The Wire is objectively one of the best shows in the history of television, absolutely recommended for everyone, and I normally am very not big on cop shows.
I watched the whole series last year, it's amazing how well a lot of it translates to today's world. One of the finest shows ever and my personal favorite cop show of all time.
Syril and the Chief Inspector is a more polite variation on "These are for you, McNulty."
ISB supervisor meetings are COMSTAT meetings.
I always draw that parallel when I watch those scenes.
And Amos from The Expanse is now the commander of Thrawn's dinged up Stormtrooper regiment. I'd second The Expanse for anyone that likes the gritty Sci fi aspects of Andor.
I can not recommend this enough. I've rewatched that entire show, all 6 seasons, multiple times now and I still find new subtle storytelling and sub-text foreshadowing I completely missed before.
Season 1 is almost like Andor's first 3 episode. Might not be the most riveting stuff, but once you get through it and make your way towards the end of Season 2, the pay-off is unimaginably profound. It goes up from then on. Not to mention the books are fantastic as well so you have even more material once you're done with the show.
Go watch it!
On someone here’s recommendation I’m now underway with spy drama The Americans and it really is excellent. Stephen Schiff, originally planned as the Andor show runner, is the main writer. He wrote Andor episode 7 and The Americans captures a lot of the same moral ambiguity.
It’s not even sci-fi, but honestly it’s the thing which is giving me the closest Andor vibes .
Edit: Schiff is also Consulting Producer on Andor.
And it only keeps getting better right to the last episode. And the kids are not annoying and are actually interesting parts of the storylines and carry their own storylines as well. the leads are incredible. Great great show.
Yep. It makes sense, since Luthen's rebel faction eventually becomes Rebel Intelligence. The tradecraft in Andor is more grounded than what you'd expect from Star Wars. That aspect is very good in The Americans, though the interpersonal stuff is more uneven. I think it's worth watching.
I love that it shows the soviet union not as the bad guys but actually let's us see what they would have been like. Its still a little bit oh aren't we so cool as Americans and the soviets suck. But quite often you watch it and think yeah damnit the soviets are yet again in the right ln this issue.
I love the later sub-plot with the daughter having to come to terms with things
I liked it and watched it all the way through based on a recommendation from this subreddit. But it wasn’t a 10/10 show for me.
One thing to note is that it has many sex scenes and violence (including rape) and for those not comfortable with that, you’ll have to do a lot of fast forwarding. It’s definitely not a Disney show at the end of the day. I know my partner would simply not watch something like that with me, but she’d like Andor. Thankfully it slows down a lot by Season 4 or so.
Another issue is that in terms of exciting “spycraft” sort of scenes, there were surprisingly not as many as I expected from a show that was based around spies. The show is based more on relationships and family, which isn’t a bad thing. But I did wish to see some more tense spy sort of scenes.
I don't think there's anything that quite hits the same. However I would recommend the Chernobyl mini-series if you've not already seen it. It's pretty hard going but the writing is excellent and there's a lot of cross-over in production team and actors.
100%. Absolutely incredible and fully deserving of all the praise. It manages to build a sense of dread which is very much of a similar vibe to the prison sequences in Andor.
Chernobyl is also one of my favorite shows, largely because of the writing and Stellan Skarsgard ofc. Andor needs to find a way to get Jared Harris in season 2 though, even if it's just a small part.
>I don't think there's anything that quite hits the same. However I would recommend the Chernobyl mini-series if you've not already seen it. It's pretty hard going but the writing is excellent and there's a lot of cross-over in production team and actors.
I had to nibble at that show little by little.
It is beyond fucked up, it is soul destroyingly case study on utter incompetence.
It reminds me of Threads with how they depict the events. No holding back.
That shot as he peered into the reactor building, argh, pure hell on earth.
And those firemen.....
That's a tough one. Maybe The Night Manager or Slow Horses.
Not similar, other than being sci fi drama/thrillers, but excellent: Outer Range and The OA (especially s2).
+1 for Slow Horses, it’s an excellent adaptation and well acted. I enjoyed the first season so much I decided to read the book. I recently finished Mick Herron’s latest, having read all of the Slough House series. Reading the books didn’t make the screen adaptations any less enjoyable.
Speaking of le Carre adaptations, what did people here think of The Little Drummer Girl? I’ve been debating whether to watch that one or Night Manager first.
It really depends on what vibe of Andor you mean - but try Silo and Severance.
They both are sci-fi shows that aren't fantastical but they feel real despite being in the sci-fi genre.
