Needs More Love / Live-Action TV

• The Electric Company (2009). While some might be quick to dismiss it because of the only tenuous connection to its parent show, it holds up as a great show in its own right. The cast is full of actors who are not only wonderful on their own, but have a lot of chemistry with each other. The simple stories and lessons are definitely enhanced by these actors. Often the humor is great, particularly when certain characters get their ham on. And all this despite the primary target audience being young children. It definitely deserves a larger Periphery Demographic.
• Birds of Prey (2002) was cancelled after only one season, but it was an excellent superhero show with well-developed characters. Some of it is a bit cheesy, and it didn't have nearly as good effects as the other DC adaptation of the time, but it also deserves much more attention than it gets.
• Workaholics is one of the funniest shows currently on TV, and definitely needs more attention from this website and in general. It has a simple plot, but the inherent level of craziness and over-the-top nature of nearly everyone from the main characters to random bit players makes it like few other things on TV, in a good way. Stoner comedy that's even good sober.
• Selfie has gotten a lot of bad press right from the start—one of the stars even admits people hate the name. Some people dislike how vapid it makes social network-involved people look, and some dislike that it has anything to do with sites like Facebook, Yelp and Twitter. In practice, the show is just a genuinely funny comedy with John Cho, Karen Gillan, and sharp writing. It avoids being too cruelly snarky and stops just on the right side of cheesily heartwarming.
• Playmakers was a fantastic show surrounding the troubled lives of professional American Football athletes, and ESPN's first try at a scripted TV series. Think Mad Men but darker and about American Football. The show demonstrated great promise, with empathetic characters, great writing, and solid acting, and garnered positive reviews and ratings. The show rivals many HBO originals with its production value and shameless graphic content. Sadly got Screwed by the Network after NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue pressured ESPN to cancel it, and only 12 episodes were aired.
• Wild World of Spike was a show from Spike that featured three hosts giving their thoughts on web and TV clips. The hosts were a kickboxer, a skateboarder, and a comedian who was the Butt-Monkey of the show. Sometimes they would challenge each other to recreate the clips that they saw, which ranged anywhere from lifting weights with their testicles, breaking through a brick wall, and getting tased. Cancelled after one season with 14 episodes and it seems the only way to find it is through either Zune or the Spike official site.
• The Path to 9/11. Maybe it's presumptive to put down a politically charged work (for what it's worth, it's not particularly kind to either Clinton or Bush), but this five-hour miniseries is the definitive work on the subject; not even United 93 can compare. Give it a YouTube search, particularly if you've never heard of Ahmed Shah Massoud.
• Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue. It had good stories, an excellent cast, and a nice take on the "never reveal your identity" trope set by Zordon—the Rangers reveal their identities because they're public servants. So why does it belong here? Bad ratings and, especially back then, how the fandom thought that it was cool to just bash the show for (mostly) the acting.
  • This season also has arguably the most badass Ranger this side of Tommy Oliver himself: Carter Grayson. Linkara rightfully gushes over the sheer badassery that Carter demonstrates on more than one occasion.
• Power Rangers RPM now qualifies as needing more love after a recent statement from Saban that the series had been "too dark and lacking in humor." Apparently they missed out on all of the funny moments RPM provided the fans—and that's not counting either Ziggy Grover's antics or the healthy doses of Lampshade Hanging on things taken for granted on the series. The franchise was also being Screwed by the Network by then to such a degree that many never got to see it, or even knew it existed.
• Power Rangers Jungle Fury. Despite being seen as a breath of fresh air compared to the more loathed Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, it's often overshadowed by its Even Better Sequel, RPM (read above). Casey is a great deconstruction of the Rookie Red Ranger trope, the characters are likable (especially RJ), the villains are decent, and it had the first catchy theme song since Power Rangers S.P.D..
