What's your favorite shows/movie series without a serious quality drop off? : movies

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (7 children)

The Expanse seemed to be pretty even throughout its six season run. Maybe the only real "ding" is the fourth season where most of Jame's crew is on a planet.

Firefly. I'm not sure if there was enough gas in that show's tank to have kept it on this list or if the plug getting pulled at 14 episodes did it a favor for us fan's collective opinion of it.

Though I'd imagine that "space opera" is easier to keep the story/plot quality pretty even as writers can always just switch to a different set of characters to avoid having to deal with writing their way out of plot corners.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Expanse was good but it's a damn shame it didn't get three more seasons to cover the final book trilogy. It omitted some of the most amazing setpiece points.

spoiler

Specifically Bobby fighting the capital ship in just her power armor then riding the nuke to kill it Dr. Strangelove style

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

spoiler

Oh yeah, there'd be some pretty good space fight set pieces. But trying to visually conceptualize all the Proto-molecule Builders and "Whatever the fuck extra dimensional critters they pissed off" probably would have been too difficult to do in a way to make everybody happy.

Also, what was it... like a 30 year time jump for the last chunk of books? That would have been a miserable thing to put all the main cast through for another 3~5 seasons.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It was a 10 year time jump so here's hoping we get a reboot in a few years and also it was cancelled because the guy that played Alex the pilot turned out to be a sex pest.

Nevermind you're right it was a 30 year time jump I just accepted it as the sort of future tech they had could explain away the fact Holden and friends would all be old and decrepit by that time in universe.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Though I'd imagine that "space opera" is easier to keep the story/plot quality pretty even as writers can always just switch to a different set of characters to avoid having to deal with writing their way out of plot corners.

outside of shows that are intentionally anthologies, that sounds to me like OP's fear of shows not only dragging on longer than they need to, but also endlessly dragging the viewer nowhere forever.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

The Expanse seemed to be pretty even throughout its six season run. Maybe the only real "ding" is the fourth season where most of Jame's crew is on a planet.

True, and the same applies to the book that was adapted into that particular season. Cibola Burn is by far the weakest book, but then it's followed by Nemesis Games, which is by far the best one. I do think, however, that The Expanse starts off very slow, and it only picks up the pace after the Donnager, three or four episodes in.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

I thought She-Ra and the Princesses of Power stayed good right through the end.

Almost every episode of TNG is good, and the few bad ones were concentrated toward the beginning, not the end.

I answered Stargate as an overall TV franchise to the opposite question earlier, but SG-1 and Atlantis taken as individual series both stay good, although SG-1 is basically a different also good series in its last three seasons.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann rules all the way through, before and after the timeskip.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (haven't watched 2003), remember that being rather consistently good

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Also Gravity Falls, but I haven't rewatched it since it ended in 2016 so I may be looking at it through rose-tinted lenses shrug-outta-hecks

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Gravity Falls ends too early.

[+] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Barry was so good.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I can second Barry and Black Sails. The latter has some of the best depictions of age of sail naval combat ever filmed and it's also gay as fuck. Barry is also extremely gay and the whole relationship with NoHo hank and the other cartel leader guy is adorable

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. It’s perfect from start to finish, but it ended after the 2nd season because it was cancelled 💀 so might not count.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I feel the same way about GLOW, the way Netflix cancelled the last season after they'd already started making it is one of the reasons I won't give them money anymore.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Wait that has a show??

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

sopranos-poker

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Sopranos for sure. I think Deadwood would count here as well

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Lost. That season 3 finale was perfect.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I need to rewatch it like this.

Battlestar Galactica too!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

the leftovers. rly good shit.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Dark. I love Twin Peaks equally but season 2 has a serious drop off in the middle.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

I thought The Wire was basically perfect all the way through, though a lot of people didn’t like the final season so much

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Scavengers Reign is an exceptional work of art that I think not enough people have seen! I can't recommend it enough

Edit: also, The Terror is another show that very few people seem to have watched, and it's unbelievably good. It was supposed to be just a limited series, but they tacked on a second season and tried to turn it into an anthology show. Ignore that aspect, think of it as a miniseries and it's one of the best horror shows I've ever seen.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The Wire. Yes, the final season is still great, you plebs.

Santa Clarita Diet. I will never forgive Netflix for cancelling that show.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Steven Universe

Avatar

Bojack Horseman

Venture Bros.

Party Down

Silicon Valley

Star Trek TOS, TNG and DS9 are inconsistent, but trend toward better.

