Monday, September 8, 2025

420 Weird Shows: 61-120

Referring to The Curse (2023), movie director Christopher Nolan said: “It’s an incredible show, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen on television before. There are so few shows that come along that have genuinely no precedence. You’re going back to things like Twin Peaks, or The Prisoner, or Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective and things like that, so you’re in an amazing space...”

These are also the three shows I see brought up most often when discussing when so-called peak TV began.

The beginning of appointment television, the golden age, where you had to pay attention, is also where weird TV first really took off.

The Prisoner was what might be called a limited series today. It's a self contained single season story that aired in 1967. It wasn't insanely mainstream, nor was it unpopular. The gap between The Prisoner and the next peak TV show is almost twenty years. To me that rules it out as launching this era. It's only in retrospect that it fits the criteria. It didn't spark immediate and noticeable change.

The Singing Detective is a miniseries from '86 and depending on the setting, can be considered somewhat obscure. Co-creator of Twin Peaks, Mark Frost is a fan of Dennis Potter's work (namely Pennies From Heaven and The Singing Detective) and considers Potter perhaps the most major influence on his own writing. Parallels can be seen in the complex blending of reality with fantasy through layered storytelling, peppered with occasional musical numbers.

Twin Peaks, which began airing in '90, is a full fledged show with a known name in film at the helm. It was big enough to get its own movie, and also be brought back 25 years later as prophesized for what functioned as both a spinoff and finale to the story.

Because the third season was decades later, directed entirely by Lynch himself, and on a premium network, it feels much darker and tonally different than the first two seasons. Some people separate the shows into Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return. For the purposes of this, I'll be treating Twin Peaks as an umbrella term for the entirety of the series.

It's also worth noting that the two earlier shows, The Prisoner and The Singing Detective, are both British. Examples furthering the theory that it was Europe who originally sparked interest in a deeper, more peculiar television experience include: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) and The Decalogue (1989), bookending the eighties as part of a wave of theatrical arthouse miniseries that lended crediblity to the medium and expanded people's ideas of what could be done within it.

Bizarreness being traded from the UK to the US and back again is a common occurrence throughout this list. In fact, Twin Peaks began with a failsafe in place in case the series wasn't picked up. There was a contractually imposed alternate ending Lynch had to film to wrap up the story of the pilot. (These alternate scenes were later reworked into a dream sequence.) This version, now called the International Pilot, played in cinemas throughout multiple countries and first released on VHS in Europe, years before it came to the US.

420 Weird Shows: 61-120

Carnivàle (2003)
Carol & the End of the World (2023)
Cartoon Sushi (1997)
Castle Rock (2018)
CatDog (1998)
Cavemen (2007)
Celebrity Deathmatch (1998)
Centaurworld (2021)
The Changeling (2023)
Channel Zero (2016)


Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule (2010)
Childrens Hospital (2010)
China, IL (2011)
Chowder (2007)
Clangers (1969)
Clone High (2002)
Clutch Cargo (1959)
Comedy Bang! Bang! (2012)
Common Side Effects (2025)
Community (2009)


The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin (2024)
Constellation (2024)
The Consultant (2023)
Cop Rock (1990)
Copenhagen Cowboy (2023)
Counterpart (2017)
Courage the Cowardly Dog (1999)
Cow and Chicken (1997)
The Curse (2023)
Da Ali G Show (2000)


The Dana Carvey Show (1996)
DanDaDan (2024)
Danger 5 (2012)
Danny's House (2019)
Dark (2017)
Dark Shadows (1966)
Dave (2020)
Dave's Old Porn (2011)
The Day of the Triffids (1981)
Dead Head (1986)


Dead Like Me (2003)
Decker (2014)
Dekalog aka The Decalogue (1989)
Delocated (2008)
The Devil's Hour (2022)
Devilman Crybaby (2018)
Devs (2020)
Dimension 404 (2017)
Dinosaurs (1991)
Dirk Gently (2010)


Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016)
Dispatches From Elsewhere (2020)
Doctor Who (1963)
Dollface (2019)
Doom Patrol (2019)
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008)
Drawn Together (2004)
Dream Corp, LLC (2016)
Duckman: Private Dick / Family Man (1994)
Eagleheart (2011)


Don't touch that dial, back with part three tomorrow.

