Onion A.V. Club's 30 best TV series of the 00's.
I’m very surprised Battlestar isn’t in the top 10. Dead Wood is totally my next show.
Comments
i have a problem with this list … as a whole.
eastbound and down? a fantastic show but it had one season. and not only one season, but SIX episodes! do we think that’s justifiable?
and i think futurama being number 14? if you’re putting “tim and eric,” king of the non-sequiter, you gotta put “family guy.”
Futurama definitely belongs at number 14 and if you disagree, you just haven’t watched enough. Tim and Eric, love ‘em or hate ’em, are far more bizarre, unique, and one-of-a-kind that Family Guy which is primarily referential humor. I don’t know how you can really compare the two.
Has anyone ever watched How I Met Your Mother? I can’t possibly belong on this list, can it? I mean, I love NPH as much as the next guy (ok, well maybe as much as the next straight guy), but really? Isn’t it just a bullshit laugh track sitcom?
cos if i just randomy said family guy, you or sam would be like “all that show is is a bunch of non-sequiters.” cue tim and eric!
yes, they are bizarre. yes, they are unique…? yea, they are one of a kind. but no, i don’t find them that funny. i can imagine the writing process which is 1. go to a school during recess; 2. find the kids eating worms and picking their noses; 3. give them a pen and paper; 4. film what they write.
John said:Has anyone ever watched How I Met Your Mother?
i’ve seen a few episodes. definitely one of the best laugh track sitcoms. it’s kinda risque, which i like.
Not non-sequiters; references. Tim and Eric have the whole bizarre Channel 13 thing going, there’s really nothing else remotely like it. And I’m saying this as someone who isn’t really crazy about the show. It can be really hit or miss. But the hits (Dr. Steve Brule) tap into something I don’t think anyone else has gotten even close to touching.
dr. steve brule makes me laugh harder than any show on that list. it should be 15 minutes of him.
I know, right? And I mean, I’m not an avid watcher, but there are some other stuff they do that has made me laugh just as hard. It’s padded by weird bullshit, sure, but I guess if you’re gonna be that good and that out there, you’re gonna fall on your face sometimes. The fact that they’re willing to do that makes me support the pick.
Does the fact that the top 6 are an exact mirror of my list (if I were to have made one) make me a cutting edge, critical TV watcher, or simply a sheep that gets sucked into all the hype?
Fact is, there really aren’t that many great TV shows. I mean, plenty of us love Top Chef or America’s Funniest Home videos, but are they great? I almost feel like some of the picks at the end (Eastbound and Down, Wondershowzen) are almost thrown in there cause they couldn’t quite get to 30.
But yeah, I think anyone who really enjoys decent, engaging TV is going to have lists similar to yours.
Just glad to see Breaking Bad made the list. #6 even. Although my other favorite show It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia gets no love.
The list is a little weird though. Once it puts The Office U.K. up there it kinda opens up the list to both sides of the ocean, but that’s the only non-American show on the list. There has to be countless British shows better than some on that list. Hell, Spaced should be in the top 10!
I also think it wasn’t really until this decade that TV became a medium that could in any way compete with film in terms of production value, storytelling, and overall quality. By all means, correct me if you can think of TV Series (aside from MASH and even that was pretty simple and laugh-tracky) that can compare with some of the shows on that list. This decade has almost been like a rebirth of the TV medium.
I’d agree that this is the first decade where TV could compete with film and I’d even take it one step further and say at it’s best, this decade’s best television is better than it’s best film. I’d say in both cases the ratio year to year is about 20% greatness to 80% total garbage. I’m a sucker for character development and story arc and all of that. And with the number of cable channels and the laxer standards of cable TV and network tv stepping up it’s gameit’s definitely neck and neck.
I don’t think I’ve seen a movie this decade that has blown me away or engaged me or thrilled me on any kind of level as much as Mad Men, Dexter, The Sopranos, and Lost have, and no comedy films this decade have made me laugh as much as Curb Your Enthusiasm, 30 Rock and It’s Always Sunny have.
Shoot, even talking about cheesy, pulpy, procedural thriller type narratives, I’ll stack the best of House, Criminal Minds, and the original CSI up against the best Hollywood action thriller from this decade.
As for How I Met Your Mother, it’s a pretty decent show for a laugh track sitcom. Actually the few times I’ve caught CBS’s Monday sitcom lineup (HIMYM, Old Christine, Big Bang, 2 and a half Men) I’ve been amazed at how risque and filthy all those shows are. Varying degrees of funny in all of them, but for CBS, the brazen filth is surprising.
