A.V. Club’s Best TV Shows of the Decade
There was some recent debate on weather or not the Bloglin should do any Best of Decade lists. We’re planning to do best of ’09 lists, but weren’t certain on trying to look back on the whole decade. One that we settled on at least trying to do was the Decades best in television. But in comes A.V. Club with a pretty spot-on end-of-decade list as you can get, rendering our initial idea mostly moot.
How is this list so good you ask? Well it isn’t because The Wire was chosen #1, and The Soprano’s had to settle for #2 (C’mon… duh!)… It’s really the little things. Take for instance, both US and UK Offices (#7 & #11) making it on the list (take that “Oh I’ve only ever seen the BBC Office, the US one sucks though right?”). Remembering to include Freaks and Geeks (at #4 no less), acknowledging Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job! (#20) and finally recognizing great shows even in their infancy like Breaking Bad (#6) and Eastbound & Down (#28).
Sure there are a few choices I don’t agree with (or rather just never cared for) and some personal ordering changes but that happens on every list. Everything that should be there thankfully is. Well except King of the Hill sadly enough.
A.V. Club’s Best of the Decade: The Best TV Series of the ’00s
- My Pal the Crook
November 18th, 2009 at 10:45 am
What a shit list.
Deadwood at 9 while Friday Night Lights is at 16? The Shield at 10 and Buffy at 25? Six feet under at 22? Fuck that!
Also Sopranos was good until the golden age kicked in and has since been proven to be vastly overrated…so it has no place being at number 2.
I do have to give props for Tim and Eric though.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Doc Dino: Your comment basically read as “Grrrr!! All the stuff I like made the list but not in the exact order I had it in my head so the list sucks!”
Come on man, the ordering of a top 30 list is entirely subjective on the individual. A.V.’s list I’m sure was a compromise based on a multitude of individual lists and rankings.
Also what has proved the Soprano’s overrated??
November 18th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Six Feet should be way higher, but other than that, I’m cool with the order.
@Doc, what’s the “golden age?”
I watched the first five episodes of Deadwood but couldn’t get into it, anyone think I should finish it?
November 18th, 2009 at 11:11 am
No ‘Damages’ ‘The Shield’
November 18th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Deadwood was an amazing show. And this is coming from someone who usually can’t get into anything wild west themed.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
No “Sunny” or “Sons Of Anarchy”?!?
November 18th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Right on. I’ll finish it then.
I can’t get into Always Sunny either. They’re always yelling at each other. They should call it Always Yelling in Philadelphia.
November 18th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
WHERE IS OZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (the order and some corny shows are definitely suspect)
November 18th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I’m stoked Buffy made it. First 3 seasons are maybe the best teen television of all time. That being said I would say they are more 90s than 2000 but I guess Buffy was a transitional show.
Only GLARING absence is the fucking Chapelle’s Show.
I have almost no issues with this list.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Well there are definitely some things missing. Chapelle’s Show is a great catch. South Park is another which really came into it’s own this past decade and not in the 90s that’s not mentioned. But the list is only 30 shows deep… and except for the 5 or so shows I that have large followings but I personally just never had any interest in watching (Anything by Joss Whedon, West Wing, Veronica Mars, etc, etc), i think this is a pretty solid list.
Like I said rankings are totally interchangeable and subjective on a “Top 30″. I don’t get why people get so hung up by one making it ahead of another when they both clearly singled out for distinction. It’s not like The Wire was left off and One Tree Hill was given #1.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Crook, Sopranos kicked off the golden age of TV and for that it deserves respect but most of the great shows that came after it far and away surpassed it. And pretty much everyone agrees that by the end it was limp as fuck.
Mars, the golden age of tv is what we are in now…or what is ending. As opposed to a time full of shit sitcoms and soaps. I didn’t coin this concept/phrase, look it up.
I understand that this is subjective but this is what you are supposed to do when a list comes out, bitch. I think my comments were valid. Deadwood isn’t a bad show but it should not be as high as it is. But it is a fuck load better then the shield. The shield blows. I actually like a lot of deadwood but considering they didn’t even finish the show I think it is really bizarre that it got 9.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Dude are you crazy? What surpassed the Sopranos? Name something!
And went limp at the end? The show is an absolute masterpiece of storytelling for television. Have you actually sat and watched it all the way through and not weeks, months and years between episodes and seasons?? Everything about that show was so calculated and perfectly executed from start to finish.
You’re right that the Soprano’s did indeed kick of the notion of long-form contained storytelling TV format, but it in no way has been trumped. I’m not even going to count the Wire because it’s such a different style of storytelling that lends itself so perfectly to TV. The closest any show has come to what the the Soprano’s achieved is Breaking Bad and Mad Men, neither of which have yet to surpass it.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
It wasn’t really that calculated. David Chase went on record as saying the show was initially planned as a three-season arc, first season was intro, second season was what happened with big puss, and third season was the fallout of those events. After that they really seemed to be winging it. 4th season: “Lets add joey pants”. 5th season: “Lets add Buscemi”. 6th Season: “Dream sequences and abrupt ending”.
Listen I grew up on the Sopranos. I used to love it hard. But I have since grown up, watched awhole lot more TV, and watched it again and it really does not hold up.
Yes the Wire is different but it is still a better show, it counts. Then there are others:
Six feet Under: There is a reason this show started kicking Sopranos ass in the ratings durings its first few seasons.
Friday Night Lights: Yup.
Lost: I don’t love this show by any means but a lot of people would easily take it over the Sopranos.
Mad Men: Very similar structure to Sopranos (probably because Weiner was a Sopranos vet) but much more interesting. I do think it has surpassed Sopranos in a lot of ways.
So at this point in my life I would take those (except lost) over Sopranos.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:11 am
David Chase can say anything and everything he wants about what was supposed to happen and how it was supposed to be. That doesn’t change that the end product is still perfect, seamless and well executed… Intentional or not.
Joey Pants, the Dreams, the metaphors, the character studies and interactions, the “abrupt” and oh so perfect ending… all the shit that your signaling out as turning “limp” are what made the show amazing. It’s what took it out of being another mob story and into something with real depth beyond just people getting “whacked”.
And Friday Night Lights?? Come on… that show was good enough show to deserve a stay of execution but hardly even on par with most anything else on that list.
November 19th, 2009 at 7:43 am
Friday Night Lights is remarkable and one of the best dramas on TV right now. The ensemble is strong across the board, the cinematography is terrific, story is engrossing, and they’re never afraid to take risks. The Taylors are the greatest married couple on television since the Huxtables. Also, FNL had one of the best pilots I have ever seen in my life.
I agree with Crook on the Sopranos never going limp. No other show has mixed that high level of comedy and tragedy and psychological depth so perfectly. Not even the Wire, although I like the Wire better overall.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I see Sopranos and Wire co-existing at the top like Lil Wayne and Kanye.