You May Now Flip: Ranking the Seven Shows of My College Years
This is the dimension of imagination.
A bartender battles with alcoholism. A single mother lets her daughter run away from home. A monster arrives on Maple Street. A queen walks through fire and survives. A talk show host capitulates to David Spade. A president runs on a platform of optimism. A doctor pushes a clock past midnight.
Television, with its ability to transport its viewers to many places, fictional, fantastical, historical, and otherwise, is a marvelous staple of a medium that has helped define pop culture for decades. As a student and a lover of television, I decided to spend each of my college semesters (save for one domestic internship) engaging with one all-time great television show that I’d never seen before. There were seven semesters and seven shows in my watchlist. Each one was specifically geared towards educating me about the history of television and rounding me out into a more complete viewer and fan. And that’s exactly what I did. (Shows like The Wire, Insecure, and Deadwood were summer watches and, thus, are not featured here.)
Through the shows, I went to many different corners of the world, even if some of those corners were not quite here (nor were they there). Remarkably, I stayed on the east coast way more than I could have anticipated. But still, as my college years come to an end, I feel that I have been educated in a worthwhile capacity. I feel that I understand the history of television vastly more than I used to. And I’ve been enchanted and challenged by the stories and characters I encountered along the way. They felt like my friends. And whether it was a bar in Boston or a castle in Westeros, it felt like everybody knew my name.
These are those seven shows, ranked (because I can’t not rank things). They carried me through college and just as they carved out a spot in TV history, so too have they carved out a space in my heart.
Spoilers ahead for all shows!
7. The West Wing
Aaron Sorkin is one of my favorite writers. His movies (The Social Network, Moneyball, A Few Good Men, Molly’s Game) are impeccable, but his opus will likely always be The West Wing. An obvious off-shoot of The American President, The West Wing ran on NBC from 1999 to 2006 and has been proclaimed to be one of the best network dramas ever created. I watched it during the spring semester of my junior year.
It has strong streaks of political optimism that seem so distant, so foreign, during our current administration’s period of political power. But it does finish last for the fact that, while it was important, it was also a bit dated. I admire Sorkin’s unyielding hopefulness, but I couldn’t help but feel like political shows in the 2010s have pushed the mold further and those that tried to model The West Wing (Designated Survivor) petered out quickly.
Still, The West Wing makes for excellent escapism and a stellar projection for political junkies who want to believe in the goodness of politicians. Jed Bartlet might be the greatest fictional president of all-time! While it did lose some steam when it became the Joshua Malina, Alan Alda, and Jimmy Smits show, I definitely ride for the political, walk-and-talk operatives of the early seasons. The team assembled was an all-star one (Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford, Dule Hill) and I was certainly said to see Rob Lowe depart as Sam Seaborn. He was a ton of fun.
But yes, the early seasons are what make The West Wing great and it’s the later seasons that kind of pull it down a couple pegs. Jed will forever remain an inspiration because he showed that our role models could still experience intense self-doubt.
I will never forget the season two finale, “Two Cathedrals,” which sees Jed remembering his life with Mrs. Landingham as her funeral looms. His ultimate confrontation in the church, alone, as he screams at God and suffers his worst breakdown still gives me goosebumps. Martin Sheen is so good in the scene, but it’s a complete culmination of the role he played in the show to that point. It felt like we were in his head, hurting and feeling just as deeply. It’s why his hope carried us forward into an even more uncertain season three, even if we lost the Brothers in Arms. “What’s next, Mrs. Landingham?”
6. The Larry Sanders Show
When people try to pinpoint the transition that television made from being largely comprised of “shows for the masses” to the immense quality of “peak TV,” The Sopranos tends to be the fulcrum point. However, careful investigation into the show that really started pushing the medium forward can be traced back to a smaller-scale HBO show. A meta comedy from the mind of Garry Shandling.
The Larry Sanders Show ran from 1992 to 1998 on HBO, putting out just ninety episodes in that time, but changing the medium forever. (I experienced it in the fall semester of my senior year.) Yes, comedies like Seinfeld (and even M*A*S*H decades prior) showed that the formula was not necessary for adherence. But Larry Sanders ripped the boundaries so thoroughly that they could never be wholly repaired. Not that we’d want them to be.
Suddenly, the talk show didn’t actually matter. We were going behind the scenes of the talk show. The comedy was cringe-worthy. The characters forced the issue of the camera rather than the camera staying stagnant at all times. Celebrities were playing themselves! Save for a Hollywood arc for I Love Lucy, it was unheard of. The Larry Sanders Show pushed television forward, perhaps as great as any other show did.
