A. V. Club's Best TV Shows of the 00's: 1. The Wire (HBO, 2002-08)

Firefly is my favorite TV series of all time. What brings me back time and again to the same 13 episodes and single theatrical film are two primary elements:

* The setting -- essentially the Millennium Falcon with a larger crew, soaring freely in a "terra-formed" galaxy uncluttered by aliens in silly rubber masks.

* The characters -- a more charming crowd of misfits, rebels and outlaws there never was, who switch so artlessly between sly humor, frustrated camaraderie and gravel-voiced intensity that they feel almost like real people.

Sometimes I throw in a disc at random, and cue up an episode just to "hang out" with my favorite band of law-breakers and sass-talkers.

After multiple viewings and reviewings of the series and the film, I tend to think that most of the plot threads are indeed summarily tied up. Could the crew have gone on to bigger, better and badder adventures? Definitely. Might they have eventually, accidentally-on-purpose toppled the Alliance (meaning the Empire in a cute/ironic Whedonesque twisting of the terminology)? You better believe it. Would Mal and Inara ever have made their space-love work, and settle down together as the proprietors of a galaxy-class pleasure palace the size of the Death Star? Only in my demented dreams.

 

Everything has already been said why I also love this show. I'm primarily a Buffy fan and ironically I missed the first run of Firefly when it was on. I tried watching it the first night and it actually didn't hold my interest. After I found out that it was to be a movie, I went out and bought the DVD's and watched the entire show the week before Serenity came out. And I was hooked. I discovered that FOX didn't run the episodes in order and that they demanded a more exciting 1 hour ep than the beginning pilot that became The Train Job. That episode, IMO, is the weakest episode and I think this is why many people didn't give it a chance that first night.

The characters are so well written and the setting is so established. The best parts for me is when the whole group is eating at the table like a family.

So, DarthBoba, you can keep your troll-like comments to yourself while us Whedon fans enjoy intelligent writing on TV. Oh, that's why it was cancelled because TV law states that no show can be too intelligent. Other victims of this law include Wonderfalls, Freaks and Geeks, and Arrested Development.

 

16. Friday Night Lights (NBC, 2006-present)

"Proving that nepotism isn?t always a bad thing, Peter Berg parlayed a distant relation to H.G. Bissinger, author of the acclaimed non-fiction book Friday Night Lights, into a film and television adaptation. And as good as its source material is, the TV series has became one of the most distinctive hours on broadcast or cable. FNL?s well-deserved acclaim led to an unusual release strategy starting in the third season, with original episodes airing first on DirecTV, then months later on NBC. Anchored by the monumental yet understated performance of Kyle Chandler as the coach of a Texas high-school football powerhouse, the show has explored a sports-saturated culture on and off the field. Its naturalistic style highlights the relationships between Dillon High?s jocks, their families and girlfriends, the team?s well-heeled boosters, and the football-mad community. Yet there?s a bleakness underlying Berg?s portrayal; when the spotlight fades, what?s left are struggling families, glass ceilings, and unclear priorities."

Essential episodes: ?Best Laid Plans,? ?May The Best Man Win,? ?New York, New York?

 

So, DarthBoba, you can keep your troll-like comments to yourself while us Whedon fans enjoy intelligent writing on TV. Oh, that's why it was cancelled doh! because TV law states that no show can be too intelligent. Other victims of this law include Wonderfalls, Freaks and Geeks, and Arrested Development.

Lol yes, troll like. I'm just so mean to poor cancelled shows! It's just AWFUL!

 

15. Veronica Mars (UPN/The CW, 2004-07)

"The first season of the Rob Thomas-created Veronica Mars is one of the singular achievements of ?00s television: a season-long murder mystery that doubles as an inquiry into the class divisions in and around a Southern California high school. The second season upped the ambition level, adding a denser plot that was often hard to follow, but which paid off brilliantly. And then the third season?set at college?aimed for shorter stories and a lighter tone, and suffered significantly from the creative compromise. But throughout, star Kristen Bell grounded the twisty stories and soapy romances in a real character: a formerly popular teenager who uses her ability to slip between cliques to help make her classmates? adolescences less confusing and unfair."

