Approved Television

Fantasy

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Old world of darkness, the (good) TV Show. The story of a teenage girl chosen by destiny to defend the earth from the aforementioned Vampires, as well as all sorts of nasty inter-dimensional demons and shit. Starts off as a cheesy monster of the week action/horror show but really comes into its own in season two, with some genuinely fantastic writing being done by Joss Whedon and his crack(head) team of writers, as well as some of the most memorable TV characters to date. This is the series that secured Joss Whedon's place in the nerdosphere for all time. Notable for popularising the Fantasy/Drama type of TV series that we see with Supernatural, as well as having spin-off shows whose continuity coincides with their parent show's like Doctor Who/Torchwood. Speaking of which...
  • Angel: So during season 4 of Buffy, Angel aired its first episode, and each episode of Buffy coincided with the following episode of Angel. Like most spin-off shows, Angel is maybe not as good its predecessor, but it has its moments. Best way to describe it is that it's Buffy with a bit more of a Neo-noir, crime edge to it, but because of the inter-weaving plots it's hard to watch one and not the other.

• Carnivale: A group of depression era carnies are caught up in a Manichean struggle between the forces of light and darkness. One of HBO's first experiments with high concept, high budget fantasy. Died ignominiously after two seasons due to scripting problems, audience apathy, and grimdark overload; but paved the way for those who would follow.

• Game of Thrones: The GRRM's pet project finally made it to the small screen. Combines the epic swords and sorcery of high fantasy with the nihilistic hopelessness of quasi-medieval life. Thanks to Martin's amazing horrible skubtastic writing and HBO's massive budgets this show has gone a long way towards making fantasy "respectable". Tacks a lot of gratuitous nudity and sex above and beyond the gratuitous nudity and sex already found in the books, thanks HBO.

• Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: Concentrated nostalgia from back in the days when fantasy shows were relegated to Friday night time slots where they couldn't harm the general public. If you're a neckbeard in your twenties, this show probably had something to do with it. Kind of embarrassing by today's standards, but it pioneered everything from CGI monsters to filming in New Zealand. Resulted in its much more famous spin-off series...
  • Xena: Warrior Princess: Before you knew her as an uppity Cylon or an insane Roman housewife Lucy Lawless was the leather clad, god slaying, Amazon OG. If you're a neckbeard in your twenties (or a ca/tg/irl who liked Gabrielle a little too much), you probably fapped to it. The cultural cachet of this show is so great that even underage B& that never could have seen it will recognize the character.

• Masters of Horror: An anthology resembling more a collection of short films than your typical TV series. Each story is directed by some legend in horror business and by general rule those fantasy-themed are better than the sci-fi ones. Special mention goes to "Deer Woman", "Cigarette Burns" and "Fair Haired Child". Warning! Certain episodes require hefty dose of brain bleach to forget what you've just saw (not kidding), while other are more black comedy than actual horror.

• Witcher: A shoe-string budget fantasy series (still one of the most expensive productions in native Poland) about - well, who else - Geralt the Witcher, made by Poles in 2001. The quality of episodes varies greatly, while the special effects aged like milk, but it's still a fun ride to take. This is how fantasy became for a while mainstream in Poland. Absolutely great music, which can be repurposed as a background for combat-heavy games. If you happen to get a DVD release and not just bootleg from TV, then the cinematography will be gorgeous too. Also, warning - the show was marketed abroad under "Hexer" title, as the term "Witcher" wasn't coined yet. In it's country of origin, the show is less known than a game about Geralt, a trailer of an ever-prolonging production and it's own parody. It's confirmed that Netflix will do another release of series.

• Wizards and Warriors: A short-lived fantasy series from early 80s, mostly memorable due to being so heavily borrowing ideas and imaginery from early Dungeons and Dragons it almost end with a lawsuit. Amazingly tacky, but still mineable in case of running old-school D&D games. And remember - those costumes won an Emmy. For real.

