100 Favorite Shows: Introduction
“There are only two things I love in this world: everybody and television.”
Two things happened at the same time that spurred the absolutely loony notion of writing one hundred separate essays about one hundred different television shows. For one, the cast and writers of Parks and Recreation announced that they would be reuniting for a special episode of the series that would help raise money for those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For another, a friend of mine tweeted out a call for someone to write her a Girl Meets World spec script, in which Riley and Maya go to college together.
Now, I’d never seen a single episode of Girl Meets World before this. I had adjacently grown up with Boy Meets World and when visiting Girl Meets World, I felt that I understood what they were going for in the sequel series. Yet, with the free time allotted to those of us who listened to science and quarantined during this pandemic (if we were able to! And still are!), I was keen to take on any creative project that came my way and that I was interested in. A spec script for a Disney Channel series was exactly that kind of opportunity.
So, over the course of a couple nights, I watched episodes of Girl Meets World and took notes on them, mentally plotting out ideas for the eventual spec script I would write. It sparked a special feeling in me to see Cory, Topanga, and Mr. Feeny again after all those years, even if Boy Meets World was not a series that would eventually make this list. Not to mention, I’ve been an avid devotee of television for so long that to take notes on the medium I adored was a much more refreshing challenge than taking notes on, say, a Latin textbook.
Coupling this with the fact that Parks and Rec’s reunion was so wholesome and cheerful that it sparked a household rewatch of the original series, I saw an opportunity. With the free time provided to me in the summer of 2020 (removed from online courses and remote work), I would finally embark upon a project I’d held in my head for many years. I would revisit the best episodes of my one hundred favorite television shows, takes notes on them, turn those notes into essays, and rank them all in order of how much I loved them. Now, I’m ready to release these essays once per day. Call it a countdown of the best, if you will.
I loved taking notes on Girl Meets World and I figured I’d love it even more to take notes on Parks and Recreation, an all-time special series for me. And I was right. From that late-April, early-May rewatch of Parks and Rec, I was very inspired to revisit all the classics that have been a part of my life so far. Whether they were shows I grew up with or shows I specifically sought out as a means of educating myself on television history (subconsciously, I suppose, for the purpose of this eventual project), I was eager to revisit each of them because, truly, I just adore television. It has a strong argument for being my favorite medium (and trust me, I really love The Martian and The Watch and Folklore and Love’s Labour’s Lost).
Between the Parks special, the notes on Girl Meets World, the pandemic, the resulting drought of television, and the death of TV’s biggest legend, Regis Philbin, it seemed there was no better time to undertake this revisiting, note-taking, outlining, and writing project. This was the time to celebrate television. From late April to late October, that’s exactly what I did. An entire half-year dedicated to revisiting the shows that have populated the first act of my entire life. Oh, how I cherished these months and the warm memories and thrilling journeys they returned me to; I know ranking and rewatching this many series is obscene, but for me, it was such a delightful treat.
I got to venture back to the Pine Barrens, to Hill House, to Bikini Bottom, to Stars Hollow. I got to chronicle the escapades of Easy Company and spend a night with Don Draper and Peggy Olson, eagerly awaiting the results of a boxing match. I was able to sit in on an interview with David Wallace, observe Bill Holden sit down at the Brown Derby from a distant table, and go on holiday to Italy to learn to make pasta. I crash landed with Launchpad McQuack, took a bath with Jaime Lannister, and rode the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel with Michelle Tanner. I tracked a Halloween heist at a New York precinct, cranked Jeffster music to save the world, and felt the goosebumps cascade over my arms when Robots v. Wrestlers was cancelled. I heard Laura Petrie get her toe stuck in a bathtub, I winced at a cartoon fox arrested on B.A.N., and I managed to see the time-knife. I comforted Dr. Cox at a gutting funeral. I waited for over twenty minutes in a Chinese restaurant. I fired up Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne again. I celebrated Chanukah with the Pickles family and Christmas with the Cunninghams. I guffawed over Selina Meyer crashing through a glass door and wept over Desmond Hume finding a constant through time. I grabbed one human alcohol beverage with Jackie Daytona, I swooned when Nini Salazar-Roberts crooned, I revisited W. Earl Brown’s comments on Alan Sepinwall’s Deadwood recaps. I saw Corey Monteith resurrected, if only for a moment. I fought against a monorail in Springfield. I grabbed a slice of cheesecake in Miami. I did it all and it was really, really magical.
Before we get fully into the celebration of television, I have to explain a few caveats and parameters for this project. There are so many series I positively adore that did not make the list because I wanted to limit the list solely to narrative series. Succinctly, this means that reality, talk, sketch, variety, and educational series, among others, were not eligible. (Perhaps I’ll revisit these categories one day, but for now, there are no plans.) Strictly, I limited myself to shows that were ongoing, serialized, or revolved around the same characters in fictionalized stories. The strangest I deviated from this was that I included anthology series here, but only narrative, scripted anthology shows, mind you. I just thought it’d be impossible to compare Game of Thrones to Nathan for You or The Crocodile Hunter. It’s easier to compare Game of Thrones to Black Mirror. So while I may love Nathan for You an obscene amount, it is not a narrative, explicitly scripted series and, therefore, ineligible.