Community is often derided for a falloff in quality halfway through, but I actually think it's quite funny all the way

Scrubs if you stop at it's intended series finale episode. The studio execs forced them to keep going with a cast change, but you can just stop watching at that point.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Community is often derided for a falloff in quality halfway through, but I actually think it's quite funny all the way

Me too. Don't they like change writers in season 4 or something and then in the first episode the writers decided to make it a sitcom as a joke, I was horrified at first but when I realised it was a joke it was hilarious

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

iirc, the showrunner, Dan Harmon, had some allegations against him and they ditched him. I'm unsure of the reality of the situation or what the allegations even were, but he came back for the last season.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

that's not the case, he was accused of (and admitted to) sexual misconduct years after Community ended

he was fired from season 4 due to "creative differences" but returned for seasons 5 and 6

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Venture bros, conversely it wasn't dragged out long enough

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Farscape. It just got better as it went along.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Joe Pera Talks With You is an amazing show. The first season is probably the strongest season, but that's more of "This is too perfect to be improved" rather than a quality drop off. It's Adult Swim's most genuine and heartfelt show by a long mile. It's the cure for irony poisoning and insomnia. I think this show could have ran a lot longer than it did, but the finale of season 3 serves as a solid ending for Joe and Sarah.

Life & Times of Tim stays pretty fucking funny the whole time, and even improves as the show goes on. Voice acting is really good.

I'd say Death Note stays pretty consistent, definitely one of my favorite animes

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Venture Brothers, probably one of the only show I know that gets significantly better as the seasons go on.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Yeah, I'm impressed at how they managed to retcon season 1's transphobic jokes into being funny. Venture Bros is consistently great

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I liked the parasyte anime. The only drop off is

plot spoiler and cw: death

Kana's death left me cold. I thought she was the most interesting character, and I related to her most, and everything after that was just buildup to the shonen anime final fight, but it's a short series thankfully

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I really liked Parasyte but I think it should have ended one episode earlier. The last episode felt like an entirely different show, and the ending of the second to last episode (Parasyte Dude heading back to town after the big fight) had an uncertainty that I thought would have been a good ending to the series.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

The Great.

Might be the best show i've seen in a long time, and solid from beginning to end.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Americans was really good. I've been working my way through Babylon Berlin which has been very good so far.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Some I have not seen mentioned here are Hanna, Counterpart, and The Outer Range

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Counterpart was good

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Mr Robot

Pantheon

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I think Stranger Things S1 is pretty good. After S1, you can stop at any time you're no longer feeling it and not be missing out on anything.

S2 spoilers

most people didn't like S2 but I thought it was awesome, and agree there was a tiny drop of quality.

S3 spoilers

IMO S3 is where a serious quality drop starts. In addition to a general quality dip, the monster from S2 comes back but there is at least a twist so it's not as bad of a rehash as Star Wars episode 7 felt like. Also the Soviets built a secret military lab under a mall, they should have hired some people to rework that part of the plot.

S4 spoilers

S4 has a lot of cool stuff going on it, but it's all over the place in very silly ways. It has a lot of quality issues.

The lore was ambiguous about what the Mind Flayer (S2) was. The absolutely worst part is when the lore in S4 established that the Mind Flayer was not in fact, some cool mysterious eldritch god (you know, something strange), but actually just some 40 year old asshole LARPing as a spider using magic dust who also has super powers for literally no fucking reason at all. If you can ignore the lore downgrade, the season's big bad (Vecna) is 50% okay and 50% wtf when did this become a Marvel movie?. The only thing they had to do to unfuck the lore was say "Vecna (some random asshole who has powers for no reason) and the Mind Flayer (eldritch shadow god thing) are working together (for literally any reason who cares)". FFS who cares about some random asshole LARPing as a spider? That's the fucking stupidest shit ever!!! First they're like "As a child, Vecna was obsessed with spiders." Then you're like oh okay, that explains why he's working with this shadow monster who definitely does not look like a spider but close enough for someone whose weirdly obsessed with spiders to be interested. Because if someone was that obsessed with actual spiders, they'd LARP as something that looks a lot more like an actual fucking spider.

Then everything is good to go, until they quickly pull a fast one on you, like they forgot at the last second that someone was going to ask "yeah that's cool and all, BTW what does all this Vecna stuff have to do with S2/S3?" and then they do a quick lame exposition dump explaining that the upside down was just Vecna thinking about darkness and shit found some magic dust and used it to LARP as a spider (WHICH DOES NOT ACTUALLY LOOK LIKE A SPIDER HOLY RETCON BATMAN), and it's extremely obvious this is a desperate attempt to retcon away the "sry kid, we were making it up as we go because netflix demanded with make more than one season" with "wow it was Vecna the whole time!!!"

Then everybody gaslights you that this was planned from the beginning despite originally the show was planned to be an anthology (and S1 plays well as a complete self-contained show).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I, Claudius is perfect television from start to finish but I dunno if it counts since it was a major production with a bunch of the best actors of all time in it.

Movies & TV