What is Your Favorite Foreign Tv Series
I’m in the US so I’ve mostly watched US TV shows, I’ve been wanting to watch shows made by other countries as there must be some great ones that never took off in the states.
I’ve seen a few I could recommend like Alice in Borderlands (Japanese), Gangs in London (UK), Lupin (French)
Dark (German). Awesome series.
Dark was great. For anyone watching for the first time, Netflix made a great website that helps you keep up with who is who with no spoilers. Select the last episode you've finished and it only gives information to that point.
I loved season 1, especially for the 80s look in Germany which I remember from my childhood (Gen X)
Dark lost me with season 2
Came here for this!
Dark was great, it reminded me a bit of Stranger Things in the first season. By the second season you almost need to take notes to keep up with the story line though
I need to take notes only 3 episodes in. I want to like it but it feels like tuning in to a random episode of the X-Files with no knowledge of what is going on.
It takes 4 episodes to really build into the complexity. Then season 2 turns it on its head.
Taskmaster (UK)
As an American, this is 100% my favorite TV show. I'm so happy they got the rights to release every episode on YouTube the day after it airs.
Also, if you enjoy the UK panel show vibe, I really enjoy Would I Lie to You and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
Second "8 out of 10 cats died countdown", and also suggest "Would I lie to you?"
I second Cats Countdown.
Many of the international versions are worth watching as well. The New Zealand and Australian versions are in English and so fairly easy to watch. Perhaps not unexpectedly, the US version is not good.
I didn't like the NZ one, tbh.
That show is a balm for my soul.
Letterkenny, Trailer Park Boys....the Canadian loophole
Trailer Park boys is by far the best mockumentary created.
Fuckin way she goes boys
It was fucking great until the last few seasons where they were older and trying to milk the name for some more money.
Love Shoresy. It's a Letterkenny spinoff, it's a comedy with an uptick of drama over the source material.
I love British comedy. Peep Show, Spaced, and People Just Do Nothing are some of my favorites.
Peep Show is my human litmus test. Seeing how people react to that show can tell you a lot about them.
The Phantom Menace was 18 months ago, Tim!
Ahh.. but have you tried This is Jinsy?!?
Maybe could have framed this "non-US TV shows". Now you're inviting the majority if users to just tell you their favorite US series 🤷
Life on Mars (UK)
Please tell me you watched the follow-on series, Ashes to Ashes, with Keeley Hawes. Same concept, but she goes back to the 80s, and also meets Gene Hunt. Great addition to the original series!
Wow, did I hate the sequel series.
I'm in the US. I love the IT Crowd, and most other British comedies. I also really enjoyed Broadchurch, Sherlock (it fell off a bit at the end), and Dr Who, but I've fallen a few seasons back on that.
I liked Game of Thrones actually! 👍 Currently going through Star Trek, starting with the original series that I also enjoy!
The premise was foreign tv series, by which I assume means from non- English speaking countries
Yeah.. my post was mostly a joke on assumptions like yours. English is actually a foreign language to more people than I this native to
Babylon Berlin (Germany)
Bluey.
FUCK YEAH
Dr Who, bar none.
Monty Python comes a close second, then The Young Ones.
I guess I just dig British TV a good bit because you have to get down the list a good ways before you find one from anywhere else.
The Young Ones so good.
That's actually where I first heard motorhead
I love MPFC, but some of the sketches are "meh". For every "Battle of Pearl Harbor", there's a "Confuse-a-cat".
Fawlty Towers is great. Mildly racist against the Spanish and Irish.
I really liked La Casa de Papel. Netflix renamed it to ‘Money Heist,’ which is a terrible name. Still a good series though.
Breaking Bad
Not foreign for OP.
The question was what my favourite foreign TV series is, not what my favourite one of their foreign TV series is
Based on their post, the intent was foreign for them. Not foreign for you. That's why they said they were in the US and wondered what shows didn't take off in the US.
The Bridge (Sweden/Denmark, not the America/Mexico remake).
8oo10Cats and Graham Norton round out the top-three, but any procedural crime show will keep me. Even Midsummer Murders and especially Silent Witness.
"The bridge" is not foreign to me, but I agree. It's really good.
I bailed on the America/Mexico one, but tne the UK/France version is worth watching for Clemence Poesy's performance.
Do anime count?
No
But they are foreign, are played on TV and split up into episodes :(
A couple I've enjoyed recently:
Kleo - an ex Stasi assassin adjusts to the fall of the Berlin wall and takes revenge for her betrayal by the state (German)
Extraordinary Attorney Woo - a legal procedural following the autistic Woo as she navigates the law and life. You wouldn't think it was my thing but I found it very charming (Korean)
Taskmaster, got into it during Covid because all of their episodes are free on Youtube.
The Chestnut Man
Lupin
Wallander
Poirot with David Suchet
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Sign of Four
Yes, I have a type and I am unashamed.
have you seen Forbrydelsen / The Killing?
I saw the US remake and it's where I fell absolutely in love with the Joel Kinnaman / Marielle Enos duo. Could.not.stop ... except I hated the last season. I started watching Hanna only because those two actors were in it.
South Korea is really uping their tv game. I really enjoy many of their shows.
Corner Gas
Ahhhh the ol' Canadian loop hole.
I remember once, on a random Sunday I was channel surfing at my parents house and found this old British show called "keeping up appearances", it looked like a shitty show for old people, till it watched it and couldn't stop laughing at it.
Is that with Mrs Bucket? It's classic brit comedy and it's very good.
My grandmother was essentially Hyacinth Bucket, right down to leaning over to watch what speed my grandfather was doing, and telling him to watch out for random things well off the side of the road.
