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There aren't (and indeed, haven't been) very many programmes on the television where I absolutely, religiously need to see each and every episode. Thinking about it, the list is very short. My first great televisual love was "Twin Peaks", which I hold in such high regard that I can't bring myself to watch the second and final season to see if it is still as good as I remember (DVDs of these episodes were only released last year).
The next thing I can really remember loving was an obscure British comedy called 'The Asylum' made for about 23 pence and a cornetto. Now, it played repeatedly on the Comedy Channel every night, and I never really got around to watching it properly for a very long time. Flicking around the cable channels over the course of six months or so, I barely saw an episode, and what did see I thought was hideously unfunny.
And then a strange thing happened. I became hooked on it. All of a sudden, with enough context, it became very clever and funny. So I watched and recorded it religiously, taping every episode that broadcast. The timing was perfect. It was the last time it was ever broadcast on television, and rights issues deny its release on DVD. It starred a few people who have gone on to bigger and better things; Simon Pegg (as a pizza delivery boy), Jessica Stevenson (playing two parts -- a nurse-ratchett like force of malevolence, and a politics student who was only allowed to watch daytime TV who ended up believing that 'The Vorderman' was sending her secret messages encoded in the countdown conundrum), a pre-Boosch Julian Barratt (a painter and decorator locked up with nothing but access to renascence art), and directed by Edgar Wright (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz).
Probably the subject of another post before I digress too far.
Anyway. Next up was Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which was something I was very sniffy and dismissive of for years, until I finally fell for its charms when practically forced at gunpoint to watch the 'Once More, With Feeling' episode in the middle of Season 6. DVD boxes were ordered, and I didn't have to wait long for the 7th season to come out after I'd caught up. I downloaded each episode every week as soon after it was aired in the US as possible, and bought the box set when it was finally released (I say bought, but what I mean is 'pre-ordered the moment it was announced').
Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes -- both must-see.
Oh, and "X Factor" like nonsense, but I'll gloss over that little personality peccadillo.
The only current 'Must Watch' are new episodes of Doctor Who -- now, I enjoyed the old ones well enough, but they were rarely don't-miss TV. I've been hooked on the New Who since the first Ecclestone 'Run!'.
Actually, there is one other TV show I absolutely have to see, and you might guess what that might be by the subtle clue I left in the title of this post.
Yes, folks: I'm completely smitten with the 're-imagined' Battlestar Galactica. The one where Starbuck is a woman, amongst many of the gigantic liberties taken with the original. And quite rightly so. Galactica shares very few of the central conceits of the original show: cylons vs humans, finding Earth, vipers. It's taken a dodgy old show from the late 70's and turned it into something fantastic, filled with tightly-plotted political intrigue and paranoia. Genius.
I certainly wasn't first in the Galactica queue. I'd been aware of it for ages and thought like it sounded like a complete load of dreck. I couldn't even be bothered to download the pilots from the Internet's popular Internet. Somebody had to lend me the DVDs, and then I had them for ages before I watched the damned things.
I've not looked back. If you're not currently aboard the Galactibus, now's the time. I've just watched the latest episode (season 4, episode 4) and it's an absolute corker, and there aren't enough people I can go 'squee!' about it with.
This has been a public-service announcement.
With you on buffy, never saw asylum ... still waiting to see life on mars, have seen the first couple of episodes and really want to see the rest.
Doctor Who - definitely. I've yet to be convinced how many of them will bear up to repeat viewing (although Blink certainly will, great recommendation on your part!).
But Galactica ... I really struggled with. From what I understand, I gave up at precisely the wrong moment, but I got really tired of the religious hokey pokey with the scientist. And I also started to find it's need to tell you a little bit of every part of the story in each episode intensely frustrating. Too bitty for my liking.
That all said, many people who I trust on such subjects assure me I am terribly wrong and need to get a grip, so I might be willing to concede that I need to revisit at some point ;-)
(which incidentally happened with Spaced recently - my revised opinion is aweome)