Best TV of the Decade: a list with which I (pretty much) concur.
Ramping up the concept of end-of-year “Best” lists, Salon TV critic Heather Havrilesky went the decade route and named the Best 15 TV Shows of the ‘00 Decade in a post yesterday with which I am in 80% agreement.
I never watched, never would watch, Survivor (reality shows almost literally make me want to throw up in their phoniness) and would have moved The West Wing, at least the first few seasons, onto the list down toward the bottom in its place. I never got into Arrested Development (although Havrilesky’s description makes me wish I did). And I missed a few episodes of The Shield early on; despite knowing I was making a mistake, I just never went back to catch up.
Her other choices are difficult to argue with. Assuming that her list is in order of best-ness, I am delighted by her choice of The Wire as #1 and to see Six Feet Under in the top five. I might have pushed Buffy up a few positions were I in charge, but have no real quarrel with the ordering beyond that.The great tragedy there is those missing final four hours of Deadwood due to HBO’s short-sightedness and mismanagement. For those unfamiliar with that program, I note that the tone and language used by Havrilesky in her summary of same is a parody of the realistic dialogue employed by the writers.
In closing, because management insists that I stay on topic, allow me to point out that beer was consumed on many of these fine programs and often by me when viewing them.
Glad to see Battlestar Galactica on the list. It was one of the most intense shows I have ever watched. Of course, I apparently don’t watch much as the only other show on the list I’ve seen at all is The Daily Show.
Agree about Battlestar Galactica. I came to it late, never have seen the firs season, catching up with DVDs and reruns saved until the final season started. It was hell having to wait a week between episodes after being able to schedule a couple at a time.
Know what you mean about the waiting to watch episodes - Tommy and I started watching Dexter after I got a special deal from Comcast with free Showtime and HBO for a year. The entire first season of Dexter was available On Demand, and I said to Tommy, “Hey, this sounds interesting, let’s see how it is.”
We watched the entire first season in about 2 weeks, just in time for the start of the second. It was really tough getting through that second season, like you said.
World traveler, beer expert and all-round Renaissance man Stan Hieronymus (what are the chances of my spelling both “Renaissance” and “Hieronymus” correctly in a stretch of four words?) has remarked over on his site about the absence of Breaking Bad on the above linked list, bringing to my attention that I should have done the same. Not for everybody, I’d guess, but that’s a show that ought to be there and yet another reason to boot Survivor to the curb.
[...] looks like a pretty decent list to me. Other than failing to mention “Breaking Bad.” (Thanks to Uncle Jack for making me aware of [...]