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The Best of the decade: A wrap up of the decade’s cultural highs and lows: The Top 10 pop culture trends | The Top 10 albums | The Top 10 Movies | The Top 10 TV shows
(Note: I left off The Sopranos and Sex and the City because both premiered before 2000, even though their primary impact was in this decade. Had to have a cutoff somewhere.)
1. The Wire: In five seasons, David Simon and Ed Burns revealed the broken-down but still beating heart of a struggling American city, specifically Baltimore, and the selfish, pure, world-weary, violent, love-lorn, greedy justice-seeking motivations of its police officers, criminals, journalists, dock workers and ordinary citizens just trying to stay out of the fray. No other show ever captured the truth of race, class and how old-boy entrenchment can rule a city, namely the one where I was born.
2. Arrested Development: Because it was wrong, bawdy, brash, big, inappropriate and crazy-stupid funny.
3. 30 Rock: Ditto.
4. 24: Before it became a convoluted mess of torture and characters who won’t shut up, it was a whiplash-fast thrill ride. The later seasons have lost what made the first seasons so great — Jack Bauer’s ability to form emotional attachments, coherent story lines and decent villains. (Sherry Palmer, anyone?)
5. Rome: History, but hotter.
6. Friday Night Lights: I am not exaggerating when I say that this is the only show that I have never been sorry that I watched, and that I feel uplifted by, and that makes me glad to have a TV. And DirecTV’s decision to pick up the new episodes before NBC replays them is the only reason I still have DirecTV.
7. Mad Men: Where the stifling monochromatic alpha-maleness of 1950s business culture, the excitement of technology, the changing moral and societal mores of the 1960s and one charming, cheating monster of an ad genius collide.
8. The Colbert Report: Speaking of genius, Stephen Colbert took the sublime fake news format of The Daily Show and took it to whole new level of mock-arrogance, self-aware irony and — shocking! — newsworthiness. Brilliance.
9. Alias: Sydney Bristow was a new kind of TV heroine, a secret spy with the fighting skills of Wonder Woman, the technical know-how of a lethal MacGyver and enough vulnerability to make her human. After awhile, it got too bogged down in new ways to torture her, but at least for a little while, there was nothing cooler than Alias.
10. How I Met Your Mother: What looked like another sitcom about callow young New Yorkers chilling in the city with a should-get-old twist (Who’s the mother?) has become a surrealist dream of slap-bets, silliness and Robin Sparkles, the best fictional cheesy Canadian pop star ever.
~leslie_streeter@pbpost.com
leslie… lost??
#1 show for me was “The Office.” Michael Scott is the funniest person on TV.
30 Rock? Having been in tv and around it for a long time, 30 Rock pales in comparison to Larry Sanders, I know that was not in the decade but 30 Rock pretends to be what LS was. And 24 is far and away the best action adventure tv ever made. It’s every action flick packed into an hour each time and re-invented itself the last time around. Rome “hot”? Rome, trash with tremendous stuff around the sleaze. Cut the sleaze and you have a really good story.
Jim is right on it….30 rock is a joke. Larry Sanders was one of the best shows ever created. Shows like 30 rock are just poor attempts of a watered down version of the original.
You are crazy.. or just oblivious
There are obscure picks. Never heard of most of them.
What about CSI??? House??? Seinfeld???
Maybe you should actually watch some tv
I agree with some of you. Lost and CSI should be up there.
someone mentioned seinfeld however that was not this decade silly that was the 90′s. I’d also include true blood, entourage, and dexter.
CSI? Really? You lost credibility with that one
Plus – this is not an obscure list, all these shows have an extremely large fan following and most are critically acclaimed – if you haven’t heard of most of these you are seriously missing out
MAybe you should look at a decade and see Seinfeld wasn’t in the 2000-2010 decade. I agree with most of those but should have found room for Dexter, Breaking Bad, Lost And Rescue Me inplace of Stephen Colbert, Friday Night Lights and even my fave 30 rock
With the exception of 24, most of the other listed shows are / were awful or were good for a season or two. How can you not be sick of 30 Rock already? The last 2 seasons of Alias were awful and both Ftiday Night Lights and How I Met Your Mother were awful since their first episodes.
How about CSI, Criminal Minds, House, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, Dexter and The Tudors?
