Television

If I am permitted to shill here, I would like to shill this - Babylon Berlin. It's a neo-noir psychological thriller series set at the tail end of the Weimar Republic. It deals with the looming emergence of Nazis and the breakdown of Weimar democracy. It showcases the corruption, decadence, culture and tragedy of late-stage Weimar Germany under a detective/gangster/political perspective.

Season 1 Trailer

Season 4 Trailer (because it's a great trailer)

There are currently 4 seasons. Not sure on what service Americans can watch it on currently, but the production quality feels genuinely HBO tier.

cross-posted from: https://ani.social/post/10872089

Curated by Humans not Algorithm

Overall or if you have broader tastes, I split it up in mind to best sitcoms, best animation and best dramas.

I know you can buy access to content to some TV shows on the Apple store, Amazon and the Microsoft Store - but these are still subject to geoblocks, not accessible in many countries and only offer a relatively small selection of TV shows anyway (and even then they're subject to this shit.)

Think about how video games have been fundamentally transformed. You can buy the majority of video games on Steam (or just use other similar apps). They're all basically released everywhere on day 1. They're automatically yours forever (until such a potential when Steam goes down - but you can easily extract and secure the files if you worry about that).

The same is not remotely true with TV. I understand that multiple streaming services were obviously going to emerge as TV production expanded. I understand that expecting to be able to watch everything on Netflix for £9.99 a month was never going to be realistic. But alongside these streaming services, a Steam-type client should've emerged allowing people to just buy seasons of content on the services. For people who want to legally keep what they watch, paying something like £5-15 per season (with sales much like Steam). No geoblocks. No restrictions.

I say this because in many cases I have had no choice but to pirate to watch a TV show season. It literally was not available to me through any legal source. I could not digitally buy it, nor was any streaming service accessible to me carrying it. This is now happening to Americans more and more (I am not American) with European series being heavily delayed. The last season of Babylon Berlin released in October 2023. It took another year or so for it to get to America. It's also not accessible in France or many other European countries too.The show has suffered from staggered international releases since it was initially released, essentially throttling its popularity potential (most expensive German series ever made at one point).

As for me? I'm British. I could not, and still can't watch the second season of Balkan Shadows anywhere legally according to Justwatch. Paris Police 1900 season 2 is also still not accessible for me. This is really quite pathetic when you think about music and video games.