Television

Whites

One season, six 30-minute episodes.

British comedy set in a hotel kitchen starring Alan Davies, Darren Boyd, Katherine Parkinson. It's witty, silly, and has a ton of charm.

Most have been mentioned here so I’ll name some others that stuck with me

Travelers - great time travel show Lie to Me - short lived pseudo science show Limitless - one of the few series reboots from movies I enjoyed. Also short lived

I personally don’t know anyone who has watched any of these.

Better Off Ted. Sharp humor, on point for large corporations. only 2 seasons

Kevin Can Fuck Himself.

Told from the wife's perspective, in 2 different styles. One is her perspective from living in a sitcom where her dumb husband's hijinks get laughs as she rolls her eyes, full with laugh track. Behind the scenes it's shot as a drama with all the characters living with real world ramifications of his stupidity and stress from it. It really builds into this dark dramedy of not living your true self and what people can drive you too. Super cool concept that has acting and writing to back it up.

3rd Rock From the Sun, my favorite 90s sitcom. Not exactly unknown, but I barely ever hear people talk about it. Created by Bonnie and Terry turner who also did Coneheads and That 70s Show. And the cast is just brilliant, especially John Lithgow.

Also Wellington Paranormal. New Zealand spinoff about the cops in the movie What we do in the Shadows.

Continuum, the Canadian sci-fi series. I haven't seen it in years, and watched it after it came out, but I never see anyone mention it.

Law enforcement officer chases bad guys and gets trapped in the past, trying to find her way home to the future while also preventing the future from becoming terrible.

I can't understand why "Black Sails" isn't as famous as Game of Thrones.

More sex and violence than GOT with a much quicker pace.

Another good one is 'TURN - George Washington's Spies.' Shows Washington as a slave owner and Benedict Arnold as justifiably angry. Cool espionage tricks from the 18th Century, like putting secret messages in hard boiled eggs.

Kaos. Jeff Goldlum plays a paranoid Zeus. That's pretty much all to need to know, but the cast and writing are both incredible

Father Ted, best irreverent show. The lead actor died of a heart attack so the show was canceled but the 3 or so seasons that exist are fantastic.

Dark.

My recommended way to enjoy the show is watch the first few episodes and see if it's your jam. If it is, keep watching it and use this website to enhance your experience.

The writing is pretty good, the casting is insanely good and the entire show is pretty entertaining.

Andor. I realize that it doesn't fall under obsure really, but people might not watch it because it's Star Wars.

Andor is a great story that happens to be in the Star Wars universe. You don't even have to know SW or like scifi to get what's happening.

Sense8. A tv series about 8 strangers across the world who suddenly become empathetically linked to each other. Incredible storytelling by the Wachowskis. Only 2 seasons but it wraps up well and had me ruminating for weeks after.

Snuff Box. The caveat: they got complete creative control in exchange for never doing another season and it only aired once in an overnight time slot.

The Prisoner good surreal weird spy series from the 60s not very long

Garth Marenghi's Dark Place goofy 80s dramatic horror parody another short one

Space Ghost Coast to Coast parody talk show reusing animation from space ghost and interviews where they would do the interview early with a person/people then edit it for the show, similar to Harvey birdman attorney at law in the comedy and reusing animation.

Deadloch

Murder mystery type series set in Tasmania. Reminded me of the best parts of Hot Fuzz mashed up with What We Do In The Shadows. I heard supposedly there will be a season 2 coming out at some point, and would definitely want to catch it.

Maybe Party Down? It had a pretty small following back in the day because it was on STARZ, then it was cancelled. Thirteen years later it came back for a third season on Hulu, but that was more of a reunion thing for its small but dedicated fan base as opposed to relaunching the series for a new generation of viewers. The cast is pretty stacked, a lot of them have had mainstream success elsewhere. I think the humour would also appeal to a pretty broad audience, particularly as so many people have worked in catering/hospitality and can relate to the characters.

Honestly, a lot of anime, but anime still has a stigma; one, of being "a cartoon" and thus "I'm too old for that"; two, of having controversial themes (like focusing on high school age characters). Or by leaning too far into fantasy, like isekai (lit. "other world" as in you're stuck there, the first example being Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the most popular isekai anime being Sword Art Online) or super powers (like My Hero Academia, which fundamentally does the same thing as The Boys, but is slightly less edgy).

It's not easy to recommend anime to people who are predisposed to not wanting to watch it.

