Top TV
The Guardian has recently published a list of the 50 Greatest Television Dramas of all time. As I’ve written before, I don’t watch an awful lot of TV because almost all TV is awful. But I am a sucker for a well-written series containing genuine character development and unexpected plot lines. They only appear very occasionally, but when they do they can hold their own against a good novel or film.
The Guardian’s list contains a fair few shows that I’ve never seen and plenty that I have seen and don’t rate. For instance, the over-hyped Mad Men (No. 4 on their list) I found dull as dishwater and never made it past the third episode. Shows such as Prime Suspect (#19) and Inspector Morse (#30) seem flat, lifeless and formulaic to me. Especially if you’ve got something like The Wire (#14) on the list which demonstrates that you can make a show about the police without it being a hymn to law and order; a hagiography of The Cop… see, for example, Hill Street Blues (#33) or — in the words of Hakim Bey — the “most evil TV show ever”.
I was glad to see that Buffy The Vampire Slayer (#22) made the list, even if it’s a lot further down that I think it deserves to be. I noticed there was some controversy about that in the comments that followed the article (though you can stir up a hornets nest of dissent over at The Guardian by suggesting that the sky might be blue and rain a bit wet). I firmly believe that those who decry Buffy have either (a) never watched it beyond flicking into it for five minutes as they channel surf between Celebrity Big Brother and How Clean Is My House; or (b) been unable or unwilling to see beyond the 90210 with Monsters facade that covers this incredible piece of work.
There’s no way I could make a top 50 TV shows list as I don’t think there’s half that number that I’d consider even watchable, let alone worthy of recommendation. But as a brief response to The Guardian, here’s my Top 15 (I thought I’d only be able to produce a Top 10 and was surprised that there were as many as 13 that I consider genuinely worth recommending… the last two made it in as much to make up the numbers as anything else; fine shows but not essential).
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer (including Angel, the spin-off)
- The Wire
- Breaking Bad
- Twin Peaks
- Six Feet Under
- Firefly
- Carnivale
- Dexter
- Dollhouse
- Millennium
- Veronica Mars
- The X-Files
- Battlestar Galactica
- The West Wing
- Lie to me
The only one of these I can really get behind is Twin Peaks. Admittedly I’m hampered by not having seen most the them. I’m currently about half way through Dexter – definitely an intriguing premise, and I’m quite enjoying it but it’s not blown me away. On the much debated Buffy question, I occupy a middle ground between those who decry it and those who rave about it: I think it’s ok.
Although it’s been a few years, I seem to remember the X Files being Men in Black minus the comedy – a thoroughly tiresome formula.
Are we allowing anime? My unwritten list would probably include Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, in case you haven’t seen it.
January 17th, 2010 | 4:04pm
by Larry Teabag
You missed Psych. 40 minute episodes of pure joy.
January 17th, 2010 | 4:30pm
by Shackleford Hurtmore
Deadwood is well worth a look if you haven’t already.
January 17th, 2010 | 8:20pm
by Lucas
Nurse Jackie; Mad Men
February 28th, 2010 | 11:22am
by Pisces Iscariot
Have to admit I’ve never even heard of ‘Nurse Jackie’, Pisces. As for ‘Mad Men’… as I said in the above post, I didn’t enjoy it at all. I only watched the first few episodes and perhaps it improves radically, but I’ve tended to notice that if a TV show doesn’t grab me within three episodes (i.e. the running time of an average feature film) it probably never will.
That’s been recommmended to me a couple of times before, Lucas. I’ll certainly give it a chance should it ever cross my path, though I’m concerned that I might have difficulty with any show that stars Ian McShane. In my eyes, there’s a part of him that will forever be cheeky antique dealer, Lovejoy.
I surfed into an episode of ‘Psych’ a while back, Shackleford, and I must admit that it didn’t capture my attention at all. The dialogue was straight out of The Bumper Book of US-sitcoms and the plot required the kind of suspension of disbelief that I have trouble with. I can happily enjoy a fictional world inhabited by vampires or aliens, but the people still need to behave like real people and have believable motivations… sitcom-dwellers almost never do.
For me, Larry, ‘Dexter’ is an excellent — and surprisingly well-realised — portrait of sociopathy. It can be inconsistent and occasionally slips worryingly close to “serial killer soap opera” (though that in itself has a compelling aspect to it). But when it examines the motives and drives of the main character and those he hunts down, it’s clearly the work of someone well-versed in psychoanalytic theory. I like the cleverness.
I can get pretty evangelical about ‘Buffy’ (and about Joss Whedon’s work in general) so I’ll try to refrain from preaching. I just find his writing to be streets ahead of almost anyone else working at the moment — and I’m talking about any medium now; TV, film, literature, whatever. There’s a rich layer of metaphor and symbolism in everything he does that I find very satisfying. I just wish he wasn’t hamstrung by the commercial agenda that dominates television production. It’s the medium in which his style seems to fit best, yet paradoxically it’s the medium in which risk-taking is least acceptable.
I’ve no idea whether ‘The X Files’ has stood the test of time, but I was a huge fan when it was first broadcast. Bear in mind, though, that I was a permanently spaced-out philosophy undergraduate back then and was half-convinced that it was a fictionalised documentary series.
Not seen it, Larry. I must admit that I’ve never really been too impressed with anime. I know enough people with good taste who assure me there’s some great stuff out there to accept that I’m missing something. But up ’til now, I just haven’t connected with it.
March 6th, 2010 | 1:42pm
by Jim Bliss