Are there any good dramas I should try?

There are no good dramas on local TV at the moment, so I was wondering whether any of you could recommend anything. While I'm all in favour of reality TV (and Survivor is coming back this week), and comedy, some decent drama is always a good thing to have, and I'm missing it.

Over the last couple of years, I think my favourite dramas have been Homeland, The Fall, and The Returned. I quite liked The Americans too. And I enjoyed Revolution in spite of the ludicrous plot holes. Before that, I loved Spooks, and the original British Life on Mars.

So I'm happy with spy/terrorism things, crime things, spooky ghosty things, and political things, and SF things. But they have to be well-written and well-acted and well-thought-out and challenging: I'm not looking for CSI: Little Rock - Traffic Crimes Unit or anything.

Does anyone have any good recommendations?

 

Ah, yes. I should really give Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul a go.

 

Thanks!

I couldn't really get into Waking the Dead.

I should give The Killing and Bergen a try: I've heard good things about them. Is Wallander the one with Kenneth Branagh?

 

I hadn't heard of this. I've just Googled it, though, and it sounds very interesting. And given how much I enjoyed the last big American remake of an Israeli series, it could be very promising. Thanks!

Incidentally, the mention of Katya made me think of Eastern European names in general, and that reminded me of Orphan Black, another of my big favourites of the last couple of years.

 

I loved the British version, but I just couldn't get into the remake. I usually really like Kevin Spacey, and I can see the quality of the programme, but for some reason it just didn't work for me.

 

I once had to write English subtitles for a Cantonese documentary. It's incredibly hard work. And it was a low-budget documentary a long time ago: I did a lot of fast-forwarding and rewinding of a VHS tape to do it. So I can understand the challenges these people had.

I'm generally happy with watching stuff with subtitles if it's good enough to make it worthwhile. But if it isn't brilliant, I lose patience quicker that I would with a programme in a language I speak, so, for example, I only got two episodes into Hatufim (the Israeli programme on which Homeland was based) before I gave up.

 

Not knowing they're there is always a good sign.

Translation can be difficult. I remember my Dad telling me about a meeting he was at with simultaneous translation between English, German and Italian. He was talking about something the group wanted to avoid, and said, "The absolute last thing we want to do is....". He caught the German translation, which was "Our ultimate objective is...."

I've always used hard-coded subtitle files: it's a lot simpler.

 

It was indeed me.

I'm delighted to hear that you and your family enjoyed it. It's possibly my favourite documentary ever. And a brilliant one to watch with the family.

 

I tried the wire, but found it incredibly difficult to understand the mumbly dialogue. It's a shame: it seemed like it could have been good otherwise.

Was The Pacific a war thing?