a tiny Saskatchewan town set around a gas station that is connected to a diner and the oddball people that live there.
You’ll come for the quaint setting, stay for the Jackass screaming Oscar.