My two favourites are one-and-done, as in, when their season was over, the story was over, so they're relatively low commitment. The shorter one is Erased, with only 12 or 13 episodes. It's about a guy who is involuntarily thrown back in time a little while when someone around him dies, and he time loops until he can fix it. One day he finds his mother murdered, and he gets thrown back 18 years, and comes face to face with a little girl who was murdered when he was a kid, and he correctly guesses he must save her to save his mom. That's basically the first episode. Pay attention to the aspect ratio cluing you into whether you're in the present or a rewind. Also pay attention to the opening, it slightly changes a couple times (particularly near the end).

The other is Your Lie in April. A guy who used to play piano but stopped after his mother died, meets a violinist who wants a partner to play piano with her. She's going out with his best friend, but spends 20-odd episodes trying to get him to love music and life again. The lie in the title is hers, but it's not revealed until the very end, and it's not what you think. You'll be trying to call the ending, but the nature of the lie is a secondary twist that'll throw you for a loop even if you guessed the other thing. And the music is awesome — not just the themes (that's true of both of them) but also the music they actually play.

Bonus: if you liked those, Orange is a pretty easy recommendation. Plot similar to Erased, but plays with your emotions like Your Lie in April. It's about a girl who gets a letter from the future, telling her about her day before it happens, but it tells her to not invite the new boy out with her and her friends. Even though the letter is accurate, she does so anyway. At the end of the first episode, the friends, now grown, mourn the loss of the guy and contemplate how they could possibly get a message back to the past to change things. It's a heck of a ride with each episode ending in a cliffhanger. Something like 12 or 13 episodes and it's done.

Yes, when it comes to live-action stuff, I absolutely loved LOST, Wayward Pines, and currently enjoy FROM, Severance, and Silo — in case you're wondering. Similar energy on the live-action side. Emotional rollercoasters where you're wondering where it goes next. My bread and butter. Maybe one day I'll write one of my own.

The Patriot (series) on Amazon Prime. Incredible dark comedy. For fans of arrested development type humor (but admittedly darker)

One of my all time favorite shows is the gritty cop drama, The Shield. It’s the most tightly written and compelling seven seasons of any show I’ve ever seen. From the first episode to the last, it’s completely engaging. It’s a fictionalized story loosely based on the LA Police Rampart scandal. I periodically rewatch the whole series and frequently see things that I missed on previous watches.

Counterpart (2017)

American science fiction thriller ... a checkpoint ... between parallel Earths (the "Alpha" and "Prime" worlds). The parallel Earths were created in 1987 during an experiment by East Germany when only a scientist named Yanek was on-site. The "Alpha world" Yanek met his "Prime world" counterpart, and they soon began studying how the initially identical Earths diverge.

Mrs. Davies is a very hilarious and weird Show about a nun riding a motorcycle.

Wilfred (2011-2014), starring Elijah Wood

Mr Inbetween

Mr Inbetween is an Australian dark comedy-crime drama television series which premiered on FX on 25 September 2018 in the United States,[1] followed by Fox Showcase in Australia on 1 October 2018

Undone

Bob Odenkirk

Animated with some trippy shit. Watch it.

Undone explores the elastic nature of reality through its central character, Alma. After being in a nearly fatal car crash, Alma discovers she has a new relationship with time, and uses this ability to find the truth about her father’s death.

The Middleman.

Without a doubt one of the funnest comic book series adaptations. Natalie Morales and Matt Keeslar on a ridonkulas romp of silly yet intelligent adventures. Poor show only got 13 episodes but each ones a gem.

I never hear anyone talk about Leverage. Was a great show if you were into the original Mission Impossible!

Gary and his Demons is a great animated comedy

Sense 8

Legion

Scavengers Reign

The Practice is a great legal drama, more old than unknown. The topics they covered are still relevant today. The spin off Boston Legal is also good, but significantly different tone.

OVNI(s) (2021)

French science fiction comedy-drama ... a scientist tasked with leading a team of UFO researchers ... It has been described by Marianne as a cross between La Soupe aux choux, The Office and The X-Files.

Letterkenny

I always expect people to have heard about it but no one ever seems to. Hilarious look at small town Canadian life with a fucking great music selection. Equally fun for those of us in the states if we have a good sense of humor when they’re making fun of us.

Kimmy Schmit

Extraordinary

I've never understood why superstore isn't mentioned more, it's hilarious