While I love Lost, I think it'll drive you nuts with the characters being so supremely uninterested in figuring out what the heck is going on, who the "Others" are, and what the heck The Monster is.

I'm going to say - give the new Battlestar Galactia a try. The mini-series is not great, but Episode One of Season One is in the running for Best Hour of Television Ever.

Since you've still got the internet, you can catch Heroes at NBC.COM's webpage. (If they've taken it down, it'll be out on DVD this summer.)

scrawled by Rick | May 24, 2007 7:38 AM

I'd recommend the first seaso of Veronica
Mars. It takes what you would think is a recipe for disaster - high school teen detective on UPN - and turns out the best TV show on class divisions I've seen in a good long while.

And of course, speaking of David Caruso, have you seen this:

http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2007/02/why-david-caruso-beat-beat-is-one.html

scrawled by Craig | May 24, 2007 10:16 AM

My worry about Lost is I'll just get irritated by lots of near-escapes from the island. BG's mini put me to sleep. Seriously, I feared for my life and wondered if Moore had lost his mind.

Both series can be had for around $24 (pre-viewed) apiece.

scrawled by priest | May 24, 2007 11:08 AM

Deepdiscountdvd.com is your pal. Free shipping, prices comparable to or lower than Wal-Mart, and lots of variety, especially in boxed sets.

I'm currently working through some late 70s kidvid SF cheese bought from DDD. Space Academy and Jason of Star Command, both only $17 (MSRP $30) for 4-disc sets. The first series stars Jonathan Harris, the second has James Doohan for its name recognition. :)

scrawled by Dave Van Domelen | May 24, 2007 1:06 PM

Second Veronica Mars.

If you like comedy, I found Scrubs to be astoundingly to my liking. NewsRadio if you want to go back a little earlier.

House is worth a taste.

Bones takes CSI's magical forensics and goes straight ahead into fantasy, but it has often worthwhile characters.

scrawled by Greg Morrow | May 24, 2007 2:01 PM

Lost actually doesn't have that many "near escapes" as you might think. It's not really Gilligan's Isle, though I agree with Rick that it can be infuriating at time when the characters never ask the questions that the audience asks. But I think it's better written then Alias, which is more popcorn entertainment.

I'll third Veronica Mars, though the third (and final) season is a bit disappointing. It's like Nancy Drew meets Twin Peeks.

I'll back the notion that the new BSG is worth checking out again. Maybe go to Blockbuster and check out the first disc, because if you watch the first episode after the mini-series (which is titled "33" by the way) and if don't like it, I doubt you'll care for the rest of the series.

Firefly is a good, though too short, tv series if you haven't checked it out. It is centered around a sci-fi setting with some western tropes thrown in, and then follow it up with the movie Serenity.

Neither are available on DVD yet, but both Heroes (which is a more real world take on the X-Men styled "People are evolving and getting random powers" idea) and Studio 60 (which has Matthew Perry and written by Aaron Sorkin, two people whom I know you've enjoyed in the past) might be worth a look at somepoint in the future

scrawled by JasonD | May 24, 2007 3:26 PM

Let me jump on the VERONICA MARS bandwagon, too. I like LOST, but it can be pretty infuriating. I also like RESCUE ME, though it, too, can be infuriating (different reasons, though).

scrawled by Richard Howe | May 24, 2007 4:21 PM

Definitely check out Lost over Alias. Alias was good for the first two seasons but started to decline in season 3. And right now, three years into Lost, I'm as excited about that show as I've ever been.

But a show I enjoy even more is HBO's The Wire. It's a story about life in Baltimore. It seems like a cops and gangsters show for the first season (at least, it does to me), but the scope later expands to longshoremen, politicians and the education system. I hope that doesn't sound really boring.

The reaction to the show reminds of the way people responded to your Black Panther. Rewards the attentive viewer, punishes the casual one.

Try to watch the whole first year. People usually aren't hooked right from the first few episodes. If The Wire isn't your favorite show by the end of the first season, that would be considered unusual.

scrawled by James Kang | May 24, 2007 4:43 PM

Priest, I just remembered you don't like to buy HBO boxed sets because of how expensive they are. That's a real shame, since The Wire is a terrific series. Maybe they'll pop up cheap on iTunes someday.

scrawled by James Kang | May 24, 2007 5:30 PM

I love THE SHIELD. Let us know when you catch up to the current episodes, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Have you tried the Sopranos? It had a dip in quality with Season 5, but it's back on track with its sixth and final season.