Fagun said:Just glad to see Breaking Bad made the list. #6 even.
I strongly urge anyone who hasn’t seen this show yet to get on it promptly. It’s part nerdy, part heart-breaking, part hilarious, and part over-the-top ridiculous and in the end just a whole lot of fun. I’ve been patiently waiting for season 2 to come to dvd for months now.
i googled best tv shows of the decade and came up with paste’s list. it’s similar to the av club’s list, even putting buffy on there. was buffy that good of a show? i’m sure a lot of ppl on here watched in when they were in high school or middle school and enjoyed it for what it was worth, but did it really stand the test of time??
i never watched it, so i have no clue.
I think Buffy is Justin’s favorite show.
we love HIMYM… when you watch them all in order over the course of the seasons, it’s actually much better than you’d think b/c they refer back to things that happened in seasons past, which makes it so much better. slap bet!
Buffy is definitely awesome. Eastbound & Down is a piece of unfunny shit. The Venture Bros is one of the greatest things ever. Futurama is better than the Simpsons ever was (don’t tell Bill I said that).
I have not watched Mad Men at all but know I hate it, because I loathe it when women [my age] are like, “OH MAN I AM NOSTALGIC FOR THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT LIVE IN THEM,” and the entire show seems based on some kind of, “tee hee, look at how backwards things were compared to now!” joke, which drives me up the fucking wall. Those “Oh tee hee I am just a woman I do not know how to work your fancy typewriter machine” bits are not awesome and can suck my butt.
Anyway, I watch way too fucking much TV.
christina said:cos if i just randomy said family guy, you or sam would be like “all that show is is a bunch of non-sequiters.”
Yeah, but we spell it right when we say it.
maggie said:The Venture Bros is one of the greatest things ever. Futurama is better than the Simpsons ever was (don’t tell Bill I said that).
You have the right idea about most things. And Justin has convinced me that I need to watch Buffy.
Also, I know some other people who also tend to have the right idea about things who have said lots of good things about Mad Men.
I am sure I would enjoy the aesthetics of the show but it would not get a stamp of approval from that alone.
John said:maggie said:The Venture Bros is one of the greatest things ever. Futurama is better than the Simpsons ever was (don’t tell Bill I said that).
You have the right idea about most things. And Justin has convinced me that I need to watch Buffy.
i totally agree with that assessment of Futurama.
Buffy was fucking amazing. the only other show i watch now as obsessively as i watched Buffy is Doctor Who. and Lost, i guess. but i love Doctor Who far more.
maggie said:I have not watched Mad Men at all but know I hate it, because I loathe it when women [my age] are like, “OH MAN I AM NOSTALGIC FOR THE FIFTIES AND SIXTIES EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT LIVE IN THEM,” and the entire show seems based on some kind of, “tee hee, look at how backwards things were compared to now!” joke, which drives me up the fucking wall. Those “Oh tee hee I am just a woman I do not know how to work your fancy typewriter machine” bits are not awesome and can suck my butt.
Anyway, I watch way too fucking much TV.
The show is most certainly not based on that. Sure, the weird little nuances of life in the 60s (drinking and smoking in the office, blatant sexual harassment/chauvinism, etc.) provide an awesome backdrop, but these are just background details in a show that is really about a confident, fucking downright impressive ad-man who is leading a life that is very clearly not his own. Yeah, he’s faking it all, and he’s good at it, but we don’t know how, and we don’t know why, and it’s riveting.
I do not think it is an awesome backdrop, is what I’m getting at. I think it is stupid and I don’t want to watch it.
maggie said:I do not think it is an awesome backdrop, is what I’m getting at. I think it is stupid and I don’t want to watch it.
C’mon. Deciding to love/hate things based solely on what you’ve heard about it is totally something you should be yelling at me for, not the other way around.
Mad Men is an unpleasant little entry in the genre of Now We Know Better. We watch and know better about male chauvinism, homophobia, anti-semitism, workplace harassment, housewives’ depression, nutrition and smoking. We wait for the show’s advertising men or their secretaries and wives to make another gaffe for us to snigger over. ‘Have we ever hired any Jews?’ – ‘Not on my watch.’ ‘Try not to be overwhelmed by all this technology; it looks complicated, but the men who designed it made it simple enough for a woman to use.’ It’s only a short further wait until a pregnant mother inhales a tumbler of whisky and lights up a Chesterfield; or a heart attack victim complains that he can’t understand what happened: ‘All these years I thought it would be the ulcer. Did everything they told me. Drank the cream, ate the butter. And I get hit by a coronary.’ We’re meant to save a little snort, too, for the ad agency’s closeted gay art director as he dismisses psychological research: ‘We’re supposed to believe that people are living one way, and secretly thinking the exact opposite? . . . Ridiculous!’ – a line delivered with a limp-wristed wave. Mad Men is currently said to be the best and ‘smartest’ show on American TV. We’re doomed.
ALL I NEEDED TO KNOW THANKS
Ever explain a joke? Maybe a joke you just laughed at. Notice how it loses and any all comic appeal and sounds stupid or juvenile after having explained it, even though your natural reaction was to laugh?
Maybe it’s like that.
I haven’t even seen the show, so I dunno. Just seems silly to hate it without having seen it. I mean, I’m pretty sure I’d hate Atlas Shrugged, but I have read it so I really don’t have any opinion on it, despite all that I’ve heard about the Great Galt.
I don’t need to have smoked a cigarette to know that I don’t want to smoke cigarettes, yo. Some things.. you just know.
Not me! I’m like an infant. I have to put everything in my mouth.
That’s what she said.
I must add in on the Buffy love here. It really was a great show. It got very inconsistent as the seasons went on, but all shows generally do. The episode ‘Hush’ was one of the best hour episodes I’ve ever seen on television.
The show(Mad Men) is about people with power losing that power and how they cope with it, and people with no power gaining it and how they cope with that. It’s just as much precisely about the earliest phases of how women, and minorities, and gays gained whatever early vestiges of power they did during that era as it is any sense of “tee hee look how silly we were”. It’s almost a rorschach show. Men who watch it and go “Oh weren’t things so great back then when we could do whatever we want.” are probably at least partially assholes. And women who go “Oh weren’t things so great back then when we didn’t have to worry about anything.” are at least partially insecure about themselves and their own authority. Most people I know are confident enough in themselves not being mysoginistic, homophobic assholes or not being subversive, regressive,powerless pushovers that they can distance themselves when watching it and enjoy great acting and a great narrative against a non-traditional backdrop.
Maybe those apprehensive could pretend it’s science fiction and this is all taking place on some warped space-time vortex planet where it never progressed from the 60’s and the characters are all cyborgs or something.
maggie said:ALL I NEEDED TO KNOW THANKS
Yeah, the thing is that these things absolutely happen in the show, but the show certainly isn’t about these things. It’s a subtle difference, but it sounds like their mere presence is enough to piss you off, even if they aren’t necessarily a focal point.
That said, I’m not in the business of defending TV shows. If you don’t like it, good for you.
The list is great and I wish I had time to catch up on all these.
I agree with christina that East Bound and Down should not be on here. I think that it needs at least another season or two to develop and see how it goes. It was uncomfortable and funny but I’m not sure it outranks other series.
I like Family Guy way more than Futurama. I won’t watch Futurama because I find the characters annoying at first glance and just can’t get past it.
Deadwood is amazing and I still mourn its untimely death before it was really over.
How I Met Your Mother is cute and clever. It is a good mix of characters and has relatable situations with funny gags. Now that you know NPH is gay IRL it makes his skirt chasing even funnier.
I still don’t know why exactly, but I watch How I Met Your Mother every week. It’s definitely cheap sometimes, but the show is clever and nails that Seinfield-episode-about-nothing style often. Also the show wears its heart on its sleeve.
Futurama has such a replay value it’s ridiculous. I am so thankful for a show that rewards my mathematically-computerized intelligence with jokes like:
10 Home
20 Sweet
30 Goto 10
And speaking of replay value, holy-crap-Arrested-Development.
Sammy got me into The Wire with just one episode. I don’t remember much about it, but everyone is still talking about it.
Yeah, The Wire was a helluva thing.
Most of those HBO shows are. In fact, I like HBO shows so much more often than not that I’m surprised I resent In Treatment as much as I do… without seeing it. I don’t know. It just seems too dry… I don’t need that kind of drama.
Sammy said:Yeah, The Wire was a helluva thing.
Most of those HBO shows are. In fact, I like HBO shows so much more often than not that I’m surprised I resent In Treatment as much as I do… without seeing it. I don’t know. It just seems too dry… I don’t need that kind of drama.
Seriously, I find it impressive that so many people, especially Scrabbled people, have been able to ignore the prodding from all angles and avoided The Wire to this day. The show is FUCKING AWEEEEEESOOOOOOOME.