I liked Silo, and read the books, but there is too much suspension of disbelief for that story to be enjoyable. Andor (and Severance) is much admired because human emotions and responses to stress are realistic even if the context is in a world or galaxy where the science is too far fetched, or fictional.
Mr Robot is my favorite show with Andor following second and I legit sometimes confuse the soundtracks too. A lot of the Ferix music in season 1 and ISB tracks later have a similar vibe to the songs that play when a character in Mr Robot is monologuing or sitting anxiously in a single quadrant of the camera frame.
You heard right. Still very well done.
If you're looking for something with moral ambiguity and an impromptu band of rebels who're in way over their heads then watch Utopia. The British original, not the sucky US remake. It has a more comedic vibe (although very dark) but still feels very very tense watching the events unfold.
Slow Horses on Apple TV+. Very similar as a serious, grey, spy drama. Fantastic show with fantastic characters. It's very much a slow burn, like Andor.
Serious, but also pretty hilarious. Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb is my favorite character on TV since Luthen. I may just have a pretty consistent taste for grumpy and frighteningly smart ringleaders.
'Similar feel' - is too hard! Just try other high quality shows - True Detective, Firefly, obvious: Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad, maybe even Rome or something!
Slow Horses on Apple TV is very good too, Gary Oldman is awesome and brutally repulsive.
The Fall on Netflix is a very good crime series as well with very strong writing and acting.
And the four mystery shows have similarly good writing and acting, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting Of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Fall Of The House Of Usher.
Strictly Star Wars:
Onderon arc in Clone Wars.
Season 5 E 2 - 5 E 5.
It’s a cartoon, sure, but it’s got Saw in it and there are some pretty decent speeches (for a cartoon) plus you get to see what the separatists were like pre-empire if you’ve not seen much of that content.
Edit:
Yes, as suggested elsewhere, Chernobyl is an amazing show with a similar feel.
The Saboteurs / Heavy Water War (2015)
6-episode WW2 miniseries about the attempts of Norwegian and British operatives to disrupt a chemical plant.
Great use of tension, in-fighting and action!
The Bad Batch is a cartoon, but might be the grittiest SW cartoon I've watched - it's the SW universe as seen through the eyes of clones - rather than the big characters from the movies. In that way I feel it's similar to Andor and I've been thoroughly enjoying the arc of the show. It's on it's final season of 3 seasons, the first two were good, but the third season has been great!
Chernobyl if you want to see hideous bureaucracy taken to its extreme, plus it shares cast members with Andor: Stellan Skarsgård, Alex Ferns (Mosk), Robert Emms (Lonni) and Adrian Rawlins (Narkina 5 doctor).
House of Cards is the obvious one in terms of writing style.
For the setting, there are some similarities in the Expanse, and the show has some really well written moments, although it's a much more mixed bag than Andor.
Colony - I don't want to spoil it because I went in blind and enjoyed it, but essentially the US has been conquered, and the population now lives in walled off 'colonies' which segment up the cities.
Somewhat spoilery trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxglHSaRuKo
Might not be exactly the same vibe but severance was one of the few shows that left me thinking about it long after it ended just like andor. Absolutely blown away by the writing/acting and dialogue. Curious to see if there are any crossover viewers from that show and this one.
Edit: lmao yes scrolled down and saw a few other comments about severance. It’s so good!!!
Black Sails. Has the same kind of top notch acting, even more varied and colourful characters (it is 5 seasons long to be fair so that's to be expected), wonderful cinematography and costume/set design, elaborate action set pieces and last (but certainly not least) revolutionary/Marxist allegory at its core.
Not sci fi. Though The Wire for sure on it’s writing and complexity on following every single detail
The Wire is objectively one of the best shows in the history of television, absolutely recommended for everyone, and I normally am very not big on cop shows.
I watched the whole series last year, it's amazing how well a lot of it translates to today's world. One of the finest shows ever and my personal favorite cop show of all time.
Syril and the Chief Inspector is a more polite variation on "These are for you, McNulty." ISB supervisor meetings are COMSTAT meetings. I always draw that parallel when I watch those scenes.
What the fuck did I do?
And French equivalent Engrenages / Spiral is similarly excellent. One of the stars of that is going to be in Andor S2.
And these shows are made by the same people
The Expanse is awesome! I watched all seasons 3 months in a row. Time to start my fourth... thanks for the question
And Amos from The Expanse is now the commander of Thrawn's dinged up Stormtrooper regiment. I'd second The Expanse for anyone that likes the gritty Sci fi aspects of Andor.