Essential episodes: ?You Think You Know Somebody,? ?Ain?t No Magic Mountain High Enough,? ?The Bitch Is Back?

 

I LOVE Veronica Mars. That first season is easily on my top 10 favorite seasons of television. The second season was pretty good as well and the third season was a bit dissapointing, but still worth watching.

Oh, and Kristen Bell is just awesome.

 

Once again, I never watched this show when it was actually on. People kept telling me it's like Buffy without vampires but I just shrugged and knew there could never be another Buffy. Then I found out that Joss Whedon himself was such a fan of Veronica Mars that he played a bit part in an episode. I watched the DVD's and became hooked. It did have the quick wit and pop culture dialogue that Buffy had. I agree that season one was great and season two is the ultimate Mars season, but season three kinda lacked the excitement of both.

 

14. Futurama (Fox, 1999-2003)

"Science fiction teaches that the future will either resemble the rainy misery of Blade Runner or the upbeat togetherness of Star Trek, without many options between them, but what happens if tomorrow is pretty much like today? That?s one of the driving ideas behind Futurama¸ the brainchild of Matt Groening and David X. Cohen. Futurama posits a year 3000 in which the robots are surly, the suicide booths are plentiful, and the person with the clearest vision only has one eye. In its original run, the series walked the high wire of high-concept and slapstick humor, delivering gags based around Heisenberg?s Uncertainty Principle without ever talking down to its audience. That uncompromising standard led to an emotional depth that never took the easy road toward affecting an audience. It?s no surprise that this standard also led to a premature cancellation; it?s more surprising that the show lasted as long as it did. Thankfully, fan interest and DVD sales restored the series to life, but regardless of what the future brings, the original 72 episodes remain impeccable evidence that there?s no such thing as too smart for the room."

Essential episodes: ?Roswell That Ends Well,? ?Jurassic Bark,? ?The Devil?s Hands Are Idle Playthings?

 

Yeah. Futurama is classic sci-fi wrapped in a side splitting sitcom.

 

13. 30 Rock (2006-present)

"It?s hard to believe that back in 2006, a future three-time Emmy-winner for Best Comedy would be considered a likely flop, doomed to languish in the long shadow of Aaron Sorkin?s high-profile inside-TV drama Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Instead, Studio 60 proved drippy and self-important, while 30 Rock is in the middle of its fourth season as a reliable gag-generating machine. Tina Fey?s look behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live-like sketch-comedy series has almost nothing to do with what it?s actually like to throw together a TV show, and more to do with the ridiculousness that ensues when vain creative types and arrogant corporate lackeys try to collaborate. Mainly, 30 Rock is a sight-gag-and-punchline factory. When Fey and company are on a roll, the show generates more quotable lines and memorable moments per 22 minutes than any sitcom since Arrested Development."

Essential episodes: ?The Rural Juror,? ?Subway Hero,? ?The One With The Cast Of Night Court?


I have to take Tina Fey's assurances on faith, because the times I've tried to watch this show, I haven't cracked a smile.

 

I do not understand the hype for this show.

I have tried to watch it on numerous occasions, and i'm with you Zaz. It does nothing for me. In fact it's the opposite of smart and funny.

To compare it to "Arrested Development" is sacrilege.


I still am firmly convinced that the Hollywood Hype machine is STILL kissing Fey's ass in an attempt to thank her for her Sarah Palin impersonation.

 

Add me into this boat. I've tried on multiple occasions to watch 30 Rock and I only made it through the whole episode once. Arrested Development is great, 30 Rock, IMHO, not so much.

 

I love 30 Rock. It's the best cartoon on television right now. Alec Baldwin and Jack McBrayer are my favorites in an all-around excellent cast. They even know how to make Grizz and Dotcom effective characters.

