Recommend a Really Dark TV Show

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by nbakid2000, Apr 24, 2015.

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  1. BilboAlaska

    BilboAlaska Forum Resident

  2. 93curr

    93curr Senior Member

    The Kingdom (Lars von Trier's original)
    Dollhouse
    The Shield
    Spartacus
     
  3. R. Totale

    R. Totale The Voice of Reason

    Everybody was saying that, but I thought it was a hoot and giggled my way through it. I just wish they'd left out the dream sequences. I hate dream sequences.
     
  4. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

  5. ubiknik

    ubiknik Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL USA
    The Leftovers is great -on HBO, it's a potboiler of weird, might be tough for some to get with.
    True Detective is also from HBO and is way right up the O.P.'s alley I would guess, It's really well done and I can't imagine not liking that one.
    One that was not mentioned is Utopia -the BBC series, not the lame reality show from last year.
    I can't recommend that show more, it almost fits your description of elements to a T: Dark, beautiful yet gruesome and chock full of crazy (or is it?) sci-fi elements.
    Very on the edge violence and well done cinematography. You would probably have to find a to**ent site to download the 2 seasons that exist, the BBC cancelled a third run citing wanting to budget for other things but if you knew the show, then you would tend to think that they were just too uncomfortable being responsible for it.

    Penny Dreadful is just getting ready to start the second season and is way worth the trip if you like Gothic horror. There are characters from Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dorian Grey living in the same storyline in this great show. Penny Dreadful is well worth checking out and extremely well done. Very dark, not cutesy.

    Have you not seen American Horror Story? -watch the first two seasons then see if you can resist the rest..

    Luther is top shelf and it would be difficult not to like, same with Deadwood, both of those are great!
    Vikings is a good pick as well.
    Black Mirror is good as they say, it's more of an anthology like the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone.
    Ripper Street is pretty good.
    Game Of Thrones is dark and yet very well done and sprawling.
    Haven't seen Dexter? -That would be worth checking out -it's pretty dark, yet somehow funny.
    True Blood is dark but set in a P.C. correct future where vampires have come out of the closet -I resisted this show but found it was a gas to watch.
    Most David Lynch films are pretty dark in that very special way, but if you want to go straight to the meat of dark with one film that would fill your criteria, I would recommend Lost Highway -very dark and weird with a killer ending.

    I did like In The Flesh, but I would recommend immersing yourself in AMC's Walking Dead before trying out the UK made ITF -it's good but better appreciated as a by path from the all out zombie rampage that is TWD.
     
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2015
  6. ubiknik

    ubiknik Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago, IL USA
     
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  7. Drew

    Drew Senior Member

    Location:
    Grand Junction, CO
    The re-imagined Battlestar: Galactica from a few years back.
     
    rogertheshrubber likes this.
  8. Lonson

    Lonson I'm in the kitchen with the Tombstone Blues

    This.
     
    Scope J likes this.
  9. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Another vote for Hannibal, Daredevil and Luther.
     
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  10. bopdd

    bopdd Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    I'm not sure TV gets any darker than this show.
     
  11. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    First choice... although technically, the video levels are a little bright for me. Story and characters... unbelievably dark for television.

    Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul get into dark territory occasionally, but not as often as Daredevil.

    American Horror Story
    is so bleak, I threw in the towel and stopped watching it.
     
  12. PhilJol

    PhilJol Forum Resident

    true dat!
     
  13. Bill Hart

    Bill Hart Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin
    Agree re True Dectective- I never thought much about MM as an actor until I watched that series.
    As The Wire progresses, it gets pretty dark- especially the season devoted to the kids, the schools and the hopelessness of their future.
    Loved Deadwood- Swearengen- Wu interaction on the stolen dope is hilarious, though!
    I'll throw one out may make you question my taste, but Sons of Anarchy just keeps getting more twisted, darker, it becomes extremely bleak- with some rather colorful characters whose perversions are extreme. (I had caught a few episodes when it aired many years ago and thought- meh- but my wife and I binged it recently from the beginning; there are some low points along the way, but by time you get to the last few seasons, YIKES!
     
  14. xdawg

    xdawg in labyrinths of coral caves

    Location:
    Roswell, GA, USA
    Gotham! Geez, that's about as dark as it gets!
     
  15. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Bates Motel
    Bosch (Amazon)
     
    Encuentro likes this.
  16. beatlematt

    beatlematt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gadsden, Alabama
    Good Times!
     
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  17. Mylene

    Mylene Senior Member

    Rectify

    Fargo
     
  18. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

    I don't know where you stopped, but I often found the dark balanced with the camp and the soap operatic.
     
  19. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

  20. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    excellent!
     
  21. woody

    woody Forum Resident

    Location:
    charleston, sc
    The Americans is pretty twisted
     
  22. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident

    Millennium, The first season is so dark because of stories and they used natural
    lighting. The first episode you sleep for a week.
    As well as second episode.
     
    Scotian and nosticker like this.
  23. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I think where I got p!ssed-off was when the big reveal of Season 1 was that the teenage boy the girl was friends with was dead the entire time, even though he was hanging out with her, going to high school, walking down the street with her, and so on. This is such a ridiculous conceit, I thought, "nope, I'm out." I'm also not a fan where they basically kill off most of the entire cast for no good reason. To me, it's an unpleasant show -- but I don't deny there's an audience for it and it's very successful. Not my thing.

    I'm also not a fan of the Freddy Kruger movies, because it's a demon who comes back to terrorize and kill innocent victims. There's no justice or fairness in this. For some reason, the Friday the 13th and the Halloween movies (some of which I worked on) didn't seem as mean-spirited to me.
     
  24. Diamond Dog

    Diamond Dog Cautionary Example

    This'll tick off all your boxes: The BBC series Spooks ( known in America as MI-5 ). You'll want to spend an hour in the shower ( thank you Terry Kath ) after a couple of episodes of this show. It could give lessons to The Walking Dead in terms of how to chew through cast members and not just fringe cast members either but ones they develop and get you to invest yourself in. And the thing that makes this show so relentlessly soul-crushing is its plausibility. Cynical, pessimistic and deliberately set up to remind the viewer that even when a tragedy is averted in the world these characters inhabit, there is usually a terrible price exacted making any victory a Pyrrhic one. TV noir - everybody's compromised, everybody's flawed, everything's sullied and the Netherworld is not so far below our feet as we'd like to think...

    Still not dialing the Crisis Prevention Hotline? Try BBC's Broadchurch...

    D.D.
     
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  25. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I stopped watching Hannibal because it was so overwhelmingly bleak. It's extremely well done, with perfect casting, scripting, and production design, but the total lack of any kind of humor caused me to stop after season one. I'll probably pick it up again, but not for a while.
     
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