The Best of the 00′s: Television shows

Creating a list of the best shows of the 00′s is an almost impossible task.

First is the fact that the decade is responsible for some AMAZING shows. As easy as it is to complain that there is never anything good on television, this past decade has been responsible for delivering the highest quantity of high quality shows than any other decade in the history of the medium.

The second issue is that the very nature of television means that you have shows that last for several years. It’s not like film, where one could easily pinpoint, say, The Baader Meinhof Complex as being the best film released in 2009 (it was). Instead a show may have several great seasons, followed by several duds, thereby diminishing it as a whole (re: Entourage). Or a show may have started prior to the 00′s, making it difficult to incorporate it into the list. For this reason, this list will only feature shows that started in 2000 or later. Thus, The Sopranos and The West Wing simply won’t make it into the list, despite their best episodes airing in the 00′s.

So, what qualifies shows on this list above other worthy series? I was looking for shows that have something to say, are able to push the boundaries of their respective genre’s or form, and (above all) make for an exciting televisual experience.

10. Curb Your Enthusiasm
This is not a show for everyone. It’s coarse, its protagonist is an awful human being, and there are moments which have the audience cringing even harder than when they hear use of the word ‘fingerbang’. Larry David, having placed enough time between his work on Seinfeld and the commencement of a new show created a series that is a more pure form of the Larry David experience. While Seinfeld employed a similar type of humour, it was a far more accessible program. David, as a stand-up, was often considered to be a ‘comedians comedian’. He requires the audience to go an extra mile with him with a destination that proves itself to be far more rewarding. CYE was exactly the same. If a viewer is after easy laughs, the show just isn’t for them.

CYE was one of the first shows to succeed primarily from its talented cast improvising most of the dialogue. As a result, some of the performances are lacking and some liberties are taken with natural responses to situations, But, in looking past its flaws, its difficult to find a comedy show from the 00′s that was funnier and more rewarding.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgedBRXw7fY[/youtube]

09. The Amazing Race
The reality television phenomena has led to the creation of a lot of uninspired television. At its core, each of these shows are about human drama and interaction. Some of these shows have great potential. Big Brother, for example, is a great idea. Watching a group of people living in a completely artificial environment being toyed with by an ever-present god-like figure should make for cracking viewing. But, it doesn’t. Other shows make for good diversions. Miami Ink is a great example of this. The spin-offs are a completely naff idea, but an observational series about the goings on in a tattoo parlour is actually quite watchable. It doesn’t really make for memorable television, however.

Heads and shoulders above all the other reality shows is The Amazing Race. As one of the premium, high budget reality shows currently on US television, its strength is in watching people under great physical and mental stress being forced into locales and situations that exist completely outside of their comfort zone.

TAR wins Emmy Award after Emmy and deservedly so. The locations they take the contestants to are gorgeous. The production values are stunning, with excellent editing and music that heightens the emotional impact of each situation. The show knows to run with the nail biting ending just as well as to focus on the raw emotions of contestants who may have just encountered a moment of abject failure.

Most certainly, TAR does stumble with occasional seasons in which it hasn’t been cast correctly. Sometimes contestants are just a little bit too perfectly American. But, with its near perfect concept, excellent execution, and very few mis-steps during its 15 season run, The Amazing Race places its bar impossibly high.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWqNZwPL3L0[/youtube]

08. Wonder Showzen
Little known and little seen, Wonder Showzen is the very definition of being the best show you haven’t been watching. It’s horribly inappropriate, mean-spirited, and straight-out filthy. It’s also the funniest sketch comedy program to come out of the US in years.

Screened on MTV2 in the US, the show is a pastiche of kids programs like Sesame Street and The Electric Company. With a combination of puppets, archive video footage, and live sketches with kids, it looks and feels just like those programs we grew up watching. Content-wise, it’s very different. With VERY black comedy masked by its very pure visual style, Wonder Showzen pushes the envelope on what a sketch comedy program can be. The show explores all manner of comedic devices, playing with structure and form. It can be annoying and downright painful to watch at times, but as with any sketch comedy show, not every joke can be a winner.

Providing genuine belly laughs, an innovative style that can never be repeated with such success, and a lingering dirty feeling you’ll never wash off, Wonder Showzen is a show you can’t help but marvel at.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdL2jiM601U[/youtube]

07. Top Gear

It has a format that shouldn’t be as accessible as it is. Every so often, the stars simply align and somehow taps directly into the zeitgeist in a way that nobody expects. Top Gear has done exactly that. It’s format should be restrictive to those with an interest already in motoring, but instead it is able to spread its net wider and has captured the attention of viewers worldwide.

