I made it through approximately 2 episodes. I tried, I really tried because of the dearth of good television but couldn't make it. I am really picky with television though so ymmv.

Semi-related rant:

The wokeness in modern television has gone off the rails. I tried latest season of Fargo and couldn't get through that either. Both shows go out of their way to show lead female characters as borderline superheroes and men, specifically white men, to be either idiots, evil, or a combination of both. I feel like I am being brainwashed with a lot of these shows.

Earlier seasons of Fargo (and the movie) had strong female leads that worked because they didn't push the realms of believability too far. The females were smart in a believable way the men weren't.

Completely unrelated to your question but I don't want to start a new post:

Modern stuff I *have* liked, in case anyone missed them and/or can point out a suggestion I may have missed.

Beef
Severance (really enjoyed)
Silo (kind of enjoyed)
Mr. Inbetween (awesome)
Squid Game
Devs

Overrated crap I couldn't stomach:
Yellowstone
Succession

Stuff I liked at first then began to loathe:
Last Of Us
Ozark

Well-made show but bored me to death and I stopped watching: (sacrilege but just being honest)

The Bear

A show I could NOT STOP WATCHING and wished I found it sooner but maybe glad I didn't:

The Bureau (French)

not sure it was great, but I enjoyed watching it

Rewatching Shameless (US) after 13 years is great so far.

I remember bailing in season 7 or 8? But those first 4 seasons really are something special.
Cracks are starting to show now in S5 again though.

Just leave it to Showtime to run a good tv series into the ground with way to many seasons lol.

Probably can count on one hand the number of shows that were still good after 7 or 8 seasons. The sweet spot seems to be about 6.

i'll always prefer a show run too long, rather than too short.

i don't see "too long" as a problem. i just see it as giving me control when i want the series to end. because no one is forcing me to watch lol

agreed, early seasons of shameless were great

Based on your post, especially regarding The Bureau (I loved it)...here are a few recs (if you have seen some, your opinion would be appreciated):

Pagan Peak
Dead Mountain
Pachinko
Wolf Hall
Babylon Berlin
Billie & Billie
Umbre
I Hate Suzie
Snabba Cash
El Marginal
This Way Up
The Mechanism
Zero Zero Zero
Blinded By The Lights (Polish)
Kingdom (Korean)

It stopped being fun for me when Lip decided to stay sober. What an annoying sober ****. It's why I can't watch The Bear.

Moving and Big Bet needs to be on every list

Somewhere there is a parallel universe where I am the happiest version of myself, because Luck (HBO) ran for 6 seasons instead of 1.

Fans of Lost and Game of Thrones prob disagree

Holy Shogun. That one probably deserves a thread. Godaaaamn.

there is a thread

luck was a great show! and I thought Dustin Hoffman was super meh in it, but everyone else was so great

the original plan was for it to go like 10 seasons x 10 episodes
maybe more

would have been fine if they just let competent people run it


but yeah in general a lot of shows hang on too long because the ratings stay good, quality is secondary. unfortunate

lost was originally a carefully planned out 3 season story arc and then abc demanded more episodes and threw bags of cash at the creators so they started improvising and by doing so they added so much stuff that their original plotline had to be abandoned - that's why so much stuff that played central roles in early episodes were later just completely ignored or just hand waved away with some cheap explanation

the big thing they did to stretch it out were flashbacks

every single flashback and memory scene/episode/plotline was just jammed in there to make more episodes

Screw y'all trashing Lost. S4 and S5 were still great.
S6 was bad, but the ending was very good imo. Top 5 all time.

The loss of Joan Cusack sucked too. May have to join you guys on a rewatch. I remember the Frank hate running so strong through me, lol.

I wouldn't say top 5, but my sentiment is right there with you. The ride was great.

Never seen Shameless, but every clip I've ever seen of it makes it look well made and something I have no interest in watching.

You should really try the first season. It was pretty ****ing great for a while and still watchable once it jumped the shark.

Have you seen the original? I've a soft spot for it because it was filmed where I'm from.

oh yeah i loved lost through and through, but there's a distinct reason why nothing was explained at the end because they were just winging it for a while and as a result had so many loose ends that they figured it was easier to just ignore it than to bother tying them up

GoT fans may of enjoyed this more then! Short and snappy.

Game of Thrones team explain what happened to scrapped $35 million spin-off

Just finished this and wasn't great.
I thought it started off well, but it doesn't go anywhere. It's an 8 episode season with very little ep to ep story development.
Each ep could almost be a standalone.

Could've been a lot better if there was a more concise storyline. Was essentially just ridiculous missions with filler.

Think I'm going to try Totems next.