A neat Brazilian production; I loved the characters and world-building. Barely, if ever, it's mentioned.
Recently came across the pilot for the webseries that evolved into the Netflix production. It's cool to see how early ideas morphed into whole storylines.
ETA:
This perfectly scratches the itch for randomness!
...and there must be some thrillers.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
pilot for the webseries
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Wallander is a really good Swedish crime show, if you like being depressed.
The last season hits extra deep.
Sahsiyet. It's like Breaking Bad, but Turkish. Really well produced and binge worthy.
I loved Luther, although wasn't impressed by the recent movie.
I believe the movie was, unfortunately, a rushed conclusion to what was an amazing series, because they just couldn't get enough of Idris Elba's time in between Hollywood flicks. His star had simply risen too far by that point.
It's a real shame, too - we waited so long for that movie.
Mr. Inbetween from Australia is pretty good
I scrolled this far to say Squid Game.
Sooo good
This Country (UK) is so charming and painful at the same time. Even if you don't like Welcome to Flatch, you might still love This Country.
Gogglebox (AU, UK, IE) in that order.
Eat Well For Less (NZ)
Vera (UK) Sometimes on PBS in (US)
Magpie Murders (UK)
Professor T (UK)
Question Everything (AU)
Sort Your Life Out (UK, NZ)
We Interrupt This Broadcast (AU)
WTFAQ (AU)
Mock The Week (UK) this show ended in 2023.
I was studying Mandarin a few years ago and I was suggested to watch Taiwanese dramas since they tend to speak Mandarin and to also speak at a conversational level.
There's a lot of romantic comedies, so you can watch meteor garden, substitute princess, my queen, fated to love you, and I have found that all of these are very accessible to me as an American audience but I never got to the point where I could watch them without subtitles.
Another mostly Mandarin show that is definitely worth the watch is called nirvana in fire, and it is legitimately an amazing 40-hour long epic show that has sword fighting and wuxia and political intrigue and romantic subplots and a massive character list of all sorts of different people who all have their own thing going on all woven together into this amazing storytelling tapestry that rivals and in many ways bests anything that you can get in America or Western media.
But unless you're already very fluent in I'm not going to say just Mandarin but in the Chinese languages, you have to watch it with subtitles and it's definitely worth it.
Probably many others I just don't recall
Extraordinary attorney wu
From Australia, there's Rake, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, and The Nowhere Boys, although for that last one only the first 2 seasons.
My current Australian obsession is Bluey.
Doc Martin, Merlin from the UK.
Murdoch Mysteries earlier seasons from Canada.
I also enjoyed a few Korean drama series like Misaeng.
And this is really old from Japan, but Bayside Shakedown drama was really fun.
Other Japanese dramas I liked include Proof of the Man, Aibou, and Shinzanmono. I love Japanese police dramas and mysteries.
I love Korean paranormal crime dramas and I loved Signal. It's about two detectives trying to solve the same case from two different points in time. Another season is on hold until after the strokes but what there is is really great.
Red Dwarf?
Red Dwarf is pretty good. Fawlty Towers is great. Someone recommended "Yes Minister" and the first season is awesome. The Hallmark of great comedy writing is if it holds up, and Yes Minister still is hilarious 40 years later.
Dark is a German Netflix show. It unfolds into something akin to "Lost" over the first four episodes. The ending doesn't suck, and they set up the end to where it's almost impossible to get it right. It's not an amazing ending, but it's impressive that they managed to make it not terrible, since it builds up to a near-impossible ending.
Squid Game is pretty great but gory. Letterkenny and Trailer Park Boys are quirky comedies with some rough language throughout.
Not sure if that counts. I'm from Australia so technically all US tv series are "foreign" to me.
I really enjoyed “The Devil’s Plan” on Netflix. It’s a South Korean reality show with smart people solving puzzles. If you like math, you’ll like this show.
Der Tatortreiniger (German)
I haven't gotten very far, but I like the comedy and character interactions so far.
There a lot of great kdrama shows. And no, I’m not talking about Squid Game. I can recommend Beyond Evil, D.P., and Moving.
We're on a UK/Irish police drama kick right now:
If you don't mind a bit of war history, SAS Rogue Heroes is incredible. Great look at the unit that became the British SAS, with some really good comedy thrown in. In the same vein (British war/comedy), Bluestone 42 is great too.
Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams (joint UK and US production, premiered first on Channel 4)
This TV series fits this description to a T because I reckon that most people, when thinking of a sci-fi TV anthology series, would bring to mind Black Mirror.
I watched Electric Dreams shortly after finishing the latest season of Black Mirror; I found the former more enjoyable and poignant than the latter.
Basically I don't watch TV anymore.
Exit (Norwegian)
Utopia (AU) - similar vein to Parks & Rec but more bureaucracy. I love it.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Utopia (AU)
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It's a bit old now, but I really liked Summer Snow from Japan. Also Hungry from Japan (similarly dated).
Forgetting many others but just having first cup of coffee
Klovn, the tv show (but also the three movies they made), is a Danish Curb Your Enthusiasm style show, often much more out there and including a lot of references to bodily humour.
It might take a little while to get into but it is riotously funny at times.
I think it was on Hulu for a bit, for all you Americans.
Kingdom (South Korea)
Derry Girls (Ireland)
Silent Witness, Waking the Dead, Hinterland, Inspector Morse, George Gently, Vera, Poirot (the David Suchet version).
We watch a lot of detective shows.
Danger 5 from Australia: It's hilarious.
A Very Secret Service is also funny (but it's in Fr*nch)