Buffy? Took the High School is Hell metaphor to extremes. Never too itself too seriously. And I enjoyed it even though it contained all those things that we good Catholics don't believe in, such as vampires, demons, witches and lesbians.
Granted, the Magic=Drugs bit got really old, really fast.
V, the original miniseries, was a damn fine piece of work, and would've been good even if they hadn't been forced to make it a SF movie with alien Nazis. The second miniseries was good, but had a stinky ending. Wouldn't call it pretentious. The series was a huge, heaping load and belongs in the ashcan reserved for "Highlander 2".
Beauty and the Beast -- that was a chick show that guys could watch. Cop drama in season one, underground society in season two. Bit of a mess in season three.
Babylon 5 -- The SF series that gave us the overarching storylines. A five-year plan that really was a five-year plan (that got shortened to 4). Without it, the new BSG (now that was pretentious up the wazoo!) wouldn't have been possible.
I loved it when DS9 started doing the overarching WWII in space storylines in imitation of Babylon 5...and instead of being a pale imitation it rocked.