Oh, and just curious; if you're gonna buy the bootleg versions, why not just download 'em and burn them to DVD? Get the Azureus software and go to a site like mininova.org... you'll find all the latest shows.

scrawled by Matt Adler | May 24, 2007 7:32 PM

I'm actually picking them up legally from second-hand stores. But, I know some of these box sets have been shoplifted. I mean, I bought a "used" copyh of Shield Season 5 like five days after the set was released.

I had to literally pry the discs out of several of the CSI: Miami sets, which were al purchased as "used," but had obviously never been viewed by anyone.

Thanks for the recommendation. Vernoica Mars? Really? Can a black man actually buy VM and not get his butt kicked on his way home?!

scrawled by priest | May 24, 2007 7:58 PM

Maybe they'll wrap it in brown paper for you?

Seriously, season one of VM is wonderful. Season 2 is good, but a bit uneven. Season 3 is also good, but even more uneven, due largely to a desperate attempt at reformatting in order to save the show. The show's at its best when it is depicting the class warfare in Neptune, CA, an element which fades in subsequent seasons.

scrawled by Richard Howe | May 24, 2007 9:19 PM

I'll just second and third what everyone's already said.
I highly recommend Veronica Mars. It's a really fun show.
Also, if you're interested in the best show on television you need to watch The Wire. It is so good it makes watching a typical police procedural feel like a complete waste of time.
As far as Scifi goes Battlestar is the show to go with.
I've never had cable, Netflix is my friend. Anything I really want to watch makes it to DVD now and it's cheaper than cable. Congrats on throwing the cable monkey off your back!

scrawled by Jeff | May 25, 2007 6:37 AM

This actually reminds me of the debate about trade paperbacks vs. monthlies: if nobody buys the monthlies, many series won’t make it into trades (*cough* THE CREW *cough*). OTOH, series like Black Panther (and west Wing) actually read (view) better in collected editions where you don’t have that 30-day (1-week) lag between episodes.

Watching TV on DVD is an almost completely different experience, superior in many respects while sometimes working against the show’s pacing (Horatio’s engagement—marriage seemed even thinner and less compelling because it was spread out over days instead of months; Forrest Whitaker’s weight loss on Shield would have been more subtle and compelling and perhaps resonated better with his Ahab-like obsession with Vic had I not seen the entire season over a weekend).

scrawled by priest | May 25, 2007 8:47 AM

I can't believe I didn't think to mention the Wire - it's from the guys who did Homicide and is quite possibly the best long-form television ever made. If the sets are too expensive or hard to find, it's worth getting a Netflix subscription just for the duration of watching the series.

(I was struck the last time I read THE CREW that it was the closest superhero comics will ever come to replicating the feel and the themes of The Wire, and did so a couple of years before the show ever made it on the air. Impressive.)

And there are a lot of similarites between TV on DVD and trade paperbacks, but unfortunately the television studios are much smarter in their business dealings. They'll throw a cancelled show on DVD if they think it'll have enough of a fan following (see Firefly, Wonderfalls, and Freaks and Geeks, frex) and can use DVD sets to justify keeping borderline shows on the air for a second season. Comics, unfortunately, spend more effort extracting the extra Batman buck with TPBs.

scrawled by Craig | May 25, 2007 2:27 PM

Buffy, Angel, Have Gun - Will Travel. Cannot go wrong with these. Especially the early seasons.

scrawled by Eric | May 25, 2007 4:15 PM

Craig: prime example: Brooklyn South, David Milch spin-off from NYPD Blue. wonderfully uneven mess of a show, but smart Milch at his most alcoholic. CBS cancelled it prematurely, possibly because of Milch's Milchisms. It was the uniformed force equivalent of Blue (which focused on the detectives squad). I happened upon a box set in Best Buy a couple years ago, and it is one of the gems of my collection.

waiting for Blind Justice boxed set. An utterly ridiculous premise about a blind detective, the first half of season one was brilliant nonetheless, and actually had me buying into this nonsense before the writers all wandered off (or the network meddled or both), sending the writing into a mid-season spiral towards cancellation.

“Very well, then, proceed as you would with non-clowns.” —the bumbling, self-protecting captain from the cancelled-way-too-soon Brooklyn South.

scrawled by priest | May 25, 2007 5:30 PM

Lost is better than Alias, but beware season two.

Netflix is killer for cable-free household. A two disc at a time plan kept me and my girl happy when we lived cable free.

