Some oldies an one or 2 new ones
Farscape
Cracking scifi about a somewhat annoying american test pilot shot through a wormhole and ending up with a band of complete misfits. Sounds formulaic but isn't. Sadly got canned suddenly at the end of S5 by those whores at SCIFI channel, something to do with it costing 1M per episode to make, which explains why the last 4 episodes make no sense whatsoever. Got ressurected thanks to DVD sales and a miniseries (peacekeeper wars) was released to better tie up the plot arc. The completion of teh whole arc was a great loss to television imo although possibly not as big a loss as another mentionable (see below). I have seen all of this but bought the box set for [s]myself[/s] my wife for christmas and so am just about to start watching it from the beginning again.
Buffy the vampire slayer
My mate once spent 2 hours in the pub talking with a new work colleague about their mutual love of all things scifi and (decent) fantasy before one of them broached the subject of "errrm, so do you like Buffy then?" Another boxed set that I "bought for the wife" worth every minute of the 4 months it took us to get through the whole thing. Joss Whedon for President
Angel
Buffy spinoff about her boyfriend the friendly vampire. Not as original as buffy but still good
Firefly
more cracking scifi but rather than cutting this one down in its prime, SCIFI Channel performed a late abortion and cut it off at 9 episodes, with only 6 having aired. cunts. Take BtVS mix in some Farscape adding a pinch of Deadwood and you have the glory that could almost have been Firefly. Again, DVD sales revived interest and the movie Serenity was released in 2005. I believe that Serenity tries to describe the whole plot arc planned for the original TV show, but in a couple of hours. As such, it doesn't stand on its own but needs to be viewed with the surviving episodes to aid characterisations. Joss whedon for god.
Morse
Essential watching for anyone who's ever spent time in Oxford and frankly for anyone who hasn't either. John Thaw is the acerbic classically trained and cultured Chief Inspector Morse with Kevin Whatley as his long suffering Sergeant Lewis. How Lewis managed to support a family while buying all those beers (food fro teh brain, Lewis) for Morse, I will never know. Superb. For any of you across the pond; watch this, that's what we're all like. Honestly.
House M.D.
House (Hugh Lawrie, aka Stupid Prince George) is a diagnostics specialist at some American hospital. Part hospital drama, part detective show, I love this for the comic dark side of Hugh.
Lost
I'm hooked on this. Plane crashes on a tropical island. Several (about 40) passengers make a very unlikely survival. Each character has his own past and secrets, some clearly relevant to the island itself, some less so (or as yet unclarified, I've only seen S1). The biggest secret of all is the island itself, which makes some very odd and threating noises indeed, especially at night. Best summed up by the radio signal the survivors manage to pick up of a French woman repeating the phrase "they came and killed us all" over and over for 16 years.
Heroes
Plenty of talk about this elsewhere on the forums. This is brilliant. Watch it. Hiro for president (now Joss Whedon is God)
