"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

The Sopranos.  It is interesting that David Chase had described his show as "Twin Peaks in New Jersey" so we know he too was a TP fan.  But for me, it is The Sopranos because of its enduring real life human quality.  It's the understanding that David Chase (and his writers) have for each character regardless of age, sex, or social status.  Story and character development extraordinary with the exception of two substandard episodes written by Frolove and Schneider.  Pretty good when you consider there were 86 episodes.  Oh and the music was great.  No score - only pre-recorded music.  Chase has great taste and the song selections were brilliant.  I once took a long drive listening to a CD with every song from the show.  Great for a road trip.

If I lived closer to New Jersey, I might be working on planning a Sopranos Festival.   Hmm, wonder if someone else beat me to it.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

maybe because you like twin peaks they think you like shows that irreparably fall apart in the second season?

(lost is a bad show)

The other shows I've been willing to plunk down dollars for are X-Files (mythology arc), Six Feet Under (the last season), Wild Palms, and Carnivale.  Carnivale for me is probably tied with Twin Peaks.  What a crime that it was cancelled.  I'd love to see at least a feature film to bring it to a conclusion.

And perhaps a series I like better than TP was aired in 1967, The Prisoner.  Patrick MacGoohan as a secret agent who quits, only to be drugged and taken to The Village, an island filled with ex-spies only known by numbers. The baddies proceed to apply all manner of mind-fucks on No. 6 to get at his "information". Very surreal and psychedelic. I have the series in a box set from A & E, and can watch them over and over.  Fun fun fun.

More than?  Probably not.  But shows like LOST and Battlestar Gal. are almost as engaging, develop characters in interesting ways, and draw you into unique, fully-realized worlds. All good stuff.  :)

 gray

Well said! The Prisoner set a gold standard for inspired TV weirdness that hasn't been approached by any other series apart from Twin Peaks. I first saw it in 1967 but was too young to really appreciate it. However it laid down some indelible images in my mind and when I saw the repeats in 1976 I was totally blown away.

I think The Prisoner will always be Number One (if you'll pardon the pun) for me, but other series I like as much as Twin Peaks would include Buffy The Vampire Slayer and The Wire.
 

One of these days I should invest in The Prisoner, heard good things about it! Only 3 series' that came close to TP for me are 24....and was The X-Files (upto season 7) and Alias

"Ive got good news....that gum you like is going to come back in style!"

"I'm a WHOLE DAMN TOWN!"

I like Lost and Carnivale better than TP. Okay, Lost did have a dip in quality in the 2nd season (and maybe at the start of the 3rd) but never as dramatic as TP's season 2 decline. And Carnivale is just great. That show never had a bad episode, I still can't believe it was cancelled. 

I love comedy shows like Spaced, Black Books, Seinfeld, The Office, Father Ted etc. but I don't think you can compare them to drama shows. 

The Prisoner is really fun and interesting but in the end, the last two episodes, as much as I admire their craziness, don't come close to a satisfying conclusion. I suppose actually that TP and Prisoner have quite a smiliarity in that aspect. Both were so brilliant and weird at times that it felt like there could be no satisfying conclusion. And neither had one; they both just tried to wow us with their strangeness. The TP finale succeeded much better than Fall Out, which just isn't watchable enough. Whereas you could lose yourself in episode 29 again and again.