Saturday 20 April 2013

The best TV show ever is...

This weekend I found myself sitting in the dentist waiting room and to pass the time I checked out the pile of magazines on the small table - among the mags were several issues of Cosmo, a dozen or so People's Friend's,a few comic books and a copy of Empire magazine from 2009. I picked up Empire and an article that caught my interest asked what was the best TV show ever? The magazine seemed to think it was a two horse race between The Wire and Battlestar Galactica. Both are great shows but it got me to thinking that if the magazine ran the same article today would shows like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones be in the top spots? And what of older classics like Deadwood, Lost and The X Files? And of course there is the original Star Trek as well as Doctor Who, The Avengers and The Prisoner (the original not the short lived remake).

I wondered what I would consider the best TV show ever, and I found I was unable to come up with a single winner. I've still got a fondness for 1970's cop shows like Staskey and Hutch (for sheer entertainment value), Kojak (for everything about the show), Hill Street Blues (for its gritty realistic feel) and The Rockford Files (because it was mostly awesome). And of course there are many western shows that I think were excellent - Rawhide, Wagon Train, High Chaparral, Deadwood. And does Lonesome Dove, a mini-series, count?

There are also many comedies that would be in any top ten - Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Soap and current hit, The Big Bang Theory will likely feature on future lists.

So what is the best TV show ever?

Beats me.


2 comments:

RJR said...

M*A*S*H!

RJR

Randy Johnson said...

Hard to argue with RJR. But I also agree on Fawlty Towers. The John Cleese version, brief though it was, inspired a number of clones, insipid all.

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