For example, The Americans being marketed as a cold-war era spy drama/thriller but actually being more of a character study or Buffy the Vampire Slayer being reduced to a cheesy teen drama but actually being full of metaphors.
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Not sure how the Good Place was marketed but I found it one of the best ruminations in pop culture on what it means to live well.
Bojack Horseman
Adventure Time. It’s packaged like a kids show but gets into all sorts of philosophy on death and parallel dimension shenanigans.
DS9 - a deep study of war and chaos
Babylon 5 - a tale fit for Rome
I am really looking forward to watching all of B5 but I keep kinda hoping someone will redo those mid 90s effects. I remember watching as a kid when it came out and the effects were rough then.
I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon tbh, but there is a very crisp 4:3 HD release out there somewhere which made it much easier to watch for me (none of that fake 16:9 stretch/crop). The effects are rough, but easy to ignore. Most of the important bits are character-driven anyway, which is why the show still holds up so well.
Yeah the 4:3 works better for the live action as well. It was shot in 16:9 but framed for 4:3 tv broadcast so everything looks so packed into the center on widescreen.
Fringe. It seems like a monster-of-the-week show but has two deep and ongoing long burn plots, and both get to reach their end, if a bit rushed.
Serial Experiments Lain and Ergo Proxy.
Both shows pretty much require a degree in psychology and philosophy to really get them. Or you can just watch a bunch of youtube analysis videos to break them down. But both shows left me utterly lost and confused on my first watch.
Steven Universe. First episode does ice cream let me use my superpower? Much later what’s my moral responsibility if my mom committed genocide.
Gargoyles went deep in creating a complex magical world where human technology started being able to compete with the magic of old.
Nothing made in America, it’s all surface level stuff with pretty faces. You should go for British shows for depth and realism.
In a post about being deep this is the shallowest of takes.