• Power Rangers Megaforce. Much like Jungle Fury, it came out after a hated season, but it still has its detractors. While it suffers from occasional Stock Footage Failure and had a lot to live up to from half its source material, there are still some shining moments. Noah, Emma, Orion, and Robo Knight are well-developed, despite the accusations of the opposite, the villains are either badass (like Vrak) or entertaining (Prince Vekar), and unlike the Sentai counterpart, it saved the big Legend War for the final episode, making the cameos from past Rangers seem less glorified. The episodes written by Jason Smith are some of the better written ones, possibly because he's a huge fan of Super Sentai.
• For Super Sentai, Ressha Sentai Tokkyuger is a season that gets way more hate than it deserves. The series was often dismissed because the costumes looked very Showa Era, and not in a good way. However, it follows a theme of childhood innocence and friendship, it has a unique gimmick with the Rangers being able to swap out colors, and the villains were well-written.
• Transylvania Television needs a lot more attention. A great comedy series, it has its hits and misses, but if they expect to make it they need more viewers.
• The 10th Kingdom miniseries. Insanely excellent fairy tale deconstruction, including the tale to end all tales: Real Life! Funny, touching, and awesome, with a slew of tropes all played straight, subverted, inverted, invoked, and justified.
• Solstrom, a 2003 Cirque du Soleil-mounted show that managed to blend together a Variety Show (circus/novelty acts from within and without the company), an anthology series (acts are used to tell whimsical fantasy stories), a Sitcom (comic characters tying the stories together), a silent film (no dialogue—just narration) and a Massive Multiplayer Crossover (characters and acts from all of the company's then-running shows turn up). Not surprisingly, it didn't get much attention. In Canada, CBC didn't air the final four episodes; U.S. outlet Bravo ran the whole show but gave it a weak time slot and little promotion, possibly because it arrived just in time for the Network Decay of that channel. It didn't even find love from Cirque's fanbase! But its creativity, charm, humor, and warmth make it a curiously lovely Quirky Work, and perhaps the cleverest take on the Variety Show since Kermit the Frog and company's heyday.
• Los Simuladores, the original version. It was conceived as one of the greatest series of all time in its country of origin (Argentina), not only for its brilliant plot, but also its great screenplay. It was not exported to other countries (with redubbing as they'd normally do); instead remakes were made for Russia and other Spanish-speaking countries like Chile, Spain and Mexico; with only the first case being understandable, and the last one being exported to all Latin America. And let's better not start on the Chilean one...
• The Doctor Who audio plays by Big Finish. Monthly stories starring Doctors 4-8, with nearly every actor and actress from that time reprising their old roles. They bring every hated Doctor and companion out of the Scrappy heap, the acting and writing is consistently better than the original series, the scope is much larger due to the format and it has one of the greatest stories in Doctor Who's history. The Bernice Summerfield spinoff series is great in its own right. However, not many people, not even Doctor Who fans, listen to these.
  • The several Doctor Who novel ranges (all listed under Whoniverse) are also worth looking into. Being novels, they allow the Doctor to have more complex and nuanced adventures than television can provide, and a lot of them are also darker and/or weirder than most of the telly adventures. In a book it's easier to delve into a character's inner thoughts and feelings than on TV. Plus, the reader's imagination can provide cheaper and better special effects than usual for Doctor Who. The Eighth Doctor Adventures novels are particularly noteworthy because, as Big Finish did, they gave some much-needed "screen time" to a Doctor who got very, very little. And most importantly, compared with the TV series, the stories and characters are widely considered to be at least as engaging and enjoyable overall.
• Boomtown (2002) is your average crime drama taken up to eleven by focusing on a core cast of characters who each tells the story from their point of view. There are cops, a reporter, a paramedic, a senator, and the guest stars who all have the camera to themselves. It's remarkable because each episode has one or two events that are shown from multiple vantage points, and the writers shone developing each character individually so that their moment in the spotlight is different simply because they are different.
