Supernatural - Season 2, the first 5 episodes

Supernatural: a show about two brothers who drive around the States in a Ford Impala killing monsters.

It should be the sort of show I hate with its 'kill a new monster every week' episode structure, but I really like it for two reasons: (i) attitude - the brothers are sarcastic, listen to metal, and kick monster ass with a variety of shotguns and crowbars, and (ii) sub-plots.

Right now, the show is juggling the grieving process, a hunters-bar sub-plot complete with an (I'm guessing) unwitting incestuous romance for Dean, the mystery of what Dad said to Dean, Dean is a psychic, (possibly) a crazy hunter who wants to get revenge on the brothers, (possibly) a peace-nik vampire, and a demon who wants to bring about the apocalypse. And it's doing it all fairly effortlessly while telling satisfying, self-contained stories every week.

I'm also a fan of the characterisation: what started out as a fairly simplistic 'Dean is a bad boy, Sam is a good boy' dynamic got nicely complicated about halfway through Season 1 when we realised that Dean has always tried to live up to his father's dreams, and plays the peace-maker between his Dad and Sam, who rebelled by quitting the family business of monster-hunting and going to university. I admire this because it was simply a matter of viewing facts we already knew in exactly the opposite way - and as a result it elegantly demonstrates that both brothers have elements of each other in them.

Nice, solid, 'horror movie but for TV' entertainment.