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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

I do. It's pretty decent. It does go a bit downhill later on, but I'd say in the late S3 and S4 (I blame it on the show being cut short and having to wrap up everything too quickly).

In the genre of "seemingly a crime show, but really a deep sci-fi", I'd strongly recommend Person of Interest, if you haven't seen it already. It contains what I consider to be, to date, the best discussion of the topic of general artificial intelligence, and all its ethical and safety implications.

> It seems a bit low-budget and oldschool TV

It's definitely not big-budget, but there's decent FX in there, just judiciously used. Future tech is impressive, but not crazy flashy.

> (pre-breaking bad quality of TV).

Could you elaborate on that one? I've only seen the first three episodes, after which I gave up, but from those three I thought Breaking Bad is a low-quality and extremely low-budget show.

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Not sure what GP meant by 'pre breaking bad', but I'll give it a shot. It is quite low budget, but the writing does seem like it heralded a change of some sort. I think it's less formulaic but it's hard to really put one's finger on it.

To my understanding Breaking Bad was a show where the writers counted on people bingeing it, so they could tell a longer story instead of having to have every thirty minutes be self-contained.

Pretty much what I meant :)

BB is the point when TV series started to be seen as superior format for sophisticated story telling. When series became very long movies basically.

Thanks!

I tried PoI, but it didn't catch me (first ep only). Maybe I try again. I would love a good, techy private detective series. Would love to find something like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as a series.

For me, in Germany, Breaking Bad was the series which changed the game. After breaking bad, TV became the superior story vessel. There were some good series before, but after BB "everyone" around saw the appeal. It's a different narrative style than traditional TV series. Even gems like Battlestar Galactica, feel more episodically contained and are not bincheable like modern shows. BB wasn't pioneering but rather the turning stone(?), I think.

And yes, I do recommend giving BB another try. It starts so slowly, but it will get insanely intense! However, it's becoming uncomfortably stressful story-wise. If you don't like that sort of drama, you may not enjoy it. Then Better Call Saul is even better, but also even more slow progression. Tho, if you got into the BB style, the wrinting, acting and cinematography are unmatched IMO.

Thanks, I'll revisit BB.

Going by your explanation, I understand you like serialized TV shows - vs. episodic ones. I'm not sure if BB was the turning point there - there's been a steady change in preferences from episodic to serialized over the decades now, probably starting with invention of VCR, and reaching full speed when Netflix introduced their streaming service.

PoI is somewhere in the middle. In S1, most episodes stand on their own, but they do spin out story arcs, that start to dominate later on. By S4, it's almost entirely serialized - but in a good way. It's definitely binge-friendly (I've done it multiple times, and didn't get bored yet).

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