• Carnivàle was cancelled after two seasons. Now, one shouldn't get too upset with HBO. After all, they kept The Wire on long enough for the series to end. That said, the fact that this show was cancelled was after two of the six planned seasons is a goddamn travesty. Packed with the beautifully grotesque, macabre imagery, unique characters and stories, and one of the best depictions of the 1930s you'll ever see, you owe it to yourself to watch this unfinished masterpiece.
  • Damn straight, us Rousties have got to get the word out
  • Don't forget the great acting, respectful portrayal of a dwarfism sufferer, and the fetus-in-a-glass-jar.
• Miami Medical, a realistic, medically accurate drama with good characters played by great actors. It managed to avoid most inter-doctor romances, the need for happy endings and only left the hospital setting for brief hops, yet still developed the characters without hitting you in the face with tragic backstory. Yet it got crammed into a crappy timeslot, had little to no advertising and was cancelled before its original 13 episodes had finished airing. And no one watched it^note at least not until one of its stars, Lana Parrilla, shot to fame as the Evil Queen in Once Upon a Time several years later, by which point it was far too late.
• Blake's 7. Honestly, even people old enough to have seen it the first time around have never heard of it.
  • Let's elaborate a bit. It's a complex and detailed Crapsack World with a realistic plot, where the good guys aren't nice and the nice guys often aren't good, and it's frequently hard to tell what's good anyway. Character interaction is everything, and the dialogue is a joy. It's dark and depressing and cynical, but its characters often come across as more sincere than the protagonists of the many "perfect future" shows around at the time. Despite a budget that would shame a student film, with poor SFX and lots of quarries, it earned itself a small, solid fanbase that is still going today, thirty years after it ended. At the time it was innovative, but while many people have heard of the shows it influenced—like Firefly, Farscape and Babylon 5—Blake's 7 remains obscure.
• To see it discussed by fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Enterprise redefines So Bad, It's Horrible and did nothing right, ever. But it actually had a lot of interesting stories, inventive solutions to the problem of the week, and later hard decisions having to be made in the moment. And the ratings were quite high throughout the first season, not just when it was shiny and new—it didn't fall off until it started having TNG-like stories in the early second season. (If you watched it in the first season and jumped ship around "A Night In Sickbay," skip to "Canamar" or thereabouts. It gets back on track.)
• Space Precinct was a cop show IN SPACE, as you can tell from the name. You probably know no more about it than that. It was Screwed by the Network because it had the kind of alien makeup one expects of a kids' show but the material of a serious effort. Not knowing what to do with it, networks buried it. But if you can find it, and can handle a few People in Rubber Suits, give it a try.
• Similarly, Mercy Point was a hospital show set on a space station. Only lasted eight episodes, but it's eight episodes with complex characters and The 'Verse outside being learned of one tantalizing bit at a time. Also, it stars Henry.
• NBC's The Sing-Off is a fun show about the best a cappella groups in the US gathering to compete. It doesn't get mentioned a lot in terms of reality shows. Nowadays it's better remembered for launching the career of Pentatonix.
• My Own Worst Enemy. A spy series involving split personalities running amok. Cancelled after nine episodes, probably due to the fact that it was on extremely late, and it ran on NBC, a channel notorious for cancelling so many fan-favorite shows.
• Lost Girl is a great urban fantasy noir series that simply not enough people know about.
• Babylon 5 is a show that seriously needs more love. Its incredible characters, writing and overarching plots are fairly well-known in the sci-fi nerd community, but most people these days haven't heard of it, even with the rise of science fiction TV. While Star Trek and the Stargate-verse are Household Names, and even Firefly gained huge popularity as cult TV, Babylon 5 seems to have been left in the dust. It really needs more exposure, because it's the sort of sci-fi even those who don't like the genre can enjoy—character development and epic stories over fanservice and explosions. An uncharacteristically bad first season doesn't help draw in potential converts.
• Justice only has a stub page on TV Tropes and it was canceled after one season, but it is one of the most involving court dramas in a long time. The defense firm the series had as protagonists was filled to the brim with Magnificent Bastards that would make Billy Flynn proud, everyone always had an agenda (except, perhaps, the accused), and it was never certain until the very last scene whether the accused had actually commited the crime in question.
