Good Times with the Idiot Box

My home theater is just the way I want it. A TV on one end and my recliner on the other, the remotes and earpods within arm's reach, free food and drink only one room away, no noisy crowds or dress codes, and the ability to watch what I like anytime I like. I admit my selections are limited, but much less so than they once were. I can't complain.

As for the delivery system for all this, the movies and shows I see these days are acquired in one of three ways: (1) streamed on Netflix, (2) streamed via Amazon Prime, or (3) ordered via Netflix's DVD mailing program. There are plenty of other premium services out there but I'm too cheap to subscribe to them, and besides (at least according to my wife), I have enough to watch as it is.

Now and then, not often, I'll dive into the discount DVD bin at Walmart or Big Lots, and I'll occasionally purchase an otherwise-hard-to-locate movie via Amazon. Even less often, I'll go watch a new movie in a real theater--last week my daughter and I did just that, to see Top Gun: Maverick. But mostly I stick to Prime or one of Netflix's two services. Except for the local and national news, I never, ever, watch network TV anymore, and that goes a long way toward taking the idiot out of the idiot box. I feel certain my brain cells, what few I have left, are better off as a result.

As for what I do watch, it's probably something like 85 percent feature films and 15 percent cable series. Most of these series consist of multiple seasons that eventually end in a series finale; some, like Fargo and True Detective, encompass multiple seasons but each season is a complete and self-contained story with different characters and a definite beginning, middle, and end; and a few, like Godless and The Queen's Gambit, are what's been referred to as "limited series" designed to run for only one season. Watching a limited series is like sitting down to an eight- or ten-hour standalone movie. 

I will probably always prefer actual movies to cable series, but I have to admit that some of those series--mostly those produced by HBO, it seems--have been among the best stories I've ever seen on TV or anywhere else. More on that later.

A quick clarification: The British refer to a "season" as a "series." ("I say, Nigel, have you watched the second series of The Crown?") So far as I know, they don't have a word that describes the entire run of all episodes of a show, which is what we call a series.

Now, having said all that, here are some of the cable series that I've watched all the way to their conclusions, or that I am at least current on and awaiting "upcoming" seasons. I've found all of these to be good, or at least worth watching, and I've found some of them to be outstanding:

• The Newsroom
• Longmire
• The Walking Dead
• Westworld
• 24
• Stranger Things
• Outer Range
• Fargo
• Hap and Leonard
• Night Skies
• John Adams
• Hell on Wheels
• The Queen's Gambit
• Black Sails
• True Detective
• G.L.O.W.
• Magic City
• Lilyhammer
• The Crown
• Mildred Pierce
• Cobra Kai
• Weeds
• Californication
• The 7 Lives of Lea
• The Outlaws
• Bloodline
• Godless
• The Wilds
• Norsemen
• Lemony Snicket
• Castle Rock

There are some others that I watched for several seasons (and many episodes) and truly enjoyed, but for some reason I never finished--or haven't yet:

• House of Cards
• The Borgias
• Spartacus: Blood and Sand
• Girls
• The Umbrella Academy
• Wentworth
• Squid Games
• Outlander
• Sex Education
• Orange Is the New Black

And a few others that I have always intended to watch, and still intend to, but somehow never got around to starting:

• Mad Men
• Breaking Bad
• The Americans
• Oz
• Blacklist
• Lost in Space
• Don't Call Saul
• Sons of Anarchy

What I haven't listed are some really bad series. You can probably already guess the titles of many of those, and the only good thing I can say about them is that I was able to tell by watching their "pilot" episodes that I didn't want to waste my time on the rest. That's happened fairly often.

But … I have also watched all episodes of a few series that (as I mentioned earlier) I think are among the very best stories I've ever seen--or at least the most entertaining. Here are my top twelve:

• The Sopranos
• Game of Thrones
• Deadwood
• The Wire
• Ozark
• Goliath
• Rome
• Lost
• Boardwalk Empire
• Justified
• Yellowstone
• Peaky Blinders

NOTE 1: I think it's interesting that two of these series--Deadwood and Rome--were supposedly both canceled before they reached a "finale"--the producers, actors, and audiences thought there would be another season coming--and the series were still excellent. Deadwood ran for three seasons and Rome for two.

NOTE 2: As always, this is my opinion only, and the content of the above lists might change tomorrow. But that's part of the fun. (And yes, I realize I am probably the only person in the free world who hasn't seen Breaking Bad or Mad Men. One of my many shortcomings.)

What do you think? Any agreements or disagreements? What are some of the best cable series you've seen? Do you have any recommendations? Please let me know in the comments.

Next time, back to topics on mysteries and writing. Have a good two weeks!