Historical

• Deadwood: Another HBO series, focusing on the settlement of Deadwood and its development from mining camp to frontier town. The attempts to make the town and its world come alive are glorious. Excellent performances across the board, with the standout being Al "Fuck That Cocksucking Motherfucker" Swearengen. GMs looking for how wild and lawless frontiers can become platforms for adventurers should check this out, and steal as many subplots as you can for your Deadlands game.

• Marco Polo: A Netflix exclusive series, Marco Polo follows the famous Italian merchant while he tries to survive in the court of Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis motherfucking Khan. While not historically accurate it is certainly very entertaining with war, political intrigue, and concubines out the ass. Also Mongols. If anything, the character One-Hundred eyes makes the show worth the watch because of how badass he is. Seriously; a Daoist monk that Kublai blinded with a spitting cobra because he wouldn't teach his martial art to his generals. And he can still kick ass while blind.

• Rome: It's HBO so the tits and ultraviolence spigot is still wide open, but this one actually does some good world building and political intrigue on the side. Just don't try to use it as a point of reference for historical campaigns.

• Spartacus: Blood and Sand A faithful historical narrative about the third servile war and the various social pressures that precipita... phhht no I'm kidding it's wall to wall tits and ultraviolence. Despite being a relentlessly silly 300 wanna-be that had no business ever being green lit it actually managed to be a treasure trove of feels and awesome, due in large part to unusually solid writing and some heroic performances by actors like John Hannah, Lucy Lawless, Craig Parker, and Peter Mensah.

• 三国 (Three Kingdoms 2010): Widely regarded as the best and most accessible version of China's most famous story (essentially their Iliad). Almost a hundred hours long, epic scope, tons of actors, and legions of extras (you can buy them by the bushel over there). Almost worth it for Chen Jianbin's gloriously dickish Cao Cao alone, but there's plenty of other reasons to stick around. The entire thing is available on youtube and elsewhere because CCTV could not give two shits about licensing it outside of the country.

• Vikings: History's bid to gain at least a fraction of GoT audience, while also catering to reenactors, historical witzs and just about general audience, since, duh, vikings. Very well-researched and tightly written, the show comes with very high initial quality. Unfortunately, it also suffers greatly from seasonal rot after first 2 seasons and utterly pointless continuation at this point, so be warned about highly visible drop of quality with each season.

Sci Fi

• Babylon 5: It's the future, after humanity narrowly escaped extermination in a war with the Minbari (bone headed guys who are like the Eldar with the dickishness dialed down to mostly manageable levels) it sets up a space station in neutral territory to act as a center of diplomacy to try to avert another war which gradually gets embroiled in an ancient conflict between two powerful alien civilizations. While most TV Science Fiction in the day was "this week's adventure" Babylon 5 set out to tell a grand story and (mostly) succeeded.

• Battlestar Galactica: In a galaxy far, far away humanity is engaged in a war with a legion of cybernetic assholes called Cylons. In a total dick move the genocidal toasters feign a peace offering and decimate the human fleet, except for a a few starships which manage to escape. Organizing under the protection of the titular Battlestar-class Galactica this ragtag refugee fleet, assuming they are the only survivors, attempts to escape to the fabled planet called Earth.
  • Comes in two flavors: Original 1970s (Cheesetastic, but hilarious if you're into that sort of thing) and Immediate-Post-9/11-Reboot (Grimdark, and actually pretty good). Both recommended, but other than initial premise, the two are wildly different.

• Doctor Who: The adventures of the universe's saddest time traveling bro. Absolutely ancient in canon and out (the show predates Star Trek by three years). Cheesy special effects, but it's got heart and (usually) good writing. It's bigger on the inside.

• Farscape: Muppets in spaaaace! This show, produced by the Jim Henson company, is dark. Even media in self-professed grimdark settings rarely put their main characters through this much torment. You wouldn't think it when it starts out, the first half of the first season being notoriously cheesy, but the cheese you wade through at the start belies an intense series as every major military organization in the galaxy targets our hero for torture, mindrape, and death. Few stories to date put their heroes through such a gauntlet, but the audience follows John Crichton's journey from all-American hero to notorious interstellar terrorist from start to finish, rooting for him the entire way.