• Smith should have had a longer run...it was cancelled after a very brief run. It followed the exploits of some high-tech thieves.
• My So-Called Life is a fascinating Slice of Life high school show. All the characters are complex yet distinctive; sympathetic yet not always in the right.
• In 2006, The Class (2006) began its one-season run. It was hilarious and had a great cast including Andrea Anders, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sam Harris (playing the perfect Camp Straight), and the witty, underappreciated actress Lizzy Caplan. It was criticized for having no minorities in the main cast, which may have contributed to its death. But it was simply the second-best one-season show ever.
• Veronica Mars really should have gotten the ratings it deserved. And the DVDs really should be easier to find in the UK.
  • Now that they're making a movie, it's sure to get lots more love.
• Bored to Death is the most down-to-earth wacky show ever made. Its characters have great chemistry, its plots are brilliant in their simplicity, the characters develop without straying too far from their base personalities, and it has its fair share of Genius Bonuses. Anyone who loves high literature and a bit of lowbrow humor is sure to enjoy.
• Key West. The best example of Magic Realism to ever hit a television screen. Incredibly well-written scripts acted out by actors who really seemed to believe in what they were doing (especially Jennifer Tilly and Brian Thompson), a cheerful outlook, beautiful settings all made for a show that almost no one disliked. Unfortunately, FOX played fast and loose with its scheduling, constantly preempted it for sporting events, put almost nothing into its advertising budget, and as a result the show was never able to build an audience.
• Call the Midwife is a popular BBC series about a group of 1950s midwives with a tremendous cast and even better writing.
• The 1991 remake of Land of the Lost. While many fans of the original Land of the Lost (1974) complain that the remake is inferior, other fans believe that the show was good in its own right. As of this writing, it has yet to see a release on DVD.
• So NoTORIous was a Life Embellished sitcom created by Tori Spelling that aired on VH-1 in 2006. Critics, who typically use Tori as their favorite punching bag, frequently praised the series, both due to it being a well-made production, and because Spelling was more than willing to make fun of herself. Adding in some supporting performances from the likes of Loni Anderson and Zachary Quinto, and its short 10-episode run is definitely worth a few hours of your time.
• Threshold was a fresh take on the old alien invasion scenario and had a good cast that included Carla Gugino, Peter Dinklage, Brent Spiner and Charles S. Dutton. It was inexplicably cancelled after 13 episodes, despite the fact that it achieved better ratings and critical acclaim than Surface (which itself was subsequently cancelled after 15).
• Stargate Universe. Admittedly a bit of a Battlestar ripoff (not so much in story as in tone, theme, setting, and aesthetic), but seriously one of the best quality sci-fi shows out there. And hey, who couldn't use some more Galactica?
  • To elaborate: the show took a season to start Growing the Beard and become what Star Trek: Voyager should have been: a rag-tag mix of military members, civilians, and former terrorists stuck on a ship far away from home, making do with what they have. While the show struggled to find the right balance to its various character and setting conflicts, the story caught up with its stunning visuals around Season 2. Unfortunately, Executive Meddling switched the time slots several times and used the predictable ratings drop to axe the series, killing the entire franchise in the process. The finale left everything on a bittersweet yet hopeful note; if you're a fan of Stargate and the first season is turning you off, fear not, for it does get better.
• Psychoville. An obscure little show from Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. Unlike The League of Gentlemen, it has no DVD set in America. Features Dawn French of The Vicar of Dibley fame.
• Touch (2012) A rare case of a heartwarming, touching human drama mixed with urgent paranormal action—and yet, despite starting off with strong viewership, the ratings collapsed quickly and the show's second season (now with greater intensity and action and emphasis on the big corporate conspiracy backstory) was postponed nearly four months and banished to the Friday Night Death Slot, where its ratings never recovered. Fox canceled the show just one day shy of its second-season (now series) finale.
