Conversation

Indefinite rewatchability is my revealed top criterion for a TV show to be on my favorites list. Surprisingly, this maps to a certain mediocrity and inefficiency in storytelling. Fat narrative over lean. So shows can fail to make my list by being too bad OR too good to rewatch.
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Of shows I’ve watched though at least once: Too good to rewatch indefinitely: Deadwood, Firefly, The Office Too bad to rewatch indefinitely: Two and a Half Men, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond Sweet spot: Futurama, Psych, Monk, Castle, Rick and Morty, Seinfeld
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Forgot South Park as a big one in the sweet spot. Some shows I need longer between rewatches. If shortness of refractory period between rewatches is the metric, my top shows are Futurama and Psych. The Simpsons fails this scheme due to zombification.
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The mediocrity manifests as a 2d character arc, lots of undeveloped little bits of fat, non sequitur jokes. Narrative comfort food.
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Probably surprising, but The Office is not among my favorite shows. Never rewatched after it finished airing and I finished my blog series on it. Futurama otoh is my most rewatched show. Probably 6-7 full watch-throughs. But it’s never really fueled any writing.
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No Hindi shows from before I moved to the US are on the list. 🤔 Partly lack of access, but mostly just poor quality. Indian TV 1980s-90s was... not good. And I think it got worse after I left in 97, not better.
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Indian TV is almost 100% soap operas made with the house wife in mind. No rewatch value in mind. The handful ones that aim for repeat value are rare, and have an exalted status ( Sarabhai v Sarabhai in hindi, amrutham in telugu -- incidentally both comedies)
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Yeah imho, "value" started decreasing when adaptations from novels/stories started dying off. Cinema also followed similar trajectory. Telugu/Tamil could send a film to some international festival every 4-5 years, but now hardly one in 10-15, instant gratification "masala" ...
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... movies started taking over. So these days any half-decent movie/series on Prime/Netflix/Hotstar in any Indian language gets hailed as path breaking etc...
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A few episodes of Dekh Bhai Dekh on YouTube entertained us during initial lockdown. Many swear by Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi. Nukkad was great. It somehow reminded me of Cheers.