*here ye, bask in the glory of my helpful jibber-jabber!* 
Lost:
I had heard a bit about in from America being this big "thing", but I didn't watch it to be "in with everyone else watching it". It was actually premiered on Channel 4 on the Friday night that Big Brother (series 6) kicked off, so as I was sat there anyway watching BB (guilty pleasure/sociological marvel) and figured I might as well try it out. At that stage I was already into a couple of these quality dramas, so I thought I'd try Lost out (despite being a bit put off by the daft advert with them all dancing on the beach  ).
I actually really enjoyed it once I got into the premise and by the end of the first two episodes I had to find out "what was that all about then?", and as these things inevitably go, I was sucked into the whole thing and that, shall we say, was the end of that.
Sadly, Lost has a tendency to sag in the middle by dragging a plot point out over too many episodes without much advancement, but the first and final thirds of each season are just fantastic. It quite literally is carrot-in-front-of-starving-donkey television - one question is answered, three more are asked. Finally, the flash backs - finding out new information out about characters you think you know and have so far judged, only to have your assumptions turned over. The flashbacks are also - to a fan at least - great fun as it's like piecing a puzzle together.
Invasion:
Never bothered with it, by the time it was being advertised (after season one of Lost had been shown on Channel 4) I had enough quality dramas on my plate. I didn't want to commit to yet another show (I had plenty of shows I was committed to on a weekly basis as it was). I also didn't bother as it just looked like it was trying to hard, it looked like it had checklisted the basic structures of making (and viewing) other quality dramas that had come before. It looked like a poor man's Lost quite frankly.
24:
My favourite of all the quality dramas out there now. Again, I'd heard a little bit about 'some show from America which is in real time'. Straight away the real time element immediately attracted me (it's not exactly common). The real time was the show's unique selling point and that hooked me. I was also a fan of Kiefer Sutherland's work and was interested in seeing his 'second wind' acting (so to speak) as he'd been a rare sight in the middle to late 1990s.
The whole show is about keeping you on the edge of your seat - ticking clocks, quick cuts, hand held cameras all at human height (you don't see crane shots or low angles, you are kept face-to-face with the characters). There are constant plot twists, constant corners to be escaped from and then of course - there's Jack himself. Often referred to by the fans as "The Jack Bauer Power Hour", 24 wouldn't even be half as good without Jack. His character is endlessly sacrificing, but endlessly moral without being a liberal wimp - the guy gets the right job done when anyone else wouldn't be able to.
The on-going saga of the show also keeps me hooked - where are the characters now, what are they doing, how have things changed - that's what I want to desperately know at the beginning of a season after the painfully (yet enjoyably so) OTT cliff-hanger season endings. While the show is obviously fictional, and some elements are definately very much unreal (the season 3 virus for example - completely unreal in almost every way), it still feels completely real. You are sucked into the universe of 24 and as a result it can be utterly overwhelming - episode 18 of season 3 (Ryan Chappelle's final episode) was just knock you to the floor television. The show keeps you on edge - any character is expendable (well, except Jack - even though he has technically died once already), and season five's first ten minutes shows you this in spades as you are repeatedly knocked for six. It's face-pounding television, it's completely gripping and completely addictive. 24 goes where other shows never have stepped before - it's like 24, connected hour long movies.
Six Feet Under:
Again, heard the odd tidbit about 'this show from America which goes against the grain'. America tries it's best to avoid the reality of death, so an American TV show ALL ABOUT death was SFU's unique selling point to me. The 'corpse of the week' ... 'gimmick' (if you will) was one of those "what happens THIS week" threads of endless interest (like how will The Simpsons sit on their couch this week?).
The fact it was very much and adult show - from America - was appealing. An American show, with sex, violence and swearing (admittedly because it's a cable show) - but from the usual stuff Britain imports from America, it's a shock to the system. The writing and depth of characterisation throughout the show's run was a big draw, they felt real and you could relate to elements of each. Of course, there was the usual cross-season interest to find out what happens next and finally, one of the main reasons the show appealed was it's constant insistance on doing what you'd otherwise not see - and the final season certainly did this. They kill off the main character a couple of episodes before the end, we see the whole family grieve and deal with the situation (as are, to some extent, the audience), and then in a final montage we see the deaths of every single character. Now that is the strongest ending of a show I have ever seen, and perhaps ever will see.
Never got into The Soprano's, essentially 'missed the boat' on that one, but again a case of having too many shows I've already committed to. Sex and the City - definately not my thing, that's more of a girl's show, simple as - doesn't appeal to me on any plane of viewing existence.
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Originally Posted by Eyebiter
.....I love Survivor and hate Lost....
) but the info might help your work; I liked the stand alone X Files episodes but thought that the whole on-going alien conspiracy thing was a mess. Millenium kicked arse; a great series but obviously of it's time and the zietgiest is gone now. Farscape was fresh and original and took a moribund TV genre to interesting new places whilst the Trek franchise was crawling up it's own arse to die, it was criminal that they cancelled that series.
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