Top Gear is a handsome-looking show. The production values are high and obviously it’s a show that has quite a bit of money put into it. What makes the show such a charming and entirely watchable show to those beyond motoring enthusiasts is the hosts of the show. There’s something undefinably likeable about the trio. They’re passionate about their cars in such a way as to make it infectious. Quite simply, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are a joy to watch on-screen.

SBS’ attempt to replicate the show with an Australian version this year failed. The success of the show lies as a combination between the format and the on-screen talent. To take one of these elements away is to doom the show to failure.

Top Gear is simply a show that works. To over-analyse it would be to remove the fun out of it entirely. It’s a show that can simply be.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5xd97HeY70[/youtube]

06. Peep Show

In a fair and just world, Peep Show should be the most popular show on the planet.

The show is seemingly about two British men who live together and are complete opposites, yet best friends. One is your typical British man. Mark is obsessed with not rocking the boat, wants to just live his life as quietly as possible, and craves nothing more than being able to drink some tea while enjoying his modestly-sized television in his modestly-sized flat. The other is a typical British lad. Jez is mooching off Jeremy until his electronic music career takes off, he believes he’s quite successful with the ladies, and is more than willing to change who he is if there’s an interesting fad. Ultimately, the show is about the fall of traditional Britain and the emergence of a less-proper society.

Utilizing a unique POV camera style (each shot is shown from the viewpoint of Jez or Mark – a stylistic choice that the producers believe is directly responsible for the show not being a hit), and voice-overs of the protagonists thoughts, Peep Show is one of the more unique-looking shows currently on the air. The ratings for it have always been abysmal, but a dedicated fan base who have bought the DVD sets in high numbers have kept the show afloat. Peep Show has consistently been sharper and wittier than anything else on TV for years.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4GLXUw2qaI[/youtube]

05. The Colbert Report

Stephen Colbert is Stephen Colbert. As a direct reaction to the increasing absurdity of opinion driving 24-hour cable news channels, Stephen Colbert is the compere Fox News wishes it had. You see, Stephen Colbert is American. To disagree with him is to disagree with America.

While initially Colbert was a parody of Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly (‘Pappa Bear’), the show has developed into something that transcends parody. The show is a self-propagating ego-driven event show taking place on a nightly basis. While it seeks to satirize the daily news in the US, it has also constructed a false reality that surrounds it. The shows viewers are included into the faux-reality construct so heavily that analysts have established the existence the Colbert-bump – an immediate success that follows any person or product endorsed on the show by the charismatic Stephen Colbert.

The Colbert Report is one of the finest studio-based TV shows the medium has ever produced. Despite the pure absurdity of the character and situations built around him, the show manages to highlight fundamental truths that exist within a changing US culture.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QquTUR9nbC4[/youtube]

04. Lost

Lost is complex and layered in a manner that works perfectly to the structure set in place by the confines of the hour-long US TV drama. Each episode plays with structure, often working thematically with different timeframes and differing narrative structures. Episodes then also work as season-long narratives, with each season then providing different narrative structures to comprise of the shows entirety.

For the first 2.5 seasons of the show, Lost came dangerously close to losing the wheels from the cart. What was intentioned to be a densely plotted show was being undone by the fact the show lacked a clear end date. ABC, to their credit, did what no other network had previously dared dream of for a popular show – they allowed the shows producers to determine how long they needed to tell their story. As such, the writers could then determine when and where to hit certain story beats. Lost suddenly kicked into over-drive. Long gone was the feeling that the show was being made up as it went along. Instead, Lost feels as though it is firmly entrenched in the very capable hands of Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof.

Some viewers have been alienated by the complex plots and the fact the show they are watching was not exactly what they had pre-conceived, however the viewers who have recognised Lost for what it is continue to be rewarded for their attention and dedication to what has developed into one of the finest examples of the medium.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljHt7mdmQTY[/youtube]

03. The Office (US)

The first season of the US adaptation of The Office was awful. It stands up okay in retrospect of seeing where the series went, but in its own right, the first season points to being a show that should by all rights be cancelled at the conclusion of its six episode run. Using modified scripts from the original UK series, The Office (US) simply lacked a voice or reason for existing.