Dialogue in a hallway on ER and The West Wing doesn’t happen without Sanders. The meta nature of 30 Rock and Curb Your Enthusiasm is floundering without Sanders. Even great creators like Ricky Gervais, Judd Apatow, and Armando Ianucci derived direct influence from Shandling’s and co-creator Dennis Klein’s brilliance.
Of course, some of the best parts of Sanders were the moments that didn’t challenge preconceptions of comedy. The moments when Hank would be a cartoonish buffoon or when Artie would rip off a line like, “You were so funny, if I didn’t piss myself, I’d’ve shat myself.” Sometimes, comedy was just comedy and it didn’t need to be innovative and it didn’t need to be touchy-feely. It just had to be good. And The Larry Sanders Show was always good.
5. The Twilight Zone
It feels as if The Twilight Zone is the most challenging show to write about on the list. Not only because it’s been written about for years, but also because it’s the only anthology series on the list. It only really had one cast member throughout the run, Rod Serling, but he was also extremely influential behind the scenes. It’s also the oldest show on the list by a wide margin. The original run (the one I watched during the fall semester of my sophomore year) lasted from 1959 to 1964, but it has existed in myriad capacities since then.
It ran again in the late 1980s and in the early 2000s and just last year, too, in Jordan Peele’s CBS reboot. It even has a theme park attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios! No other show on the list has that. Sure, the other shows have spin-offs like A Year in the Life, AfterMASH, Frasier, and the forthcoming, House of the Dragon. But The Twilight Zone was always The Twilight Zone, even if the first iteration cannot be topped.
There’s a reason why people watch it every New Year’s Eve and every Labor Day and there’s a reason why I decided it to binge it one spooky autumn. It all still resonates! Could Serling be preachy? Sure. But smarter people than me have tackled that idea. I see Serling as he probably wanted to be seen. A visionary, a gifted writer, and a cultural mover/shaker.
This is evident in tons of episodes and even though the one I’ve thought about the most is “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” the most relevant is “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” It doesn’t take much for panic and bloodshed and betrayal to set upon their “civilized” society and these hallmarks extend beyond the Twilight Zone, as Serling bemoans in his closing monologue. As we teeter on the curb of Maple Street in the real world today, we could stand to learn a lot of lessons from those who were always doomed to be in the Twilight Zone. Although, it seems like quite a folly to think that we have any agency over where we will be taken next.
4. Gilmore Girls
No show is comfort food on this list like Gilmore Girls was. Sure, you can throw M*A*S*H and Cheers on whenever, but neither was as wholesome as Gilmore Girls. Just a single mother and her daughter, navigating their spot in the New England community and trying to make their way in the world. How lovely and quaint and coming-home-for-Thanksgiving-so-let’s-pop-on-an-episode-or-two it is to revisit Stars Hollow and spend time with these beautiful, flawed people?
And how fortunate it was that Luke’s, “Take all the time you need” in the series finale actually came back around in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life on Netflix! Personally, I would not be opposed to revisiting Star’s Hollow in a couple years or so. I think we should check in on Lorelai and Rory every ten years, just as Richard Linklater brings back Jesse and Celine for the Before saga. These people matter and they are whip-smart and it’s a pleasure to hang out with them. Come on, Amy Sherman-Palladino! 2000 to 2007 and again in 2016 is not enough.
I’ll admit, I was skeptical when I began Gilmore Girls during the fall semester of my junior year. In my head, I had always conflated it with Gossip Girl, which I am not crazy about. But there’s way more nuance to Gilmore Girls and a much smarter, more thoughtful handling of the characters. It really felt like they were family members of mine with how much I loved them, but how much I questioned their decision-making at times. Like, really Rory? You’re gonna treat Lorelai like that and just run away to Emily? Talk about your feelings! Confront them! Don’t go back to Jess!
I know it’s a bit controversial to say that last bit. A lot of people really ride for Jess. And I get it. There’s empathy at play. But what’s lovely about Gilmore Girls is that it inspired the same sort of pick-a-side defense of character preferences as Marvel movies do. Forget about whether you’re Team Iron Man or Team Captain America. The real debate is whether you’re Team Dean, Team Jess, or Team Logan. (But Team Dean people are definitely insane people.) That’s how it felt like we were a part of their lives: rooting for them, doubting them, and hoping they can put back the pieces. That’s family. And when your aunt tells you, “Stars Hollow throws the best parties” at a Christmas party, eleven years after the show ended, that’s family, too. Gilmore Girls provided that every time.