• Mr & Mrs Murder. An Australian Dramedy series starring comedian Shaun Micallef and his former Newstopia costar Kat Stewart as a married couple who run a crime-scene cleanup company and solve mysteries. The show has great writing, a clever concept and lots of charm, but so far has not been well-promoted.
• BetterOffTed. A satirical workplace sitcom focusing on Ted Crisp, head of a research and development department at the soulless conglomerate of Veridian Dynamics. The show had Ted frequently break the fourth wall to narrate events (and give viewers advice about how to survive in his world) as the show's on-camera narrator. Portrayed as the sole managerial figure with any morals whatsoever, the series focuses on his interactions with his calculating, emotionless supervisor, two bumbling, socially inept scientists with genius-level IQ, and Ted's love interest, a naive, morally conflicted subordinate. It started off with relatively low ratings that kept dropping as the show continued. Critics and those that did watch it loved it. Luckily, it's available both on DVD and Netflix.
• The Last Leg: Just launched, only a basic description of what it is.
• Fringe was pretty much The X-Files without the The Chris Carter Effect—it had a good balance of Monster of the Week episodes and Myth Arc episodes, and that Myth Arc actually went somewhere. It lasted for five seasons, two of which were after it had gotten moved to the Friday Night Death Slot on a network that's known for axing good shows. It beat all the odds and triumphed, but many people haven't even heard of it. Having the main character being played by the CEO's niece probably didn't hurt its survivability.
• Caitlin's Way was a pretty good show back in its day, and considering all the crappy shows we've been getting, it still holds up. For one thing, there's no sex or sexual stuff, the adults play a good role in Caitlin's life, and the drama is clever, subtle, and well-done. Sadly, it only has three seasons and no DVD release, which it SO deserves!!
• The Dresden Files is by no means the equal of Jim Butcher's books, but it was a good deal of fun, and at some points used your knowledge of the books to throw you a deliberate curveball. (For example, we learn Harry's history in the first episode, including the death of Harry's mentor Justin... and then we see Justin watching from the shadows near the end. Oh, Crap!.)
• The Creatives, a small scale but nontheless witty and often hilarious Brit-com that allowed Roger Allam free rein long before The Thick of It.
• Okupas was a cult hit, but it never had its release on DVD. And you have probably never heard of it.
• Unnatural History was an amazing show that was Screwed by the Network after one season. It was about a globe-trotting high schooler named Henry Griffin who had to adjust to living in D.C., and he has never lived in a city. His new school is connected to a museum, where they find historical (or not) mysteries to solve. Arguably, it would have done better had it not aired on [[Cartoon Network, a channel not well-regarded for its live-action shows]].
• Ditto for Tower Prep. A Hunger Games-esque drama that's just as (if not more) daring than History, but aired on the same channel, and also got the axe after a single season.
• The League might be the funniest show on FX, with every episode full of quote-worthy, laugh-out-loud moments but it tends to be overshadowed by its neighbors Archer and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The fantasy football concept may be scaring people off, but enjoyment of the show is not dependent on understanding the sport.
• Bomb Girls was tragically cancelled after two seasons, but it was an amazing, well-written, well-acted, Bechdel Test-passing show about the lives of a group of Canadian women during World War 2 working in a bomb factory.
• Roundhouse is extremely unconventional even for a Nickelodeon show, with a format never attempted before or since. It's a standard Sketch Comedy interspersed with song, dance, and a Framing Device involving the (mis)adventures of a Nuclear Family. Every pop-culture reference is well-done, the storylines are brilliantly written and acted, the music is unlike anything ever heard on a kids' show before it, the cast members are among the best triple-threats to never break into the mainstream, and the whole show in general is jam-packed with content and with Rapid-Fire Comedy in full effect. Despite all this, the show only lasted four seasons, with plans for a live tour and soundtrack album going into limbo. It hasn't been released on DVD, and was never rerun on TV for over a decade, not even on NickRewind^note Which was known as The '90s are All That at the time (even being replaced by Are You Afraid of the Dark? during the block's celebration of SNICK in which nearly all of that block's original lineup was shown), before it started to show up occasionally after the block's retool into The Splat. However, Roundhouse retains a small yet devoted fanbase to this day.
