One of the drawbacks to having a Tivo is that if you really like a show (like Family Guy for example) you can quickly burn through all of the episodes once you set up a Season Pass. Since there is so much talk about Tivos on this BBS, I thought it'd be cool if we shared some of the shows we record and why we like them. Because of a thread here, I now record Myth Busters, and I bet you guys can get my hooked on some new shows too!.

So.. if you have anything you think others would enjoy, just reply to this with a brief discussion.

The Alternative
This is one of my favorite shows on TV now. It is simply a one hour program on VH1 Classics that shows tons of cool videos from alternative and college rock bands of the 70's, 80's and 90's. They not only play some great bands, but they also play the more obscure videos. Some bands I've seen on there: Jeff Buckley, REM, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, Carter the Unstopable Sex Machine, Curve, Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb, Ministry, Morrisey, Public Image Limited, the Smiths, the Cure, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Sisters of Mercy, Tears For Fears, Transvision Vamp (I think), James, Violent Femmes, Bare Naked Ladies, New Order, etc, etc. If you don't like any of these bands, I guess you're not interested! Sometimes they have interviews with older artists who are putting out new material or they play interviews from the archives (interesting as well). Aside from seeing some of my favorite bands, they do a good job of playing the videos that never got much airplay - even on "120 Minutes".
VH1 Classics

I find that the season pass thing has me taping more episodes of any given series that I care to actually watch, no matter how much I like it.

I have a stack of Mythbusters and Queer Eye episodes I haven't watched yet, and although I absolutely love Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo, they run two hours so it's hard to even sit down to watch those.

We're still religious about The West Wing. Despite the loss of Aaron Sorkin, it's still wonderful TV.

Battlestar Galactica has us hooked. The gal playing Starbuck is quite good. So that's one we're also religious about. In fact, we're probably going to watch yesterday's episode in a few minutes here...

Hopefully some friends will be hooking us up with the back-episodes of "Lost" soon so we can watch them from show number one and then keep up in realtime.

One of the nice things about having the high def Tivo is that it's got oodles of disk space for as many standard-def shows as I could possibly want to keep on it.

I had never heard of Mythbusters until reading about it on here and I too have a season pass for it now. That is one problem with the Tivo I miss new shows because I skip the commercials.

One newer show I really like is The Venture Brothers on the cartoon network. It's kind of like a messed up version Jonny quest. The show was made by the same people that made The Tick if anyone remembers that show.

I will have to try The Alternative it sounds interesting.

neat
You guys are going to blast me for this one, but I really like the 2 episodes of "neat " that I've seen so far. It's on the HGTV network and is one of those "make over" type shows that has less than great production values, but instead of coming in and redecorating a room, they help someone get organized. The woman that hosts the show is a professional organizer and the show is originally from a Canadian television network. She comes in, sees people's "mess" and lifestyle and designs a system to help them get better organized. Usually, she will suit the solution to the person living there. Everytime I watch it, I'm inspired to clean out a different room in my house. She does great work with small apartments too, where space is really at a primium. It's at least helped me get off my butt and sell some stuff on eBay!
HGTV

Current favorite TV shows:

Lost. If you don't know this one, you're just totally out of touch.

Veronica Mars. The best show on TV that no one's watching. It' great. It's like Twin Peaks without the abject weirdness, down to an ongoing murder mystery about a popular high-school girl and a pseudo-50s vibe, though in a slightly different way. You're not watching this program and you should be.

House. Medical procedural mostly involving differential diagnoses. On the surface, it's not so interesting, but the main character is a right bastard played by Hugh Laurie (with an American accent, oddly), and it seems that they're actually going somewhere with the characters. Maybe.

Arrested Development. Another show you're not watching. Abject silliness with a plot. I was in stitches for almost the entirety of last Sunday's episode. Also has the best running gag ever concieved: previews of next week's episode that never happen. I think it's an outlet for really funny jokes that they write that simply won't fit in continuity.

