The last show I binge watched was Breaking Bad and it was totally worth it. A lot of tv sucks, but the quality of character development, innovative stories, sense of place/culture, unexpected plot in some premium series is up there with any Academy Award movie.
I think the modern trend of high quality drama series started with Oz and the Sopranos on HBO.
The best show I've ever binge watched (or just watched period) was The Wire. I encourage anyone who hasn't watched it to give it a shot. The realism of how it portrays the problems of urban America and its institutions - the drug dealers, cops, politicians, schools, newspapers, and the kids caught in the middle is on a level nothing else has come close to. It's not some preachy thing - awesome character development, suspense, humor, tragedy, gritty realism. Need to watch it from the beginning, though.
Idris Elba (Stringer Bell) is pretty good in a BBC series called Luther that's on PBS now, where he plays a tough, weary London homicide cop. It blew me away when I found out that him, Dominic West (McNulty) actually have cockney accents and the the guy who played Mayor Carchetti was from Ireland. Never thought for a minute that they weren't from America/Baltimore.
I've got mixed opinions on binge watching. It's fun to be able to kick back on your couch and immerse yourself in great storytelling for as long as you want - like getting into a good novel and burning through 300 pages, but you lose something from watching the episodes a week at a time when they air. Like with some of the great Soprano's episodes, the impact of the scenes Adrianna or Ralph Cifferetto got killed would have been different if I'd watched the next 4 episodes immediately afterward. It can be cool to have a week to take things in and wonder what's going to happen next.