Unopened Boxsets that I liked the look of from the Pilot: The ILX Television 51 Show Countdown Extravaganza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

unironically praising it as "edgy and envelope pushing" kinda sums up why everything positive i hear about IAS makes me feel like it's not something i'd be really into

i totally agree about the retroactive jerk myth thing, though

Forgot about that Conchords song Ledge posted. Hilarious.

xpost

Ehhhh...at some point in like season 5, maybe, the Seinfeld cast started to turn pretty pointedly jerky. Like around the time of Susan's death.

true...but again, that least a few seasons where the show was hugely popular and the jerky angle wasn't played up or talked about as much

least=leaves

every character in Sunny is at reprehensible, but somehow so many seasons in it's still really amusing. their trying to be really edgy burned out after the first couple of seasons, though, now it's actually more slanted towards a south park-esque topical farce (though actually more consistently funny, somehow). the show is really amusing, what can I say! having lived in philly for several years, the show speaks amazingly true to it too

22. The Thick Of It (16 votes, 1 first place vote, 2590 points.)
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/pictures/2009/3/4/1236164043566/In-The-Loop-005.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ojjeWBQ-0

re: Seinfeld - after the finale aired, though, you could go back and watch the episodes again and you realize it totally WAS their intent all along, even during the massively popular later seasons, the characters actually become worse and worse!

i know thats the movie poster but i love it so.

wish thick of it was on netflix, i liked the movie

o wow i was just thinking this would be next. brilliant show - sick of that poster tho.

"Tiny little terrorists"

yeah i think the edgy and envelope pushing thing isnt really a goal, its just that the show kind of needs to continue to give the horrible people stuff to do. i was just mentioning it because seinfeld was so endlessly safe in its subject matter, and it gives the two shows miles different feels.

xxxxxxposts

The Thick Of It is basically The Inbetweeners grown up. Better swearing, just as little sex, larger scale incompetence.

Off topic again, but...I realized upon rewatching Seinfeld that it could've ended by, like, season 4 or 5 (I always get screwed up because of the first season only being 4 episodes long) and it would've been one of my all-time favorites. Season 3 (4?), with the overarching plot about trying to create the series within the series, was really brilliant, and it only makes it all the more disappointing that they never tried that hard again.

I'm thinking at this point that the top 20 has to be populated mostly with my nominees. Surely. I've only had, like, 5 of my nominees show up thus far.

i dunno, obviously time and 10 years of much bigger taboos being addressed on TV have warped our perceptions, but i really don't think "endlessly safe in its subject matter" really describes Seinfeld, there was a good amount of stuff that was just never talked about in network shows before that, especially in a sitcom (xpost)

Should have ended that point with AM IIIIIII RIGHT?

i mean it's definitely kind of quaint to think that the masturbation contest or Kramer stomping on a Puerto Rican flag could've caused a stir or seemed kind of transgressive in the 90s, but that was a big part of the show's water cooler appeal at the time (xpost)

I think the "no hugging, no lessons" ethos was kind of a watershed at the time.

I tried watching The Thick of It recently but it was just way too English for me to really get and I love many English shows and lived there for two years etc. but this was just totally over my head.

masterbation contest? with like the three fugliest male characters in the history of television? ew and ew.

ok forgot about the masturbation contest one

i just realized recently that Seinfeld really was a good show after really never paying any attention to it. i just dont really think IASIP has much in common with it.

i can't really say either way, i was just parroting conventional wisdom, it gets the "it's the new Seinfeld" soundbyte almost as often as HIMYM gets "it's the new Friends" (and the latter annoys me as much as the former annoys you)

HIMYM isn't nearly as funny as friends, for a start

HIMYM is the new Friends bar the famous haircuts though. Hell, even down to the characters jobs (Joey and Robin both on telly, Ross and Ted both lecturers).

xpost

I like HIMYM a lot, but I'd probably agree with that.

Last of the day coming up soon...

I have only seen fleeting glimpses of HIMYM but it seems like it is trying so, so hard to be clever. Too much desperation.

heh figures ILX likes it!

21. The West Wing (16 votes, 3 first place votes, 2710 points.)
http://insidedisillusion.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/the-west-wing.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQJ6yqQRAQs

I voted West Wing 3rd and I unashamedly love it.

It just occurred to me that Gilmore Girls, like Friends, is vastly improved by skipping past the opening song. Blerg.

can't you apply that to every show ever?

I voted West Wing 2nd and I unashamedly love it.

is coupling gonna show up in this poll? speaking of buddy sitcoms. i've still never seen it. u.s. version lasted, what, two episodes?

i hated west wing and i hate everyone who loves it.

and i hate your little dug

Voted West Wing and Thick of It. "Somebody's Going to Emergency" might be a perfect episode of television.

Also, can't let this clip not get posted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_7pyktzpY8

voted West Wing 9th and i unashamedly really really like it

couplolling

west wing is catchy and full of likeable people. this is the problem.

It just occurred to me that Gilmore Girls, like Friends, is vastly improved by skipping past the opening song. Blerg.

― I HEART CREEPY MENS (Deric W. Haircare), Wednesday, November 4, 2009 12:28 PM (1 minute ago)

i'm probably waaay in the minority here but unless i'm pressed for time i almost always watch the theme song. i guess i've always thought the show's sentiments could be more accurately summed up by something like, idunno, taylor swift instead of the indier signifiers it always shot for.

I voted West Wing number 1, and can deal with scott's hatred. It is almost perfect TV.

Coupling will not show up, because I'm probably the only person on earth who will admit to thinking it's brilliant*. Don't think it was even nominated. I like it better than a whole lot of stuff I voted for, tbh.

* think some other fans may be out of the woodwork now that Moffat is doing Doctor Who

best theme song ever = L O S T

"Somebody's Going to Emergency"

lol I remember gearing up to watch this episode and trying to predict, along with my girlfriend, who was going to emergency and who was going to jail and then being disappointed to find out it was just a stupid Don Henley song.

I tried watching The Thick of It recently but it was just way too English for me to really get and I love many English shows

You can say what you like about The Thick Of It, just don't call it "English".

;)

I just realized that I've never seen a single episode of The West Wing.

Happy to see a few of my choices have made it so far:

49. State of Play (8 votes, 1170 points.) - whoever said this should have been the last season of the Wire so otfm. And I don't want to hear anyone say that they've already seen the movie - no excuse, the show was 6 hours of all killer, no filler, it's worth watching.
43. The Simpsons (15 votes, 1290 points.) - had a criminally steep dropoff in quality this decade but it still had many quality episodes and it deserves to be here. And even when the Simpsons is bad it's still infinitely superior to Family Guy
37. Oz (11 votes, 1530 points.) - I watched this when I was in high school, and when I was watching the Wire I felt that this was its spiritual predecessor. However when I rewatched Oz after The Wire I realized how ridiculous that was. Oz is a soap opera that gets more and more ridiculous as it progresses, but it's so entertaining that it's hard to mind.
33. Project Runway (15 votes, 1670 points.) - one of the better reality shows. I voted for American Idol but I doubt that will make it.

Honorable mention
31. House M.D. (16 votes, 1860 points.) - The first few seasons were outstanding, I stopped watching around the time that what's-her-face died. Got a bit too ridiculous. Incidentally I had just finished The Wire when that season started, and I also stopped watching Heroes around that time. Don't want to tell people that The Wire ruins TV for you but I think it did for me a bit...

Six Feet Under getting fuxxed over here as expected huh

nor have i, though my parents love it and i've always meant to watch it. it's now on the list for winter break

xxp