firecat | TV series recs?

If you have watched any of the following series, I would love your opinion.
Well written?
Fun?
Intelligent?
Cast/creator diversity?
Sexism/racism/other $fail?

The Colony
Humans
Into the Badlands
iZombie
Killjoys
Lucifer
Spartacus

Do you recommend any other TV series (prefer crime/mystery/sf) that are available on DVD and are fun, diverse, and not too $faily?

Crossposts: http://firecat.livejournal.com/874842.html

Threaded | Flat

From:

tagryn

Do you mean "The Colony" on the Discovery Channel, or "Colony" on the USA network?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colony_(U.S._TV_series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(TV_series)

From:

kshandra

Lucifer is one of the very few scripted shows I watch faithfully. Very well written, even when it gets trope-y. And the scene where Lucifer reveals his true nature to his therapist is one of the most incredible things I've seen on network TV.

From:

sinanju

I've only seen two of those shows (well, more than one episode).

Spartacus, which was chock full of gratuitous nudity and sex, and graphic violence. But that was the show's raison d'etre, so.... Pretty well written, I thought. Fun.

iZombie I've watched from the beginning. I've enjoyed it a lot. Well-written, with lots of interesting plots and character development and story twists. I know nothing about creator diversity. But Clive (the detective) is black, and the coroner (whose name escapes me at the moment) is a POC, and both are interesting, quirky lead characters.

From:

kore

Everyone but me and T likes Killjoys better than Dark Matter, but I think Dark Matter is a lot better, and it's quite diverse.

From:

kore

LOL, I thought those were shows you HAD seen and you wanted others like them. READING COMPREHENSION FAIL. Spartacus is super super slashy, gory, was a not-bad presentation of ancient Rome and I thought it was fun. First season of Rome is better, tho.

If you want an outside opinion, T loathed both iZombie and Colony, altho lots of my friends love iZombie.

From:

lilacsigil

I have a zombie phobia but still enjoyed iZombie, as it's not a zombie apocalypse and most of the zombie-ism is more like a managed serious health condition. Positives: the main character is female, two of the four lead characters are POC, one of the two creators is female, there's often female writers and directors. The supporting cast is moderately diverse in both African American and Asian characters, and there are a few LGB characters. I like crime shows where people are smart and compassionate and this is definitely one of them.

Negatives: one of the main characters keeps getting into plots where either everyone keeps a secret from him or he keeps a secret from everybody, and this is one of my least favourite things ever. One episode in the first season involves this character being gaslit into losing his job and having himself admitted to a psych hospital.

Occasionally the casefile aspect involves unpleasant stereotyping, but about as often it relies on stereotypes being wrong.

From:

lilysea

I loved iZombie.

Well written? Yes

Fun? Yes

Intelligent? At times, yes

Cast/creator diversity? Three characters (one of whom, the main characters boss/friend, gets a lot of screen time) are actors of colour.

Sexism/racism/other $fail?
The only times there is sexism or racism is when the main character has eaten a sexist/racist brain and is being influenced by it - and this is always portrayed as being bad/wrong/unacceptable.

From:

br0ken_dolly

i like iZombie, although i'm pretty sure i remember a little fatphobia i wasn't real excited about... didn't turn me off entirely, just a thing that rubbed me the wrong way. i actually hate zombie shows/movies, and iZombie is a show i look forward to.

killjoys is okay... although I agree with the other comment that Dark Matter's a bit better. i think i just related to the characters a bit more.

From:

sqbr

Here's the review I made of Lucifer early on. I liked how season one played out but ran out of momentum early into season 2. It starts out very unpromising and improves but is never perfect.

From:

alexcat

Let's see...
IZombie is cute, a bit funny and Liv Moore is adorable. Lots of diversity in Season 1, not done with 2 yet..

Killjoys is all action all the time and very visually interesting to me. Plots are not so complex but I think they are all quite fun to look at. (I saw several mention Dark Matter, which has a more complex plot but the characters are almost exactly Firefly characters to me.)

Lucifer is also an eye candy show. When he reveals himself to humans, he is quite shilling but other than that, he's a teddy bear. He does mention being bi in later ep, though I think he';s simple a hedonist- as he is Lucifer after all.

From:

snippy

If you're not watching The Expanse (on Syfy), I recommend it. Best science fiction I've seen filmed, and I include movies. Very well written, I find it fun, it's intelligent enough that I have to rewatch some parts to understand, cast diversity (not sure about creator), I haven't noticed any $fail.

From:

graymalkin

Of the shows on the list, the only one I've watched is "Spartacus." I enjoyed it -- I've watched all the seasons at least three times. It's solid quasi-historical comic-book entertainment with anti-slavery and anti-sexual-abuse themes. And Strong Women characters whom I quite like.

Well written? I think so, especially the first and second seasons, especially if you keep in mind that it's more or less a comic book. The performances are what really make the show. The lead actors are really wonderful.

Fun? Yep. Lots of violence, gore, slaves treated as sex objects, and swearing, but I don't mind those things; they're presented as part of a slave-owning culture, which is the point of the story.

Intelligent? Not monumentally, but yes.

