Best Under the Radar Shows?
CretanBull
Toronto
These types of threads seem to pop up from time to time, but I think that it's been a while and I'm looking for things to watch 
Basically, what are some of your favourite shows from the past that seem to have flown under the radar? I don't think anyone needs to be told about Breaking Bad, The Leftovers etc. but what are some of your hidden or under-appreciated gems?
A couple of my recommendations...
Northern Exposure - a quirky cast of characters in small-town Alaska with bits of surrealism mixed in. IMO it's one of the best shows of all time but rarely seemed to get mentioned in 'best' conversations. A favourite scene of mine...two characters are feuding, and one challenges the other to a duel:
Four in the Morning - I almost hate to bring this up because don't know where anyone might find it, but it was a great but short-lived show (8 episodes) that bombed. No one watched it, but I loved it. Each episode takes place on a weekend night at 4am after the characters have had a night out on the town...they head to a diner to meet up. The show is about the crazy things that happen at 4am in a big city. It's heavily influenced by South American magical realism (if you like writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you'll love this!). My favourite episode is about parents who abandon their kids at the diner. The kids have a disease that causes them to live an entire life in 1 day (so they start the episode as little kids and are elderly by the end of the episode). Canadian shows are best known for their lack of budget, and this was low budget even by our standards - but the writing is brilliant (they sometimes just don't have the budget to fully realize it).
Edit: if you can geoblock your IP address and make it look like you live in Canada, Four in the Morning can be seen here (you'll have to sign up for a free CBC account, the paid version removes the ads but you can watch the shows for free with ads):
https://gem.cbc.ca/season/four-in-the-morning/season-1/fdf74543-6482-438d-a027-71c0b6a9467a]
Basically, what are some of your favourite shows from the past that seem to have flown under the radar? I don't think anyone needs to be told about Breaking Bad, The Leftovers etc. but what are some of your hidden or under-appreciated gems?
A couple of my recommendations...
Northern Exposure - a quirky cast of characters in small-town Alaska with bits of surrealism mixed in. IMO it's one of the best shows of all time but rarely seemed to get mentioned in 'best' conversations. A favourite scene of mine...two characters are feuding, and one challenges the other to a duel:
Four in the Morning - I almost hate to bring this up because don't know where anyone might find it, but it was a great but short-lived show (8 episodes) that bombed. No one watched it, but I loved it. Each episode takes place on a weekend night at 4am after the characters have had a night out on the town...they head to a diner to meet up. The show is about the crazy things that happen at 4am in a big city. It's heavily influenced by South American magical realism (if you like writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you'll love this!). My favourite episode is about parents who abandon their kids at the diner. The kids have a disease that causes them to live an entire life in 1 day (so they start the episode as little kids and are elderly by the end of the episode). Canadian shows are best known for their lack of budget, and this was low budget even by our standards - but the writing is brilliant (they sometimes just don't have the budget to fully realize it).
Edit: if you can geoblock your IP address and make it look like you live in Canada, Four in the Morning can be seen here (you'll have to sign up for a free CBC account, the paid version removes the ads but you can watch the shows for free with ads):
https://gem.cbc.ca/season/four-in-the-morning/season-1/fdf74543-6482-438d-a027-71c0b6a9467a]
Comments
The Inbetweeners was on TV here, but it wasn't very popular...I think it got picked up by one of the premium channels like HBO Canada or (its former competitor) Crave TV. I thought it was great, the first movie was good too...the second one not so much.
Young Drunk Punk - another shortlived show that deserved more time.Bosch on Amazon
I'm a big fan of Alone Together as another sitcom. Andy Samberg executive produced it. It's set up as your basic 20 something, two comedian slackers hanging out being slackers type of thing, but I really like the casting and the characters (great Pauly Shore cameo). It's kind of like a younger version of another pick that I have, Difficult People. 2 thirty something comedian slackers hanging out and being bitter and snarky at the world. Amy Poehler had a lot to do with that one getting made. Both are from Hulu.
My wife has gotten really into Netflix documentary series, and we're really hooked on Explained which I think is a little better known but they do a great job and the topics are really interesting. That said, she just showed me Movies That Made Us which was a whole lot of fun. Basically, they talk about movies that were troubled in their making, but ended up being really successful and sort of quickly go through those narratives. I watched the ones about Die Hard and Ghostbusters and it's a whole lot of fun. Great behind the scenes stuff.
And then they made a follow-up movie! Starring peak post-Lost Henry Ian Cusick!! But it really sucked.
It's currently on Prime video and the Roku Channel. I might have to immediately rewatch all four seasons since there is nothing else at all on TV these days.
EDIT: I will say one thing about the movie. It was definitely better the second time around after allowing diminished expectations to set in. We did a re-watch of the show and a "why not, it's right there on Netflix (or was it Prime?). Let's just do the whole thing" turn on the movie and where it is still not good by any stretch, and making it under the circumstances (no Mandy Patinkin and a story that really just didn't make any sense) is one of the more bizarre decisions that I can think of, they did some decent fan service and tied out some things that I remember wishing they had tied out during the show. I would have to watch it again to figure it out for sure, and I don't have any interest in doing so, but my guess is that there is an edit where you cut out a huge chunk of the movie and get a pretty good episode's worth of closure. It was still bad, but not nearly as bad the second time.
That's likely something that's been said about every show in existence. Famous people that are nice to us normies are the minority.