RecommendingTV shows to watchcan be a tricky habit to master. For one thing, the very reason why you love a series could be cause for someone else to hate it. Those who appear to share similar interests with you might well have very different ideas about television, whether they acquired them through old traditions or random browsing on streaming platforms. On the other hand, it’s much easier to be clear about which of your favorite TVshows you’d never recommend to a friend.
If there’s anyshow you consider a guilty pleasure, have to pretend you’ve never seen, don’t bother even trying to explain, or worry about when it shows up in the “Continue Watching” section of your streaming accounts, then it probably belongs on this list. For my part,these 10 shows are a curious mix of oddball comedies, glossy costume dramas, all-out nostalgia trips, and shows I simply got far too attached to, far too soon.I find all of them eminently watchable and hugely enjoyable, but absolutely none of them recommendable.
Pixar’s solitary experiment in serial animation so far is yet another triumphof wonderfully imaginative and deeply emotive storytelling. Putting aside thecontroversy aroundWin or Lose’s cut transgender storyline, it’s fair to say that the show succeeds in pushing the envelope even more than Pixar’s most groundbreaking feature-length concept,Inside Out.The result is a beautifully poetic but somewhat disorientating meditation on performance anxiety in children and adults alike.
“While it is appreciated, it is interesting that adult themes are willingly injected into a show for kids who have yet to experience things such as feeling lonely after ending a relationship."- Ferdosa Abdi -ScreenRant’s review ofWin or Lose
I just wonder who on earth the series is for – besides me, that is. It swings wildly between themes aimed at adults and those meant for children, rather than the more layered approach Pixar’s movies usually take to pleasing the entire family. Meanwhile, it’s hard to gauge how a mainstream audience of any age group would enjoy its highly inventive but often distractingly eccentric experiments in form.
For the right audience,Communityis one of thebest sitcoms of all time. The show doesn’t get the plaudits it deserves, despite the cult following it’s built up over the years. But you have to discover it for yourself. Otherwise,there’s no way you could possibly experience the joy that each new edition of “Troy and Abed in the Morning” brings,or appreciate the true ingenuity of the show’s animated and paintball episodes. As much as I find it inescapably brilliant, it’s likely to drive plenty of viewers up the wall.Communityis definitely a comedy to recommend with caution.
When it comes to pure, unadulterated nostalgia, there’s nothing that beats an episode ofThe Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, in which we follow one of the title character’s various non-adventures with Ben the Grizzly Bear. The show was already dated, to say the least, when I first came across it as a child in the 1990s, and by now it’s positively moribund. Yet I continue to be held under the spell of this Santa Claus lookalike and his endearingly oversized pet.
The Life and Times of Grizzly Adamswas based on a 1974 movie of the same name; the movie became a syndication hit on network TV two years after its initial release.
The loving bond between Adams, portrayed by Dan Haggerty in the role he was born to play, and the cuddly, gentle giant that is Ben, just doesn’t get old. Unfortunately, though, I did. In all honesty,if I hadn’t started watchingGrizzly Adamswhen I did, I’d probably find the show a complete waste of my time.So, I naturally assume that those who haven’t seen it yet would have no need for it.
For those without an unhealthy obsession with the Big Apple,Fran Lebowitz leading Martin Scorsese on an idiosyncratic and highly personal tour of New York must sound incredibly boring.For me,Pretend It’s a Cityisn’t just one ofMartin Scorsese’s best Netflix releases. It’s the most important historical account of the place atop my bucket list since Ric Burns' PBS epicNew York: A Documentary Film.
More than any scriptedTV show set in New York, Lebowitz’s singular perspective of the city beautifully articulates what it means to its inhabitants, and is perfectly complemented by Scorsese’s sensitive and earnest use of his craft as a cinematic director. This limited series is one for a very particular kind of wannabe New Yorker – one that I’d struggle to locate in my friendship circle.
Thefirst genuinely great Netflix original series,House of Cardsmight seem strangely out of place on this list. I was initially completely gripped by the show’s first three seasons. However, as strongly as the show started, it faded spectacularly in the second half of its run. I’d recommend that anyone who hasn’t seen the show avoid it, however. Rather than have my love-hate relationship with it, it’s better not to have any relationship at all.