The Dead Zone. Surprisingly good sci-fi/fantasy, especially given that it's produced by USA Network. It's got good one-off episodes, but also has an interesting multi-season plot. Currently in the off-season showing reruns. They seem to show old reruns all the time back to the first season, so you might be able to catch them all without downloading.

Carnivale. On HBO. A truly amazing almost magical realist TV show about a preacher and a carny in the 30s who seem to be on opposing sides of the ultimate war between good and evil. A Vertigo comic book come to life, if that means anything to you.

Alias. Seems to be a little better this season than last, which was a wash. Still not as good as the first season. We need less romance and more real-world. The deletion of Francie and Will from the show remains its worst decision.

Wow, Bitt. I really have to catch the shows you mentioned that I haven't seen, because otherwise we have very similar taste in television (sorry about that). I've just started watching House, but Veronica Mars didn't appeal to me, mostly because it seemed like yet another "pretty people show." You know, the ones with a flimsy, sometimes supernatural, plot that's just an excuse to get pretty people on the screen acting melodramatic. That's at least what Point Pleasant looks like. Has anyone caught an episode of that show? It looks like The OC meets Carnivale.

And I can't say enough good things about Carnivale. Watching that on a 60" HD screen is the best visual experience on all TV.

Bitt, do you have any idea when the Dead Zone is starting up again?

The only shows I would add to Bitt's list are:

X-Play - okay, not really compelling TV, but the hosts are the last people on G4Tech^H^H^H^HTV that are good at their jobs. Adam Sessler is a riot.

Dead Like Me - okay, I may just beg people to watch this show. I might start paying you to watch this show. Why? Because it's got one of the best casts I've ever seen, it's hilarious and touching at the same time, has a great concept, is critically acclaimed, and most of all because despite all this, Showtime has not picked it up for a third season. I'm praying that Sci-Fi picks it up, although it would suck to have to start watching it on commercial TV.

Yeah, I've watched a couple of episodes of Point Pleasant. I was not impressed. I'm gonna give it a little longer since it's got some creators on the show I really like, namely Marti Noxon, who was the day-to-day producer/writer for the last few seasons of Buffy, and Ben Edlund, who worked with Joss Whedon on Firefly and the last season or two of Angel, not to mention being the creator of The Tick. So far, more than anything, I can't get past the acting, which is consistently horrible except for the sister-role girl (who, I've been told, is from my town). Also, I keep asking myself "Do these girls own any clothes that aren't bikinis?" The lead girl is particularly bad. (Also, her no-butt-havingness creeps me out. She's voluptuous everywhere else, but then just has no ass at all. It's weird.) Everyone else is very late-night soap opera at best.

Quote:
It looks like The OC meets Carnivale.

I'd argue that The OC is much better than Point Pleasant at this point. It has some credible actors (not all of them), and some vaguely original Whedonesque writing for its more familial scenes and some good satirization of soap operas in general and itself in particular in between the boozy teen-angst soap opera crap. Plus, there's constant comic book references; I'd bet that it's the first time anyone's mentioned Jack Kirby on network TV. (I don't actually watch the show, though. I can't get through the soap opera crap to get to the good stuff, which largely couldn't exist without the crap. My wife does, but I hear some of it and she occasionally pulls me in to watch a funny scene. Plus, Mischa Barton might be a worse actress than anyone on Point Pleasant, and they're really bad.)

Haven't seen Veronica Mars. Do watch the others, but only Lost and Alias do I watch every episode of. Those two and 24 are the only must-see TV for me. Everything else is if I catch it on or if I care to download an episode.

Other good shows that I'll either download to watch because I can't sync to their running schedules:

Huff, Dead Like Me, Boston Legal

I think this year's Alias is the weakest by far, inclusive of last year's. The new Black-Ops thing is a joke, their new HQ is totally inconceivable, it's too much like a high-school clique, they're losing any type of story-arch and they're basically falling into the same downward slope that ruined the X-FIles. On the surface I like the episodes, but when I compare to previous seasons they fall apart.

Now I have to go out to dinner b/c my GF is hounding me... Which means we'll also miss 24 so it'll be a download later tonight for that.