 

i wouldn't compare it to arrested development either (except for the fact that will arnett basically plays the same character in everything he's in lol), but i do love both shows. alec baldwin is so great, and i think this is the perfect vehicle for tracy morgan. fey is great as well, but she's basically the straight man in the show. anyway yeah, definitely one of my favorite shows ever.

oh and it was getting praise well before fey's palin impersonation. it won the emmy for comedy series in 2007 i believe.

 

I think it's completely brilliant; it's essentially a SNL skit (from the golden age, you know?) stretched to twenty two minutes, only it actually works. Very first episode of this I watched, which was midway through last season, I was hooked. This show cracks me up like nothing else on television right now.

 

12. Battlestar Galactica (2004-09)

"In traditional narratives, escape from disaster is about trying to return to the old life as quickly as possible. Once the worst has happened, rebuilding what was lost becomes the survivors? main goal. That?s nominally the goal of the miserable remnants of humanity left in Battlestar Galactica, but one of the series? most effectively subversive elements is how it questions just what it means to ?rebuild.? In a more traditional show, humanity?s leaders (Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell) would?ve guided Jamie Bamber, James Callis, Katee Sackhoff and the rest to some haven where they could take cover and eventually defeat the Cylon race bent on exterminating them. Instead, creator Ronald Moore gave audiences the fumbling of two species bent on discovering grace, with all the confusion and terror that implies. The show?s often-tortured mythology doesn?t always work, especially in a final season that tried too hard to tie up threads that weren?t loose so much as irrelevant. But the end result is still a powerful meditation on grief, loss, and the responsibilities of consciousness."

Essential episodes: ?Final Cut,? ?Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2,? ?Unfinished Business?

 

Just a terrific and powerful show from first to last. People snickered when it was announced, but most of those folks were won over in the end. It also didn't overstay its welcome, making its run in just four seasons. It was still able to pretty much go as far as it wanted to go and have a good ending, which is as much as you can ever hope for.

BSG got off to a great start with the miniseries and then went full speed ahead with the first season. As I said elsewhere, the first season seems a bit quaint in hindsight compared with what came next. By the time the Pegasus story arc came along, BSG meant business in every sense of the word. By the end of the 2nd season, it was transcendent. Lay Down Your Burdens was a brilliant episode and is probably still my favorite. The New Caprica arc was almost terrifying in its reality, as we were introduced to circumstances that made suicide bombers seem understandable. The rescue was magnificently done, and then unlike so many shows, it lingered on the full effects of what happened on the planet. The show seemed to flag a bit in the middle of the third season but picked up by the end of it. Everything got going again in the 4th season, as All Along the Watchtower weaved its magical spell. For me, the moment when Kara figures out in Daybreak what the notes mean may be my favorite in any TV show, rivaled only by that darkest of magic in the The Wire.

With terrific performances all around and particularly strong female characters, Battlestar Galactica was an outstanding show and will be remembered for a long time in the best of ways.

 

The first season is easily my favourite, a big surprise after I found the mini very so-so in the writing stakes.

I agree about the performances, though - nobody ever phoned in a performance, or went wildy over-the-top because it was "just" a sci-fi show. Probably the best acting we'll see in made-for-tv science fiction. And the sets and effects were never less than convincing.

 

This show is fantastic, and is easily one of the best of the decade. They could have used different example episodes though.

 

11. The Office US (NBC, 2005-present)

"America may always be imitating our British forebears, but the U.S. version of Ricky Gervais' astounding comedy of cruelty managed to make the original?s single-camera mockumentary premise its own. Key to the translation?s success: a more sympathetic boss played by Steve Carell, a more confident (and competent) relationship between co-workers Jim and Pam, and a divergence from the plots provided by its predecessor. By the second episode, when Michael Scott assigns each employee with an ethnic identity to teach a lesson about diversity?but leaves out ?Arab? because ?It?s too soon??it was abundantly clear that creator Greg Daniels was pointing the show in its own direction. As the seasons have piled up, the writers have innovated to delightful effect; witness last season?s Michael Scott Paper Company arc, which revealed new facets of the main characters without throwing any of the show?s ample investments away."

