3
Bojack Horseman
The Good Place. It starts off deceptively shallow but by the end it became one of my favorite shows of all time.
Dark. The constant time travel makes it hard to keep track of what's going on a lot of the time but if you can manage, it's very rewarding. Great character development. Not the best ending, but good enough.
Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad have some poorly written characters but the well-written ones are very well-written.
I didn't include any shows based on books because I felt that would go against the scope of your question.
+1 for Good Place. That show is phenomenal.
Andor
Agreed.
There's several examples of >2min speeches that hit super hard: Luthen's "I need all the heros I can get", Karis' "random acts of rebellion", the "one way out" speech, Mon Mothma's final speech.
There's huge character growth and complexity for most of the main characters. Although I guess Syril never had much character growth, but that was kinda the point of his obsessive character. And they really showed how the rebellion grew from basically nothing
I've been rewatching Community recently and it definitely fits the bill. It has incredibly good writing.
But more than that, Community gives me the impression that is has an infinite budget. Not a ridiculously big budget like some shows and movies do... an infinite budget. The difference being that they don't waste a cent. There isn't a single thing on screen that doesn't serve a purpose. No ridiculous effect or expensive crane shot added in just to flaunt their budget. But if an episode's script actually called for a particular shot to be done, they would move heaven and earth to make that happen. That's what it feels like.
In my head I compare it to having unlimited vacation days at work. Case studies have shown that workers take fewer vacation days when they can take as many as they want, compared to when they have a set number per year. So in the analogy, a show with a set ludicrously high budget will use every last cent of it even for pointless frill, whereas a (hypothetical) show with an unlimited budget would only use however much money is necessary to create the show. Somehow, Community became that show. ... It probably has to do with how frequently they actually went way over budget in practice.
I fucking love Community.
Firefly.
Pingu
Can't believe Ted Lasso hasn't been mentioned
Resident Alien
That was a good one! Got a little weird at the end, but they wrapped it up well.
- Band of Brothers
- The Wire Seasons 1-4
- Friday Night lights Seasons 1, 3 and 4
- MASH
- Star Trek the Next Generations the latter half of S3 and then seasons 4-6.
- The West Wing Seasons 1-5
- The Pitt
- Task
- Stranger Things
- True Blood (for Characters only) The story writing is a mess at times, but the characters are a masterclass.
- Travelers Seasons 1 and 2
- NYPD Blue
- Game of Thrones Seasons 1-3.
- Get Smart
True Blood
“I’m a fuckin’ fairy?!”
You did see the part where I said characters Only, Right?
Yep.
Dirk Gently
Based off a book based off a script for a Dr Who episode that was too weird by the guy who wrote Hitchiker's Guide, starring Frodo:
Extremely loosely based. Like, almost no actual story similarities. They kind of adapted the premise, to a degree, but that's about it.
Still an enjoyable show, but not really representative of either Dirk Gently book. The books are really really good, if you like Adams' writing. I had to stop at least once per page reading Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul to sit and appreciate a fantastic sentence.
Star Trek: Deep space nine
Kira: From hot headed terrorist to level headed leader
Nog: petty criminal to first of his kind in Starfleet
Yessss! Garak wound up being my favorite character at the end!
Including his lies?
Especially his lies.
especially his homoerotic relations with Julian
Don’t forget O’brien who start as an engineer and become the most important personne in starfleet
I love how in Lower Decks, Garak is married to a Holo-Bashir
Edit: Changed Holi to Holo, though the idea of a Desi Bashier...
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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