I want to introduce more TNG to my wife now, and have been looking for some sort of list of like 'the 25 must see TNG episodes if you never watch any others" type list, but have not found one that I really like yet. Will probably take several and build my own “must watch” list.
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Just a head’s up, depending on what kind of content you may or may not want your son to be exposed to, but there are a lot of stories about sex in TNG, especially early. Half Troi’s storylines are a little more adult.
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@kennfusion If you make a list, I’ll be very curious to see it : ) Although a list for an adult viewer would I’m sure be a lot different than one for a kid. “The Inner Light” is essential viewing, but I don’t think a kid would really dig that episode very much.
@Mirefox I totally agree. My favorite Trek is DS9, and most of what’s going on there is not for kids. Just explaining the subjugation of Bajor would be rather difficult, and that’s key to the whole show.
@Private_Prinny I have actually never watched Lower Decks myself, so maybe I’ll give it a try and see what I think first : )
I was also thinking The Voyage Home might work–it’s a sweet story with some nice humor, and I don’t think there’s anything PG-13 happening in that movie.
I think Lower Decks is perfect. It’s very funny and also satisfying if you’re a fan.
Three people have all separately advised me that Picard S1 and 2 were terrible, and to skip them and just watch S3.
Look at the BBC making another funny series in the same year as the last one. Black Ops follows two hapless PCSOs as they go undercover as drug dealers.
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It gets better by the episode. I am desperately awaiting season 4!
Edit:
I forgot to take the age of your child into consideration. I am not up to date on what is nowadays considered appropriate for “that” age. The series is around pg-13 and that may be a tad too much maybe?
If you watch the first episode for yourself you should have a good picture of the content as a whole. While I didn’t enjoy the first episode as much as the rest of the series, it is a perfect slice of what “more mature” content you can expect from the series. You see a naked backside or two around the series but nothing stronger than that. A bit of blood once in a blue moon, and a lot of ships blown up but that’s about it.
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Summer Time Rendering. I don’t ask for much from my anime; some time loops, horror, and prime waifu candidates. This series delivers on them all, and it gets dark, but not Higurashi-I-need-a-therapist dark. Best anime I’ve seen this year.
FUBAR. Sort of funny. Neutered action, though, and some bad CGI.
Heavenly Delusion. At least it doesn’t stay staid for its length, there’s a more interesting tale embedded in a post-apocalyptic story of a man and his bodyguard, and monsters adrift in a ruined Japan. Interesting enough once it gets going.
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I am a huge fan of Lower Decks. Predictably enough, it turns out that I grew up on Star Trek when it was only Star Trek, plus the animated series. Lower Decks has lots of clever ref jokes about what is known today as TOS. 
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Barry’s the best series I have seen for a long time. For years it kept me entertained , if not amazed, and personally it made Hader, Root, Carrigan, and Goldberg all stand out as exceptional actors (Winkler was already there, but in fairness he has one of the most flamboyant roles here), alongside a long, long list of actors who turned up, aced their roles, however big or small, and that must be down to the production. It ended appropriately and as perfectly as I could ask; the fact the ending was perfect does not stop me wanting more, even though I know that’s counter-productive. Unbeatable quality and coherence.
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I totally agree with this. The finale was just perfect. Yet surprising as well, but in hindsight, it couldn’t have gone any other way.
A (completely unsurprising) look behind the scenes at what it was like to work on Lost, one of my favorite shows (aside from the last season, which I pretend does not exist):
Spoiler: It was outrageously terrible. Like all TV shows, it seems.
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I watched the first couple seasons and then for some reason didn’t keep up with it. I may have been in college or something, I don’t remember. Does the show still hold up and would it be worth revisiting?
Lost has become my measuring stick by which I judge other shows, because it went from a fascinating idea with a solid execution, to “We’re making it up from week to week.” because it literally became so much of a sensation, that so many people looked at it and seem to have worked out too much of the plot ahead of time, and the writers felt compelled to improvise. I have never seen a series go from quality to so thoroughly shit.
Any show that starts off with an intriguing mystery but then struggles with how to explain and resolve it (e.g. Manifest, The 4400, FlashForward etc) stands the highly likely chance of shitting its pants and getting Lost.
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It’s quite interesting how Lindelof and Cuse use different strategies to answer the same allegations. I hope lindelofs honesty doesn’t come back to punish him, I think public discourse could do with more of it
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I noticed that too and thought it was really telling. One essentially acts as though he can’t deign to directly respond to such petty things from his royal throne, and the other simply claims no memory of any of it.