Recommendations?

scrawled by Cooper | May 26, 2007 10:41 AM

To copy what others have said I would suggest The Wire, Veronica Mars Season 1, (and I'm a black male) Firefly and Battlestar Galatica. I'm curious though, why not use Netflix for shows you're iffy about?

scrawled by Shaun G | May 27, 2007 6:09 PM

Firefly is hands down amazing. Get Serenity (the movie) too.

Homicide is awesome, but you've seen that?

I don't like Alias or Lost. Tons of mysteries that go nowhere. If you didn't like Twin Peaks don't get either.

scrawled by Blaine | May 27, 2007 10:27 PM

"The Wire" IS the best show on TV. I'd say that even if I wasn't from B-More :) . After that try David Milch's "Deadwood" series.

scrawled by Kristopher | May 27, 2007 11:09 PM

Homicide. (If you don't already own them)

scrawled by Anonymous | May 28, 2007 6:01 PM

Co sign on "The Wire". All four seasons are great. But Season 4, IMHO, has to be one of the most important mini-series ever to be aired on television. It touches on crime, education, politics and urban community life all in one season in such a clever way.

Every thing in season 4 is true to life. My wife is a teacher and she was so amazed at the striking similarities between the plots on the show and her recent experiences in the New Jersey educational system. I got similar responses from almost everyone else I know who are in the same professions addressed in this past season's "Wire". Must see TV. (did I sound too much like a TV-guide employee??) :-)

scrawled by Ty | May 29, 2007 10:22 PM

Cooper: without spoilers, can you give me some idea why you didn’t like Lost Season 2? Sounds like The Wire is the next move, though I’m also teetering on Shawn Ryan and David Mamet’s “The Unit,” which I’d be watching purely because of those two creators.

I already own Homicide, and, in fact, that’s what I’m watching now. I feel like the show jumps the shark a bit after the initial run (Seasons 1&2), where they straighten the show out a bit more to make it more “accessible.” Despite the meddling, Homicide never found a huge audience and always labored under threat of cancellation. So they should have just let it be what it was: brilliant, unorthodox, ground-breaking. Past seasons three or so, I got really bored the more conventional the show became. Barnfather really got on my nerves, which, I suppose, is what he was designed to do. But I wanted to see more of a journey with the character, more like Acevado on The SHIELD.

Ty: I’ve finished Season 5 of SHIELD. I don’t plan on getting into Season 6 until there’s a box. I’ve grown way too impatient to wait seven days for another ep. :-) Yes, I know they’re on iTunes, but I’m not sitting in my office watching TV no my PC.

I thought SHIELD was brilliant, season 5 likely the best (though Mackey doesn’t drive the story and is kind of dragged along throughout the season). Kavannaugh’s arc seemed predictable yet brilliantly executed, as did the business with Shane and Lem. I love characters like Shane, and I think it’s awfully brave of the actor (Walton Goggins) to play a guy with such weaknesses. It’s brilliant how Shane’s weaknesses make him an inferior doppelganger of the far smarter Vic, Shane trying to emulate Vic but not being smart enough to read between the lines. The combination of the predictable with the inevitable is intoxicating. The brilliance in the writing seems, to me, to be the writers realizing there are only so many paths a story can take. Rather than try and reinvent the wheel, they actually play towards audience expectation. We know where things are going, so they make the journey as arduous as possible.

What I also liked about Season 5 is they seemed to say, “The heck with new viewers.” On PANTHER, I was always nagged about bringing in new reader, about making the series accessible. Which made perfect sense and was what the company was *supposed* to do. But, my thinking was, there’s only so much audience for Black Panther no matter who’s writing it and no matter what you do. Not to say things couldn’t be better, but, overall, part of the fun of PANTHER is how uncannily wily the guy is. It’s difficult to demonstrate wiliness *and* be completely transparent and accessible all at once. My approach, therefore, was usually to annoy the audience for a few arc installments until Panther started snapping all the mousetraps shut (one of my favorites: T’Challa making a monkey out of Iron Man and stealing his company with one phone call).

Hard to do that and make it episodic and accessible.

On The SHIELD, I believe creator Shawn Ryan looked at the numbers and figured this was the audience he was going to have. He actually says in the season 5 supplements that, at some point, he made the decision to err on the side of pleasing long-term fans than to constantly chase higher ratings. Like PANTHER, the SHIELD is what it is, and this is the audience for that show. Not saying either property couldn’t do better, but constantly shooting ourselves in the face trying to entice people who aren’t interested in what we’re doing in the first place seems wrongheaded.

scrawled by priest | June 1, 2007 10:18 AM

Priest:"Hard to do that and make it episodic and accessible."