Essential episodes: ?Casino Night,? ?Dinner Party,? ?Dream Team?

 

10. The Shield (FX, 2002-08)

"There?s never been a TV cop like Vic Mackey, who painted a blue uniform the most frustrating, vigorous, incredible shades of grey. In Shawn Ryan?s version of Los Angeles, the leader of an anti-gang unit?played expertly by Michael Chiklis?was a man to be admired, feared, loved, hated, and sometimes pitied. The Shield allowed viewers to cheer Mackey while he committed heinous acts in the pursuit of justice (and illegal cash for himself), but made us feel dirty by depicting the consequences, too. It didn?t hurt that Chiklis was surrounded by a cast whose stories got richer (and often more horrifying) as the series went on: His fellow Strike Teamers became the biggest part of the story in the series? amazing, harrowing final seasons, when it seemed that in every episode, life truly was on the line. Walton Goggins, who at first seemed to be playing a stereotypical hick sidekick, proved himself an emotional lynchpin, and the side characters?other cops, plus terrific guest turns from Forest Whitaker and Glenn Close, among others?developed full personalities. And those stories: Like The Wire, The Shield plays like a classic tragedy taken as a whole, a massive web of badness that made for incredible television."

Essential episodes: ?Cherrypoppers,? ?Postpartum,? ?Family Meeting.?

 

9. Deadwood (HBO, 2004-06)

"Deadwood (HBO, 2004-06)The earliest TV-drama hits were Westerns, so when HBO unleashed David Milch?s Deadwood on the world in 2004, it seemed at first like the latest in the channel?s long series of TV genre-reclamation projects. Instead, the series quickly abandoned the Wild West archetypes of its first handful of episodes and turned into a show about how communities come to be, how civilization springs from blood and gold, and how chaos is imperfectly knit into order. Featuring grandly theatrical dialogue, at least five dozen major recurring characters, and an unforgettable lead performance from Ian McShane, Deadwood was the temperamental Milch?s love letter to such timeless virtues as common decency, free societies, and creatively deployed profanity. Though the series only lasted three seasons and never reached a natural endpoint, the seasons are so packed with Milch?s richly humanistic view of the world that they trump 10 seasons of more common shows.

Essential episodes: ?A Lie Agreed Upon, Pts. 1 and 2,? ?The Whores Can Come,? ?Boy The Earth Talks To?

 

Both HBO and David Milch should be smacked in the head over Deadwood. Every second of Deadwood was pure gold. I guess why HBO was so reluctant to renew it and David Milch was so quick to abandon it will never be known.

 

8. Lost (ABC, 2004-present)

"No series risked more over the past decade than Lost, which has asked its viewers to be patient as the show?s creators have withheld information, killed characters, divided the cast and?in the ultimate potential deal-breaker?toyed with time travel. To some extent, frustration with Lost has become part of the pleasure of watching the show, as fans gather to grumble about dangling plot threads and conflicts that could be easily resolved if characters ever used some of the time they?re spending cast away on a desert island to, y?know, have conversations. But Lost?s payoffs have been well worth its head-slappers. Showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have presided over a story that?s spanned continents and genres, all while crafting a dense mythology with a human core. Lost is a show about unexpected connections and the search for meaning in our shared cultural arcana. It?s also been a showcase for a sprawling cast of memorable characters, each learning the lesson that if they?re patient enough to wait out the changes, their tragic life stories just might have a happy ending."

Essential episodes: ?Walkabout,? ?Greatest Hits,? ?The Constant?

 

Lost sucks.


And by sucks, I mean is awesomesauce times infinity.



They picked three really great episodes too for the "essential episodes".