Cast/creator diversity? I don't know about the creators. The cast seems pretty diverse; it has many non-white and multiracial actors and characters, reflecting the fact the Romans took slaves from all over the Empire. (I think all the boss Romans are played by white people, but the slave characters' stories are presented as equally or more important.) Also, same-gender love, sex, and commitment are presented as an integral part of the culture, and there are bisexual characters.

Sexism/racism/other $fail? Sexism and ethnic conflicts of varying levels of intensity (ranging from joking insults to war) are integral to the plot, fitting the time period. I didn't get any actual sexist or racist messages being delivered by the show itself.

I agree that "Rome" is a more intelligent and higher quality show about the time -- more literary than comic-book -- but its story has a completely different focus -- conflicts within the ruling class rather than slaves rebelling against them.

From:

jazzfish

The only one I've seen is Into the Badlands, but we just finished the first season. (I don't know whether S2 has aired yet or not.)

Well written? --eh, mostly. Some of the dialog's too on-the-nose and winceworthy.
Fun? Yep. Good cinematography, fun wire-fu, twisty plot.
Intelligent? Reasonably.
Cast/creator diversity? Acceptable, at least in cast. Daniel Wu's an exec producer and the star; the Kid With Mysterious Past is Aramis Knight; Daniel Wu's lover is a black woman. Extras tend to be more diverse than the rest of the speaking roles. (Oh, there's a black Baron who turns up a couple of times.)
Sexism/racism/other $fail? Some sexism, mostly in the form of ingrained social roles.

If you've not watched Leverage I cannot recommend it highly enough.

From:

bibliofile

Another iZombie fan here.

al_zorra had interesting things to say about Killjoys in this post, including the comments.

The first season of Humans was better than average for SF TV; the Wikipedia entry seemed accurate. I liked it, anyway. (The second season hasn't aired in the US yet.)

I bounced hard off of Dark Matter early because the characters, while of various colors and genders, were all cardboard stereotypes. You have a group of people who don't know who they are (much less each other) and make it totally predictable? The east Asian guy is the martial arts expert! Yeah, no. YMMV.

From:

phoenixpdx.livejournal.com

We've been watching Lucifer, and find it well written, witty, fun, and intelligent. Some diversity in cast, and story lines involving gay, kinky and the like. Set in LA, so no body diversity to speak of, and a fair amount of sexism and sex-shaming (sometimes by way of "oh, this is tooo much and that's why it's funny, right?"). Still, lots of eye candy of both genders, and some interesting story lines.

I would love to know what you hear about The Colony, Humans, and Spartacus, by the way.

We're currently sporadically watching Wallander, which is well written, interesting and pretty original....but depressing as the dickens. Scandihoovians, really. Uses the detective character from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but none of the other characters; set in Sweden but done with all English actors. So I guess a mixed bag.

Otherwise, I tend to stick with nature documentaries, preferably from the Beeb. :-)

From:

sophy.livejournal.com

omg my fave thing - giving tv recs!! (this is gonna be so long I am sorry)

The Colony is well-written, if you don't mind a sort of vague narrative of the big picture (look it's a good-ways into season 2 and I'm still not entirely sure that the colonizers are aliens??). But the plot and intrigue and family drama parts are really good. I wouldn't call it fun, because it's of serious nature, but it is enjoyable if you like shows where you bite your nails through most of it due to the intensity. I'd for sure call it intelligent. Not a lot in the way of diversity, but also not a lot of obvious fail beyond the lack of diversity.

Humans is exciting, using the well-worn concept of service A.I.'s rising up to explore lots of social and scientific issues. It can be fun, but mostly it's serious. Def. intelligent, has some diversity but not much. I'm trying to think back if there was a lot of fail or not, and while nothing specific comes to mind, I've a little jangling in my brain telling me there has been. It can also be triggering for rape/assault issues because some of the A.I.'s are used/abused in this way.

iZombie is fun. It's well-written in the way of having lots of pop culture references, characters that you come to care a lot about, and some interesting overall themes. But it's not a work of genius by any means. Some good diversity - the main character, her main nemesis, her best friend, and main love interests are all white, but both of her work partners (who also become close friends) are men of color. But it could do a lot better, and the bit of the zombies taking on characteristics of the people whose brains they eat has caused quite a lot of fail, imo. But still, it's a fun show overall.

Killjoys is a lot of fun and well-written, especially if you like found family stuff. It's intelligent, has some good episodic, as well as longer arcs, and series-wide arcs that are fun to watch play out. Some diversity - of the three main characters, one is a woman of color who is the boss of the two white guys. She's pretty kick-ass both in the fight-ey sense and in just being a strong confident character in her own right. No fail is coming to mind, but that could be due to me not remembering or not having picked up on it.

Lucifer is - oh my heart - Lucifer. I love this show so much I'm not sure how unbiased I can be at the moment, but yes, it's fun, it's well-written, it's very intelligent. The cast is sooooo good. Some diversity but it could do a lot better in that department. And again, no fail comes directly to mind but that's not saying it's not there. This is a show to get emotionally wrapped up in and have teh feels. Also brings up a lot of interesting spiritual/religious issues.

I have not seen Badlands or Spartacus, but based on your interest in the listed shows and criteria, may I suggest: