Bull Moose Strikes Back

The Onion’s AV club made a list of the 30 best TV series of the ’00’s. Here’s my take on the list:

30. The West Wing: Crap. They left off 24 but put this claptrap on? For some reason I actually watched the first five or so episodes of this show until I realized it was just Hollywood’s attempt to keep the Clinton era running after its expiration date.

29. Wonder Showzen: On MTV2, so I never watched it, or anything else on MTV2. One look at it tells me they were trying to hard to be ironic, but not successfully being ironic about being ironic like Aqua Team Hunger Force did. Speaking of which, why the hell isn’t that show on this list?

28. Eastbound & Down and 27. Flight Of The Conchords: I’ve heard a lot of good things about these and have caught a few minutes here and there. But neither was going to inspire me to pay 10 bucks a month to get HBO.

26. The Venture Bros.: I always thought of Venture Bros as the second string of Adult Swim coming in well behind the aforementioned ATHF and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. Reading the Onion’s take on it makes me wonder if I didn’t shortchange the series.

25. Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Had I known what I was missing at the time - and I’m mostly talking about Alyson Hannigan making out with other women - I probably would have watched it.

24. Dexter: People keep trying to talk me into watching this. Maybe someday.

23. Undeclared: Finally, a show that I actually watched. This premiered the same season as Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Greg the Bunny. I thought one of them would survive. Nope, Fox decided it didn’t actually want my eyeballs on any other night but Sunday and killed them all. I hate you Fox.

22. Six Feet Under: What’s the premise? Ugh. Sounds tedious. Again, not paying 10 bucks a month for that.

21. Curb Your Enthusiasm: The best thing about this show, is that of the people I know who watch this show, the ones who like it the most are the very ones being skewered by it.

20. Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!: It is possible that Adult Swim is the best thing to ever happen to American TV.

19. Big Love: I have a suspicion that this show was created for the express purpose of trying to sink Mitt Romney had he won the 2008 Republican nomination.

18. How I Met Your Mother: I started watching this show late, but if I were to put one network TV sitcom in a time capsule to sum up the ’00’s, this would probably be it. But that’s because I figured out that I’m Marshall, with Wisconsin changed to Minnesota and Seattle changed to New York to get around paying me anything. (The guy made up a song to remember his password to check bar exam results, come on.)

17. Firefly: Remember what I said about Fox in #23. That goes double here. I described this show as: The Millennium Falcon with a bigger crew before Han (Malcolm) meets up with Luke. Only there are no aliens. What might have been if the Firefly universe had been allowed to fill in.

16. Friday Night Lights I’m as surprised to find this show, one of my current favorites, on this list as I was to find it coming back this season. Not because it isn’t very good, but because it is very unnoticed.  Too bad only those with DirecTV get to watch this gem during football season. Unlike a lot of high school football movies/shows, it is clear that someone high up on this show actually played football at some point.

15. Veronica Mars: I was completely unaware of this show until Kristen Bell started showing up in other stuff. Which is good, because she was in high school in the show, right?

14. Futurama: This is about 10 or 12 spots too far away from 1. For a glorious couple of years, this was the smartest, funniest show on TV. Even if it did occasionally pander to Al Gore. (His daughter was a writer on the show.) The episode about Fry’s dog which ends for the dog waiting for Fry’s return to the 21st century until it grows old and dies was certainly the most unexpected emotional wallop that I received from TV all decade. At least Fox let this one run awhile before killing it off.

13. 30 Rock: I can’t get past the self-referential circle-jerkery that goes on in this show. Tina Fey to me has always been the smug, self-centered girl in every college and law school class that I can’t stand. Plus, unlike Futurama, pandering to Al Gore actually harms this show. Tracy Morgan deserves his own show, though.

12. Battlestar Galactica: Another show that should be higher on the list, even though the series was about one-and-a-half seasons too long. Sci-fi has always been a great area to explore philosophy and religion, and BSG built up a good mythology to work from.

11. The Office US: The British office comes closer to 1 on The Onion’s list, and to be sure that’s the hip placement, usually with some bullshit justification about the UK version being more subtle, but I think they should be flip-flopped. How I Met Your Mother might have some stiff competition for which network sitcom goes in the time capsule.

10. The Shield: I intended to watch this show, I really did. But now that Sons of Anarchy is one of my favorite shows, I’ll have to go back and watch them on DVD, since this is set in the same Sutterverse.

9. Deadwood: Another one that I intend to watch on DVD when I get around to it.

8. Lost: I was on board with this one from the start. It’s become hip to trash how confusing the mythology can be. The show can pack an emotional punch without being manipulative. The memorable death scene being played out while the music soundtrack swallows the sound has become such a JJ Abrams trademark that he even worked it into first 10 minutes of the Star Trek movie he directed. The best call the creators of Lost made was deciding to end the show 3 seasons in advance. So many shows with this many characters and story rush to wrap it all up in 10 episodes and do it poorly. Hopefully Lost has it mapped out a little better.

7. The Office UK: Covered above at #11.

6. Breaking Bad:  I just watched the first season on DVD. It is spectacular. Who knew that chemistry had a practical application? And Malcolm’s dad picked a great project to cut against type after being Malcolm’s dad for so many years.

5. Mad Men: The show that answers the question: What would my grandpa have been like if he was evil, or a sociopath, or whatever Don Draper’s problem is. The honest (I think) portrayal of America in the early ’60’s is the real draw for me.

4. Freaks And Geeks: What to hear a dirty secret? I’ve only seen a couple episodes of this show. I really need to catch up one of these days. I think I saw that it wasn’t going to last and was sick of being screwed by network TV.

3. Arrested Development: Half the thrill of this show was wondering whether it was going to be on the next week. It certainly seemed to smart to garner ratings which justified it being placed in a sweet Simpsons led-in spot. And it was… eventually. The show’s writers figured out how to keep Jason Bateman the soul of the show while spotlighting the goofy comedic actor’s antics in a way which kept it from being either too sappy or too much like a straight goofball comedy.

2. The Sopranos: I have to admit that near the end of the show’s run, I ceased caring about whether Tony would ever achieve enlightenment. Mostly because it would seem phony if he did. Tony was an evil summbitch, and to pretend that he could be otherwise would seem cheap. That might be why the ending kind of worked for me. He was the same guy he was when the show started, so why have an ending that suggested some kind of arc. Little Stevie should have won multiple Emmys for his role, but was overlooked.

1. The Wire: I watched the first few episodes, then decided that the show insists on itself. Seemed to work to impress people like The Onion AV club writers.

Where the hell is:

• 24: I’m going to assume this is merely an oversight. There is no way that 24 should not actually appear on a list of the 30 best series of the last 10 years. (They actually have a lame reason for not including it here.)
• South Park: Yeah, it was bigger in the culture in the ’90’s, but the best of the series has been in the last 10 years. Up until the most recent half-season it just seemed to be gaining speed.
• The Big Bang Theory:  Sure, it’s only in it’s third season, and it is a conventional sitcom, but it is a sharp, well written, well executed sitcom. And it is nice having a sitcom where the people look like they might in real life, not underwear models, ah, aside from Penny. And I love that it doesn’t stop to explain its nerd/science/sci-fi jokes, but will still be funny to even to those unfamiliar with the in-joke territory.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s easy to write off as a kid’s show and a piece of Viacom IP, but name a TV show that will have a bigger influence on the culture as today’s 2-10 year-olds grow to be 22-30 year-olds and beyond. And that might be OK. SpongeBob is loyal, loves to work, loves school and doesn’t let the negative personalities that surround him bring him down. Given that the show’s run almost exactly overlaps the decade, I think it was a big miss not including this on the list.

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