<p>Another vote here for My So-Called Life and Northern Exposure. Two of the greats.</p>
<p>Another vote for Friday Night Lights and Gilmore Girls. </p>
<p>And also a big thumbs up for Joan of Arcadia if you can find it.</p>
<p>Modern Family is hysterical.</p>
<p>I’ve been watching Bones with my daughter and Burn Notice with my son. Kyle XY is watchable if you are looking for science fiction; Bones has the “science.”</p>
<p>Second (or third) Northern Exposure. Loved that show (though I thnk it jumped the shark with the bubble guy.) First season was literary genius.</p>
<p>A bit spookier but fun–Twin Peaks.</p>
<p>Most definitely would recommend Friday Night Lights. I absolutely loved it.</p>
<p>ER is pretty good too and would have enough episodes on DVD to last you a very long time.</p>
<p>I’ll second Bones and Castle. They are crime shows, but the fun is in the characters and the way they click. There are several seasons of Bones.</p>
<p>And Psych. That’s one of the few shows that we watch live instead of TiVo’ing for later.</p>
<p>I second Bones.</p>
<p>How I Met Your Mother is pretty good too.</p>
<p>My daughter, now 23, had an enormous love for literate high school dramas:</p>
<p>Friday Night Lights (another vote). She resisted watching for a long time, then called me up to tell me that not only she but all her friends agreed with me that it was the best-written show currently on TV.</p>
<p>Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Inexhaustible.</p>
<p>My So-Called Life. Teen angst never got angstier. A wonderful show.</p>
<p>Freaks and Geeks. A lower-key, more realistic So-Called Life, set in the late 70s. Some of the fun is that half the people who got their start on this show are enormously famous now. Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel . . . . and Linda Cardellini was wonderful as the central character. Also, the 13-year-olds are really 13, not 17. (Not true of the 16-year-olds; only Rogen was really 16, and he looked 35.) Undeclared followed some of the same characters/actors (with different names) to college in a half-hour sitcom format.</p>
<p>Veronica Mars. Especially the first season. Sam Spade, Encyclopedia Brown, and Hamlet meet up as a super-cute wisecracking gamma girl.</p>
<p>Popular. If you can find it. The guy who created this is finally getting recognized for a little show that uses a lot of the same ideas . . . Glee.</p>
<p>Roswell. Especially the first season. Extremely romantic sci-fi about aliens passing as high school students and the high school humans who love them. Producer now runs Friday Night Lights. Katherine Heigl’s first big role.</p>
<p>Oh, and non-high-school, but if you liked The West Wing you should watch the producer’s previous effort, sitcom Sports Night.</p>
<p>My daughter is a senior in high school and is an overacheiver who also runs track. She will run at Oxy next year. We watch the following shows together</p>
<p>Dexter- Great show with a lot of suspense
American Idol- We only watch until the final 12 are selected after that the show is boring
Toddlers and Tiaras & Little Miss Perfect- Awesome reality shows on the little kid beauty pageant scene. Parents are crazy and kids are obnoxious.
Man vs. Food- Great show on overindulging
Office
Original CSI</p>
<p>I watched From Earth to the Moon and loved it, but D wasn’t much interested. Apollo is just ancient history to them, I guess :eek:</p>
<p>I will see if I can convince her to give Buffy a try. She hates vampires (had a tantrum in the bookstore the other day when 1/3 of all the books in the teen section were vampire books – I thought she was exagerating until I walked over to look, and she was right – we counted several shelves, and it was about 30%!). But she liked Firefly, and it is Joss Whedon. So maybe I can convince her.</p>
<p>I’ve read the book Friday Night Lights and seen one episode, probably not for us. And sorry, Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks just never did much for me.</p>
<p>Mathmom, we just watched the last episode of Battlestar Galactica last night. I actually… kind of liked it. They ended the series by starting the loop again. It was actually a better ending than a lot of series I have seen.</p>
<p>Numbers might appeal to her, she is the brainy, quirky type. And we will check out Castle (because I want to watch Nathan Fillion ;)), Babylon-5, Stargate, and Kyle. Thanks for all the suggestions!</p>
<p>Bones is fun, especially the interaction among the main characters.</p>
<p>ER is more of a real medical series and, with 15 seasons, it would keep you going for a long time. I believe the last three series still aren’t in rental but it would take you awhile to get there!</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly what I wanted from Battlestar Gallactica, but it wasn’t exactly that! I did think it was reasonably convincing and logical. I think I was most disappointed with the way the Starbuck story wasn’t resolved veru effectively.</p>
<p>I’m thirding Freaks and Geeks. It’s wonderful. There was only 1 season, so it doesn’t take long to get through it.</p>
<p>How do you feel about violence and language? I’d recommend Deadwood but it’s really not for the bleeping faint of heart.</p>
<p>If both of you are interested in history, particularly World War II, Foley’s War is a top notch series. We have them at the library where I work and they are constantly being checked in and out. [Amazon.com:</a> Foleys war](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Foleys+war&x=0&y=0]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Foleys+war&x=0&y=0)</p>
<p>If you liked West Wing, see if you can find “Sports Night” . Also written by Aaron Sorkin-- has that signature dialogue style. A short-lived series though.</p>
<p>And how about The Wire?</p>
<p>China Beach-smart, funny, poignant, heart breaking, superb, set in Vietnam
Picket Fences-quirky like Twin Peaks, but not as weird
Thirtysomething- parenting/relationships
Felicity- coming of age at college</p>
<p>I’ll second China Beach and thirtysomething…Watching a show from another decade would be fun to watch with my kid…</p>
<p>Friday Night Lights is the best show ever on TV, in my (and H’s) opinion.</p>
<p>Everwood is one of my all-time favorites, too.</p>
<p>From when A&E was still showing great drama…the Horatio Hornblower series with the (more than yummy) Ioan Gruffud.(about 9 chapters)
Also Masterpiece Theatre’s “Forsythe Saga” remake from about 3 years ago was excellent. (10 chapters ?) Both are readily available from NETFLIX.</p>
<p>Some of the old PBS/Masterpiece Theater series may be available too–I Claudius almost certainly is and it is wonderful.</p>