People always look at me strangely when I say I love BTVS, but there's so much humour and truth in that series, all couched in High School drama and the world beyond. Plus sexy vampires.

So we finally reached the end of Season 1 of Schitt's Creek, and had quite a laugh. If I can keep the Spousal unit awake for a while after dinner we'll watch more.

Agreed hagatha. We are prone to watching our favourite episodes just for fun - ones like Tabula Rasa, Hush and of course Once More With Feeling - usually when one or other of our daughters are around.
Speaking of sexy vampires, the girls still have a photo of themselves with Spike, one arm draped around each of them, taken at a Buffy convention we went to in Melbourne about 20 years ago. They queued for about an hour to have it taken.

I was always a Spuffy fan rather than a Bangel fan. Dude was awesome by the end.

Hush is an amazing piece of television. Another of my favourites is The Body.

The Body is indeed excellent

Like Game Of Thrones, Buffy The Vampire Slayer was something I expected to like but never got beyond one episode (possibly at least partly because my wife could not suspend her disbelief sufficiently for dragons or vampires, although she seems to manage with Grimm and had previously enjoyed the film The Lost Boys - go figure... ). Perhaps I will try those specific shows you mention.

Lex, Buffy started out as a clever teen high school dramedy with vampires, but by the second season the underlying darkness of the themes started to play out, along with the humour. Buffy is long-form storytelling, so I don't know if individual episodes would give you a true picture. It's worth a try, though.

Many of my favourite shows started out a bit cliche and improved over time. I would put Supernatural in that category. The first season is just basically monster-of-the-week with a couple of good-looking guys and a cool car. Then it changed to a more long-form storytelling and picked up a lot of steam.

I often wonder how Angel would have played out if it had been given another couple of years to continue the story lines that had developed. I enjoyed it, too, even with the truncated ending, which, under the circumstances, was genius.

Ditto on Angel hagatha and given what you said about Supernatural I might have to give it another go. I never got out of that first season largely because of exactly how you describe it.

Before leaving Buffy, do we all agree the season with the Initiative should be reduced to a short "here are the things you need to know to move on" episode and then never be spoken of again

I wasn't keen on Season 4, but I don't hate it completely. There was that wonderful Halloween episode where lephoriphobic Anya wears a rabbit suit and saves the day, and the evil demon turns out to be three inches tall. And of course there are the wonderfully acted episodes relating to Willow, Oz and Tara.

But yes, Season 4 is my least favourite.

Supernatural was a guilty pleasure for a while, and then I decided that I really liked it as the characters grew. Jensen Ackles turned out to be a pretty decent actor, Misha Collins was absolutely wonderful as Castiel, and Jared Padalecki had a sensitive yet manly jaw throughout the series. In 15 seasons there was some fluff and some truly bad episodes, but by and large they managed to keep it pretty fresh.

Changing topic, hagatha, did you try Grimm? That has now become a regular filler for us.

I haven' tried Grimm yet, but I'm thinking I should. It's probably right up my alley.

Right now I'm watching my regular shows -- Season 10 of The walking Dead, which is the best season they've made for years, and then I'm off to finish season 3 of Star Trek: Discovery, and then Season 2 of Witcher arrives, and Season 9 of Dexter has just started and is streaming on Crave TV, so my dance card is pretty full. So many games, so many good shows, so little time...

I gave up on TWD a few seasons ago; do you reckon I can jump straight back into season 10?

No, far too much has happened in the interim.

I watched and enjoyed a couple of episodes (or perhaps it was films on the same theme) but that was enough zombies for me: I preferred the wider post-apocalyptic themes of the John Wyndham books and loved the original TV series of Survivors (which sadly now looks very dated).

It's been a long time since I read Wyndham.

I see that Angel is now on Amazon Prime, so I'm going to blast through it while I alternate with 12 Monkeys, which has pretty good reviews. We watched the first three episodes a few months ago, but the SU kept falling asleep and the premise is too complicated to explain every time.

Thanks
12 Monkeys is really rather good, and I think I remember Survivors.
Did either of you watch the recent reboot of War of the Worlds? I thought the first season was excellent, the second not quite so much but still worth the viewing investment.

War of the Worlds got past me altogether, as in I didn't even know about it. Of course, if it isn't streaming, I don't watch it -- we've pretty much abandoned cable TV except for Jeopardy and Shark Tank, and the occasional game that isn't on DAZN. With 4 streaming services we've got a wealth of good TV to watch.

We watched and quite enjoyed the War Of The Worlds reboot, but as far as I remember found it a bit patchy.

Our most recent discovery is Criminal UK on Netflix: a slightly different take on serious crime investigation (fictional) with a strong cast and I think now in or about to start its third season, all about police questioning suspects - I am wondering whether it may have evolved from a stage play, as it seems well suited to that (or at least the first episode of the first season which we watched last night was ). I note that it appears to have other versions for other countries, but have not looked to see what language those are in or whether there are subtitles.

I seem to have got stuck on repeat this year -- easier on the brain. I'm watching Angel now, will pick up on 12 Monkeys again soon.

12 Monkeys benefits from a bit of a binge. Too many things to hold in your head I find, as my head gets older!

Yes, a binge is the way to go with just about every show, in fact, but especially so for the ones with complicated plots.

I wouldn't have made it through Mr. Robot if I hadn't binged it. I would have forgotten what was going on between seasons. Dark was the same --.

(I thought I should add the spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't watched it).

I enjoyed the film 12 Monkeys, so may have to give the TV series a try.

I agree re Dark hagatha, and wasn't it good

flotsam, I thought Dark was stunning -- the acting, the story, the cinematography, and the music! I'm forcing myself not to watch it again too soon.

I must definitely give Dark a try: now on my Netflix list, but there is a bit of a queue across Sky and Amazon Prime as well...

Lex, if you do watch Dark, make sure you watch it in German with English subtitles. The English dubbing is awful.