Bruno

Watching (or DVR'ing) all except Veronica Mars. Thanks for the tip!

Quote:
Current favorite TV shows:

Lost. If you don't know this one, you're just totally out of touch.

Veronica Mars. The best show on TV that no one's watching. It' great. It's like Twin Peaks without the abject weirdness, down to an ongoing murder mystery about a popular high-school girl and a pseudo-50s vibe, though in a slightly different way. You're not watching this program and you should be.

House. Medical procedural mostly involving differential diagnoses. On the surface, it's not so interesting, but the main character is a right bastard played by Hugh Laurie (with an American accent, oddly), and it seems that they're actually going somewhere with the characters. Maybe.

Arrested Development. Another show you're not watching. Abject silliness with a plot. I was in stitches for almost the entirety of last Sunday's episode. Also has the best running gag ever concieved: previews of next week's episode that never happen. I think it's an outlet for really funny jokes that they write that simply won't fit in continuity.

The Dead Zone. Surprisingly good sci-fi/fantasy, especially given that it's produced by USA Network. It's got good one-off episodes, but also has an interesting multi-season plot. Currently in the off-season showing reruns. They seem to show old reruns all the time back to the first season, so you might be able to catch them all without downloading.

Carnivale. On HBO. A truly amazing almost magical realist TV show about a preacher and a carny in the 30s who seem to be on opposing sides of the ultimate war between good and evil. A Vertigo comic book come to life, if that means anything to you.

Alias. Seems to be a little better this season than last, which was a wash. Still not as good as the first season. We need less romance and more real-world. The deletion of Francie and Will from the show remains its worst decision.

The only reason I got my Tivo was for Smallville and Football unfortunitly due to my obsession with keeping all smallvilles I missed many football games cause it kept deleting them Trying to bring my self to cracking it open to install a 250gig drive I have laying around.

As for the smallville description: Im no good at writing so I got this from the WB's web site

Before the legend...before the icon...there was a teenager named Clark Kent (Tom Welling, Cheaper by the Dozen.) Between the boy he thought he was and the man he is destined to become are the stories of Smallville. Someday, he'll master his powers and understand his true calling. Now beginning its fourth season on The WB, this new interpretation of the enduring Superman mythology and its classic characters blends realism and adventure into an exciting action series.

Hmm. Folks seem to like my list. Here's my also-ran:

Monk. Good. Mostly fun to watch. Could be so much better. They seem to have mostly gotten off of their story arc stuff, which bothers me. I doubt that it's gone, but I think that Monk would be much more obsessed with finding his wife's killer, and we've gotten virtually nowhere with that. Also, since Sharona left, he's gotten a little angry, which just feels very odd. Maybe that'll resolve itself.

Scrubs. Uh, there can be some really funny stuff here. There can also be some really annoying stuff here. They do melodrama really well (after seeing Garden State, I wonder how much of that has to do with Zach Braff himself), and they do slapstick really well. It's the touchy-feely stuff that doesn't quite work, and they do it too much. Also, they've reduced John McGinley to an insult machine. The Janitor still consistently cracks me up.

Medium. Well, I'm watching it. I'm a few episodes behind. I can't really recommend it. It doesn't seem to have much focus.

Smallville. I wonder who's guiding this show. I mostly enjoy it, but for a show that's supposed to be about Clark and Lex and how their relationship fails, there sure are a complete lack of scenes with them together. And we had to get rid of Pete so that we could let another main character in on Clark's secret? Strange. Lana seems to be in a different show, too. It was better when any of the main characters ... I don't know ... talked to one another?

Mythbusters. Fun to watch. Too many clip shows. And I'm tired of the damn chicken gun. I think it was featured prominently in the first like six episodes I watched. And they need to get rid of the guy on the second unit. He's terrible.