Additionally, I had to set a strict deadline for myself on this list. Any show that debuted after June 1, 2020 was ineligible for the list. Because I spent one hundred different days taking notes on shows and one hundred other different days writing essays, by the time I finished, I knew a dozen potential contenders would have debuted. Therefore, June 1, 2020 was the cut-off. Essentially, that means HBO Max’s debut slate was eligible, but Peacock’s was not. An HBO series like Run was eligible, but Lovecraft Country was not. Lastly, this also means that any new seasons of shows that aired after this date were ineligible, including season four of Fargo or The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Finally, I want to explain my worldview. I am a college-aged, cisgender, straight, white male from middle class Massachusetts. That means the shows I’ve been traditionally exposed to will reflect that. Shows that debuted in the 2010s vastly outpaced shows from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s combined because that’s when I came of age in the era of quality television. Many of the leads on the series I’ve seen are white like me, too. In recent years, I’ve gone to great lengths to expand this worldview and take in all sorts of stories and voices that I might otherwise have not been exposed to. But there is always work to be done. Should I revisit this project in ten years or so, I know the list will continue to grow in diversity. For now, this reflects the first twenty-two years of my life and how they experienced television. And yes, it’s largely comprised of American programs.
(Going off of this, briefly, there are also some shows with people who worked on them in significant roles who have since been accused of sexual violence and harassment against others. I did my best to address each of them at the top of each essay, but in response to my writing about the shows still, I have also decided to make a donation to Planned Parenthood in the hopes of meeting their horrific behavior with an act of goodness, in any small capacity I can.)
With all that being said, I am beyond happy to begin sharing these essays with the world, even if the world is just two people who read these essays! This is the start of me celebrating a medium I’ve always loved and really, that’s the main reason why I decided to do any of this. From the essays I used to write about my favorite shows’ series finales (they weren’t well-written; trust me) on an old Blogspot page to just sitting down with my family to watch a classic comedy, television has always been a part of my life and I’ve only just realized that it goes far beyond checking out HBO on Sunday nights. It dates back to Thursday nights on NBC, too, when I first realized television was more than I’d ever given it credit for.
And, still, it goes back further. My favorite shows used to be SportsCenter and Wipeout because I was uncultured and didn’t understand the brilliance that can exist in long-form storytelling. I once made a YouTube video (no idea where it is) of the 100 Best Shows and it consisted of series like those two and The Backyardigans. I was naive. Now, I see what television is capable of. My own shoddy YouTube video was replaced with Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz’s TV: The Book, another clear inspiration for this project. (The two authors wrote that they’d love to see what the lists of others would be and, so, I took that to heart after reading the book in 2017.)
It all began with Blue’s Clues, the show that defined my infancy and early childhood and it evolved over time to thinking of which shows were airing new episodes during the 2011–12 television season so I could have something to look forward to after school. Eventually, it evolved to the aforementioned college project and series like M*A*S*H and The Larry Sanders Show to edify myself. By the time I watched Hawkeye depart Korea in a helicopter, I realized that all of the love and adoration I felt for my favorite shows and stories to revisit time and again was preparing me for this project. I love to write, I love television, and I love to write about television. This project is right for me and it’s right for this moment.
As I type this introduction to the project, I am gearing up for a number of life changes that promise to take me away from comfort, routine, and free time. It’s what I want to do and I’m excited to finally be pursuing my career dreams and deepening personal relationships, but it does mean that my relationship with great television, lovely rewatches, and podcast/recap compendiums will have to slow. I’ll always have time for the best of television, but my life cannot revolve around culture as it did during my college years. By writing these one hundred essays, I’m saying goodbye to a specific era of my life. An era that encapsulated summer rewatches of I Love Lucy, TBS reruns of Friends, and the ups and downs of the peak TV era. It was a special era and I’ll always love it. Before I stray too far from it, I wanted to pay homage to it and celebrate something I hold very close to my identity and personality. I love television and storytelling and I wanted to mark the fulcrum staring me down as the future rolls on.
So that’s part of what these essays are. One part of the essays strives to unpack the legacy and identity of each series. One part uses the episodes to analyze the thematic content and characterization of the shows. And the final part aims to showcase what it is I love about each show and why they’re special and why they warranted consideration for my top one hundred favorites (not “best,” mind you) of all-time.
On top of that, I also did my best to not explain why some shows were ranked ahead of others. This is meant to be a celebration of each show (all one hundred of them) and it would be no fun to give a list of reasons why Full House might not necessarily stand up to Breaking Bad. They’re both different and I was mostly keen to celebrate those differences above all else.
Now, 263,850 words later, here we are.
I just love television. I love them for all the reasons stated above and for all the reasons I think about unconsciously. The fact that we can grow and change with the characters, the fact that we might never know what’s happening week to week, the fact that the term, “novelistic,” might not even apply anymore, considering how full of depth television is today. (And yet, some are so classically vintage that it might hardly matter whether they’re serialized or not.)
I’m always going to love television and it’s always going to be with me. Things may be different and time may be scarce, but I enjoyed this project and the past twenty-two years too much to call it a wrap right now with just these one hundred. As long as the world allows for it, there will always be more television to analyze. But for right now, let’s celebrate the world of television with one hundred essays over the course of one hundred weekdays and non-holidays. What better way to do that than with a television montage about all shows, good or bad, narrative or otherwise?
I love it ever so dearly. Happy television to all! Please enjoy The Television Project: 100 Favorite Shows, a signature series by Dave Wheelroute.
