UKC

I'm one of those annoying people who doesn't watch TV, before the start of last year I hadn't watched a TV show for 4 years. Then me and the GF started a one night a week thing binge watching night.  Planet Earth 2 was great, then we moved onto BB. I loved this, but we've finished it and we're looking for something else that's as good, maybe a wee bit more lighthearted but not necessarily comedy. Something with the same quality of writing and acting, and preferably with the same kind of twists and turns, coz BB kept surprising me all the way through. Any suggestions? 

Have you seen the Sopranos? Quite old but very good.

Power is also very good.

Narcos

vikings

black sails

banshee

the expanse.

good writing, characters and setting and even better if you're a science/engineering geek.

cheers

toby

The wire

And if you like soft porn, try Game of Thrones. 

I've watched many a box set series, including all of BB, and 'Dexter' is still the best by a long way. 

The Wire for sure.

I've heard very good things about The Wire but never watched it. Will have to get round to it one day. I have a feeling if you liked Breaking Bad you'd like The Wire. Seems to appeal to the same type of people. 

Better call Saul is the obvious sequel. Better in many ways and has its lighthearted moments. 

The Fargo series are also excellent, perhaps lacking in lightheartedness though... 

Sorpanoes is really good, one of the best. I like sons of anarchy as well but it's pretty violent and sometimes a bit cheesy. Peaky blinders is good but not seen the newer series. Ditto Game of thrones. Everyone bangs on about game of thrones but to be fair it's very well made and entertaining. Well worth watching. My brother who has watched everything pretty much says that the only thing that has ever come close to the sorpanoes is the wire. I keep meaning to watch it but I'm a bit concerned it will be good and I'll start staying up to 3am just watching TV! 

Not quite the same but I'd be also recommend smashing through peep show and Nathan barley on 4OD. Not really box set binge watching stuff but not to be missed if you ask me. 

Another vote for Power and Banshee. Both excellent!

The Wire is excellent - some of the best TV I've ever watched - but I'm not sure it's light-hearted, even compared to BB...  We had to use subtitles for the first few episodes until we got the hang of the Baltimore accent.

The West Wing is worth it, and probably counts as pure escapism these days.

ER is a personal favourite, especially if you want something really long. 

Or for some less real-world suggestions: Battlestar, or Firefly. Or Buffy!

Sopranos

The Wire

The Killing

Not exactly "lighter" though

The French series Spiral is excellent.  Not particularly light hearted but a great police show.

Deadwood

Twin Peaks season 3

I'll second recommendations of the Wire and Sopranos from above, but add Mad Men into the mix.  Great writing, beautiful recreation of the period it runs over (late 50s to early 70s), easy to watch without being bland.  Prior to Mad Men my wife pretty much refused to watch TV, the fact she made it through all seven seasons says a lot.

If you do have a go at The Wire then I would suggest stick with it through season 1 & 2 they were quite hard work for me but midway through season 2 it all seemed to click into place & it became more of an experience than just good TV . I love the fact that alot of the actors were people from the streets of "West Bodymore" which gave amazing authenticity , all of the characters were exceptional & genuinely convincing.

Peeky Blinders was great also , superb writing , direction & characters but far from light hearted . 

The 1st season of True Detective was really well played & very taught but has very dark subject matter again .

Gomorrah the italian drama ( I think they are on season 4 now ) about the Camorra clans in Naples was good & highly addictive too , again not at all light hearted I'm afraid . And the subtitles in season 2 are shockingly bad & not very helpful but its mostly action so all is not lost. ( Based on the book & film by Roberto Saviano ) .

Justified and Battlestar Galactica would be my recommendations for shows that had strong writing throughout and finished well.

Interesting thread. 

I loved Breaking bad and the Sopranos but I wouldn't get in to the wire at all. 

Someone mentioned Justified, that was very good and I have to thrown in another vote towards Deadwood. 

Sneaky Pete

Spiral is my  favourite cop show and nothing at all to do with Maitre Karlsson....

No one else seems to have caught The Leftovers so I won't keep banging that particular drum.

Apart from that, Deadwood is tops for me, though I've sat through Band of Brothers  3 times in all.

