I feel like it's probably a lot harder to make a toddler/preschool show appealing to adults while still appealing to its actual target audience, versus kids' shows aimed at school-age children or tweens.

Some shows definitely pull it off, though, it's just rare. Haven't seen Bluey due to neither having kids, nor having young relatives or friends' kids in the right age bracket for it. Arthur pulls it off, though, imo.

Though Arthur tends to be kind of like, an "all-ages" kids' show, if that makes sense? Like, it's a solid choice for a preschooler, but it's also enjoyable for older kids closer to the main characters' actual ages (iirc Arthur is in 3rd or 4th grade). Kind of in a different category than something like Dora the Explorer.

I feel like that's kind of typical, or at least not new, for kids' shows, though.

E.g., Rugrats and Muppet Babies -- which were my favorites as a little kid, like preschool/early school age -- made heavy use of pop culture parodies in their plotlines.

I mean, sure, '90s kids probably got the Star Wars and Indiana Jones references. But no cap, Muppet Babies did an episode that parodied The African Queen, which is apparently an old Humphrey Bogart movie from the '50s. No way a kindergartener in 1995 was gonna get that reference, lmao. Kid me legit wondered what the hell they were parodying.

Iirc, Young Justice had this going on. The target audience were school age boys -- that is, those who ostensibly are more likely to buy merch and such -- but it ended up being popular primarily with teen and young adult viewers, a big chunk of whom were women.

> It's like a video game where you see a large chest and you go up to it and whoops, you need the season pass to open it.

Is this a real thing? If so, damn, that's ridiculous.

Severance is probably in my top 3 TV shows of all time, so I'm probably a good candidate for answering this, lol. It may even be tied with Season 1 of Westworld for being my all-time favorite piece of television.

My tastes tend toward prestige dramas that have something substantial to say about the human experience. Especially those with a speculative fiction element to them.

Some of the shows I'd list as favorites:

• Westworld. Well, really just Season 1, plus a couple of notable high points of Season 2. I'm of the opinion that it fell off a cliff in Season 3 and never really quite returned to form.

• Better Call Saul. I consider Severance to have some of the best, most interesting cinematography I've seen in a prestige drama. BCS is up there too, as far as that's concerned. Gorgeous shots that also carry meaning in their visual presentation. Slow burn, very character driven, but incredibly compelling.

• Carnivale. Cancelled before its time, Carnivale was part of the first wave of premium cable prestige dramas in the 2000s. It's excellent the whole way through, but it does end on a cliffhanger. (A sudden one, too. They could have ended it a few minutes earlier and had more of a conclusion, imo.)

• Twin Peaks. I'm also a huge David Lynch fan, so of course Twin Peaks is on my list. Even if something like Mulholland Drive isn't your cup of tea, Twin Peaks is worth watching, imo.

• Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is one of the top shows of all time for a reason. While it definitely has a degree of widespread popular appeal, it's also got some depth to it.

• The Haunting of Hill House. I'm a huge horror fan, this one was pretty good. Flanagan's work in general tends to be very good.

• Dark. Never got all that far, but Dark is highly recommended and would probably be up your alley.