In the second season of the show, the program found a voice that differed radically from the UK version and very quickly, the show took off. The performances and writing suddenly came to life and the show absolutely crackled. The Office continued to use the setting of the office environment, but elements of abstract comedy and absurdist character traits became the flavour of the show. In the hands of less talented writers, the show should not continue to work, but instead it has flourished in a way that allows characters to engage in the most ridiculous of circumstance, yet still keep the show completely grounded.

The Office may be a comedy about the foibles of people working in an everyday mundane office, but the shows characters  seem to sneak up on you and make you care. Regular viewers care just as much about Dwyghts beet farm as they do Andy’s pining for the new receptionist. It’s a show that has embraced the lessons learned through the most successful sitcoms of the past. It delivers comedy every bit as sharp as in shows like Seinfeld, Taxi, and Mary Tyler Moore, but also owes a great deal of success to the Soap-like melding of sitcom and serials. The end result has viewers caring about the characters in a way they haven’t since Cheers in the 80′s.

The US adaptation of The Office certainly doesn’t introduce anything particularly new to the sitcom genre, but it stands alongside the mediums very best examples.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUlyqnmU0N0[/youtube]

02. The Wire

One of the finest series in the 90′s was the great Homicide: Life on The Streets. The show was gritty police procedural at a time where such a genre was a novelty. While the show was ground breaking, it was still very traditional. Episodes concluded with A and B story-lines being wound up at the conclusion of the hour. The Wire has the advantage of existing on cable television in a post-Sopranos environment. Story-lines here stretched across multiple episodes, if not seasons.

Much like Lost, The Wire uses the strength of the medium to its advantage in its structure. In many ways, each season of The Wire is like a book in a series. Each 13 episode series managed to tell the story of a different power-structure in Baltimore. The first season the low-level drug pushers in the city’s ‘projects’. Season two looked at the port system. Season three, the government and bureaucracy that exists within. Season four, the education system. And season five, the media. Each of these were viewed through the eyes of the police department. Characters were just as flawed as the systems they depicted.

If The Wire is to be criticised for anything, it may just be that the show is just too dense and restrictive for many viewers to indulge in. The casual viewer is in no way accommodated for in The Wire. Instead the viewer simply must commit to the show from the first episode and dedicate themselves. It’s easy to do after a few episodes as viewers realise that the show is being written by people with a firm idea of what the shows message. The writing and performances are absolutely of the highest calibre.

This is a show that can only be properly watched in an era of DVD consumption. In many ways it represents what television can achieve in the current era.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y3rVGW24wc[/youtube]

01. Mad Men

It’s great when you can be so wowed by something for being clever and doing it well. Mad Men is clever. And it does what it does VERY well.

Mad Men sets its focus on the 1960′s and the advertising agency of the fictional Sterling Cooper. At its core is the exploration of notions of truth. Each of the characters have secrets they’re hiding from the world  whether it be the case of a stolen identity in the case of the series protagonist Don Draper, the illegitimate child of progressive female copy-writer Peggy Olson, or simply just the not-so-hidden insecurities of account manager Pete Campbell. Within the advertising world, truth surrounds them. Either they are working to uncover the truth of what a campaign is about, or they are selling a constructed truth to consumers.

Through the series progression, the viewer is given an insight into the changing power relationships that existed in the US throughout the 60′s. Sexual and racial equality was being achieved, with the white male confronting a new society developing around them. As an advertising agency needs to reflect the attitudes of society in order to sell a product, Mad Men presents the ideal venue by which to depict a society in flux.

Mad Men manages to be thorough in its exploration of the shows characters, knows what it wants to say without being too overt, and offers an insight into the complexity of where the US as a society is heading. Like no other show, the show is firmly positioned as the next evolution of television to follow on from The Sopranos. Both are explorations about modern day America, each through their respective genres.

Ultimately, Mad Men is engaging, funny, touching, accessible, surprising, involving, and downright entertaining. Its a show that is getting better with each season and more confident of what it can achieve. No other show this decade has matched the integrity, progression, and validity that Mad Men offers the medium of television.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2bLNkCqpuY[/youtube]

* * *

1999 shows deserving of such a list: The Sopranos, The West Wing, Freaks and Geeks, and Oz.

Shows that are very good that were strongly considered: Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Undeclared, Sunrise, and John Adams.

Shows that people really like a lot and will complain that I didn’t include them: Arrested Development, Firefly, Dexter, and Deadwood.