50 Bestest TV Shows of all Time — Part 2
This is part two of a five-long blog series, celebrating the most awesome programmes ever made.
Now as my deadlines are looming, I’ve decided that it’s the perfect time to share the next ten from my selection of the 50 Bestest TV Shows of All Time. Just like the last were dominated by Sci-fi, this group is sitcom-heavy and dappled with a few all-time classics. If you’ve forgotten the last section — probably because it has taken me so long to write this — you can remind yourself here.
40. Friends
Chandler, Joey, Phoebe, Monica, Ross and Rachel; most of us nineties and (ahem) eighties kids grew up with those six sexy New Yorkers on our telly-boxes. From how to deal with unrequited love to a song about a particularly pungent feline, this popular programme taught us a lot and ended up on air for an impressive ten seasons. The Western world watched as the gang grew up, found love, got married (some three times ), got jobs and started families — cue the audience’s ‘Awwwwww’. Though perhaps ten years was enough to mine that comedy dry, which is why spin-off Joey was such a disaster.
‘How you doin’?!’
‘Awful, Joey. Stop that.’
39. Fresh Meat
So what do we have here: A cool Channel Four show about hip young people… Well I never. Fresh Meat is a comedy about six eclectic students living together while studying at University. Come for the American Pie meets the Inbetweeners vibe, and stay for the developed and flawed characters. This show isn’t above plumbing emotional depths for plot material and Jack Whitehall’s portrayal as a loveable toff is the highlight of the series. Fresh Meat is rumoured to be returning in movie form, but I’m still hoping for a fourth season.
38. Batman the Animated series
Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, Ep-ic. What’s that youngsters? Christopher Nolan’s Batman is the best? Think again. The Warner Brother’s cartoon retelling of the Dark Knight’s story is one of the few childhood favourites that holds up under the scrutiny of grown up taste. Running from 1992–1995, this incarnation of Batman is tense and so goddamn cinematic. Plus, thematically and visually, it’s dark as hell. The writing is sharp and it was so popular that even characters who had only been created for the series were written into the comics (Harley Quinn).
37. Louis Theroux
This quiet Englishman visits with some of the world’s oddest people in his documentary series(es?), Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends, When Louis Met… and his BBC specials. Louis chats to celebrities, hate groups, lawbreakers, as well as visiting war zones, brothels and prisons. In the face of some of the toughest or just craziest people — most of them American— Louis manages to keep his cool and fit right in by being awkward.
36. The West Wing
It used to be Morgan Freeman’s President Beck from Deep Impact but now, because of The West Wing, the only fictitious POTUS I’d cast my non-eligible vote for is Jed Bartlet. If all of Aaron Sorkin’s TV offerings were in a race, The West Wing would win without a doubt. It ran for seven fantastic, emotional seasons, and followed Martin Sheen and his dedicated White House staff as they faced crisis after crisis. The idea of TWW portraying a competent leader is in stark contrast to reality; the bulk of the episodes aired during the ‘Doubya’ Bush administration — also who would have thought that Rizzo would become the first Lady? Good on her.
35. Parks and Recreation
You won’t miss much if you leap right into season two of Parks and Recreation. Conceived by Greg Daniels and Michael Schurwhere, this adorable mockumentary-style sitcom follows the exploits of city employees in the made-up Indiana town, Pawnee. Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) is a perky councilwoman who, with the help of her stoic boss Ron Swanson and array of zany co-workers, strives to improve her town.
34. Simpsons
For number 34, I choo-choo-choose one of the most recognisable — and probably most quoted — cartoons ever made. For a channel that loves to cancel shows early, Fox has had that yellow, Springfieldian family on our screens for a whopping TWENTY-FOUR YEARS. That’s almost two-and-a-half decades of Homer, Marge, Maggie, Bart and Lisa, who’ve come a long way since the days of ‘Do the Bartman’. This show has been fantastic for a very long time, so surely The Simpson can be forgiven for an occasional dip in quality over 548 episodes. No? Never mind then.
33. Modern Family
Warm, sharp and very, very dry, I have yet to meet a person who dislikes this show (feel free to comment to the contrary below); plots and themes are tightly woven around self-serving relatives who all begrudgingly adore each other. The one-liners and visual gags are superb and are only surpassed by the performances and chemistry of the cast. Gloria, like all the best characters, has in recent episodes become a caricature of herself — but that’s the only notable con in four seasons of pros.
32. Blackadder
‘Baldrick, you wouldn’t see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord, singing: “Subtle plans are here again!”’
There’s nothing subtle about the wry, period drama Blackadder. Spanning four series, a few one-hour specials and several centuries of British History, this BBC comedy stars Rowan Atkinson as a cynical, clever opportunist who’s rarely out of trouble. The first series takes place during the fictional reign of ‘Richard IV’; the second’s set during the reign of Elizabeth I; Blackadder the Third (1987) is based during the late 18th and early 19th centuries; and probably the least funny, Blackadder Goes Forth takes place in the trenches of the Great War.
31. Newsroom
After a wobbly first season, this drama is based in the newsroom of fictional station ACN and is set two years in the past. Movie veterans Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer play the leads, a successful anchor and his producer, both of whom have vowed to take on reporting the news in an ethical manner. Aside from the cringeworthy clichés of not one, but three office will-they-won’t-they romances, Sorkin proves he’s still got it. Newsroom has been renewed for third and final season, which shall hit the small screens in Autumn 2014.
Thanks for staying with me this far, 30-21 is definitely a debatable section, lots more sitcoms, some politics and one straggler of a Sci-fi !
