What is the crowd's opinion of The Prisoner?
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On HBO Max, I'd recommend tasting Gentleman Jack, It's a Sin, Years and Years, C.B. Strike, and Primal as a few of the less-obvious selections that may have slipped by.

On Amazon Prime, Good Omens and The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel. But if you want to go old school, there's always The Prisoner on IMDbTV.

For Netflix, Halston just dropped, but I'd also say Ryan Murphy/Steven Canal's series, Pose (which is currently airing S3 on FX) is well worth the time.

And if you have Hulu, I continually point out Staged to people.

Finishing up The Expanse S4. I kind of wish I hadn't binged it. I think I went too fast, so much was happening. But definitely still The Expanse we love and adore.

In the seasonal hiatus, I've also been spelunking through some older offerings on Amazon Prime (The Prisoner, Danger Man/Secret Agent, Sapphire and Steel) and have been finding a treasure trove of old '80s BBC offerings (Flickers, Jane Eyre (1983, the Zelah Clarke/Timothy Dalton one), Vanity Fair (1987, the Eve Matheson one)—I'm a complete sucker for Alexander Baron literary adaptations). And I stumbled across what is apparently the first ITV detective show aired as the network went live, Colonel March of Scotland Yard, a sort of circa 1956 British X-Files. Wikipedia tells me it's based on a 1940 John Dickson Carr book, The Department of Queer Complaints. The writing can be absurdly bad and abrupt at times, but Colonel March is being played by Boris Karloff in an eyepatch, and that alone endears it to me.

>My preferred genre is mystery/drama, whether crime or supernatural. Preferably one with a lingering melancholic/serious/mysterious vibe. Preferably not a lot of fighting or convoluted sideplots as well.

Just me, but I think you need the Scandinoir-influenced UK crime dramas. I'd recommend River (Amazon Prime) by Abi Morgan. And the Wiliams Brothers series, The Missing (Hulu/Amazon Prime) but if you only have access to PBS Passport, its third season, Baptiste, just aired on Masterpiece. Two other shows to look for (but they're not on streaming subs at the moment) would be Sally Wainwright's Happy Valley and the actually-a-Scaninoir Swedish/Danish show: Bron|Broen (aka "The Bridge"; not to be confused with the American/FX remake, The Bridge or the UK/France remake, The Tunnel).

If you get Cinemax, there's C.B. Strike, based on the Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) Cormoran Strike series of books.

If you want to go oldschool '60s tv, I'd recommend The Prisoner on Amazon Prime. :)

More sophisticated/surreal, maybe try Tom Rob Smith's American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace (Netflix), MotherFatherSon (Starz), or London Spy (Netflix). And there's Hugo Blick's Black Earth Rising (netflix).

Other notable shows would be Bryan Fuller's Hannibal (coming to Netflix), and Bates Motel (Netflix), but both shows lapse over into horror. And Mindhunter (Netflix) and True Detective (HBO), which are more strictly crime procedural. These are all TV-MA premium cable/streaming type shows, though. If you want something more broadcast/mainstream, maybe look at Prodigal Son (Fox).

>I also like comedies with a sort of developing plot. I might check out The Good Place because that seems to be a good example.

That would be my recommendation.

>I don't like action or sci-fi, even if ties in with my preferred genres (so like no Stranger Things). But if there's a really good one, I'd bite.

I'd say Westworld (HBO) or Person of Interest (Netflix now, but was CBS), but your Jonathan Nolan quotient might be different from mine. :D

Most definitely. Apparently you can stream it on amazon prime.

https://www.amazon.com/The-Prisoner/dp/B07F24RGLC

The Prisoner. Extremely weird/trippy dystopian thing from 1967 starring Patrick McGoohan, as a guy who resigns from a high government agency, is abducted from his flat and is taken to a seemingly idyllic Village apparently full of other similarly disaffected people and their keepers, where he resists all their efforts to find out why he resigned - it goes on into playing mind games back and forth, and because of the departure of several writers later on (the series was 17 episodes but wasn't meant to last so long) the scenarios just get WEIRD.

It's on Freevee, Tubi and probably other places. Highly recommended.

> a classic that I’m missing out on

> I really want to find some weird, lesser known sci fi shows.

It only qualifies as sci-fi on its weirdness and the large crossover of fandoms, but you could try the cult show, The Prisoner on Freevee. It's not really lesser known, but as it is a '60s series, that makes it ancient knowledge to many younger viewers. :)

Dennis Kelly's Utopia (Amazon Prime).

Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams (Amazon Prime) isn't nearly as good as Black Mirror or the source material, but is far less known.

Humans (Amazon Prime) is the UK remake of the Swedish show, Äkta människor (Real Humans). Hulu used to have the original show, but I don't think it does any more.

Hulu does have Second Chance (fka Lookingglass, fka The Frankenstein Code). Rand Ravich show for Fox about a 70-year-old sheriff who's murdered and revived in a 25-year-old body in a Frankenstein-like experiment. Didn't manage to finish its first season, and ends just as the mythology gets going.

