What was the first 'Prestige' TV show you watched? X files does not count

In retrospect it was probably Columbo, those sets were too gorgeous to not be prestige.

Refusing to accept the non-x filesness that prestige TV only counts when cameras got better or whatever.

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Hah, this is part of why I never finished Six Feet Under…

Pretty sure I had to buy the box set of the last season because of this. Kids these days don’t know how good they’ve got it!

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It also used to be really common for Channel 4 or BBC2 to show the first series or two of a programme, only for Sky to poach it when it got popular and critically acclaimed.

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Yep, like Mad Men.

I found there was a definite dip in quality after the first two series of Six Feet Under that made it harder to stick with. But at the same time, if there was ever a series that went out on a high it was that one.

Six Feet Under was probably the first I watched a full series of (didn’t finish it until years later though, assume for the same reason as everyone else). But The Shield was the first one I watched all through I reckon. First experience of Walton Goggins; it stuck with me.

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I’m going to sound really old here … shogun.

Not the new one, the Richard Chamberlain one. They had prestige TV in the 70s/80 but they just called them mini series’s. Usually based on a big blockbuster book like Roots, North and south or some Jackie Collins thing

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Band of Brothers

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Those are all episodic TV shows so don’t qualify under my rigid definition

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Lost

was proper obsessed with it as well, like I was all into the terminally online Dharma Initiative ARG stuff too - well formative

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but also I was allowed to watch the odd X-Files when I was about 5 or 6 because I was obsessed with the premise of it and I managed to grind my parents resolve

I’ve got this on in the background while I work today (Roku channel) and it just struck me how similar Californication (with David Duchovny) is to this. But I didn’t find any mention of it being an adaptation of or being inspired by Dream On. Although I guess at the time of release some of the press made the connection, based on a few articles I came across.

so quaint reading old blogs and message boards where they were coming up with all these wild complex theories that were way off the mark

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the semi-invisible person on the CCTV in the opening credita used to freak child me out so much. had to cover my eyes

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