Joey. Started about as well as you might think. Very occasionally funny. Mostly just there. But the writing has really picked up in the last few episodes. Even the irritating manager is starting to grow on me. I think what happened is that the writing on Friends had a lot to do with knowing the characters really well, and we only knew the one character on Joey, and he'd largely been changed from a chucklehead to someone who could support the rest of a cast and be the stable one. Now that we know the rest of the cast of Joey reasonably well, the writing can target their idiosyncracies and let Joey revert to being a mostly likable chucklehead. This might actually make it into my A-list in a season or two if they keep it up.

The OC. Like I said, I don't watch it. But if you can get past all the soap opera crap (I can't), it looks like there's some good, funny familial writing. Plus: comic books! (Apparently one of the writers on the show has been asked to write a real comic book by Marvel.)

Numb3rs. First '1337-sp33k on TV? I've recorded a few episodes and haven't watched them yet. So I can't recommend this either way.

Star Trek: Enterprise. Now that there's some decent writing on the show, they cancelled it. If Berman and Braga had decided to let someone good write the show earlier, instead of writing 90% of the first fifty episodes themselves, it might still be on the air next season. Paramount needs to fire their asses. They're ruining Star Trek, if they haven't already ruined it.

The Simpsons. HIt-or-miss these days. It's mostly a miss for me, but worth watching.

King of the Hill. More consistently a hit for me than The Simpsons, but it just doesn't strike a chord in me like some other shows do, even if I laugh at it a reasonable amount.

Malcolm in the Middle. Still funny. I might should have included this in my first list. I'm disappointed with how they seem to be writing out Francis. And the Krelboynes are nowhere to be found. But I like the expansion of Dewey's character as Malcolm becomes more and more obsessive.

Special anti-recommendation:
Family Guy. I still don't get why people think this is funny. I keep watching the occasional episode, and it's just stupid. The most recent thing I saw (admittedly just in an advertisement) had the dad feeding ice cream to Tom Selleck on TV by smooshing it onto the screen. Then the TV's screen switched scenes to show Higgins and he says "No! Bad Higgins! No ice cream for you!". This is funny?

I have been told by several people to watch Lost when it comes over here, but I expect it will be on Sky (which my parents have on the TV downstairs), so I might finally set up a phone connection upstairs and get a mirrored subscription, although the annoying voice-overs and "ALL NEW" logos meant I didn't bother to watch Series 3 of 24 on TV and am currently working my way through the DVD box set (bargain, £18 from www.play.com )

Gareth

I think the high-concept pitch of Lost was probably "scripted Survivor". That probably does as good a job of describing it as you could do in two words, but it's soooooo much better than that. If you liked The Prisoner and Lord of the Flies, plus a little (more?) science fiction (and maybe the occasional odd comic book reference) you'll love Lost. It's well-acted, well-directed, and well-scripted, not to mention beautiful to look at, what with the Hawaiian rain forest location (not to mention Evangeline Lilly, Emilie de Ravin, Maggie Grace, and Yunjin Kim -- or Matthew Fox, Naveen Andrews, and Josh Holloway if you're a woman or gay).

Awesome thread. Let's see what I can add to the list that isn't already on there...

The Daily Show - Duh. Funniest thing on TV, unless you are so "right-wing" (i hate those terms) that you can't laugh at yourself.

ER - old standby I guess. I was never into it until Kelly got hooked, thus involving me. Consistently good writing and drama.

Bay Area Backroads - Not of much use to those not in the Bay Area, but it shows some great outdoors stuff to do that you might not find otherwise

The Standard Showboard Show - on the FUEL network. Weekly episode of Standard Films stuff, out of Tahoe. Some of the best snowboarders in the world ripping up the back-country. If you want to be amazed try and find the "Groms" episode.

Nova - hit or miss but classic public television educational stuff.

Frontline - hit or miss too but sometimes they have some awesome investigative reporting and non-network news reports

Charlie Rose - hit or miss... but every once and a while he'll have some amazing interviews. I have a season pass and just delete the ones i don't want, same for most of the above newsy type shows.

America's Funniest Home Videos - My friend got my hooked on Tivoing this. It's awesome to have around for a quick laugh, and you can fast forward through Sagat if you're recording the old episodes. I forgot how funny those compilation videos are. The pinata one kills me every time.

