He’s looking for a TV show he can call his own. Any ideas?

So I need a new show. Got any ideas?

I bring this up because the fifth season of “House of Cards” hits Netflix on May 30. For the past four years, I’ve watched every episode within a week of its release and immediately wished I hadn’t.

If I had to choose three words to describe the show, I’d choose “bombastic,” “ridiculous” and “trashy.” Yeah, definitely trashy.

“House of Cards” got especially bombastic, ridiculous and trashy last fall, when...

Wait a minute — that was the actual presidential election. Never mind.

But anyway, “House of Cards” was a show I watched, but it wasn’t my show. I think you know the difference.

For years, my show was “The Wire,” the gritty Baltimore-based drama about cops and drug dealers.

Because of its depth and complexity, it’s often compared to a Tolstoy novel. I let my children watch it with me when each of them reached middle school. It became a rite of passage for them — and at least one reason I haven’t been named father of the year.

But on the bright side, the kids’ dialogue around the house got so much better.

I’d hear one son say to another, “You come at the king, you best not miss.”

And the other one would reply, “You want it to be one way. But it’s the other way.”

A casual bystander might think they were being clever — or a little strange — when they were actually just quoting shotgun-toting stickup man Omar Little or the terrifying young drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield.

Another favorite quote: “Keep my name out of it.” No, Bess did not accept that as an answer.

Once, their grandfather walked into the den just in time to hear detective Jimmy McNulty unleash a stream of expletives. He expressed his disapproval to my daughter, who was in eighth grade.

“But Big Daddy,” she said, “we go to public school.”

I was so proud.

Now I’m looking for a new show.

Dusty Nix, my esteemed colleague and also a fan of “The Wire,” has recommended “The Americans,” the FX series now in its fifth season.

I watched the first episode when it premiered and was immediately hooked by the story of the All-American couple — actually undercover KGB agents — living in the Washington, D.C., suburbs during the Reagan administration with their two children.

At least I was hooked until, still in the first episode, an FBI agent moved in across the street.

When the credits rolled, Bess asked me if I’d found my show. I told her I didn’t believe an FBI agent would have just randomly moved across the street.

And that was that.

I felt renewed hope recently when I discovered that Netflix had added “Father Brown.” This is the BBC series based on the G.K. Chesterton short stories about a Catholic priest who solves mysteries in the fictional Cotswold village of Kembleford.

Bess and I watched the first three episodes, during which the tiny village’s population was decreased by three citizens thanks to an involuntary hanging, a blow to the head that led to a drowning and, of course, a flying blacksmith’s hammer.

With only 57 episodes remaining, fewer than a dozen people remained to be murdered. In a couple of weeks, Father Brown was going to be solving the mystery of the missing milk bottle.

Count me out. So I’m still looking for my show.

Got any suggestions?

This story was originally published May 5, 2017 at 3:59 PM with the headline "He’s looking for a TV show he can call his own. Any ideas?."