• So Weird, a paranormal mystery/drama series produced by Disney in the '90s not incomparable with the same channel's Gravity Falls, was pretty successful and popular while it aired, but when Disney nixed the plot of the third season in favor of a Lighter and Softer alternative, its popularity took a nose dive. Despite having two impressive seasons and being one of the most well-written shows on Disney at the time, it seems to have been mostly forgotten.
• Bonkers that a UK soap Night and Day is not especially well-known or regarded outside a small cult following, despite being a moderately acclaimed (including described as a British Twin Peaks), and arguably innovative take on the soap opera genre. Being royally Screwed by the Network twice over, first with the rapid cancellation of the teatime episodes and then with the shunting of the omnibus into a midnight graveyard slot, presumably didn't help its profile. Nor has the total absence of any repeats or DVD releases—the latter of which the fandom sometimes attributes to the unusually large amount of commercial music used within the show, or simply the excessive length of the show's run.
• Out of Jimmy's Head got flak for being on Cartoon Network like Unnatural History and Tower Prep above (and is generally considered to be weaker than the other two), but it's certainly an interesting take on the Roger Rabbit Effect, with unique characters and silly plots.
• Zeke and Luther and Kirby Buckets: They're hardly the best shows on Disney XD but they're the only two single-camera sitcoms on the network. The former was their first-ever sitcom, with boy-friendly themes about skateboarding, the title characters interacting with the audience, and a former star from one of Nick's most beloved sitcoms. The latter was their take on Out of Jimmy's Head, featuring random cartoon characters who pop up out of nowhere in quick gags and two more ex-Nick stars (from considerably less well-received shows).
• The '90s British comedy Mulberry was cancelled two seasons into its planned three-season run, and today it's all but forgotten. With gentle humor, endearing characters and a truly special premise, it's well worth the few hours it takes to watch the full series.
• Legends. A Conspiracy Thriller TV series developed by Homeland showrunner Howard Gordon, about an FBI agent who specializes in undercover operations. He's really good at what he does—so good, in fact, that he easily slips into character while barely thinking about it. (The titular "legends," by the way, refer to the various undercover identities he employs in his job.) To add more mystery into the mix, his name, Martin Odum, is ominously revealed to be another legend as well. Not convincing enough? How about Sean Bean for a lead actor? If nothing else, you can be damned sure he won't get killed off in this series.
• In 1988, a studio in Canada made a ten episode series of Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby books simply called Ramona. It's a cute Slice of Life show that doesn't rely on modern live-action tropes: no special effects, no melodrama, no zaniness, no over-the-top comedy, no laugh tracks, nothing! All it does is focus on the simple life of an eight-year-old girl, her family, friends, and relatives as she gets herself into trouble and learns about life and herself. As of this writing, it has no DVD release, but it is a very sweet series that really did the books justice despite being so short. However, it is slow-paced, almost bordering on mundane at some points because of its intense focus on realism, so it won't be for everyone. But it certainly deserves more love. Also, it averts Dawson Casting by casting actual kids as the kid characters, among them then- eight-year-old Sarah Polley as eight-year-old Ramona Quimby.
• Britain's Got The Pop Factor: A spot-on mercilessly deconstructive parody of TV talent shows. A lot more could be said about this with more outgoing links.
• Shoebox Zoo: A children's show based on Scottish mythology that ran on BBC for two seasons in the early 2000s. Though it's a kid show, the quality of the writing goes far above and beyond what's expected, with great character development, complex character relationships, a child protagonist that's actually written like a real child, some genuinely shocking plot twists and a dark and serious tone while still being appropriate for children. Apparently it once had a reasonably active community that sadly vanished over night. Today this wiki is perhaps the only place a future fan might discover the show.
