this post was submitted on 28 Dec 2025
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Television

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List of Best Rated TV Series as voted by the Fediverse

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[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

going on 10 years and 2 years intercession isnt helping and only 10 episodes each. plus the actors got really old for the show. 10 years 40 episodes only?

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 55 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (2 children)

They had one story to tell, and tried retelling it 4 more times.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

and millie brown became a meme, because her lack of facial expression from all that botox. basically it became AOT series.

[–] thessnake03@lemmy.world 28 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

It was originally supposed to be an anthology, with different characters and stories each season, but the Netflix suits changed that.

I feel like they're may be an overarching plot that was put in place early on, but the details never seemed to come together for me. Just the same thing over and over and over, trying (and for me failing) to up the stakes each time.

[–] kreekybonez@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 hours ago

damn, that could have been so good. a series of unusual mysteries and sci-fi stories, all subtly linked to the central macguffin laboratory, or whatever government conspiracy is "behind the whole thing".

they already have a whole alternate dimension to play with, so it doesn't need to be contained to a single midwest town. they could set seasons in any part of the world, and make it a huge web, with a hyper local focus with new casts.

the more I think about it, the worse it gets; they had a perfect setup and didn't go for it.

[–] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 13 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I was really excited for the anthology angle. The first season ended and I thought, like with love death and robots, if they could pull off that quality with a series of mostly unrelated supernatural stories they'd be filling a massive need I feel completely unsatisfied in.

Then season 2 came and honestly it never resonated with me the same way. I think television and movie folk struggle immensely with world building right now and that tends to reveal itself the longer an IP goes on. You meet the father, or the unique monster was actually one of many and now there's a more powerful version but it's red or something, or actually this new character was behind the whole thing, or what have you.

I wish they'd spend at least a 10th of what they spend on actors on writers. Like you know doomsday's writers are getting paid 1/100th of what RDJ is getting paid. Star wars can't even afford a writer it seems. Money and success should scale with all departments but it seems to me some of the most meaningful departments get shafted in lieu of fat returns for the owners.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz 1 points 6 hours ago

But you see, we can us AI to rehash old plots, use the money we saved on writers to make either bigger booms, or fatter stocks. Hopefully both. Like Bo Burham said years ago,"art is dead".

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 20 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

/boggle

And yet every season is awesome. Has more viewers each season, have rave reviews etch season.. how exactly is it a casualty?

[–] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 4 points 11 hours ago

Unironically, children. Stranger Things has been in production for ten years, the kids that were too young to watch when season 1 came out grew up hearing about it and then finally being able to watch it. If you see any of the ST communities online, it's a huge mix of age groups, and I think the writers have had to dumb some stuff down for a younger, more casual, less 80s pop-culture attuned and nerdy audience.

Also, I wouldn't say every season is awesome. S5 especially is very much suffering from 2nd screen writing issues that most Netflix shows have, but isn't apparent in S1 and S2.

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Donald Trump won the vote, twice.

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Guess it was a poor attempt at saying popularity and quality don't always align, which is also why stuff like reality TV shows had higher ratings than what are considered critically acclaimed shows. Or why some people prefer watching streamers influencers than tv shows and movies, so viewership and correlation with quality don't always match up. Logan Paul fights being huge viewership draws is an example.

Viewership is a metric that matters more to corporations after money than audiences who get satisfaction from whether they enjoyed the product than how many other people also enjoyed it. Which is why some things that were financial failures are still beloved by small group of fans that it resonated with it.

I do find though that TV shows seem really hard to figure out if it is good or not based on number values compared to movies. Have had to rely more on changing sentiment of viewers either bringing up how quality that initially drew them has stayed consistent or gotten worse by the season. Sometimes momentum keeps up just because of prior investment and wanting to see the end even if it got worse.

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

poor attempt

There's no need to be rude.

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 hours ago

I'm sorry please forgive me.

[–] dontsayaword@piefed.social 10 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I get it. Season 1 was a cool nostalgic 80s hit. The following seasons had some fun, and good characters. But as I started watching Season 5 I really struggled to care - its the same story again, except the novelty is wearing off and the kids aren't as cute anymore. The fact that the whole opening scene was AI-generated Will Byers really turned me off. I havent finished it, maybe I will, but I don't feel very motivated.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

I guess I'm the only person who just didn't ever care for Stranger Things... because I was already familiar with the whole wild-ass Montauk Project conspiracy/schizophrenia 'story' its based on / adapted from / inspired by.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montauk_Project

I went down a rabbit hole dive into this, years before the show came out, and ended up basically just disgusted with the actual human beings who concocted this whole story.

tldr: at least some of the people who collaborated to craft this whole story seem to me to be creepy sexual assaulters and groomers, who worked a lot of that into their strange, fan fiction / conspiracy theory version of history, which they then peddle as fact, making them grifters as well.

[–] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

I'm having a hard time following this. The Duffer Bros are sex pests, or something specific to Montauk Project?

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Preston Nichols, an author involved in the Montauk Project, was a gross pervert who wrote fanfics about young boys into his quackery literature.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I'm talking about the wackos who actually came up with the Montauk Project stories / personas, over the 80s and 90s, at various conspiracy / ufo conventions, and then eventually formalized it into a book.

Al Bielek, Preston Nichols, Peter Moon / Vincent Barbarick, Stewart Swerdlow.

I've never even seen the vast majority of the show, beyond an episode or two... three? ... from the first season, and I quickly realized it was heavily based off of the Montauk story.

I'm not talking about specifically being disgusted by the Duffer bros.

I was so disgusted from diving into the story the show was based around, and the people behind that original story...

... again, before the show ever existed...

... that I just never wanted anything to do with anything related to that story, including basically a tv adaptation of it.

[–] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago

That makes sense, thanks!

[–] hzl@piefed.blahaj.zone -1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

What a joyless shell of a human being this reviewer seems to be.

Let's see them make literally anything half as good as the worst episode of Stranger Things

[–] TheRealKuni@piefed.social 42 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Let's see them make literally anything half as good as the worst episode of Stranger Things

This is the kind of sentiment that I frequently hear come out during the Olympics. “I bet that judge can’t do even a quarter of what they’re giving a poor score to.” As though somehow being able to create or perform is a necessary component of being able to critique.

I am not creative enough to write a good story, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize components of a good story when I see them. Critiquing and creating are completely different disciplines. Understanding the basics of either is important for succeeding at the other, but expertise in either is not necessary for expertise in the other.

[–] zikzak025@lemmy.world 6 points 8 hours ago

TL;DR I'm not a professional chef but I know what tastes good.