House of Cardsbegan treading water in season 4,and the writing was on the wall long before Kevin Spacey’s highly publicized exit two years later. In fact,the show was effectively ruined for good after its third season finale, when Frank Underwood’s chief of staff Doug Stamper shed his last shred of humanity to murder his love interest Rachel in cold blood. From then on, it was unrelentingly depressing, but I was already too invested not to follow it through.
For Brits who were teenagers in the second half of the noughties,Skinswas a rite of passage. Fantasies about Dionysian nights of debauchery in luxurious house parties found a visual expression in the TV show, precisely because it was written by adolescents like us.Skinswill always be the show I came of age with, and for that reason, my love for it will endure regardless of how unkind history becomes.
The advent of clever and genuinely insightful shows likeSex EducationandNever Have I Everin recent years has, sadly, madeSkinslook even worse.
The fact is, though, I wouldn’t want anyone in their right mind watching the series today.Skinshas less in common with the lives of teenagers than most school teachers do, and its depiction of rebellious high-school misfits without bothering to take necessary evils like parenting, money, and the law into account is ham-fisted at best. The advent of clever and genuinely insightfulshows likeSex EducationandNever Have I Everin recent years has, sadly, madeSkinslook even worse.
As far as sword-and-sandals soap operas go,there’s nothing quite likeRomefor sheer entertainment. The show has little to do with the history that inspired it beyond superficial aspects of its setting, plot, and characterization, but it’s just so much fun. While I can’t help but laugh atRome’s relative indifference to historical accuracywhenever I’m watching it, I’ll always see an episode through to its conclusion. At the same time, there are more recent guilty pleasures for others to be getting along with, and making a mockery of classical history isn’t everyone’s idea of bingeable viewing.
When it arrived on British TV screens in the late 1990s,there’d never been anything that had taken satire quite as far asBrass Eye.In fact, despite the bounds of acceptability being extended far further by TV since then, it’s likely that there will never be anything quite like it again. The brainchild of writer-director Chris Morris,Brass Eyelampoons the very nature of television broadcasting while demonstrating a total disregard for ground rules of good taste dictated to it by the mainstream media.
For fear of offending any friend I mention it to, I tend to keep this lost TV gem to myself.
The more inappropriate the show gets, the funnier it is, but it never relies on the brute force of blunt provocation to gain a cheap laugh. It earns its comedy through the subversive juxtaposition of a devilishly dark sense of humor with a keen eye for contemporary media tropes and a gloriously deadpan form of delivery. This isn’t a show for the faint-hearted, however, as the title ofBrass Eye’s contentious “Paedogeddon!” special suggests. For fear of offending any friend I mention it to, I tend to keep this lost TV gem to myself.
For those of a certain age who’d always found the humor inFriendsa little too broad to embrace the show as our own,How I Met Your Motherwas the shrewder, better-dressed alternative we’d been waiting for. As well as its boozier version of Central Perk and superior running gags, at its heart the show was the story of a doe-eyed romantic we could genuinely root for. That is, untilHow I Met Your Mother’s clever premise began to wear thin, andTed Mosby’s one-sided idea of romance became cloying and increasingly hard to swallow.
The final two seasons ofHIMYMare, to my mind, just as bad as its famously controversial finale. I’ll never stop loving the show for its glory days, but I certainly won’t be recommending it anytime soon, given the ending it is predicated on. Barney Stinson’s unironically antiquated approach to women, enshrined in a tome he calls the “Bro Code,” is another worthy reason to avoid this somewhat dated romantic sitcom, too.
Beware this little-known animated sketch show if your sense of humor stops anywhere short of brutal, off-color satire.For those who managed to get into it,Monkey Dustwas one of the best comedy showsthey’d ever seen. It would be exaggerating to say that itranked as aMonty Pythonmomentin British comedy, but that was how it felt to those of us who dared to watch.
The show has understandably disappeared from view in the decades since its release, and will only be discovered by those willing to venture to the outer limits of TV gone by for one of the most vicious skewerings British society has ever experienced at the hands of a comic. Nonetheless, the wayMonkey Dustjokes about the media’s portrayal of a range of themes, from drug addiction to child abuse and mental illness, would frankly make many of my friends question our relationship if I recommended this TV show to them.