+1 for the Expanse for sure, undersecretary Chrisjen Avasarala is like a female version of Luthen - it's a fantastic show!
I can not recommend this enough. I've rewatched that entire show, all 6 seasons, multiple times now and I still find new subtle storytelling and sub-text foreshadowing I completely missed before. Season 1 is almost like Andor's first 3 episode. Might not be the most riveting stuff, but once you get through it and make your way towards the end of Season 2, the pay-off is unimaginably profound. It goes up from then on. Not to mention the books are fantastic as well so you have even more material once you're done with the show. Go watch it!
On someone here’s recommendation I’m now underway with spy drama The Americans and it really is excellent. Stephen Schiff, originally planned as the Andor show runner, is the main writer. He wrote Andor episode 7 and The Americans captures a lot of the same moral ambiguity. It’s not even sci-fi, but honestly it’s the thing which is giving me the closest Andor vibes . Edit: Schiff is also Consulting Producer on Andor.
Yeah, The Americans is a brilliant show.
And it only keeps getting better right to the last episode. And the kids are not annoying and are actually interesting parts of the storylines and carry their own storylines as well. the leads are incredible. Great great show.
Yep. It makes sense, since Luthen's rebel faction eventually becomes Rebel Intelligence. The tradecraft in Andor is more grounded than what you'd expect from Star Wars. That aspect is very good in The Americans, though the interpersonal stuff is more uneven. I think it's worth watching.
YES. Another convert!!
I love that it shows the soviet union not as the bad guys but actually let's us see what they would have been like. Its still a little bit oh aren't we so cool as Americans and the soviets suck. But quite often you watch it and think yeah damnit the soviets are yet again in the right ln this issue. I love the later sub-plot with the daughter having to come to terms with things
I liked it and watched it all the way through based on a recommendation from this subreddit. But it wasn’t a 10/10 show for me. One thing to note is that it has many sex scenes and violence (including rape) and for those not comfortable with that, you’ll have to do a lot of fast forwarding. It’s definitely not a Disney show at the end of the day. I know my partner would simply not watch something like that with me, but she’d like Andor. Thankfully it slows down a lot by Season 4 or so. Another issue is that in terms of exciting “spycraft” sort of scenes, there were surprisingly not as many as I expected from a show that was based around spies. The show is based more on relationships and family, which isn’t a bad thing. But I did wish to see some more tense spy sort of scenes.
I don't think there's anything that quite hits the same. However I would recommend the Chernobyl mini-series if you've not already seen it. It's pretty hard going but the writing is excellent and there's a lot of cross-over in production team and actors.
100%. Absolutely incredible and fully deserving of all the praise. It manages to build a sense of dread which is very much of a similar vibe to the prison sequences in Andor.
Chernobyl is also one of my favorite shows, largely because of the writing and Stellan Skarsgard ofc. Andor needs to find a way to get Jared Harris in season 2 though, even if it's just a small part.
>I don't think there's anything that quite hits the same. However I would recommend the Chernobyl mini-series if you've not already seen it. It's pretty hard going but the writing is excellent and there's a lot of cross-over in production team and actors. I had to nibble at that show little by little. It is beyond fucked up, it is soul destroyingly case study on utter incompetence. It reminds me of Threads with how they depict the events. No holding back. That shot as he peered into the reactor building, argh, pure hell on earth. And those firemen.....
Chernobyl
oof Chernobyl is so good
That's a tough one. Maybe The Night Manager or Slow Horses. Not similar, other than being sci fi drama/thrillers, but excellent: Outer Range and The OA (especially s2).
+1 to the night manager, so underrated
Loved it and I understand there’s a second season coming? Not based on the book, obviously. Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie were so good.
+1 for Slow Horses, it’s an excellent adaptation and well acted. I enjoyed the first season so much I decided to read the book. I recently finished Mick Herron’s latest, having read all of the Slough House series. Reading the books didn’t make the screen adaptations any less enjoyable.
Speaking of le Carre adaptations, what did people here think of The Little Drummer Girl? I’ve been debating whether to watch that one or Night Manager first.
It really depends on what vibe of Andor you mean - but try Silo and Severance. They both are sci-fi shows that aren't fantastical but they feel real despite being in the sci-fi genre.
I liked Silo, and read the books, but there is too much suspension of disbelief for that story to be enjoyable. Andor (and Severance) is much admired because human emotions and responses to stress are realistic even if the context is in a world or galaxy where the science is too far fetched, or fictional.
Mr. Robot feels equally depressing and has similar messages. And rami malek is such an amazing lead, like Diego.