• Lab Rats is often dismissed as "just another Disney Channel sitcom", especially since it was on their fringe sister network Disney XD. It tends to get overshadowed by their animated shows like Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls. What makes it stand out is its intriguing concept (three bionic teenagers are raised as normal humans by their stepbrother). The characters are exciting and the stories are funny, but it shines when it gets serious. Lab Rats is arguably Disney Channel's darkest live-action sitcom, exploring the themes of bionic warfare, terrorist threats, and child soldiers. It kicked off a wave of superhero sitcoms on both Disney (Mighty Med) and Nickelodeon (Henry Danger and The Thundermans), all of which tend to be goofier in nature than Lab Rats, especially the Nick shows. Marvel fans will enjoy something that comes straight out of their playbook, and Naruto fans will want to look into it as Naruto's English voice actress plays a major character on the show.
• In 2016, Nickelodeon released a fantasy series known as The Other Kingdom in which a fairy princess goes to high school in the human world as part of an exchange program for 90 days, after which she'd have to choose to either stay in the human world forever or return home to be queen. Unfortunately, various people brushed it aside seeing it as just another Fish out of Water teen sitcom and it was canceled after a single 20-episode season. Yet, despite all this, the show omits the typical Laugh Track heard in most teen sitcoms and has endearing characters, complex lore it was setting up, and even a subplot surrounding humanity's relationship with technology and nature, which was a very important message at the time — and still is today. Not to mention the numerous lessons about humanity taught on the show, which most people take for granted. This series deserves far more respect and attention than it gets.
• Crashbox, an HBO edutainment series where viewers play mini-games in a factory. The games are extremely goofy and random. For example, one game teaches vocabulary by narrating a day in the life of an unsanitary man, while another involves historical figures visiting a haunted house, and another has a radio host scramble and unscramble words. There's always seven or eight games played per episode, and there are amusing cutaways involving power outages or hijinks in a cafeteria.
• Not so much for a show as for a character, the DVD Commentary for the S1 finale of Robin Hood has most of the cast talking about how sorry they feel for Guy of Gisborne. After a few minutes of this, Jonas Armstrong speaks up in defence of Robin: "Why does everyone feel sorry for Gisborne? He's a murderer! What about poor Robin?!"
• The Noddy Shop, the Spiritual Successor to Shining Time Station, tells the story of a toy shop where the toys and the shopkeeper's pet come to life. Although it was a hit on PBS and CBC, it was overshadowed by other shows during its run in the U.S., including Dragon Tales and Zoboomafoo. Meanwhile, British viewers of the show have criticized it for ruining Noddy's Toyland Adventures, claiming that the additional characters weren't needed. However, most of them are interesting, and they include a retired sailor, a hilarious old woman who runs the shop next door, a superhero dog and tiny people who live inside the store. The show also is full of pop culture references, including characters based on Carmen Miranda and Johnny Carson, two songs spoofing those heard in the film Grease, and characters quoting everything from poetry to Saturday Night Live.
• Comrade Detective is a Genre Throwback/satirical series on Amazon Prime with an odd premise: Miami Vice AS A COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA PIECE! The show achieves the effect of looking like it it was an '80s Romanian propaganda show by casting Romanian actors speaking their native tongue, and then having American actors do a Hong Kong Dub over it. Hilarity Ensues as two secret police agents try and solve a murder by a killer in a Ronald Reagan mask. Get ready to cringe as they spit out anti-American propaganda and Insane Troll Logic, as well as jabs at Dacias and other aspects of the Crapsack World that was 1980s Romania. Those interested in the Cold War, as well as Cop Show fans, will enjoy this series, which was sadly cancelled after one season.
• The Finder only lasted one season, but was a mix of oddball characters, interesting cases, character development, and some cool references. Although the death of Michael Clarke Duncan would have changed much of the dynamics between the characters had the show continued.

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