I also felt as though the episode they focus on towards the end and laud to the mountaintops (“Ab Aeterno”) is a heavy-handed, trite episode in the middle of what was a totally nonsense-season. I have no idea why people felt so positively about it (if they actually did).
@Mirefox I think it mostly holds up, mainly because it has so many mysteries to hold your attention. It goes off the rails at times but usually corrects itself in interesting ways. It was also one of the first shows where they actually would kill off characters, so there are stakes. The final season (6) is a trainwreck that does nothing positive for the show. It was a clear money-grab. And season 5 ends on a really neat emotional note–they should have stopped then.
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The Gallows Pole. I bloody love this. Rare as it is to hear such a concentration of Northern accents on t’ Beeb, I love it more for depicting a time when rampant industrialisation funded by an explosion of capitalism was crushing common folk, and exploiting currency via coin clipping became a very popular way to obtain money. Shane Meadows is no fucking slouch, and the book this springs from is good as well, but the acting is top notch, an instantly recognisable big family in a small village, with an enormous pool of friends and extended family. Acting is good across the board, there are easily half a dozen actors playing fantastic roles and doing them justice, and the central relationship between the returned prodigal son, Michael Socha, and his long-abandoned girl, Sophie McShera, is brilliant.
Perry Mason. Well, this is quite the cast, with Matthew Rhys, Shea Wigham, Tatiana Maslany, John Lithgow, Robert Patrick, and even newcomers to my eyes like Chris Chalk, who are all performing quite well here, in 1930s Los Angeles. Hilariously, this series has just been cancelled. Nothing I like to see better than a historical series with an eye for detail get binned.
Poker Face. Oh, I see, this is one of those quirky shows. Natasha Lyonne, fresh from Russian Doll, and looking more like a refugee from an 80s hair metal band with every scene, is a human lie detector dropped into a fresh crime each episode. It’s okay.
I think Black Mirror has probably served its purpose at this point.
Succession S4 is superb. That is all.
30 Coins. As it’s set in Spain, I was expecting a lot of prominent cheekbones, dark eyes, and hysteria (and that’s just the men), and I was not disappointed. Starting off in traditionally low-key Catholic fashion with a depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus in the opening credits, the series follows a bunch of paranormal happenings in a small town, which do no favours for the local priest, mayor, and vet, who have a lot of difficulty coping with The Devil. Not a bad series at all, it has enough interesting ideas and ambition to keep me watching. Dialogue is fair-to-good, acting is not to my taste but competent, effects sometimes a bit ropey.
Our Flag Means Death. Headed by delightful Rhys Darby and his dulcet New Zeland tones, and backed by an able ensemble cast, this is a ridiculous tale of piracy at its most inept. Delightful.
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Been watching Deadloch on Prime. Australian murder mystery comedy by the writers of the Katering show. A generally pleasant absurdity with bite and moments of brilliance.
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Finally finished The Magicians, which for a time was one of my favorite shows. I don’t feel as though the nailed the landing by any means in the last season, but they also didn’t completely miss the mark. There was a bit too much of the outlandish (I assume since they knew it was the final season, they were just given free reign with the absurdity), and the musical episode near the end of the season was abominable. A reappearance by one of the previously killed big-bads was totally wasted, sadly. The more I think about it, the more I might have to pretend this season doesn’t exist.
Not sure what I will try next. Has anyone watched The Witcher? Open to any recommendations.
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The Witcher was worth watching. There’s an episode with some laughable CGI in the first season, but it does some fun stuff. It’s a bit grimdark, but not entirely.
Last thing I watched on Netflix was A Man Called Otto. It’s was blandly fine, as expected, for about the first hour. Then it had a moment that elevated it for me, and overall, I thought it pretty good. For those who’ve seen it, what hit me hard was when, after being grumpy for the first half of the movie, Otto is kind to Malcolm. All the grumpiness in the world, for all the reason in the world, wouldn’t make me care about a character. But that did.
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I watched season 1 of The Witcher when it dropped, and enjoyed it enough to put season 2 on my watchlist. But I haven’t been back to watch. Caveat – I did not read the books, nor play the video games, so I came in cold. The only caution I would throw out there is that the timeline jumps around multiple times, even in the same episode, and it’s not immediately apparent when certain events take place. (A lot like season 2 of Westworld, which was nearly unwatchable as a result.)
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Perry Mason was fucking awesome. Such a shame that it got cancelled.
Loved Rhys in The Americans, and he’s great here too.
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