User blog comment:Anarchic Operations/Best TV Shows/@comment-25052433-20160919071738

This is actually a pretty cool blog. I'm a huge fan of horror television, both the obscure and the popular, so don't judge me too hard for some of my choices here.

In no particular order, here are my all time favorites and why:

The Walking Dead
I'll admit I took a while to get into this one. I think I started watching it in it's 3rd season, whenever the prison came into the story. I avoided it for as long as I did because it simply was so popular, and at that time, the internet was going through this annoying obsession with bacon, Chuck Norris and zombies. I hate those damned internet trends and will usually avoid anything that starts trending in that fashion. However, my wife and her friends apparently were really into it, going so far as to have Walking Dead viewing parties, so, as fate would have it, I was sucked in. I ended up watching the series from the start just to catch up, and was beyond surprised at how addicted I became.

Breakdown

Pros: Great acting Great casting Really good drama A perfect mix of action, horror, drama, a dash of comedy and even some romance.

Cons: Some characters are very annoying, and we all know who I'm talking about.... Carl!

American Horror Story
I love them all. From the first season up until the new one that just started, I simply cannot get enough of this show. It has a strange Midas Touch with talent and story. I'd never heard of Evan Peters before watching this, and now the guy is awesome. Sarah Paulson, ditto, and now I'd pay to see her in just about anything. Zachary Quinto, yep, he's my hero now. And this can be applied to just about any of the cast. No matter how insane their roles are, they just play them seriously and make it work. I would have never thought that I could look forward to seeing Lady Gaga each and every week, but now I'm gaga for Gaga. The plots are always deliciously dark, although at times the show does seem to jump around too much. The Asylum season for example seemed like it couldn't quite find its stride. The the idea of changing all the characters and the settings each season but keeping the same actors, that is just a level of creative brilliance that I haven't seen since reading Stephen King's Desperation and Regulators books back to back, which worked a similar concept.

Breakdown

Pros: Too many to list. Acting, casting, writing... it's just about the total package.

Cons: Sometimes the stories jump around too much, building up and chasing an angle for some time just to suddenly abandon it. HBO's Oz did the same thing and that annoyed me too.

The Following
There are said to be seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, and guess what, they're all amazing. Remember when I said I hated the internet trending crap like bacon and zombies? Well, if it's Kevin Bacon, that's one Bacon we can meme on all day. He's a fantastic actor, and that entire series was well casted. The first season had the most gripping and sinister feel to it, never knowing who might be in the cult. It almost had that Fight Club feel to it. The criminology behind the premise of the show was also rooted pretty well in reality, as something like that could perhaps happen. All the characters were believable and well portrayed, with the right balance of flaws and attributes to make you care about them. Even the main villain, portrayed by James Purefoy was just so damned charming that you wanted to root for the guy, at least a little.

Breakdown

Pros: The first season and second season were pure blissful addiction. The premise was so damned original and well executed that I was thirsty for more.

Cons: Season 3... all of it.

Darknet
This is one of the more obscure shows out there. I came across it on Netflix one night and was hooked from the start. It's a Canadian horror film that I think had limited distribution, as I'd never even heard of it until I found it on Netflix. Clear by the title, it focuses on the darknet, and follows the lives of several different characters per episodes. The episodes are 30 minutes a piece and typically dedicate 8 minutes or so to each short, usually depicting someone falling victim to the wickedness that hides on the darknet. Some of the shorts, I will admit, were just too bizarre for my taste. This isn't to say that I am put off by bizarre or extreme concepts, but if it makes no sense and doesn't start making any towards the end, that sort of costs it some appeal. Horror doesn't work for me unless I really get the true intent dug into my head. If I am left scratching my head instead, I tend to feel a bit cheated. (This described me after watching just about any episode of Aeon Flux as a kid, but I wasn't exactly watching that for the plot.)

Breakdown

Pros: Original as all hell, gripping and unnerving in quite a few parts. Canadian and American sense of horror are pretty similar, but once in a while you catch those strange little nuances that it works well.

Cons: Some of the shorts seemed to make no sense, go no where and end suddenly without explaining anything.

Honorable Mention

666 Park Avenue
If anyone here is old enough to remember the Arch-Deluxe at McDonalds, you may remember the marketing campaign that went with the sandwich, "The Burger with the Grown-Up Taste." That burger also failed. McDonalds tried to market away from their core demographic, people like me that wanted fatty, tasty food served hot and fast, and tried to make a gourmet sandwich that the world just wasn't ready for yet in their fast food. If they tried to make it now, put some kale on it and called it a.... (God I hate the term) Super Food then it would probably sell. But the late 90's were cruel, and the Arch-Deluxe, for all its fancy mustards and potato buns, simply couldn't stay in the fight. When I first watched 666 Park Ave, that is what came to mind. This was the Arch Deluxe of horror. For one, it aired on ABC, a network known more for family quality programming and mature adult shows (not porn, the boring mature adult shows.) It was also very well casted, with Vanessa Williams taking lead female. There was a certain brilliant shine to this show that you won't see anywhere else. And that is why I think it failed. It had tons of excellent cast members, drama and suspense. What it lacked sadly, was grit. It was too damned pretty to be a horror series, and that showed. It also aired on a network who's core demographic was not tuning in for scares. It lasted only a season and died off. A real shame, as it had tons of potential.

Breakdown

Pros: Cast, writing, setting... You know in those stupid movies where they take the nerdy girl, remove her glasses and pony tail, put her in make-up and a nice outfit, and all of a sudden people are like, "Holy shit she's been hot the whole time!" Well, that wasn't 666 Park Ave. 666 was like taking an already stunning beauty, like Perdita Weeks, Nicole Kidman or Jessica Alba, then spending that same amount of time making them even hotter. Instead of polishing a turd, this show was polishing a gold brick, and sadly, beautiful gold bricks do not always make great horror.

Cons: Tried to walk the line between legitimate drama and horror. Horror by nature is meant to be a bit absurd, and I think 666 Park Ave learned that the hard way.