The benefit of having large drives is that you can snag all kinds of crap and just delete it. I added Neat and Alternative. (DAMN it's nice to have TivoWeb where I can just pop over and schedule stuff!!!)

I suspect our VCR off-the-air lineup here may be somewhat different..

1. Monday Report.
2. RCAF.
3. JFL/JPR (best of).
4. Nahm.. err.. NY Workshop, of course! and T.O.H. + HomeTime.

That's it.

Cheers

Oh yeah NY workshop is great. Norm is about the only person on a how to show that appears to actually be able to do the things they are demonstrating. Woodworks on DIY is good too but I would guess that isn't on in Canada.

You mentioned Medium which I forgot earlier and which I came back tonight to plug. I enjoy shows with a story arch, but this one is done very well for not having one (at least not one that's extremely serialized). There's a good amount of back-story banter with the family which keeps the mood of the show changing (as opposed to some other "crime" shows which focus on nothing but the crime). This show is mostly about the character, not the cases. Decent writing and a very enjoyable cast.

Back to Alias. None of the show is "realistic" but that doesn't mean they should go over the top with something completely unplausible (and tacky) and continue it throughout the season. Come on, look how many people are in that office and that's the ONLY way in? They can build this HQ under subway station and that's the most discrete enntrance they can come up with? Please.

First let me correct one thing. This is not going to be a half season. Unless you know something (recent) I don't. They're doing a full season's run without any repeats, just like they're doing with 24. Generally there won't be any missed nights either, with the exception of unscheduled events like presidential BS, etc. I still don't know why crap like that has to be on ALL networks.

The black-ops plot device is being advertised as going back to the roots of the show. However, this black ops team and the entire scenario has no resemblance to SD-6 nor what was going on in the first season. In fact it's just going down the alley that plagued lastt years season. The whole family working in the same little club-house, going on the same missions and hanging out after school together. Ugh. None of those relationships would last too long. The SD-6 environment was one of deception and what added some cool factor was the double-spying and triple life the main character was leading. IMO, they killed off SD-6 way too early - that was likely the first mistake they made with the show.

Next, you have a supposed "black ops" team doing otherwise mundane work that clearly the not-as-secretive portions of the CIA should/would be doing. Come on, you knew by the end of the first episode they'd be bringing Weiss in on the action sooner or later, right? What the hell happened to all the villians from last season? I don't like the abrupt dicontinuation from season-to-season. I did get sick of seeing the same villian (Sark) all the time (that was too unrealistic, the guy was everywhere), but now I miss never having him show up. Putting Sloane in "charge" of this team? Come on, too easy yet totally unbelievable. I can see having the guy in an advisory role, but this isn't working to help the plot nor character interaction/conflict. Last week was the first time we saw any pay-off with that character being in that position (the Dixon thing).

For a show to be really good in my mind it has to be worth mentioning (positively) the next day. At least having something about it pop into mind even if not discussing it with anyone. Sitting through an episode and somewhat enjoying it, only to think about it negatively the next day just doesn't sit right. This never happened with any of the first three seasons.

By the way, what the hell happened to Irena? At the end of last season they gave no indication the father had killed her (that isn't what was on the papers Sydney was reading nor the communication Jack had with her throughout the season). Lame plot line that's now going to come to a head (again) at some point this season because of the sister angle. And please, I'm really tired of seeing the main character as some whiny twist - that's not the same character from the first two seasons.

To relate this "enjoyed it enough to watch" to a recent movie I saw: That Leminy Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events thing... Decent acting, good sets and effects, had some potential. But, where was the story? Completely lacking. I also thought Carey barely had to try. My rating, 1 out of 5 stars. It ain't no Harry potter. I don't want to find myself still liking the characters in Alias but just not buying/enjoying the sotry.

Re: X-Files. Chris Carter started it off well but I think spent too much time enjoying the profits and getting full of himself. He stretched it far too long and now i don't know if his name would ever help move another series. Funny though, I enjoyed the short-lived Lone Gunmen show because it didn't pretend to be serious. I also enjoyed the show Space Above and Beyond, a product of two of the best writers to have contributed to the X-Files, Morgan and Wong.