3. M*A*S*H
It’s a small miracle in this world that I didn’t know anything about the M*A*S*H series finale for my entire life. It’s an episode that’s almost forty years old and the major plot points of it (B.J.’s message, Hawkeye’s stay in the psychiatric ward, the end of the war, Father Mulcahy going deaf, Klinger staying behind, Winchester’s breakdown) were never revealed to me. (I didn’t even think about the war ending. I thought someone was going to get to go home while everyone else had to stay.) I had gone my entire life without getting it spoiled, which is remarkable considering how well-known those elements are and considering the fact that “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen” is still the highest-rated episode in television history. I was able to see it in all its glory during my senior year spring semester.
But M*A*S*H was so much more than its finale. While it was an amazing, bittersweet ending (the kind of ending that I love the most, the one I keep thinking about long after I view it and try to watch the final scene over and over), what made it so brilliant was the time it took to get there. Eleven seasons! Longer than the actual Korean War! By eight years! (1972–1983.) And oh, the memories that came along the way. Some forever, some not for better, if we’re to take John Lennon’s word for it.
Radar taking a writing course, Henry Blake letting Trapper and Hawkeye get away with their jokes, Winchester pranking Houlihan, Colonel Potter giving a toast, Klinger saying, “I’m just not that kind of guy.” They’re all fun moments. But there was also Hawkeye’s first tears, Radar’s shaken stance and later salute, B.J. hearing that his daughter called Radar “Daddy,” Winchester’s magician dream, Houlihan doing whatever she can to save a patient on Christmas, Radar using the name “Charles” on the same day. There were also tons of tear-jerking moments, moving moments, extremely dark moments. The ones that claimed “suicide is painless.”
I guess, in that sense, M*A*S*H was way more ahead of its time than I ever thought it was. I thought it was just some hokey comedy from the ’70s with a lot of lame jokes. It did have lame, dated jokes, but it evolved over time and I actually ride for the later seasons over the earlier ones. Back in the day, I thought comedies had to be strictly funny and that the dumb jokes were part of the popularity of television in its infancy. Perhaps I Love Lucy was the only exception, in my mind, as even Dick Van Dyke could be too silly for my taste, from time to time. (It has its moments.)
But M*A*S*H was more. M*A*S*H was a comedy, for the most part, and then it became way more of a drama. And it did it during a time when television wasn’t always that way and still wouldn’t be for some time. It remains a surprising stand-out in CBS’ history and it still deserves an honor it has as one of the greatest TV shows ever made. It had something to say and it used the Korean War to comment on the horrors of the Vietnam War that surrounded the world during the show’s apex while introducing TV’s greatest religious figure, too. Alan Alda and the rest of the team behind the scenes put everything they could into the show and it was extremely apparent. In every tear, in every goosebumps-inducing moment, in every lesson, that was the hard work of the writing staff. Television owes them a great debt and you should binge it, too, even though it’s older. We should celebrate the older greats, too.
2. Cheers
Earlier in March, Evan Macy, a writer for the Philly Voice, began a bracket to determine which television show that is currently available to stream is the best. In the Netflix region of the tournament, he pitted Cheers against Stranger Things. And sadly (albeit predictably), Cheers was clobbered, garnering just thirty percent of the vote against the Hawkins gang’s seventy percent. It was obvious, considering the immense popularity of Stranger Things, as Netflix’s flagship original show. But it does a disservice to the miraculous Cheers.
What makes Cheers so remarkable is that it’s still so infinitely rewatchable, even decades after it was initially delighting audiences on the air. Cheers ran from 1982 to 1993, essentially filling the M*A*S*H void for TV’s greatest comedy for the next decade. The world was in safe hands with James Burrows and Glen and Les Charles; they showed just how much fun a workplace comedy could be. Perhaps, more than anything, they understood that viewers at home felt as if the characters they watched on television, week in and week out, were their friends. We were being welcomed back to Cheers in that killer opening theme, too. (I loved hearing it during the spring semester of my freshman year.)
Of course, beyond the romances, sweet and passionate alike, the bittersweet reflections on life from our beleaguered cast, and the Coach of it all, Cheers was just a rip-roaring (beer) barrel of laughs. Many of the laughs still land today (I know they did for me). These comedic elements can be seen in workplace comedies today, like Brooklyn Nine-Nine (of course, Mike Schur is an avid Cheers devotee), in the sense that the most fun episodes became recurring. Would we have Halloween Heists or The Jimmy Jab Games without competitions against Gary’s Olde Town Tavern or a visit from Harry the Hat? I reckon not.