The Wire is up there with them , as is the Sopranos, but the thing I'm looking forward to most is the return of Westworld.

Westworld. Season 2 due to start soon. Great cast. Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris. 

Best thing ever made by anyone.

+1 for Sneaky Pete, just started this, it's pretty good!

'The End of the F***ing World' (Netflix) is pretty good if you like your humour dark.
Very short episodes though, 20 mins or so.

Rick and Morty.

(Not quite kidding, plus if you don't like it after, say, the first three episodes, you've only wasted an hour.)

And I see The Expanse is recommended above. It's absolutely brilliant.

I'm not sure anything else has yet matched Breaking Bad ! 

It's nothing like BB, but Firefly is superb though....

definately The Wire, as someone else said, season 2 is hard going but stick with it it's worth it. 

True Detective also brilliant 

I've not watched much TV since, but The Sopranos did it for me. It was like watching a Scorsese movie every week. Fantastic.

Boardwalk Empire is good too.

The Wire, again, and The Bridge, for some nordic flavour.

The Wire is head and shoulders above anything else.

I'd also recommend:

• Game of thrones
• Orange is the new black
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Westworld
• Scrubs (Silly but fun)

if you enjoyed BB then Ozark should be right up your street. Very similar premise, normal family man gets embroiled deeper and deeper into criminality (money laundering in this case). Brilliant acting from Jason Bateman. Only one series so far though, second one in the pipeline.

The Wire is excellent as many have said, as is Sopranos and Peaky blinders. For something more lighthearted I would go for Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development or Inbetweeners.

Did you ever can catch 'Lost' back in the day? Great for twists and turns, it will suck you in. 

 Cordon, a subtitled Belgian TV series from a couple of years ago was quite good. 

Available on C4 if you don’t have Netflix

Another vote for "Dexter".

More recently: "Line of Duty" and "Luther"

Thanks for the replies, I'll try to reply to some. I watched Sopranos at the time, I liked it a lot but I thought it started running out of steam towards the end and I stopped watching before the end. That didn't happen with BB, I was gripped to the last episode. A lot of recommendations are ongoing series, I'm looking for shows that are finished and were quality right through. I love sci fi but GF isn't so keen, and although I enjoyed Firefly I don't think it was anywhere near the quality of BB. 

From the BBC, I've enjoyed Line of Duty. I didn't watch the first series, but Series 2 and 3 worked brilliantly as together, without me feeling I had missed anything. I have not got around to watching Series 4 yet, just because I have limited viewing time. I'm watching McMaffia at the moment, which is also very good. The Handmaid's Tale on C4 was excellent earlier in the year. I've started watching a few things, but tend not to pursue if they are not engaging me. We appear to be the only household in the world without Netflix.

It is good fun and my wife and I are enjoying it as a guilty pleasure, like Howard's Way, or bringing it up to date, Designated Survivor. My nephew's professor at UCL has recommended the show to his economics students as a well-drawn expose of the interconnections between high finance and organised crime. Unfortunately neither he nor I can recommend the script or acting, which, admittedly for obvious reasons, goes for action instead of explanation. I'd be more interested in a proper forensic examination of the financial mechanisms with fewer airport and villa/lair scenes. I'm great fun at parties.

Misha Glenny’s book may be more instructive. I’m just enjoying it as a bit of drama.

Westworld. Westworld. Westworld.

Stranger Things.

I'm looking for full series with quality from start to finish. 

I did read it a few years back. I'd like the filmmaker to be more bold with the detail but of course it's a Sunday night entertainment and at least better than the execrable Night Manager.

Did I say? Better Call Saul

You might struggle with American stuff then, as it often takes quite a few episodes to find its stride, or has some sort of lull.
I actually loved S1 of Breaking Bad but stopped at the end of S2 because they seemed to be having writers' block "can't think of what to do with Walt this episode, so, er.....let's make his sister-in-law a kleptomaniac, and throw in a girlfriend for Jesse..."

On the other hand you found those parts of Breaking Bad to be "quality" then maybe you'll be OK with any old tut

I do understand that it picks up massively in S3, 4 and 5 and have bought the whole lot with a view to starting again from scratch. But my point in the first sentence stands.

