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

out of your list, i am betting against eastbound and down

I hope it makes it but somehow I doubt it will.

I'll be pretty shocked, though, if any from my list of 17 above don't make it.

I wouldn't be surprised at all not to see South Park or Eastbound and Down or The Shield. The first is a show that a lot of people went nuts over when it debut, but I rarely hear anyone talk about anymore. The second is probably too new -- I still haven't gotten around to seeing it, even though I'm predisposed to that guy's work. And the third: I know it's a show that TV critics love, but do ILXors love it? (Maybe I've missed a massive thread somewhere.)

Shows I voted for that apparently don't have much chance of finishing:

6. Rescue Me
8. Army Wives
9. Weeds
10. Big Love
12. Swingtown
18. Ugly Betty
19. Generation Kill
21. Everybody Hates Chris
22. Beauty and the Geek
24. King Of Queens
25. Monk

Maybe a couple others too, but I'll wait and see.

Am a little surprised that #6, #9, and #10 don't have more of a following here. (Maybe #19, too, but that was just mini-series, which obviously limits viewership.) (I'm sure there are reasons I'm probably supposed to hate Weeds, but I don't. I think it's pretty great.)

a lot of people went nuts over when it debut

Debuted, rather. And by that, I mean: in the late '90s.

South Park too libertarian. Weeds not funny enough. Big Love just not as good as other HBO offerings.

I'm a fan of the first and third, as well as watching Weeds on occasion for MLP.

Big Love was on my ballot. Not terribly high on my ballot, but on there nonetheless.

I've never seen The Shield, but it seemed like one of the only ones left that made sense as a top 20-er.

As far as Eastbound is concerned, it beat Party Down in our little poll a while back, so I figured that it would have to rate above PD in this poll. Right? Right?

I like Weeds, but it can be wildly inconsistent in tone. The show clearly thinks of itself as a dark comedy, but it often ends up veering confusedly between broad satire and edgy melodrama.

I wouldn't be surprised at all not to see South Park or Eastbound and Down or The Shield. The first is a show that a lot of people went nuts over when it debut, but I rarely hear anyone talk about anymore.

dude, every other SP episode the last couple years has been some big celeb-baiting watercooler moment (Kanye fishsticks episode, etc) that i get sick of hearing about within a day of it airing

i will be pretty surprised if it doesn't place

tbh i would be very disappointed to see The Shield not finishing in a top 51, even more so looking at some of the other shows on there already. the first season of Weeds was actually fantastic, since then it's been more of a habit. MLP deserves more cred for her work though.

guess no one but me voted Entourage?

Huh. I guess I just don't come across a whole lot of South Park fans. The only reason I know it's still on the air is because I never heard about it ending.

it is/was an awesome show, you're fronting if you disagree

Army Wives???

It is an awesome show, you're fronting if you disagree. (Actually, I bet I'm just about the only person here who ever watched it. It's addictive!)

my mom <3s it - i didn't know until quite recently that it was a scripted show

Deric's predictions = missing the US office, which is an obv placer

Mmmmmmmm...i don't know. Top 20 of the decade? I don't see it, myself.

Honestly, though, Army Wives might be the sappiest show I've ever loved. But I really do think it rules. It's a show about class in America...like, say, Roseanne. Sort of. Great characters. (Plus I've done my time on Army bases so I've sort of lived it.)

us office beat the uk office in the ilx poll. it's gonna place.

(I mean the vs. poll, might lose to it here)

xxxpost

Although I'm a little surprised that it didn't pop up in the bottom 30. So you're probably right.

No way is it better than its UK counterpart, though. Other poll is RONG.

Entourage resides at the top of my list of Worst-Shows-I've-Slavishly-Watched-Every-Episode-Of. It's never been particularly good, but it's watchable. I think I've laughed out loud maybe 3 or 4 times in it's entire run, and I don't really care for any of the characters (except maybe the Lloyd/Ari relationship). It's a starfucking, aspirational love letter to an abhorrent lifestyle. The occasionally interesting Hollywood-negotiating storylines can't make up for E and his relationships, the annoying flaws of Drama, the drug-obsessed Turtle (though he is the best), and the nothingness that is Vince.

Will continue to watch, of course, but I can easily name 51 better shows from the decade.

xposts

might just be pissed that the most recent season was awful tho

I sent in a short ballot, since I follow relatively few shows.

1. ?????
2. Planet Earth
3. ?????
4. ?????
5. ?????
6. ?????
7. ?????
8. Project Runway
9. ?????
10. ?????
11. ?????
12. ?????

I think most of my remaining picks will end up in the top 20, but I'm less sure about my #1 than I am about the rest of them.

gukbe otm re: entourage -- if it only existed for the first 2 seasons when it was pretty consistent, i might have voted for it

xp - my ballot was even shorter than yours -- so far two of the four I picked have been listed. Not sure if my #1 will be #1 though, it is feasible.

