The Shield (season 1 DVD box set) : Having watched seasons 2-5, it was nice to finally get some context. The cinematography is quite a bit different in the first few episodes, with some great shot composition. While The Shield is easily one of the best cop shows evar, the spastic steadycam work gets on my nerves after awhile... so the fact that it's less epileptic in season one is an added bonus.

Wild Palms (8$ on amazon) : I've called it "Twin Palms" by accident a few times, for good reason. It is a bit like Twin Peaks, if TP was incestuous sci-fi instead of occult murder. More like Twin Peaks season one as opposed to the strung out middle-class luke-warm weakass "weird for the sake of weird" that is the second season (or Northern Exposure or The X-Files). Wild Palms is decent overall, though Kim Cattrall's acting is so fucking awful that I'm left feeling the hammed up over-the-top melodrama was deliberate. Worth it for the William Gibson cameo and Robert Loggia. Oliver Stone was Executive Producer, which may mean something to some people. In my opinion, WP is the most watchable thing he's done since Platoon.

The Sopranos (season 3 and part of season 5) : Good, but not as much fun as The Shield, despite the boobies and blow. Makes me hate the shit out of rich people all over again.

Monty Python's Flying Circus (I've seen the movies and a handful of the sketches, but I just came off of a 35+ episode marathon, so.) : Highlights include the science fiction sketch and The Cycling Tour. Lots of good, lots of awful, lots of awesome. The Kids In The Hall continued the Good tradition, while Saturday Night Live has been keeping the Awful alive for decades.

Six Feet Under (seasons 1, 3, 5) : Fantastically good drama. Probably because I've got my own mental issues (which oscillate from mild to incapacitating), so I really identify with Billy. The gay drama bits are enlightening, while everything else runs from awesome (I love the future-client-as-intro bit) to awful (Ruth and Arthur made for good drama but was so not my scene that I skipped through those bits). Big fan of the "dealing with mental illness and psychological issues" aspect, and Claire vs. Art School makes me really, really glad I hang out with geeks instead of a galleryload of pretentous upper-middle-class shop-at-the-GAP motherfuckers who think menstruating on X-Rays, yanno, means something.

Space : Above And Beyond : A few decent concepts, some great characters, good set design and decent CG weakened by an oscillating sense of direction, unven writing, and the same "we've written ourselves against a wall, let's do something weird and call it a deus ex machina" that kept me away from the X-Files. It's a pretty entertaining series, though the repeated use of insubordination as a plot device (and complete lack of proper military consequences for said) gets tiring, as does the freshmen philosophical masturbation.

Oh, and the AIs look like Klingons with LED acne.