• Firefly: Traveller except about post-bellum Confederates IN SPAAAAAACE. Like most of the Whedonverse praising it on /tg/ will unleash a category 5 skubstorm.

• Spellbinder: A two-season series, or rather two thinly connected standalone series dealing with parallel worlds. Each "season" can be seen as separate story, as they only share one character (an extremely compelling villainess) and the general concept of alternative universe(s). Despite being made for kids, it's very much watchable even two decades later - think "Sliders", but good and with plot. It also comes with few pretty interesting settings with some rich world-building. A third season has been in development hell since 1998.

• Star Trek: It's Star Trek. If you were born some time in the last half century you probably heard of it're not a drooling mongoloid you've heard of it.

• Stargate: At first there was a Roland Emmerich movie based around the Ancient Astronaut theory and finding a Big Ring in Egypt which can take you to another world, which was an adequate science-fiction action romp. Even so, it did well enough to get a Television series in Stargate SG-1. It changed a few things about from the movie (usually for the better) and had a rocky first season (for the worse), but after that it became one of the better science fiction series. Plenty of action, excellent characters performed by excellent actors, memorable humor and succeeds both as an episode to episode series as well as with long continuity arcs.

• The Expanse: A Syfy adaptation of the novel series. Tensions are building between Earth, Mars and the Asteroid Belt when an unknown alien element gets discovered and throws everything out of wack.

• The X-Files: All possible and imaginable conspiracy theories about aliens mixed together for the show that redefined how to even make a sci-fi themed series. Plus monster of the week plots thrown in for a good measure. The show balances between being serious, self-aware, camp and horror. Following adventures of two FBI agents, both working in a sub-division dealing with "paranormal" cases, treated by rest of the Bureau as a dead-end in the career. Even if you don't have time to watch all episodes, you can pick up at any given moment and still catch up on the go with the arc story. (ProTip for new viewers: The show worked best in the stand-alone episodes. Most of the "arc" episodes are actually fairly dull and uninspired.)

Comedy

• Mystery Science Theater 3000: A bunch of Minnesotans with robot puppets riff on terrible movies. Achieved legendary cult classic status after being canceled (since it confused and angered the norms) and spawned the venerable Rifftrax. Has come back from the dead on Netflix.

Crime

• Glina ["Cop"] Amazingly good Polish neo-noir series. While it starts slow, after initial few episodes it turns into a modern masterpiece of crime series. Very oldschool in style, with a wide range of different cases, juicy dialogues (or at least juicy translation) and great performances. If you ever wanted to run or play an investigation game, accept no substitute for inspiration or direct rip-off.

• True Detective First season, anyway. Southern gothic meets modern investigation meets a whole plot reference to The King in Yellow. Very dark and climactic series, with solid performances and a bunch of ideas how to pull a modern "investigator" type of game Call of Cthulhu struggles so badly to market.

Western Cartoons

• The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: 80s cartoons were all just merch-driven crap... aside this gem. Amazingly high quality show, which is still perfectly watchable today (unlike pretty much anything else from the 80s). Mostly famous for combining space exploration, western and alien invasion, without falling into camp. Oh, and killing characters left and right. Think about it as a prototype Exosquad. Also, kick-ass music.

• The Adventures of Tintin. If you somehow never heard about Tintin, you are probably American or was raised in a barn. The series is a very faithful adaptation of classic Franco-Belgian comics series, combining quality animation, great source material and the pulpy adventure feeling. Think Indiana Jones, but with a reporter instead of an action archeologist. And just like the source material, the series swiftly balances humour, pulp qualities and serious, often dark themes (there is on average at least one dead body per episode and this is still a kid-friendly show).

• Adventure Time. tl;dr: A kids cartoon made by a DnD nerd. Starts off random is funny, and never really gives up on that, but slowly reveals itself to be set in a Grimdark post-apocalyptic fantasy world inhabited by mutants and whatever remains of Earth's original animal population. The main character is one of the few humans left alive. Had a lot of potential but was ruined by talentless noodle animation and excessively grimderp "real world problems" writing. Written to be accessible to both adults and kids, so oldfags can watch the earlier episodes with their hellspawn, should they wish. Also, you want to fuck the vampire.