Lost is a pretty decent show (I can't miss an episode - even downloaded them remotely and then transfered them to my hotel while I was in Vegas). About the only thing that bugs me about it is they tend to ignore some parts of previous episodes in a far too obvious manner. I mean, when Claire was missing, really, they should have been looking for her. They should have gone back out after the French woman, gone back to look at the first polar bear, etc... And this brings me to another show I really enjoyed (till they started messing it up), Earth2. Which I swear I thought Lost was copying to a "T" for many of the first episodes. The premise isn't new, but the similarities were too obvious (making substitutions for timeline, setting, etc...) Thanks for reminding me about The Prisoner. Still have to get the series on DVD - loved it.

I also still enjoy Amazing Race when that's on - and I can't believe they're starting another "season" only 3 weeks after this last one ended. I don't watch (nor like) the Apprentice (don't know why some people "love" this show), but I saw a number of the Branson Rebel Billionaire show which I enjoyed (a lot more adventure-related/cultural I suppose).

There's of course the obvious Sopranos, but I still have to watch the 4th season which i skipped on purpose so I could see straight through on DVD. Doing something similar with Boston Legal that i mentioned... Downloading all the episodes so I can watch them at my leisure in the summer.

Family Guy: some good episiodes some bad ones. Like the Simpsons. I thought Futurama was better than the Simpsons. And I like the Simpsons. Malcolm is always good, but I just never watch it anymore. Will pick up the DVDs. Love Scrubs, never seen a bad episode.

South Park. Don't watch the current season (time/scheduling, etc.. No TiVo...) and missed a lot of the past three, but I've never seen an episode I didn't like. It's just too funny. Love it. Have first three seasons on DVD from when they were first out, will buy all the rest now that they were released. This was on my TiVo season's pass. Along with a lot of stuff from Adult Swim (Cartoon Network): Cowboy Bebop (awesome) and Teenage Hunger Force (looks really bad at first, but its just messed up enough that I thought it was a riot and really enjoyed it).

Bruno

Bitt, I was giving you high points for so many good matches.. But then you go and mention Buffy... Angel.... Firefily... And, the nails-on-chalkboard, OC. Ugh. Point Pleasant is interesting insofar as I want to know what exactly it's about. Other than that I haven't found the tiny bits I've seen interesting enough to make me seek out an entire episode or take the time to try and get into it. There's just too much already to watch (I hope someday I can watch some of the stuff I'm collecting now when there's absolutely nothing on TV and I actually have any time to sit down and watch anything at all).

Carnivale looks good enough to get into though - will check out the DVDs of the first season.

Bruno

For years I have seriously considered getting a Tivo/PVR?MythTV setup just to play with the technology, but I can honestly say that there is so little on the TV that I am really interested these days that I haven't bothered. (I'm not a Luddite really!!)

SWMBO does watch ER and Nip/Tuck (she's a nurse, so those kind of shows crack her up) and she also watches all the makeover and shows so I occasionally see a bit of them.

I tend to mostly see shows that are effective as standalone episodes - the only exclusions being all of Buffy (just for Buffy, Willow and Spike's accent) and any motor-racing or sailing programmes.

Sadly the main thing I watch these days (aside from general MTV channels) is Pimp My Ride. This could have something to do with generally working 70 or 80 hour weeks and needing something very lowbrow in my wind-down phase after work.

At some point I may get all the DVD's of 24 and watch it - as it does sound good.

I don't think they're making it any more, so it's a case of looking out for re-runs, but The Oblongs is well worth watching. It's a cartoon about a catastrophically dysfunctional working-class family and the unflappable chipperness of their 1950s-style pipe-'n'-slippers dad. The guy who did the comic books it's based on, apparently says they missed all the darkness and edginess of the original, but IMO there's still plenty of darkness and edginess left.

Peter

(actually - we both saw every episode of Green Wing...for all the reasons you have just detailed)

but generally I never watch TV

<ahem>