Aside from all of this lavish praise, however, what made Cheers most remarkable was how it constantly found the ability to reinvent itself. When Nicholas Colasanto passed unexpectedly between seasons three and four, Woody Harrelson hopped over the bar as Woody Boyd. Not to fill Coach’s shoes, but to honor his legacy and take the show in a new direction. Granted, Woody is not that different from Coach, but it was still a challenging hurdle for the show that they navigated deftly.
On top of that, Diane’s departure was even more tectonic. Gone was the will they, won’t they sexual tension between Sam and Diane. It was replaced instead with the less straight laced, more emotionally basket-cased Rebecca, portrayed by Kirstie Alley. It might just have been these immaculate reimagination skills that led to the long-running success of Frasier. Personally, I’m just glad that we didn’t see a spin-off for Carla, Norm, Sam, or Cliff. In terms of Cliff, I just couldn’t stomach it. But for Carla, Norm, and Sam, they didn’t need to go anywhere else. I like to think they’re still in that bar. Progressed with their lives and happy, but still in the bar, having fun together all the same.
1. Game of Thrones
I mean, it kind of had to be. M*A*S*H, Cheers, and Gilmore Girls are borderline top ten all-time for me and The Twilight Zone, The Larry Sanders Show, and The West Wing are all strong contenders. But only Game of Thrones, the very first show I binged during college (the fall semester of my freshman year), has become an undeniable, Hall of Fame, first ballot, Mount Rushmore, and every other superlative Bill Simmons could concoct television show for me. I mean, I’ve written plenty about it before. Expect anything different?
It’s too early to tell what the legacy of Game of Thrones will be and it’s too well-versed in my writing repertoire to discuss what it meant to me (one of the most important and beloved shows I’ve ever experienced). In that sense, it’s definitely an anomaly. Running from 2011 to 2019, it also differs from the other shows on this list because of how it was not yet finished when I binged it. Two final seasons still remained.
In a macro-sense, I do think Game of Thrones is going to go down as the last monolith of culture on television. If Better Call Saul, a spin-off of everyone’s favorite drama ever, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, one of television’s best ever stalwart comedies, can run concurrently during the same season and barely even capture a sliver of the cultural zeitgeist, then what hope does any show have to achieve the monumental following that Thrones has? Even The Mandalorian was watched at scattered times by all who cared. Appointment viewing might be a thing of the past and a year out, nothing has taken Thrones’ mantle. It was the last bastion of must-see TV right now.
Even if the proposed Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, seems unlikely to be as massive. (Has any prequel ever broken through the same mold of its source material?) That’s what I think has become underrated about Game of Thrones. I feel like people forget how much fun it was to go on the journey every week, talk about it with one another, theorize, pontificate, and just give ourselves over to the awe. It felt nice to spend time with these characters, too, even if the staff members of Cheers in Boston had much less danger in their lives than the Westeros gang did. But I can’t deny that hearing Podrick sing “Jenny’s Song” moved me as much as any hangout or workplace comedy did, as much as any drama. It remains a pantheon television moment for me, almost a year after it happened.
I think that gives a good transition into what Thrones taught me about the history of television. The West Wing flexed the muscles of network drama, political drama, and Aaron Sorkin, one of the medium’s most impactful filmmakers. The Larry Sanders Show became the earliest example of peak TV (it is to 30 Rock what The Lady Vanishes was to Rear Window for Hitchcock). The Twilight Zone blew the roof off the medium way back in the 1950s, becoming the most influential anthology series ever created. (Still, no one has touched it.) Gilmore Girls took a page out of Amy March’s book by showing that life’s little domestic troubles could confer importance. M*A*S*H decided to have a helping of laughs to go with its dramatic horrors. And Cheers brought a sense of family to the workplace, providing a lane for the world’s best comedies to race down.
Game of Thrones might be the breaking point of all of that. Ensemble casts, CGI beasts that looked real, vast locations, the biggest budgets, the longest episodes. If it wasn’t released weekly, one might not even recognize it as a TV show. But that’s what the medium has become now. If the monsters were coming to Maple Street, they’d have to be shown sparingly, if at all. To save money, you know. We can’t waste entertainment dollars on a silly television show.
But half a century later, Game of Thrones was as much appointment viewing as Avengers: Endgame, the highest grossing film ever made, was. Television and film on equal footing. In the wake of the current state of the world, it’s more unclear than ever what the future for both is. What was most thrilling about Game of Thrones was that it showed us in the future of the medium, anything is possible. Even a happy ending.
