Another great shout.

Exactly how I'd review 24. Temporary amnesia...

Give The Wire the first four episodes, concentrate, it's the best TV show ever written, I almost guarantee you'll be hooked.

Was described to me by a friend like this :
"Something nearly happens every week. You'd love it."

Sometimes, well, most times i feel that the interraction between characters in a show is just padding, leading up to "the stuff that happens in the episode". With The Wire, it's the interraction that's everything. Everyone acts like their characters just would do, it doesn't feel like every character has the personality of the head writer, they're all some of the richest creations to appear on television, and at its best, The Wire is heart-wrenching, gripping and incredibly good fun.

The West Wing. Especially if you've enjoyed House.

Ah I see. I saw some episodes on Channel 4 but that was absolutely years ago IIRC. Fortunately I'd not seen the pilot nor many of the seasons so it was pretty much new to me.

As for 24, pretty much the same here. My dad recommended it years ago and the first season made me pick up 2&3 on offer some time ago. Really should get them watched, probably after summer hols.

Fringe sounds like it should be good, that'll probably be next on my list.

Anyone seen Southland? I saw season one (last year I think), and it looked ok.

Just had another +1 for Game of Thrones from someone at work, providing I can endure the fact that they're "rutting like pigs" every third minute.

I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

Another, apparently excellent, show that has completely passed me by; and for no other reason than I didn't have the time.

The thing is, if I don't follow a show, I don't tend watch any of it at all; not even odd episodes. Maybe, I'm subconsiously saving my self for boxset marathons.

Fringe is alright, well I certainly enjoyed the first two seasons. After that, it just stopped holding my attention for the length of a full episode. Pretty much what happened with Heroes.

Slightly less rutting than Spartacus, but possibly more surprising.

As already said, The Wire requires patience, but will reward and is without doubt, one of the best television shows EVER.

West Wing is another good shout with House in mind. In fact, House is pretty much modelled on West Wing in terms of the walk-and-talk thing.

Surprised at Fringe, but each to their own. It is mythology heavy since season 3, so perhaps that's also why you also don't like the Wire. Might also put you off Treme.

I didn't stop to analyse why I went off it, but I don't remember a great deal of mythology in it; I'm curious, what were you referring to?

Having wiki'd Treme, I kind of understand the link - more about rebuilding and retaining traditional and culture after disaster has struck - but I thought The Wire was much more meat and potatoes crime drama.

No disrespect, but if The Wire struck you as "meat and potatoes crime drama" I believe you have massively misunderstood it. Hence my comment about Treme, as it has a similar feel in terms of being simply a window onto the scene in post-Katrina New Orleans, rather than necessarily having an immediately apparent "plot". Much like The Wire is the most complete picture of the situation in Baltimore ever written for television or movies.

As for Fringe, the first two seasons were much more self-contained eps, as they moved towards the third, things became much more serialized and hence in televisual terms we refer to them as containing the "mythology" of the show. JJ is big on it (obviously), as are a number of other execs on other shows. Dollhouse is another example of a show that started self-contained and then unveiled more mythology as time went on.