You may not last more than ten minutes, but Space: 1999 is on Freevee. 1976 science fiction means heavily 2001: A Space Odyssey influenced (pre-Star Wars, remember), and this one is Gerry Anderson finally getting to work with human actors instead of puppets. :D It's also the show that Martin Landau and Barbara Bain did after Mission: Impossible (Paramount+). And if you want to see what WETA did to update Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds, Amazon Prime also has Thunderbirds Are Go. :) Fantastic miniature and CGI work composited together; but it is mildly disconcerting to see a Tracy run.

Absolutely. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this before. +1000, and all that.

It's worth noting that, just before The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan starred in Danger Man,. a spy drama TV show, for which The Prisoner can be seen as a surreal sequel.

The Prisoner can also be found on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/Arrival/dp/B07F24RGLC/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1FJA9EJ4NS3UP&keywords=The+Prisoner&qid=1651512131&sprefix=the+prisoner%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-3

Be seeing you.

>Also all 17 episodes are free on YouTube

Or, if you prefer the legal route, they're also up on IMDbTV. As is Secret Agent/Danger Man.

I will also give a nudge to the A Degree Absolute! podcast, if you like Glen Weldon on the Pop Culture Happy Hour, and were planning on a re-binge.

Just a mention for those unfamiliar, it's up on IMDbTV as is Secret Agent/Danger Man, it's sorta/kinda (but not really?) prequel.

Just me, try The Prisoner. (IMDbTV). That level of mindfuckery never gets old. :) Glenn Weldon of the NPR podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour, is happily rebinging and re-analyzing it episode by episode on a different podcast.

You want the full experience, you'd watch Danger Man/Secret Agent before that, but that's a lot of IMDbTV ads.

I'm also someone who watched Masterpiece Theatre from the '70s onwards, so I will always mention I, Claudius. GRRM still regularly rewatches it. I know I've done that over the decades myself.

(Although I could also easily recommend dozens of older British dramas from Masterpiece Theatre, Mystery!, and Great Performances days, but finding Danger UXB, A Very British Coup, or Traffik are damn near impossible these days. And, no, the Soderbergh remake of Traffik completely missed the point and watching the movie is nothing like watching the miniseries).

To me, it's kind of silly to use date as a quality arbiter. That's kind of like eschewing B&W or silent film because you think there aren't any good ones. What you may need to do, however, is to adjust your idea of what constitutes quality. Production quality is one thing; writing is another. And I'll happily take great writing with terrible production quality over terrible writing with great production quality. YMMV.

I love that it's up on IMDbTV, as is its precursor, Secret Agent/Danger Man.

And that there's a podcast all about re-watching the entire series with Glen Weldon of NPR's pop culture happy hour.

The Prisoner. Oldie but a goodie.

The Night Manager. LeCarre-based with Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie.

A Very English Scandal, what Russell T. Davies wrote before he did Years and Years. I think Prime's also got Banana and Cucumber.

River

Maybe Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams, although it's more of an ersatz wannabe Black Mirror.

There is nothing else like The Hour. :D Abi Morgan writing is not to be duplicated.

But if you just want '60s London-set stuff, I'd say Pennyworth on Epix is fun, if you can take the Bruno Heller Batman-ness and spatter factor. It ain't Endeavour, though. :D

And for actual '60s British television, you could try The Prisoner on Amazon Prime.

>Of things you can dig up in the library, I recommend, british-tv-wise, that venerable '60s classic, The Prisoner (they also have its predecessor Danger Man/Secret Agent), Jim Henson's The Storyteller, Abi Morgan's River (Stellan Skarsgard stars as a UK detective who sees "manifests" of the victims of the crimes he's investigating)

All great suggestions. From the '60s & of' 70s British classics, I'm also a huge fan of The Saint, Man in a Suitcase, and The Baron.

Hey. You’re cute. Your shirt reminds me of this show. https://www.amazon.com/Arrival/dp/B07F24RGLC/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=the+prisoner&qid=1599276188&s=instant-video&sr=1-3

I Claudius (in the US: AcornTV) and The Prisoner (US Amazon Prime). Might as well go for the classics. :)

Oh, why stop at twenty years? :)

The Prisoner [1968] (Amazon Prime)
I, Claudius [1976] (Acorn)
Flickers [1980] (Amazon Prime)
Prime Suspect [1991] (Hulu)

But, you can't do the late '90s/early 2000s without Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Hulu). :)

Ah, prepping for the new HBO Perry Mason, are we? :)

Myself, I've been having fun with The Prisoner on Amazon Prime, along with Danger Man/Secret Agent.

The Prisoner. It's a classic for a reason. Bonus, Amazon Prime also has Danger Man/Secret Agent.

If you just want more Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot's showrunner), you could also try Homecoming.

You want completely experimental, there's 17-minutes of mind-melting dada-esque weirdness in David Lynch's What Did Jack Do? on Netflix (Lynch and a monkey. I can't even). And, of course, you could always try Twin Peaks.