Are you on crack? There is no doubt that Friday Night Lights belongs on the list. It is one of the best television shows out there, period.
What about Heroes?? Best show of all time. ….
You all spend too much time in front of the tube…I bet your fat,ugly and bitching all the time about its a disease…
Go for a walk and eat some fu@#$%ing grapes !!!1
If you’re not interested in these shows, go some other place to wine, you little s***.
No Deadwood, the unholy marriage of Shakespeare, Peckinpah and Robert Altman?
The Soprano,s by far should be in the top 10.
Lost wins, hands down.
Breaking Bad…..no contest. Maybe the best freakin’ show in the history of television period.
Dexter is the best show on television, hands down!
How can we 4get Friends……..?????????
JERICHO. ‘Nuff Said.
Breaking Bad has to be in a top ten list of best TV shows of the decade. It is perhaps one of the best of the last 25 years. Agree with you on Arrested Development. What a great show.
The Office and Boston Legal were/are some of the best TV shows of the decade.
Good point, I forgot about Boston Legal. That one should be on the list for certain, instead of Lost or 30 rock.
Where have all the INTELLIGENT shows gone? The ones that made you THINK while watching them, b/c of how cleverly they were written?
Jericho and Boston Legal are perfect examples of this, which a good drama SHOULD BE. Most comedy shows (except perhaps Big Bang Theory) are not. The laughs should be actual jokes, not just slapstick all the time. Most of the comedies of the last decade seem to be little more than ‘Jackass in 30 minutes’ rather than the genius of Seinfeld or Big Bang.
Sadly, the drop in TV budgeting and the shift toward ‘reality’ TV or talk shows simply because they are cheaper may have doomed some really GOOD drama shows over the next few years. I hope I’m wrong however.
Wayyyyy off. Cavemen, the Denise Richards show and that one show with the guy from the thing (you know who I’m talking about!) were lightyears ahead of their time. Shoulda made the list
Every top 10 list (especially those related to TV, music & movies) are extremely subjective. What is delightfully funny to one person, is obnoxious to another. I’m not a big fan of most of the shows on this list…that’s not to say that they aren’t good, or shouldn’t be here…it’s just that they didn’t trip my trigger. I love Mad Men, but other than that…I love screwball sit-com’s, but I hate 30 Rock (only because I can’t stand Tracy Morgan, and can’t figure out why people think he’s so funny). My Name is Earl & The Office have been the ONLY sit-com’s worth watching on Thursday night IMO. The West Wing, ER, Weeds, Big Bang Theory, NCIS, House, Chuck, Heroes…those would be the shows that I enjoyed most the past 10 years.
How I Met Your Mother!! :D Great list, but I’m missing a few like Heroes, Supernatural, Psych, Friends and Chuck.. :)
I disagree with the list, but it’s your opinion. I really think Dexter and Breaking Bad are amazing, and they’d be my top two
I reckon Dexter should definitely be on the top 10. Lost though… it goes down hill when they decide to go back to the Island. Prison Break was good but you can’t keep on breaking out and going back into prisons.
Supernatural WOOP!
I do think Prison Break is one of the best shows of the decade-it had a completely original topic, very unique characters and good acting, and it consistently made you think……other good shows that deserve to be there are friends and rescue me
thanks tyler but now I gonna check dexter
the person who made that didn’t watch PRISON BREAK… I can’t believe it’s not here on that list
the person who made that didn’t watch PRISON BREAK… I can’t believe it’s not here on that list… Best show ever
ok tyler I do agree so thanks anyway
i have not heard of any of those shows but i think family guy should be in the top ten
Prison Break Season 1 is in my top 10 of all time television shows. After the first season, it just wasn’t as good. Shows that get better with each new season are hard to find. Fringe is getting better and better and bucks this trend. I think Dexter is a great show. Wire is in my top 10. X-Files was superb. There are a lot that could go in a top 10 list…tough to narrow it down. Like someone said, it’s very subjective.
Show never mentioned on anyone’s list, partly because no one watched it and it was canceled, is Day Break. It’s in my top 5 all time.
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER IS THE BEST!
Awful list…
Lost
Battlestar Galactica
Breaking Bad
Mad Men
The Sopranos
Just to name a few….