Favorite television shows:

[mariness]

(Inspired by a conversation elsejournal and an observation that I've sort of done this for movies and books, so why not TV?)

Note the careful choice of words above. I'm saying "favorite," not "socially important," "innovative," or "great." Yep, I know All in the Family had its moments, but the truth is, I just couldn't stand to watch either

Comments

[malterre]

I must add "the Tick live action" because they did some nice spoofs. Wish it had lasted.

[mariness]

I didn't see much of that show, thus my specificing the cartoon, but I should really go hunt that down.

[simplykathryn]

I really enjoyed the Vicar of Dibley - especially the Christmas episode when she was invited to three seperate Christmas dinners and didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Dawn French, by the way, is married to Lenny Henry who is a wonderful English comedian and appeared with Alan Cumming and Rowan Atkinson in one of my favourite Christmas movies of all time 'Bernard And The Genie'.

And this is interesting:

The show first aired in 1994, and has run for three series as well as Christmas Specials in 1996, 1997, 2004 and 2006, and two Comic Relief Specials in 1997 and 1999. Famous guest stars have included Rachel Hunter, Sean Bean, Darcey Bussell, Johnny Depp, Kylie Minogue, Terry Wogan and Sarah, Duchess of York.

Now I need to find the Johnny Depp episode...

[mariness]

It's on the DVD of the 3rd season, if I'm recalling correctly -- he and Fergie play themselves.

Imdb has something here:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0739932/

And the Christmas episode was hilarious. I also liked the slow way genuine respect and friendship grew between her and David Horton.

[newbabel]

Hello! Great post! I agreed with your utterly on all the Whedon shows, but wanted to send a specific thank you for remembering such luminaries as the original Trek and Soap. Brilliant stuff in both of them.

[mariness]

Soap won my heart with the ventriloquist.

I have to admit that I missed it during its first run -- I wasn't in the States at the time -- but the magic of DVDs brought me the magic of the ventriloquist. And the aliens.

[wolfblade]

Firefly: EVERYTHING
Star Trek: EVERYTHING even the bad episodes like Turnabout Intruder
Animaniacs translating Shakespeare "and the boy wonder saved us all"
I have a cunning plan...
Roger Moore on the Muppet show, singing "Talk to the Animals" while spoofing Bond
the MANY MANY catchphrases on Allo Allo
Soap EVERYTHING especially exorcizng Corrine's baby and Burt's Invisibility.
Joe on Newsradio, and Jimmy

I should do my own list....

[dzuunmod]

Ditto on Wonderfalls. I hate rolling the dice every fall when deciding which new shows I'll invest into, when I've been disappointed by the networks so many times before like with Wonderfalls. I heard recently that one of the Heroes writers comes from there.

Did you see much of 3rd Rock From the Sun? Seems like it would be your thing...

[mariness]

3rd Rock was a lot of fun.

I think you're referring to Bryan Fuller, who is a writer/co-producer on Heroes and also did some writing for Wonderfalls and Star Trek: Voyager.

I do wish Wonderfalls could have continued -- it was a marvelously fun show. But then again, I expect if it had, Jaye would eventually have gone utterly insane and I wouldn't have had my happy ending.

And I decided not to invest in Drive for precisely that reason.

[stevenglassman]

The creator of Wonderfalls has a new show next season: Pushing Daisies.

and it's not on FUX, so it even has a chance of airing a few eps before it gets cancelled.