As with anything, the television landscape can change dramatically over the course of a few months. New shows start up, old shows finish up, others take a break, some get more airtime, and some disappear without a trace. That means shows I recommended you watch might have finished airing their current season, and other equally good shows have taken there place. It may also mean that good shows have become stale and not worth watching anymore, while others have increased in quality and are worth a shot now.
Let's firstly recap and update what I recommended you watch in October:
Off Air:
Sanctuary - The latest season finished up a while back. Luckily, ABC2 will be bringing us the next season in 2011.
Deadwood - Same deal as Sanctuary. Season One's over, keep an eye out for Season Two if you enjoyed it (although I found it started to become a little stale and won't be following it anymore).
Still Airing:
QI - It's still on air. It's still worth watching. And now you can enjoy it twice a week, since it's also on at 8:00 p.m. Wednesdays on ABC1!
Scrapheap Challenge - It's still going (there are a lot of episodes to get through). Unfortunately, you've missed the famous "trebuchet" incident if you haven't been watching.
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report - I doubt these are ever going to drop off air unless Stewart and Colbert take an extended break over the summer. There's no shame in missing a few episodes if you feel you need to take a break from them.
And now to the new recommendations. Summer programming is nearly here so enjoy these while you can, before they finish their run and get replaced by trash that the networks know wouldn't do well during the ratings season.
Fringe (Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. Go)
I once read that J. J. Abrams said the idea behind this show was that a casual viewer could walk into it partway through and still easily follow what was going on in the overall story arc, as opposed to his other well known creation Lost (where if you missed just one episode you were pretty much screwed forever). For the most part, he did pretty well. I missed the first few episodes of Season 1 and had no trouble picking up on what was going on and filling in the parts I missed. The show has (or used to have) many stand-alone mysteries as well as the overall story arc, much like classics such as Stargate SG-1 or The X-Files. Even if you've not watched a single episode and want to jump in to the story right now, partway through Season 3, I suspect you'd only have minimal trouble.
But be warned, you might have to take in pretty hefty amounts of information at once, because the show just went from being "Hey, this is really good," to "Holy crap, this is awesome." A lot has happened since the Season 2 finale and Season 3 opening episodes, and the stand-alone mysteries may have been dropped in favour of fleshing out the increasingly intriguing story. This show has started to really explore the complexities of knowing the existence of a parallel world and being able cross back & forth between our reality and the alternate one (albeit not entirely freely).
Rake (Thrusday, 8:30 p.m. ABC1)
Okay, I'm going to admit that I actually don't watch this show. I watched the first episode and realised that the show didn't quite work for me. I felt that the situations aren't quite played out to their full humorous potential, but are instead used as the backdrop for the character's shenanigans. I would have preferred it the other way around.
That being said, if you don't mind it the other way around, then I would heavily recommend it. Even having seen just one episode that I didn't really like, I can still say that this is some extremely well made Australian television that is at times genuinely funny. It's getting all that critical acclaim for a damn good reason. You may end up like me thinking that it's not your cup of tea (or other beverage of choice), but you should at least give it a go if you haven't already.
Warehouse 13 (Thursday, 8:30 p.m. 7Mate)
If you gave Rake a shot but found you wanted something different, maybe this is your answer. Two secret service agents get recruited to work in a big warehouse in the middle of nowhere. Their job is to hunt down dangerous artefacts, neutralise them, and then store them in the warehouse. Kind of like what happens at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. There's no overall story arc yet, although the latest episode may have changed that. Looking for something that has a light-hearted action feel with a decent plot and a few laughs, but at the same time doesn't require you to pay close attention or think too much? This is the show for you.
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