Better off ted deserved more than what it got.
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
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Television
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I feel like Black Books was very underrated. A drunken Irish misanthrope runs a bookshop with an idiot for a sidekick
Tbf idk that Mannie was ever an idiot
Naive and well-meaning but not stupid
It's not his fault, he's got Dave's syndrome
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace: '80s BBC horror drama satire from the early '00s, and I think it used to be more popular but has fallen out of the zeitgeist just based on its age, space ghost: coast to coast.
I think it was a satire less of BBC horror drama and more of author-branded spooky anthology series like The Ray Bradbury Theater and Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. But done by someone who's part terrible horror author like Shaun Hutson, part terrible 80s action movie hero. (Full disclosure, I would read Hutson schlock like Slugs etc as a kid in the 80s.)
But that's just my tuppence.
Started rewatching it last month, saving the last episode.
I think it's going to get more attention now because it's finally been released on streaming (Peacock in the US IIRC).
I've still never seen the spin-off, Man to Man with Dean Learner
I think you're right, it reminded me of watching Dark Shadows and other similarly written and shot old soap opera reruns with my grandma. But it's really closer to the horror anthology single creator style like the influences you mentioned. There's an in-character commentary track too that's pretty good
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I just discovered this one for the first time myself. It is the apotheosis of stupid TV, pitch perfect in so many ways.
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Misfits. I went back and watched the entire thing again a couple of years ago and it was still so funny. I'm not sure it could get made in today's world, it was so delightfully mean and rude.
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The Shield is an amazing, gritty series about The Strike Team, a special unit in an LA police department. The writing is tight, the story threads are engaging, and the end of every episode makes you want to immediately start another one just to see how it all plays out. It was seven seasons long, and they all connect from the first episode to the last one.
It’s on Hulu in the US, and well worth the watch.
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Utopia (Brittish version), interesting cinematography vis-a-vis colour usage, quirky soundtrack and amazing dialogue. Not sure if this counts as obscure though.
I definitely think it counts. I watched it back in the day and even I routinely forget of its existence (only just remembered again thanks to your comment).
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Due South. A Royal Canadian Mountie ends up working as a liaison with the Chicago Police Department while on the trail of his father's killer. It's a comedy-drama with a great cast.
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The Magicians (2016): It often gets pitched as "Hogwarts for adults" because it features a magic college/university, but honestly that is just the initial backdrop and a massive undersell.
It is the rare show where the creators were seemingly handed a blank cheque to be as creative as they want to be, and they make full use of that in more ways than I can list here (but which definitely includes both the magic system itself, and the hilarious nonchalance towards the consequences of magic being a reality); yet all the while, they stay true and fiercely loyal to their characters, who are all deeply flawed, but which you can't help but want to see succeed; plus they managed to write genuinely great humor.
The best summary of the show comes from one of the characters themselves: "Magic doesn't come from talent. It comes from pain."
Be warned: the first few episodes, and possibly the first season, are the weakest and roughest of the bunch, which probably really hampered viewership. They do still manage to find their own tone, but it's nothing compared to seasons 3-5.
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Obscure because it comes from my country but
Kim’s convenience is an amazing show. Like fucking incredible! Netflix had a the diffusion right for a time but I don’t know if they have it anymore, exactly like the next suggestion (this one is in French)
Série Noire where two writers tried to write a crime story and get embroiled with the … gay mafia. Personally I prefer Les invincibles
Not obsucure (still consider one of the pioneers in New Waves documentaries) but I cannot help myself, Pierre Perrault’s Shimmering Beast and Pour la Suite du Monde (for the next world, the link have English subtitles) where he investigates what it is to be Québécois, to be human in the modernity
Technically a remake of the 2013 UK show of the same name, but I had never seen or heard of it - so I went into the US version blind and I absolutely loved it.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016)
Similar to the above, a UK TV show preceded this one; both based on a Douglas Adam’s (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) novel series.
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Lie to Me, and Battle Creek.
Both shows had their strengths and weaknesses but I found both entertaining for different reasons. Lie to Me had a slow burn romance subplot that never quite came to fruition.
Battle Creek was funny and silly and I always got the feeling the actors were having fun making it.
Firefly
OK, OK, I know it's not obscure or forgotten, but why has nobody done something similar since?
Literally my first thought when I opened this thread.
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It's a skit comedy show but The Upright Citizens Brigade was hilarious! In the vein of The State or Kids in the Hall.
Common side effects was good. Its on adult swim so maybe not that obscure but I don't see it talked a whole lot about. Older things would be police story and hill street blues which because they don't rely on special effects have aged well. Its interesting to watch things like cop shows from the 70's and 80's as while they might not show exact reality of cops form the time its just amazing to see how we expected cops to behave compared to now.
Mission Hill. It was 90s era animated sitcom that was taken off the air before the first season finished, resulting in the last few episodes never getting animated.
Today it stands as a really engaging period piece, and if you ever wanted to see Spongebob (Tom Kenny) as a flamboyant gay man or a violent teenage ne'er-do-well it's well worth the seven or so episodes.
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a likely story; it was a reading show on wcvb (like reading rainbow) about a woman - alison martin - who was a librarian who drove a bookmobile around and read to kids. i watched it every day.
https://collection.oldfilm.org/Detail/occurrences/56859
https://oldfilm.org/more-than-the-news-programming-from-wcvb/
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Sports Night was a late 90s comedy-drama about a nightly sports show like Sportscenter.
Great characters, good storylines and created by Aaron Sorkin post-West Wing, so really good writing
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Galavant, at least the first season, the second season wasn’t as good. It’s fun. It’s hilarious. It’s a musical.
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Terra Nova (2011)
That show had such a strong premise, the first episode was amazing. Then it's like they forgot what the show was actually about and made it a soap opera. I just don't understand how writers can look at a setting with things like dinosaurs, time travel, and colony survival and go "You know what the audience would really like as a main plot point? Generic family conflict between two parents, their angsty teenage son and daughter, and the 5-year old they keep leaving unsupervised. THATS what the people want! Definitely not dinosaurs, or a sci-fi survival in a prehistoric wilderness."
They turned it around by the end of the season, but the damage was already done. Too many people got turned off by the cheesy dialog and the almost complete lack of dinosaurs post episode 1.
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Mr Inbetween. Brilliant from the start to the very last scene. Everyone who watches it thinks its superb. Getting them to actually start watching it is hard work.
Love/Hate. Irish gangster show. I felt it got better each season. Loved the unhinged & dangerously unpredictable Fran (Peter Coonan).
First few seasons of Italian mob show Gomorrah were amazing but I think some were put off by it being in Italian language (fine with me as I'm an English speaker but watch everything including English language shows with subtitles on)
Corner Gas is a pretty good Canadian sitcom. It's got a number of seasons and then a animated continuation that was made during covid.
Its not the best sitcom, but has good dry humor and a somewhat unique setting for a sitcom.
Chowder - old Cartoon Network show about a purple bear raccoon thing who tries to be a chief making wacky dishes and breaking the 4th wall. ‘Tis was a good show.
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Damn this thread about to make my "Watch Later" list twice as long
Ghosts. The British version, not the American remake. It is a heartwarming comedy about some ghosts that haunt a mansion.
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