• Archer. Think "Arrested Development" meets James Bond. It's an adventure comedy about an alcoholic man-child, who just so happens to be the world's most dangerous secret agent, and his equally deranged co-workers which include, but are not limited to; a sex addict accountant, a sadistic pyromaniac ditz, a bare-knuckle boxing Human Resource manager, a sassy black woman with abnormally large hands, the main-character's narcissistic mother, and a mad nazi scientist. Hilarious, ultra quotable, and great source material for secret agent role-playing.

• Avatar: The Last Airbender Considered by many to be a gold standard for animated shows in the 00'es and one of the best Western made narrative shows, it has garnered many a fan for their funny characters, deep story lines, character development and Asian (but not overly weeaboo) flavor. The sequel series, Legend of Korra, is rather skubtastic and regarded as only good for Rule 34 by much of /co/.

• Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: A Marvel animated series about the titular Avengers. Unlike the later Avengers show, it relies primarily on the comics for it's inspiration rather than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also unlike the later Avengers show, it's actually good. Does a good job at balancing "monster of the week" plots alongside a couple of running narratives and themes laced throughout the two seasons.

• Batman: The Animated Series: In a time when most cartoons were still glorified half hour toy commercials BtAS dared to defy convention with a dark art style, darker themes, and characters you actually gave a shit about. This show was so iconic that a lot of the stuff you think was from the comic book (Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze's wife) actually started here. This should be mandatory viewing for people making Batman films.

• Batman: Beyond: Sequel to the above series about a future Gotham where Bruce Wayne is a cranky old man who had to give up being Batman due to heart problems, in which a teenager is reluctantly accepted as a replacement Batman, using cyber-armor that is basically the batsuit sans cape but with rocket boots. Aside being a worthy contender for best animated Batman, it's also a great mine for cyberpunk ideas and storylines.

• Conan the Adventurer: A surprisingly good cartoon from the early 90s based off of, what else? Conan the Barbarian. Probably best known for its rocking opening theme (WARRIOR WITHOUT FEAR!), but it's surprisingly mineable for Dungeons & Dragons and has a lot of actual novel lore scattered through the kid-friendly stuff.

• Dungeons & Dragons: An absolute classic, worth watching even for the sake of the status alone. While the series still shows a lot of potential, most of it was wasted on too short episodes made on shoe-string budget. Being partially entangled into the Satanic Panic didn't help either. Still, worth watching. Just bring beer and friends. And a notepad for oldschool ideas.

• Exosquad: The European Front of World War II IN SPACE with Mechs and Power Armor. It is well plotted and can get surprisingly dark for what is supposed to be a kids show with a very high body count, policies of extermination through starvation and genocide. Even so it suffered from having a small budget and a few sub par designs.

• Gargoyles: Disney's serious response to Batman: TAS (as opposed to Disney's satirical response to Batman: TAS of Darkwing Duck, which was pretty damn good itself if a bit more conventionally cartoony). Some Gargoyles (a race of winged strong humanoid creatures that turn into stone during the day, rather than mere architectural adornments) live in Scotland the middle ages fighting Vikings, get betrayed, frozen in stone and are re-awakened in modern New York by a businessman who could give Tzeentch lessons in plotting played by William Riker. That is just the beginning, as there are also stories of betrayal, robots, suits of power armor, cyborgs and a fair number of magical things borrowing from a variety of mythological sources, but most notably the works of William Shakespeare.

• Jumanji: Like a lot successful and semi-successful films, Jumanji ended up with a follow-up cartoon. While the art style is (intentionally) weird, the episodes are amazingly mineable for campaigns and world-building ideas.