That's one of the reasons why I wish you had the opportunity to write for film or TV. I think your great plots and recent storytelling styles were not served best by the comicbook medium. They relied too much on the artists' good or not_so_good artwork and limited page-per-book restrictions.

I ain't tryin to knock the artists or the medium itself. I know all of those factors are all part of the game and it was your job too make it work. But can anybody here imagine "The_Shield" or "24" or "Pulp_Fiction" or "The_Wire" in a monthly comicbook format?? Those books would get cancelled so quickly it wouldn't be funny. And not because of the quality of the writing but because of the sales figures. Your Panther work (not my opinion, but fact) is on par with all of those shows and I know would shine in the proper medium.

I absolutely love PriestPanther. I really got everything you were trying to do with that book (as many others did). But as far as comics go, I think you hit your perfect stride with "Spidey vs. Wolverine". Great plot but straightforward enough for people who can't follow your brilliant, dense plots in this comic medium. Like you've said on numerous occasions, too much is out of your control (mainly Art and marketing, but also cross promotional events, etc.)

scrawled by Ty | June 4, 2007 9:08 PM

Ty: your average comic book translates into about 10-12 minutes of film running time. Imagine the SHIELD, as currently written, being dripped out as 12-minutes segments once per month.

That is, essentially, the BLACK PANTHER problem. Assembled together as a trade, they just read better. I’d crawl across cut glass if Marvel would release ENEMY OF THE STATE ii or STURM UND DRANG as trades. I guarantee they’d make a lot more sense.

Kasper Panther was supposed to have Artist A on it, but he bailed for another project or something, and the whole BLACK AND WHITE arc—which I worked *incredibly* hard on—was given to an artist who’d never *seen* Brooklyn and had no idea at all about urban hip-hop culture: the very things Marvel was pressing us for (suggesting, essentially, that BLACK PANTHER wasn’t “black” or “street” enough).

Which is why I enjoy writing novels. I don’t want to run around blaming artists—I’ve made far more than my own share of mistakes. But, with a novel, I can stand up and go, “Yup, I screwed that up.” In comics, there’s a team. Once a script is delivered to the editor, it’s out of my hands, but I tend to catch all the flak for it.

scrawled by priest | June 6, 2007 10:33 AM

Let me be the zillionth to recommend THE WIRE. Dense, subtle, extraordinarilty well written and acted. Also, by the same folks, is THE CORNER, a six-episode miniseries. Truly awe-inspiring.

Also, someone mentioned DEADWOOD. Since you're a big fan of NYPD BLUE (and David Milch), you should give it a shot. It's very Shakespearean (no kidding!), but very VERY obscene.

Also seconding BATTLESTAR, VERONICA MARS, SCRUBS (all three in my top shows ever list), LOST (it's good but frustrating), and just about any HBO drama is worth checking out. (SOPRANOS, of course, but I really like BIG LOVE too. And ROME had its moments.)

Aaaaaannndddd... that's about all I watch.

scrawled by clay | June 12, 2007 11:10 AM

Just released on DVD -- Season Two of Mission Impossible (the first Peter Graves season).

IMF can't be beat.

scrawled by odessa steps magazine | June 18, 2007 9:59 PM

FTR: the winner is... NYPD BLUE. Seasons 3 & 4 are out and are, so far as I can tell, all they're planning to release. The DVD's were quite popular when initially released, but Fox/ABC screwed the pooch with syndication deals that kept the discs off the shelf too long. 2-3 year wait between season 2 and 3 just killed the demand for it and, so far as I can tell, now Fox is shrugging, "Oh well."

Blue was one of the best-written series ever on TV (under Milch, not so much post-Milch).

I got Wire Season 2, waiting to find Season 1 used or at least on sale. 50 bucks for 13 episodes just ain’t gonna happen. Best Buy is selling Blue for $22 a season (likely a close-out). That's $1 an episode. wire Season 3 is $79. HBO is on drugs.

Or, more likely, they want the box sets out there but they want to drive viewers to HBO rather than pay the high price. The price will likely drop after the series goes off the air, but this is an asinine sales strategy: 80 bucks for 13 episodes. yeah. Right.

scrawled by priest | June 21, 2007 9:46 AM