firecat

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

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From:

sophy.livejournal.com

* 12 Monkeys - not awesome with diversity but well-written time travel shows are hard to come by and this one does some great stuff with it while also giving all teh feels
* Blindspot - interesting mystery/crime show with an awesome female lead. Some diversity, but also some fail as to who gets killed off, etc. Ugh. But fairly fun, fairly well-written, fairly intelligent. Maybe put towards the bottom of a to-watch list??
* Dark Matter - if you like found family shows, this is a keeper. Very diverse, very complex, very fun, quite well-written, character driven but heavy with plot. Just very very good.
* Elementary - probably already on your viewing list???
*The Expanse - very well-written (although if you're like me and find large casts with seemingly disparate storylines difficult to follow it can be confusing at times), noir mystery bits, lots of diversity, lots of class consciousness and themes of revolt and revolution, lots of good sciencey stuff, fun at times with the characters relationships with one another, extremely intelligent, just overall good sci-fi stuff.
* How to Get Away With Murder - lots of diversity in lots of areas, not too much in the fail department, very complex and well-written, fun and intelligent, amazing cast, good mysteries of the episodic, season-long, and series-long varieties, and always leaves you wanting more.
* Incorporated - some diversity, very intelligent and well-written so far (only into the first season so it's always hard to tell how they'll handle a show with lots of twists and turns after it's gone on for awhile), delves very deeply into class issues, environmental issues, and of course corporations acting as governments with lots of fun techie stuff. One plot point which could have been very faily in regards to a woman choosing sex work as a way to save her family needing rescue from her male savior seems to be taking an interesting turn once we've finally met and gotten to know her as a character. We'll see what they do with it...
* Mr. Robot - one of the best shows currently airing. Yes diversity, yes intelligence, yes yes yes well-written, yes fun. Not really sci-fi, but I've heard that the hacking/techie stuff used in the show is very realistic and it's all about mental health struggles and social revolt and political maneuverings and mind-fucks and it's just really amazing. The show creator and runner is an Egyptian American coming from a Muslim family and this show is obviously his baby as in season two he took over pretty much all of the writing, directing, editing, etc. I cannot recommend this show enough - However, lots and lots of trigger warnings for mental health issues especially around depersonalization, derealization, hallucinations, dissociation, etc.

From:

sophy.livejournal.com

* Orphan Black - omg so much diversity. I'm sure you're aware of this show, so I won't go on about it but it's so. So. good.
* People of Earth - okay this one is a comedy, but it's about a reporter who comes to believe he was abducted by aliens and joins a support group in a small town known for it's reports of abductions. We quickly find that he and his fellow support group-ers are right and get to see both sides as the aliens try to cover up their activities and the main character tries to sort out what's happened to him in as objective of a manner as possible. It's got a sort of wry, dry humor much of the time but it's really fun and funny, and I'd say yes, well-written. Some diversity - the main character is black, but most of the cast is white. I find it intriguing, and it's been renewed for a second season.
* Powerless - another comedy, this one about a company inventing things to help people caught in the cross-fire of superhero/supervillain activities. The cast is wonderful and quite diverse, but it's only had 3 episodes so far so it's hard to judge too much. The kind of humor this show relies on, I'd call wacky.
* Supergirl - okay, this is a mainstream show that I'm sure you've heard lots of about if you're not already watching it, but holy cats Alex Danvers' coming out story this season was ahhhh-mazing. (there's fail though too)
Wynonna Earp - speaking of coming out stories... this campy show isn't exactly what I'd call intelligent or even particularly well-written but it's fun as hell and has lots of awesome lady characters as well as an awesome black male character and ... lesbians. Supernatural meets Western meets Camp is how I'd describe the tone of the show.

Hope this is helpful! :)

From:

firecat

Thank you, this is all so helpful!

Of the shows you recommended:

We really like Elementary.

We bounced off How to Get Away with Murder a little way into the second season, too much "plot driven by stupidity" and we stopped caring about any of the characters.

We really like Orphan Black.

We haven't seen any of the others, but they're definitely going on the list.

Thanks again!

From:

sophy.livejournal.com

Awesome - would be interested to know what you think of the other shows when/if you get to them.

From:

firecat

We just watched the first 3 episodes of The Expanse — all at once, which we usually don't unless a show is particularly compelling. It's exactly as you described. So that's promising!