Sunday, September 7, 2025

420 Weird Shows: 1-60

I like weird shit. I enjoy it. I like it, a lot. And because I talk about it a lot... it finds me.” ~ Josh Wolf

The idea for this list was inspired by (and created as something of a companion piece to) 366 Weird Movies.

However, there's obviously major differences between those two mediums in the way that strangeness can be handled, depicted, and progress.

TV is episodic by nature. So for that reason, singular pieces such as made-for-TV movies, standalone specials, and pilots for shows that never got picked up (or were canceled after one episode) were not considered for this project. Those are more akin to films or at least short films. So that means no: Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, the 1990 anti-drug special. And same with Heil Honey I'm Home!, the axed series from the same year.

A full season (which for a miniseries is the complete run, for a canceled show, what's available) has to have been released before September 2025 in order for me to count it, otherwise I could add Alien: Earth based off the first four episodes or Women Wearing Shoulder Pads from just the first three.

Public access shows were not included, national broadcasts only. Neither were webseries, unless it was a webseries that also made it to TV or streaming at some point. The barrier to creation with those is slim to nonexistent, the fanbases too regional, and the possibilities that open up are too vast to delete all gatekeepers. Which unfortunately made me rule out '94's 
Concrete TV [NSFW] and Weird TVDavid Lynch's Rabbits (2002) and The Show About the Show (2017).

Best-of compilations that cherry-pick from different shows didn't make the cut either. 
That removes Night Flight (1981) and the volumes of TV Carnage (1996). Plus it had to air on TV or a paid streaming service. That takes out direct-to-video stuff like Peppermint Park (1987).

This is all put together by me. No, I haven't seen all these. Then how do I know if something is truly odd? Clips, screenshots, the synopsis, the track record of the people involved, the title being brought up in comparison to other off the wall material...

Each part will alphabetically list the next sixty shows. Starting today, one part will be posted a day over the next week. Without further ado...

420 Weird Shows: 1-60

'til Death (2006)
12 Monkeys (2015)
12 oz. Mouse (2005)
1899 (2022)
Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show! (2001)
Adventure Time (2010)
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993)
The Adventures of Pete & Pete (1993)
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1959)
Aeon Flux (1991)


Alf (1986)
Alice in Borderland (2020)
All That (1994)
Altered Carbon (2018)
The Amanda Show (1999)
The Amazing World of Gumball (2011)
American Gods (2017)
American Gothic (1995)
American Horror Story (2011)
Angela Anaconda (1999)


Animals. (2016)
Animaniacs (1993)
Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2000)
The Aquabats! Super Show! (2012)
Archer (2009)
Archive 81 (2022)
Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1990)
Assy McGee (2006)
Atlanta (2016)
Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun (2020)


Axe Cop (2013)
The Baby (2022)
Baby Reindeer (2024)
Bananas in Pyjamas (1992)
Banshee (2013)
Banzai (2001)
Baskets (2016)
Batman (1966)
Beauty and the Beast (1987)
Beavis and Butt-Head (1993)


Beef House (2020)
Beforeigners (2019)
Behind Her Eyes (2021)
The Ben Stiller Show (1990)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
The Big Lez Show (2012)
Black Mirror (2011)
Blood Drive (2017)
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (2003)
BoJack Horseman (2014)


Boohbah (2003)
The Booth at the End (2010)
The Boys (2019)
Brad Neely's Harg Nallin' Sclopio Peepio (2016)
BrainDead (2016)
Brand New Cherry Flavor (2021)
brassEYE (1997)
The Brothers Grunt (1994)
Bullet in the Face (2012)
Cake (2019)


How many have you seen? Lemme know in the comments. And tune in tomorrow for part two.