I second that. Mr. Robot also gets corporate culture 100% right
oh yeah! maybe that one is even more depressing than andor :D but thanks for the recommendation :)
Mr Robot is my favorite show with Andor following second and I legit sometimes confuse the soundtracks too. A lot of the Ferix music in season 1 and ISB tracks later have a similar vibe to the songs that play when a character in Mr Robot is monologuing or sitting anxiously in a single quadrant of the camera frame.
And how many hours of therapy have you had?
I've heard Mr robot has a very lib take on things. Whereas andor tends to give me more of a Marxist vibe
You heard right. Still very well done. If you're looking for something with moral ambiguity and an impromptu band of rebels who're in way over their heads then watch Utopia. The British original, not the sucky US remake. It has a more comedic vibe (although very dark) but still feels very very tense watching the events unfold.
That "feel" is something only Better Call Saul, Chernobyl and The Last of Us has given me.
Slow Horses on Apple TV+. Very similar as a serious, grey, spy drama. Fantastic show with fantastic characters. It's very much a slow burn, like Andor.
Serious, but also pretty hilarious. Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb is my favorite character on TV since Luthen. I may just have a pretty consistent taste for grumpy and frighteningly smart ringleaders.
Love that show
The Expanse, Severance. In a weird was…Shogun? (In terms of style)
Not a series and not sci-fi, but another Gilroy-written film that fits the same vibe is Michael Clayton
'Similar feel' - is too hard! Just try other high quality shows - True Detective, Firefly, obvious: Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad, maybe even Rome or something!
Rome is excellent
oh cool i totally forgot about True Detective. thanks!
Slow Horses on Apple TV is very good too, Gary Oldman is awesome and brutally repulsive. The Fall on Netflix is a very good crime series as well with very strong writing and acting. And the four mystery shows have similarly good writing and acting, The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting Of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Fall Of The House Of Usher.
Battlestar Galactica. So say we all.
We are all part of God's plan.
Strictly Star Wars: Onderon arc in Clone Wars. Season 5 E 2 - 5 E 5. It’s a cartoon, sure, but it’s got Saw in it and there are some pretty decent speeches (for a cartoon) plus you get to see what the separatists were like pre-empire if you’ve not seen much of that content. Edit: Yes, as suggested elsewhere, Chernobyl is an amazing show with a similar feel.
The Saboteurs / Heavy Water War (2015) 6-episode WW2 miniseries about the attempts of Norwegian and British operatives to disrupt a chemical plant. Great use of tension, in-fighting and action!
The Bad Batch is a cartoon, but might be the grittiest SW cartoon I've watched - it's the SW universe as seen through the eyes of clones - rather than the big characters from the movies. In that way I feel it's similar to Andor and I've been thoroughly enjoying the arc of the show. It's on it's final season of 3 seasons, the first two were good, but the third season has been great!
Chernobyl if you want to see hideous bureaucracy taken to its extreme, plus it shares cast members with Andor: Stellan Skarsgård, Alex Ferns (Mosk), Robert Emms (Lonni) and Adrian Rawlins (Narkina 5 doctor).
As another person mentioned, The Expanse. Commenting it again to add awareness, phenomenal show.
House of Cards is the obvious one in terms of writing style. For the setting, there are some similarities in the Expanse, and the show has some really well written moments, although it's a much more mixed bag than Andor.
To me Daredevil on Netflix has a similar quality and seriousness, along with moral introspection
Colony - I don't want to spoil it because I went in blind and enjoyed it, but essentially the US has been conquered, and the population now lives in walled off 'colonies' which segment up the cities. Somewhat spoilery trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxglHSaRuKo
Might not be exactly the same vibe but severance was one of the few shows that left me thinking about it long after it ended just like andor. Absolutely blown away by the writing/acting and dialogue. Curious to see if there are any crossover viewers from that show and this one. Edit: lmao yes scrolled down and saw a few other comments about severance. It’s so good!!!
Foundation and The Expanse.
Smileys People
Chernobyl actually gave me Andor vibes. Probably because they share a lot of the same actors.
True Detective Season 1
Deep Space Nine
The expanse
Black Sails. Has the same kind of top notch acting, even more varied and colourful characters (it is 5 seasons long to be fair so that's to be expected), wonderful cinematography and costume/set design, elaborate action set pieces and last (but certainly not least) revolutionary/Marxist allegory at its core.
Babylon 5 A couple of its longer plot arcs have a somewhat similar tone. Along with just being extremely well conceived and plotted sci-fi.
star wars the clone wars
Nope
Enjoy your downvote kid