• The Justice League & The Justice League: Unlimited: More of the same cape stuff. These times with Superman & Batman are: Wonder Woman (WONDER WOMAN!), The Flash, Green Lantern (token black guy), Martian Manhunter (token green guy), Hawk Girl, and The Flash.

• The Legend of Calamity Jane: A too-good-to-last 90s cult classic. Probably the best "serious" animated western. Since it wasn't exactly made with kids in mind, it provides a lot of mature content. Which is the main reason why moral watchdogs killed it after just 13 episodes.

• Megas XLR: I DIG GIANT ROBOTS. YOU DIG GIANT ROBOTS. CHICKS DIG GIANT ROBOTS. That's all you really need to know. Big robots and funny shit. It's also the Orkiest show ever made, the Gork to Gurren Lagann's Mork.

• The New Adventures of Ocean Girl: An Australian animated series, predominately aimed at teenage girls, but coming in a package with a complex world full of original races. Good world-building and bunch of interesting plot hooks and easy-to-reuse plot twists.

• Omer and the Starchild: A French animated series. A truly rich world-building mixed with a lot of New Age imagery and surprisingly dark story for a kids show. The series follows adventures of Dan, the titular Starchild, in his quest to free "Twelve Wizards" and unite them against the evil Morkhan.

• Rick and Morty: /tg/: the series. A comedy about an alcoholic mad scientist's adventures with his wimpy grandson. Has a instantly recognizable blend of fart humor and soul-crushing, Lovecraftian philosophy. Manages to pack a good amount of emotional punches with enough fun adventures and sci-fi/pop culture references to keep even the most stoic entertained. The third season is forever skub after the showrunner decided to replace the original writers with an all female team; speculated reasons range from "muh diversity" to "because I felt like it" but everyone agrees that it's just not the same. Reddit loves this series for the lolrandom bullshit and ebin pop culture references, so mention it on 4chan at your own peril.

• Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles: Take the best parts of the book and film and none of the crap. One of the early CGI shows (and it shows) cut short due to budget (as in just short of the ending).

• Samurai Jack: A time-lost samurai kicks ass and saves lives in his quest to get home. Elegance in simplicity. Amazing animation. Kaldor Draigo wishes he could be this cool. Finally got a conclusion on Adult Swim after years in limbo and the tragic death of the villain's VA.

• Steven Universe: This series is on the list because its premise is absolutely kickass. Thousands of years ago, a caste-based race of mineral-based "Crystal Gems" with holographic bodies dominated the galaxy, draining planet after planet of life to fuel their parasitic reproduction. A small band of Gems refused to let this continue, rebelling against their masters and shattering their empire at great cost to both sides. Now, a small cadre of Gems remains on the planet Earth, protecting humanity from the monsters their civil war left behind and raising the rebel leader's "son," a human boy infused with her power and essence. Unfortunately, he's kind of a fuckup, and he's going to have to learn how to use his powers fast because the Gem empire is coming back for round two. Surprisingly mineable for campaign and adventure ideas, when it decides to stop being hollow slice of life and gets its ass in gear.

• Superman: The Animated Series: About the same quality of writing as the latest episodes of B:tAS (Bad, don't listen to the fanboys). This features 'the' seminal, if less popular, superhero: Superman from the planet Krypton. Made largely by the same crew as the above Batman, this series is another of the so christened 'Timmverse' that ended with...

• Teen Titans (2003): Unlike the erratic shittiness that is Go! this series is pretty good, but barely makes it onto this list. It stars a group of DC characters no one usually knew about until this show (unless you read the comics). It had mostly good character development and it had the Half-Demon awesomeness that is Raven. However, it's bogged down by bipolar tone, a shitty character that dares to name herself after Holy Terra, and some bullshit plot devices.

• Todd McFarlane's Spawn: Imagine a world where animated series aren't related with kids and "animated" doesn't mean "low quality". That's the world from which Spawn was accidentally teleported from. Dark as fuck, it plays anti-hero dial so high you seriously wonder if the guy can even quality as a nominal hero at all. Worth even for the imagery alone.