Voted for so far:

7. How I met your mother
8. Friday Night Lights
9. Party Down

14. It's always sunny in philadelphia
15. Chappelle Show

18. Da Ali G show
19. Flight of the conchords

Curious if extras and colbert will place, and I think the US office is a lock

Things I voted for that I am officially beginning to doubt their chances:

nevermind the buzzcocks, generation kill, andy richter controls the universe, antm (?), and the joe schmo show

of mine, I'm almost positive that Top Chef, A History of Britain, Rome, and The Power of Nightmares won't place. Pretty sure that Big Brother and Skins won't either. Questioning Doctor Who now, actually.

xp - shit I forgot about Generation Kill. Would have totally put that on my list.

lol David Simon stan

This thread v timely as I have just joined Netflix and have plenty of time on my hands.
Really wish I'd voted in this poll - I think I found it kind of overwhelming - there's been a LOT of great TV recently - and also I hadn't seen a lot of the US stuff.
My top shows of all time are Peep Show, Arrested Development and 30 Rock, but there's a lot of great non-comedy stuff in here too.

Jesus! I don't know if I preferred this thread when no one was posting to it, or now when I can only skim it.

My votes thus far:
State of Play
Ali G
The IMPSON Family
FNL
Runway
BSG
Futurama
West Wing

Only one of my top 10 has showed up so far, though I'm pretty sure four of them have essentially missed the cut. I also threw a vote and a long-butt blurb for Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I think that had only 4-5 of us watching and posting about it, and no way that's broken top 20.

Still think Sorkin's best work, and the one he's been trying to replicate, is Sports Night. I stopped watching WW after he left -- don't even remember which season that happened now! -- and I don't know if I can give it another shot even though people have said it picks up after a bit. And WW is not a procedural to my mind; procedurals have a very specific self-contained narrative rhythm, and WW was too all-over-the-place to be called narratively formulaic.

Trayce is def a bigger Futurama fan than me, lots of ilxors are, I haven't even seen the Fry's dog episode. :o It was my last vote, right after BSG (which was better when the humans were fighting other humans).

Dexter is entertaining but empty calories. I netflixed series 1 of FotC, first disc was hi-larious ("...the Robo-Boogie"), second disc a snoozefest. Hit by food poisoning on an 18-hour flight during which time I watched a bunch of House eps, which means I can't watch it now ever. Also eff it for using "Teardrop" as its theme music.

I'm holding out waning hope for ANTM. Misc reality shows: Survivor's not going to make it, nor TAR, which, honestly, is kind of boring. No idea about Top Chef, I don't watch it. American Idol is totally going to make it. Maybe not top 10, but teens definitely.

Not going to speculate about the top 10 because I don't like thinking about shows that annoy me to death.

RIP Generation Kill, apparently. And Undeclared AKA Freaks and Geeks Jr.

Voted Venture Bros, Family Guy, House M.D., Firefly, South Park, Dexter, IASIP and The Simpsons. The highest show I voted for that I'm afraid won't place is Damages. (Tho other Damage-stans in this thread have me hopeful.) I'm pretty sure almost everything else I voted for will place. (I have generic ILX tastes?)

xp heh i was one of the few posting on the Terminator thread, and i really liked it -- that said, like so many have, this decade was filled with so many great shows, it just didn't make my top 25

I voted Damages #1, but I'm not that hopeful about it showing up. x-post

btw, i can't wait for the inevitable thread after this is done where we all bitch about the shows we voted for that didn't make the top 50! that should be fun

Nhex, I was hoping you'd be the other one to rep T:SCC! Swounds!

haha sorry dude! it came really close, i'll admit

Forgot to vote, but go American Idol! and Weeds!

Two things I'm curious about, which may or may not be able to be tabulated:

How many people voted for both "Office"s, and of those, how many ranked each one higher? (I put the UK one #11 and US one #16 myself. Took me a long time to appreciate the US one at all, by the way.)

Habitital Potsmokers vs. Voters Who Aren't. (Beer's about the strongest substance I use, but I have a feeling that if I used different ones, some of these shows getting lots of votes might make more sense to me.)

US Office - #20
UK Office - #12

Still think Sorkin's best work, and the one he's been trying to replicate, is Sports Night. I stopped watching WW after he left -- don't even remember which season that happened now! -- and I don't know if I can give it another shot even though people have said it picks up after a bit. And WW is not a procedural to my mind; procedurals have a very specific self-contained narrative rhythm, and WW was too all-over-the-place to be called narratively formulaic.

I agree that on a level playing field, I like Sports Night much more -- West Wing has the benefit of both being an hourlong show and being around for way more seasons, so it feels like a larger, grander body of work even aside from the subject matter. I just watched the first few seasons recently, and am currently trying to slog through the post-Sorkin stuff just to see the whole series. Also, nobody here called WW a procedural, maybe you're confusing that with the exchange about The Wire the other day.

I find it difficult to choose between SN and WW. He recycled a lot of storylines from the former for the latter, but they also worked a lot better because of the setting and the premise. WW was a much better mouthpiece for his politics. Either way, both are miles better than Studio 60, which was awkward and awful.

yeah...SN was like a semi-believable show about show business, WW was a believable show about politics, and then S60 was just this bizarre fantasy where people in show business have the same conversations as people who work in the White House

20 - 11 anyone?

please do

go slow.