smaur wrote:Sorry, Nate. The best television show in history goes to The Wire, which is consistently phenomenal, heart-breaking, fantastic television. No other television show (with the almost-exception of The Sopranos) comes close to being so amazingly written and wonderfully performed. The most tragic beautiful intricate crime saga to ever hit television.
Other amazing shows: Mad Men, which is gorgeous eye-candy and brilliant storytelling and fantastically complex characters. And the 1960s. Carnivale, which is a dark brooding fantasy set in the 1930s following a carnival, a preacher, and the nuclear bomb. The Sopranos, which hardly needs an introduction. The aforementioned Battlestar Galactica, which is deeply flawed but which also features some of the most heart-rending amazing hours of tv. Most HBO dramas, like Rome, Deadwood, Six Feet Under.
On another note, Venture Bros, featuring spies and spacemen and clones and evil archvillains, is some really great, funny nostalgia-tv paired with fantastic animation. It evokes the feeling of pulp sci-fi and action adventure comics in the best possible way.
/ obnoxious tv opinions
You're both wrong! But close. Definitely close. (I've only seen 2 seasons of BSG so can't comment in-depth on that). The Wire has two stand out, absolutely amazing seasons (1 & 4), two very good but too formulaic seasons (2 & 3) and one out-of-whack season that veered between brilliant and wildly ridiculous in a show famous for its realism. That inconsistency, for mine, means it can never take the top gong.
My top two shows of all time are: The West Wing which has absolutely no right whatsoever to be so outstandingly well written, so consistently fantastic and engaging when you consider that almost nothing is happening other than outrageously clever conversations. What makes it better written than any other show? Basically, The West Wing contains in one episode, more information than you're likely going to have to process in an entire season of any other show. And it's not easy, simple information either but intelligent, insanely in-depth and well researched arguments. The sheer tonnage of information in one episode should mean that there is no room to be anything other than a boring political lecture but no, it somehow manages to not only seamlessly integrate this information, but also be witty and charming, dramatic and interesting, human and engaging, enmeshing you both in the political arguments being waged and the lives of the characters.
On the writing front, that effort is just...stunning. It floors me every time. Oh, and it does that for 22 episodes for 7 seasons. Even if, as some argue, you say only the first 4 or 5 seasons are brilliant and the other two only very good, it still manages to weave an incredibly complicated story better than anyone should ever be able to do, over a longer time and more consistently than any other show. It has its flaws though, which is why on any other given day, I'd say
The Sopranos is pretty much the most faultless television show I've ever seen. Not once did it blip, or falter, did it become flat or uninteresting - in a show that could have been drowning in cliches, Sopranos rises above and beyond in all but re-branding the gangster mythos and creating a deeply involving drama featuring a cast of flawed heroes and monsters. Love it.
Creeping up on those two are another pair of shows of equally amazing quality (though they haven't had the chance to stand the test of time yet, or, indeed to be as consistently great for as long) in: Mad Men, a distinct, ultra-stylish period drama bringing the 60s of America to life with such authenticity its both startling and wondrous. And, of course, Treme, a new show about a group of loosely connected characters trying to piece their lives back together in New Orleans, after the havoc of Katrina. This is an absolute must-see, it's so real you will honestly have difficulty believing it's fiction - worth it for the music alone, each episode featuring a panorama of great jazz music, add to that the authentic, heart-warming characters, the great stories, the drama, comedy and tragedy...you have yourself hours of unmissable television. If it continues like this, I have no doubt it will one day be regarded as the best ever.
But let's step away from the best-evers (always subjective) and just name some fun, cool, great shows -- Firefly, House, Band of Brothers, Angel, Dexter, Sherlock, Warehouse 13, Doctor Who, Glee, Entourage, The Big Bang Theory, Weeds, Boston Legal, Seinfeld, Flight of the Conchords, Avatar: the Last Airbender, True Blood (the trashiest of the trash, but it's entertaining despite its ludicrous melodrama, or perhaps because of it) and that'll be all for now.
However I'd swap Mock the Week and Vicar Of Dibley around.