• The Venture Bros. An absurd parody of Johnny Quest, 60's animated shows, comic books, and pretty much every action franchise ever. Episodes primarily theme around failure (so great for 4chan) and absurd comedy. Can be hilarious but like Austin Powers, it's hard to appreciate the comedy of it unless you've seen the source material.

• Transformers: Near-legendary multi-series franchise dating back to the mid-80s, all of which revolve, in some way, around giant alien robots fighting a war that has been raging for millions of years without end. Different series have different aspects, so pick carefully.
  • Generation One: The original and, to many grognards, still the best. Classic 80s goofball action with typical "to sell toys" levels of continuity. The post-season-2 movie is best known for awesome 80s Rock songs, being incredibly metal and its villain, Unicron, a planet-sized planet-shifting killer robot that eats other planets whole for power voiced by Orson Fucking Welles.
  • Beast Wars: 90s CGI show by Mainframe (better known as makers of ReBoot) involving robot would-be terrorists and scientists pressganged into police duty crashing on an alien world, with each trying to wipe the other out. Starts out fairly silly, but gets much more serious and action packed, especially in the second season. Surprisingly deep and thought provoking in some episodes, a hell of a lot more mature than G1. (Of note: Several franchise-important ideas originated with BW, most notably the concept of "The Spark", TF's version of "robot souls".)
    • Beast Machines: Sequel to Beast Wars, but highly contested. On the plus side, major grimdark atmosphere - the good guys are the only ones left after their villain opponent unleashed a plague that wiped out the rest of his species, and he recycled their corpses into mindless drone warriors. On the down side, serious character derailment if you're coming from the Beast Wars show (which the writers weren't allowed to watch) combined with a very hamfisted environmental message. Perhaps singlehandedly responsible for scaring Transformers producers into their present "recycle G1's storyline" mindset.
  • Robots in Disguise (2001): Not to be confused with Robots in Disguise (2015). The one everyone forgets about, case in point this very entry, which is weird considering it's the first series with a new continuity. (Probably because it was a holdover series).
  • Energon Trilogy: Set of three anime shows that essentially retell the story of G1 in a slightly different way. The first show is alright, and introduces the first ever badass and not-a-brainless-traitor version of Starscream ever, but the other two exhibit nearly every bad anime cliche known to man.
  • Animated: G1 revamp with goofball cartoon animation and an interesting twist of setting; the usual band of heroes aren't the dogged resistance, but a bunch of space janitors who accidentally stumble upon a superweapon from the ancient war that brings the bad guys out of hiding to claim it, including a posh British sounding Megatron. If you can get past the animation style, pretty damn good.
  • Prime: CGI show made to cash in on the pretty shitty Michael Bay movies, but actually very good. If you can ignore the damn Japanese girl, it's a story of considerable impact, with a pretty dark atmosphere. We see one of the heroes get killed when Starscream rips his heart out with his bare hands in the first 10 minutes of the first episode. That's gotta count for something.
    • Robots in Disguise (2015): Sequel to Prime with Bumblebee now leading his own team to round up escaped prisoners who crash-landed on Earth. Has an opposite tone to Prime.

• War Planets/Shadow Raiders: Forgotten third show from Mainframe in the 90s, alongside Reboot and Beast Wars. Four alien races that have been screwing each other over for thousands of years because they need the resources of each other's worlds have to put aside their difference in the face of a common foe -- a "Beast Planet" that devours entire worlds and their civilisations whole, overwhelming its prey first with armies of mindless drones. Very intense, very good characters, plenty of action. The Beast Planet is kind of a "Necrons imitating Tyranids" enigma, which may be a good or a bad thing.

• Wakfu

• Young Justice: A DC animated show wherein Batman recruits the sidekicks and super-powered relatives of various heroes to serve as a black ops team for the Justice League. In spite of starring a bunch of teenagers, everyone still gets decent character development when the show isn't trying to be Dawson's Creek with superpowers. Unfortunately canceled because the execs felt it wasn't toyetic enough. Recently renewed for a third season to drive subscriptions for DC's exclusive streaming service.

References

One of many threads.