My Top 5...TV Shows
To start things off, I've decided to go with the idiot box.
1/ The Simpsons - It's true, the show is a pale shadow of its former brilliance, which is such a shame. If they had ended at around season five or six, they would've had the greatest show of all time. As it stands, it's still one of the best shows of all time (the first four or five seasons remain, in my mind, the finest thing televsion has ever produced), but the creators should've quite while they were miles ahead (something the Brits know how to do). Still, even with the lesser last few years, The Simpsons is still my favourite show.
2/ Seinfeld - The best American sitcom of all time (or is that anti-sitcom?); among its many incredible and groundbreaking acheivements was the fact that a show about nothing, with four self-absorbed and often very unlikeable main characters, could still manage to be side-splittingly funny and endearing.
3/ Degrassi Junior High/High - If you grew up with the show (like myself, who was only a few years younger than the cast in the show), you'll only have the fondest of memories watching the (sometimes too familiar) dramas of Joey, Caitlin, Spike, Wheels, Snake and the rest of the gang. They're almost like old friends. 'Wake up in the morning...'
4/ Gilmore Girls - The newest show on my list. This is so much more than the simple teen soap-opera it may appear to be - it's funny (funnier than most comedies at the moment), moving (more heartfelt than most current dramas, and a lot less sappy), intelligent, witty, incredibly well-written, marvelously acted, and contains one of the best and most original cast of quirky characters of any show. And it's fun to play 'spot the pop culture references'. Who wouldn't want to live in Stars Hollow?
5/ The Wonder Years - Like Degrassi, this show was instrumental during my formative years. I was moving from primary school into high school when this wonderful show started, so I could relate to Kevin Arnold's many adventures in life, love and family. At turns funny and dramatic, TV shows don't get much better than this.
Honourable mentions: Diff'rent Strokes; Married...With Children; Beverly Hills 90210; The Office (UK version); Freaks & Geeks; Fawlty Towers; Happy Days; South Park; King of the Hill; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Beavis and Butthead.
1/ The Simpsons - It's true, the show is a pale shadow of its former brilliance, which is such a shame. If they had ended at around season five or six, they would've had the greatest show of all time. As it stands, it's still one of the best shows of all time (the first four or five seasons remain, in my mind, the finest thing televsion has ever produced), but the creators should've quite while they were miles ahead (something the Brits know how to do). Still, even with the lesser last few years, The Simpsons is still my favourite show.
2/ Seinfeld - The best American sitcom of all time (or is that anti-sitcom?); among its many incredible and groundbreaking acheivements was the fact that a show about nothing, with four self-absorbed and often very unlikeable main characters, could still manage to be side-splittingly funny and endearing.
3/ Degrassi Junior High/High - If you grew up with the show (like myself, who was only a few years younger than the cast in the show), you'll only have the fondest of memories watching the (sometimes too familiar) dramas of Joey, Caitlin, Spike, Wheels, Snake and the rest of the gang. They're almost like old friends. 'Wake up in the morning...'
4/ Gilmore Girls - The newest show on my list. This is so much more than the simple teen soap-opera it may appear to be - it's funny (funnier than most comedies at the moment), moving (more heartfelt than most current dramas, and a lot less sappy), intelligent, witty, incredibly well-written, marvelously acted, and contains one of the best and most original cast of quirky characters of any show. And it's fun to play 'spot the pop culture references'. Who wouldn't want to live in Stars Hollow?
5/ The Wonder Years - Like Degrassi, this show was instrumental during my formative years. I was moving from primary school into high school when this wonderful show started, so I could relate to Kevin Arnold's many adventures in life, love and family. At turns funny and dramatic, TV shows don't get much better than this.
Honourable mentions: Diff'rent Strokes; Married...With Children; Beverly Hills 90210; The Office (UK version); Freaks & Geeks; Fawlty Towers; Happy Days; South Park; King of the Hill; Curb Your Enthusiasm; Beavis and Butthead.
posted by BrettMcBean at 8:58 PM
2 Comments:
Simpsons is a really sad case nowadays. There's no doubt that they are only "in it for money" now, and the writers just don't seem to care about continuing to make good storylines, likeable characters, and keeping the continuity with old episodes.
Not that continuity was ever a major concern for them (after all, the characters never age), but I think saying "pale shadow of its former brilliance" is being generous. To me, it's like an entirely different show. It has gone from a heartfelt comedy/drama to a show which is primarily concerned with slapstick humour, and squeezing as many unrelated jokes and gratuitous one-liners into 22 minutes that they can.
At least I have the early season DVDs to go back to. Just last night I watched the episode Homer the heretic (with commentary) and you could even hear in the commentary track that the writers/producers respected those episodes a lot more. What kind of commentary are they going to do for season 15 episodes? "This is a tasteless and stupid joke which I thought of. I thought it would be great if Moe had yet another stupid suicide attempt that has nothing to do with the storyline."
So while I agree that seasons 1-6 (and possibly 7-8) is some of the greatest television that has ever been produced, I cannot simply ignore the recent seasons and pretend they didn't happen. They have diluted the Simpsons "brand", if you will, and because of this I'm not sure I can name it my favourite TV show of all time.
My vote for best TV show ever would have to go with Seinfeld, for all the reasons you state, and unlike Simpsons, it knew that its time was up.
I can't think of the rest of my top 5 at the moment, but Simpsons would still be in there somewhere and I'd probably also throw in Frasier somewhere as well. Frontline and the UK Office were also excellent, and the nostalgic part of me feels sad if I leave out The Late Show (D Generation).
Murder One (1st season) was also a brilliant show which had me gripped throughout the whole season.
I must say I don't know much about Gilmore Girls. Obviously this is very superficial, but the name has always suggested to me that it's not the kind of show which is targeted to a male audience. Is that the case?
Thanks Jiggy for the in-depth response.
Yeah, The Simpsons is always going to be a controversial topic when talking about its overall merit. You can look at it in two ways - the show as a total, including the bad newer episodes, or as two halves of the same coin. I personally think the classic series overshadows the newer ones so much - are so good - that I still think of the show as my favourite (so I guess I'm a two sides of the same coin guy).
Frasier I find not very rewatchable - very clever show, but a little formulaic.
I never saw Murder One.
As for the Gilmore Girls - yeah, it may appeal to more females (probably because of its name, and the fact that the two main characters are females), but I know a lot of guys who love the show - as I said, it's brilliantly written and acted and not overly sappy or melodramatic.
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