I like most of the rest of the world thought The Night Manager was excellent. Should be on this thread. I fear you may be swimming against the tide.

I just have higher standards

SPOILER stop here if not yet seen.

Jesse's girlfriend is an essential figure in the drama. The scene where Walt ignores her plight is recognisably the instant when he crosses over to evil. Until then the death and violence has had a comic and even slapstick angle. This is the moral core of the entire 5 series. We are with Walt up to this moment but beyond, he turns into a monster. The centrality of this scene is brilliantly foreshadowed by the charred cuddly toy floating in the pool, the symbolism of which we only learn as the series closes. Brilliant stuff.

Agreed, that scene was brilliant, Cranston's wordless acting where you can almost see his brain going through the dilemma of what to do, was great. Possibly less than a minute on screen but it has stuck with me for sure, it is maybe 5 years since I saw it (and just the once).
 I certainly didn't mean to knock the whole second season. HOWEVER a harsher critic might say that Jesse's girlfriend was entirely a plot device to move things along, and a ham-handed one at that. 
I do look forward to seeing the rest of it.

If you enjoy quality writing and enjoy something a little lighter than BB than can I would recommend the work of Armando Ianucci with 'The thick of it' and 'Veep'.

Both are comedies but both touch some wonderfully dark place and stand up well to repeated viewings. The language is a joy and and you can see there has been some improvisation involved.

Westworld truly amazing but I'm almost dreading the next series coming out. How can they possibly match the first season.

But aren't they all bad? Only one I've watched was Blacksails which started reasonably but went into a tailspin for the last two seasons.

Surprised/not surprised that no one has recommended Big Little Lies. Even better than Westworld and a stand-alone drama.

First Season True Detective. Fargo seasons 1 + 2 (they can be watched as stand-alone series too)

No one has mentioned it yet, but if you haven't seen them...series 1 & 2 of the Detectorists are on Netflix, and series 3 (the final one) is on Iplayer.

You won't find a better bit of television. Superbly acted and scripted deftly combining comedy and pathos in a beautiful setting (Framlingham and Orford). 

Solid all the way through.

+ 2 for Sneaky Pete. Can't wait til series 2.

Also on Amazon Prime I really enjoyed Patriot, and BrainDead which is like Invsasion Of The Body Snatchers crossed with the West Wing

Which is why I haven’t recommended any of those series. I was just commenting on my own viewing habits. Like BnB, I like to think I have high standards, don’t we all!

We're binge watchers too. We did Sopranos last year and Veep (up to series 5), both excellent TV.

I saw The Wire a few years ago and recently finished Treme.  The latter is made by the same folks as The Wire and takes place in post-Katrina New Orleans. Similar in style as The Wire, but much less violent. It's mostly about that neighbourhood and its music. Good if you like jazz and R&B. Also check Generation Kill, a shorter series located in Iraq during the war and again by the same writers.

Better Call Saul, I think, is better than BB, especially Michael McKean playing his older brother.

Honorable mention to Detectorists, can't wait for season 3 to appear on DVD at my library

Just started Fargo, so far, pretty good.

Homeland is pretty good, especially the early ones with Damion Lewis. I liked House of cards although the Kevin Spacey thing has likely soured that one and it had run its course by the last series. If you like some Brit ones then Happy Valley is excellent and so is The Fall.

I think most others have been mentioned although you should look out for the new HBO show called "Big Little Lies" which has just about every A list actress in it.

Forgot to mention "The Good Wife".

If you don't mind Foreign, these seem OK -

Spiral (French, BBC)

Black Widow (Dutch, C4)

I watched Sopranos at the time, I liked it a lot but I thought it ran out of steam and I stopped watching the last series, didn't see the end. 

Head over to Netflix and watch Ozarks you want be dissapointed

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5071412/

i'll second Fargo, The expanse, Dexter, Westworld and Stranger Things (kids show too scary for the age of the kids in it...)

and also try Sense8...sadly only two series but there is supposed to be a wrapping up finale on the way

Prison Break is my suggestion. The quailty of this series is great.