The Wire

Kris

Grimm

Brad

Firefly--in case you never saw it.

Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles...had a writer's strike shortly after the start and a bit of an egotistical director but is an outstanding and completely underrated series.  

I missed both of these because the premises sounded completely stupid but caught episodes online just before they were cancelled and was blown away.  Terminator does what Lost failed at and delivers a plot line that requires careful attention to catch the subtleties of and it remains consistent with the exception of one short story arc.  It also has the best scene of a woman beating a man senseless I have ever seen on screen.

My wife  hates scifi and was hooked like drugs on both of these shows.

The pilot of Fringe is one of the best series beginnings I have ever seen and if you like the pilot, you'll like the show. It's by the creator of Lost but he doesn't fall of the tracks on this one.

The old News Radio is comedy and was one of the sharpest humor shows ever on TV.

Charlie Jade is a S. African series so not quite at big network production standards but is a great show. Available on Hulu and Netflix.

Heroes through the "save the cheerleader" arc but it starts sliding downhill after that.

Fair warning: if you watch Terminator or Firefly and love them, you'll join the ranks of usperpetually tormented by their premature and unjust cancellations.

What you described for Terminator and Firefly is exactly how I felt about the first Battlestar Galactica.

I'm going to go with Big Bang Theory.   Maybe not the genre you're looking for, but....   Hee hee--at work I just put together a computer network with a local DNS domain, and I decided to name all the hosts in the network after characters in Big Bang Theory.   So somebody out there has a machine named "hofstadter" and "wolowitz".  And who says I'm trying to push this series off on other people....   pwahahahahahaha

I had been avoiding sitcoms like the plague, but I just finished up 30 Rock on Netflix and it was nothing but quality the whole way through.  The entire short-lived series of Jim Henson's Storyteller is on there too, which I really enjoyed.  My wife is tepid on sci-fi as well, but really enjoys the Syfy (I hate that name) "Dramaties" (I hate that term) Eureka and Warehouse 13--which I think are great if you like somewhat neo-campy cerebral shows (Warehouse 13 is a little cheesy for my tastes, but the missus eats it up).

What kind of stuff do you like?  Are you looking to break into a specific genre that you haven't tackled before?

Grimm is the best thing on TV right now. Firefly was better, but it never got a real shot. Grimm is one of those few shows that starts off good and keeps getting better. No pointless suspense like Heroes and 24, just a really interesting take on the classic procedural. The style is very reminiscent of Buffy's look at German mythology, but without so much or pithy irony. These guys seem to have grown up a bit from their last shows and I am really enjoying their new creation. It is so rare to get a show on basic cable that is well written. And since it only started this season, you won't be too far behind the curve.  

+1 for Firefly

Dollhouse was also surprisingly good (after it got going a little bit) and is only 2 seasons.

Liked the first 3 seasons of Sanctuary, the most recent season was a little dull to me.

Stupid comedies that I really like- Absolutely Fabulous and News Radio

I didn't know if I would like Lost or not - heard a lot of hype when it started years ago. I checked it out on Netflix streaming and really am enjoying it. We're on season 6 now and have only 8 episodes to go.

I like Fringe a lot and am happy that they just received the go ahead for 1 more season.

I also enjoyed The Borgias and am looking forward to that second season.

Yep....brilliant...

Jafo just started watching The Sopranos....missed it the first time...so it's on DVD....no ads.

Spooks.... though people tend to die.... [ask Kris].

The Shield [best US cop show in a gazillion years]

Sons of Anarchy [acting/casting/music - all first rate]

Breaking Bad.

Essentially just about anything on/from HBO.

Being Human.....no, not the crap US remake.

True Blood.

Jafo also has all of Tour of Duty to get through.....another BoxSet....

Doctor Who  (seasons 5 & 6 might be the best, and they are all-new cast & store arc so you won't be missing much by jumping in in the middle)

Battlestar Galactica

Firefly

Spooks / MI5

Terminator

Being Human  (BBC)

Dollhouse

I assume that you've seen "Game of Thrones?" - this is THE miniseries, at the moment...

I'll have to check out Grimm and Terminator (the original movie was my favorite for a long time).

Agree about "Firefly" - absolutely compelling.

"The Wire" is perhaps the best series ever made (and it's entirely not my genre and still say this).

"Rome" was a 2-season HBO miniseries that allegedly was too expensive for them to keep making.  It shows in production quality.  Definitely worth watching.  Season 1 is spectacular, Season 2 is a bit fast and becomes difficult to watch (emotionally) as the characters aren't doing so well and you kind of watch things decay and fall apart.  Think "the (British) Office" toward the end of season 2 as an example of what I mean by "difficult to watch".  Definitely an amazing series though.

"Boardwalk Empire" is alright, especially if you like more of a contemporary setting (kind of like Mad Men (which I hate) but not about a bunch of lame dudes that you don't care about)

"Samurai Champloo" - animated short in feudal Nippon, it's cool without being cheesy or lame.

If you like the style of "Samurai Champloo" and like social commentary you should check out "The Boondocks".  As a follow-on to this train of though, I've heard that "Afro Samurai" is good, but have not watched it.

"Treme" - series following in the footsteps of "The Wire" - about 5 episodes in and it's alright, but a bit slower than "The Wire" as people aren't getting murdered right away...

"Battlestar Galactica" - personally I hated it, got about 1/2 way through season two and had to quit watching it.  It's structured a lot like Star Trek where every episode is centered around some rather oversimplified problem that gets surmounted in the 40 mins available for the episode to run its course.  The series seems to be full of convenient plot holes, oversimplifications, and chancy turns of event to make sure that the problem is solved in its allotted time.  I never recommend this series to anyone.  (however, having said that, if you like Star Trek - I'd say that you'd like this series).

Saw a couple episodes of "lost", "heroes", and "fringe" and found them all to be rather pointless and lacking in anything making them worth continuing to watch.  Watched "Sparticus" both the original and the prequel at a friends as a background entertainment while we drank beer and played video games.  It's mindless with bad effects and fairly simplistic storylines, however contains some interesting scenes that make me think of interesting D&D campaign characters that I could build (not that I've played D&D in the past 10+ years or anything...), and overall is some viscerally thoughtless entertainment (if you think that fighting + sex = entertainment).

Hope this helps, I'll post more if any come to mind.

cheers,

-tid242

Suites.

you would love Harvey.

The 4400

Eureka

Earth Two

Dark Angel

Millennium

Caprica

Dead like Me

First Wave

XIII The Series

Jeremiah

As many have said, Firefly. Fox were some of the stupidest people in history for canceling it after only one season. It ended up spawning its own film sequel, Serenity.