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Over the course of the past week, the New York Times has been rolling out its list of the 100 best TV shows of the 2000s. (Spoiler alert: Breaking Bad is No. 1, which doesn’t enrage me, although I would have put No. 2., The Wire, in the top spot.)
I love a good list almost as much as I love TV, and this one is extremely well done, featuring short writeups on each series along with video contributions and testimonials from many of the stars and showrunners of the winning series and those who voted for them, including Connie Britton, Kathryn Hahn, Giancarlo Esposito, Brett Goldstein, Mike Myers, Lena Waithe, Alexis Bledel, Matt Groening, Matthew Weiner, Richard Gadd, Devery Jacobs, Jacob Tierney, David Benioff, Alec Baldwin and David Cross.
Some of the more than 500 industry folks polled included their ballots, so you can enjoy the fact that the Peabody-winning W. Kamau Bell surprisingly picked kids shows Bluey and Doc McStuffins or that Eastbound and Down creator Danny McBride unsurprisingly picked prank show Jackass (a man after my own heart).
A surprising number voted for their own shows, which strikes me as weirdly tacky and unnecessary; did Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner really think his universally lauded drama (No. 3) needed the boost?
Because it started in 1999, HBO’s Emmy-winning series The Sopranos is ineligible for the New York Times list of the 100 best TV shows of the 2000s. (HBO via AP)
Of course, ranking art is a fool’s errand and these kinds of lists are partially intended to foment discord — everyone will have a favourite show they feel was snubbed, or will dispute the placement of another.
There is a definite slant toward “prestige” television, which, let’s be honest, isn’t always what people love to watch in private. Game-changing reality show Survivor made the cut, but you won’t see any of the Real Housewives here, although the constant expansion of the franchise would indicate that it’s the kind of TV people crave.
Animation is largely overlooked; I would argue Bob’s Burgers and Archer each deserve a slot.
There’s also a massive U.S. bias. There are obviously a gazillion brilliant shows from other countries that we in the English-speaking world have not had a chance to see, but this list also overlooks a lot of excellent television from the U.K., Canada and Australia. (Cases in point: Derry Girls, Shoresy and Fisk.)
The bulk of these shows, however, are no-brainers for a best-of list because they became part of the cultural conversation. Even in the increasingly siloed world of popular media, a lot of these series were and are the equivalent of whatever we’re calling watercooler chat these days.
For example, we had a heated newsroom-wide argument this week about The Sopranos — a show that started in 1999, rendering it ineligible for the NYT list — among people who watched it when it first aired and people who weren’t born when it first aired.
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This list is also a shocking testament to just how much television I watch. Of the 100 shows, I have seen 80; 70 in their entirety (some multiple times, hello, my old friend 30 Rock) and enough episodes of the remaining 10 to count.
So I think I have some authority when I talk about notable oversights to a list of the best TV of the last quarter-century; I and my arts department colleagues are going to weigh in on the topic in an upcoming Free Press story.
I’ll give you one for free right now, though: Tina Fey’s brilliant 30 Rock clocks in at No. 8, but her followup, the four-season Netflix comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is almost as dear to my heart.
Do I think the sitcom — about a 30-year-old woman trying to make it in NYC after being released from a bunker where she was held for 15 years by a crazed reverend — is a timeless work of art? I mean, maybe! Do I sing Outside Bones more often than one might imagine? Yup. It might not have Important Things To Say (although, sometimes it does!), but it does have Broadway star Tituss Burgess as Titus Andromedon, perhaps my favourite TV character of all time. (“After the movie, he suggested walking… which would be exciting if I were a baby or a mermaid, but I am neither”; “I’m pretty but tough, like a diamond, or beef jerky in a ballgown.”)
What’s your standout TV show of the past 25 years? What lines are you still quoting a quarter-century later? Who’s the most indelible small-screen character in your mind? Let me know (reply to this email or send an email to arts@freepress.mb.ca) and we’ll include your thoughts in our upcoming feature.
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