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

11. Castle of the Lovely Girls

went to shit after they killed off Esperanza

You're not kidding. Remains the only occasion I've ever spat at my television.

Catching up, now that I'm over Sam's capitulation to America :)

25. Battlestar Galactica - watched the original as a lad, couldn't get into this
24. Futurama - good stuff, about where I'd expect it to be
23. Flight Of The Conchords - this falls flat for me more often than not but sometimes is proper laugh out loud funny
22. The Thick of It - Viz's "Rude kid" filtered through a Zingomiser or something. Wins me over with pure crudeness rather than any actual good comedy writing
21. The West Wing - meh political drama, I know loads of people who really can't get enough of WW. Mostly bores me.
20. The Office U.S. - never got round to paying too much attention to this, looks to have found its own voice after starting as a poor rewrite.
19. Veronica Mars - never seen it
18. Peep Show - thought the UK contingent would have boosted this higher.
17. Spaced - agreed with all the posts about it dating badly but I absolutely loved it first time round.
16. Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Loved it up to Graduation Day (S3 finale), where I thought it should have ended, then it lost its way for me and I stopped watching. Looks like it picked up again from what people are saying.
15. Six Feet Under - one of those shows I watched the first couple of eps of then forgot about.
14. The Colbert Report - never seen it
13. South Park - 13th in the decade? Really? To me it seemed a bit tired by the time the 2000s came around. Still makes me laugh occasionally but if this is top 15 it was a pretty shit decade.
12. Doctor Who - voted for this based on overall fondness for Doctor Who since I was a kid but if I'm to be honest only a handful of the nuWho episodes have been proper good telly.
11. Deadwood - hatred for Lovejoy has prevented me watching Deadwood but I keep hearing good things. It might join a few others off this list in my "to see" list.
10. Curb Your Enthusiasm - the nature of the show makes it hit and miss but when it hits it's among the funniest things on TV. Worth its place.
9. The Sopranos - This was my #2, though I have to admit the last couple of series didn't live up to the earlier ones. I know this board if full of Wire stans and I new that would be #1 but I honestly thought big Tony would make the podium.
8. Lost - my #1, even if it is increasingly infuriating to watch. I love that it drives even its biggest fans nuts. The first couple of series were an absolute joy and (like early Sopranos) no-one else was making anything quite like it at the time. I thought the ILX Lost contingent might have been big enough to get this in the top 5.
7. The Office U.K. - funny show, but no way did I see it ranking this highly - top UK show! I had it 12th on my ballot and decided afterwards that that was generous.
6. The Daily Show - US thing, quite like some of the wee clips I see on youtube or w/e
5. Mad Men - Thought this would be battling it out with Sopranos for #2, given the volume of mentions it gets on here, really surprised at the shows above it
4. Freaks and Geeks - Americans have bossed this poll eh? Never seen it.
3. 30 Rock - I should maybe watch more TV eh?
2. Arrested Development - oh I've seen this. Good stuff, didn't see it coming this high for a moment
1. The Wire - an obvious winner from the outset, I need to get round to finishing off watching it (i.e. seasons 2, 3, 4 and 5...)

Thanks for all your hard work Sam. From this fifty there's a good list of stuff I will make an effort to check out.

Surprised Band of Brothers only got 4 votes, I thought that was generally well thought of?

Heroes didn't even make the 100? Really tailed off after that first series eh?

Looks like one more vote could have got Terminator: SCC into the top 100 :(

Others I voted for and am disappointed not to see make the 50:

Life On Mars, TV Burp, Shameless, Ideal, Have I Got News For You, Spongebob Squarepants, Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends

i was pretty sure from the onset Life On Mars, Spongebob and Invader Zim were to never appear here. all three i enjoyed alot - althought LoM didn't last very long.

Would me tentatively offering to run a 90s TV poll be insanity? I don't have much work on at the moment.

It would be insanity. Go for it!

i think i'd prefer a 00s film poll. 90s too long ago to remember whether i liked sabrina or clarrisa more.

i'd still love it though.

really not a good time for polling 90s (or 80s) imo

for some reason i am thinking a 'greatest telly of all time' one wouldn't work.

The Office U.K. - funny show, but no way did I see it ranking this highly - top UK show!

I think for a lot of Americans, this is the only British TV show from this decade they've seen. In some cases I imagine it was driven by curiosity after having become fans of The Office U.S., but even before the U.S. version aired, the U.K. show seemed to attract an awful lot of hype around here.

yeah, Planet Earth aside, The Office was the only British show I even thought about putting on my ballut (but ultimately didn't), and even that was mainly because I really wanted to make sure it beat the US version. couple other shows I liked but not enough to vote for (Primeval, Spaced, etc.).

haha ballut

When did US telly get so good? Because it was hilariously and notoriously dreadful when I was growing up 20-30 years ago (James L Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Steven Bochco and Burrows/Charles/Charles apart, I s'pose). Influence of HBO?

never really got how The Office was able to break thru in the USA this way

xp Michael Jones: Totally agree with you - even the 90s, which had many good shows, is a huge distance from this decade in show quality. I believe honestly there were specific shows in genres in the late 90s that broke through the mold and pushed boundaries, allowed others to grow in their place. For instance, for comedies there's obviously Seinfeld which would lead directly to Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sopranos led to much high quality, character driven and continuity heavy drama of all sorts. X-Files isn't superb in retrospect or in total, but because of it we got Lost and other riskier scifi/fantasy/drama types.

Of course there's stuff in the 80s and early 90s as well (hello Twin Peaks!) but especially towards the end of the decade, it really opened the floodgates.

Larry Sanders was HBO right?

If an all time greatest poll were to be done, I think it would be best to wait a while as many of the results here would be replicated. I think a 90s one could work, though I'd be a bit worried about getting a lukewarm response due to that decade's output being less fresh in people's minds/arguably inferior. I'm going to Norfolk for the weekend, but I might try and drum up some more enthusiasm for the idea on Monday.

Yeah, Larry Sanders may have been the first show that I wanted to watch but couldn't (because I didn't have cable).

us drama got good starting with oz is the received wisdom, right?

if we're talking 90s we can't forget Kids In The Hall.

made it ok to be a man in a dress.

if it is i sure never received it (xpost)

xps Wasn't Oz sort of the direct descendant of Homicide though (and then followed by The Wire)? I think they all shared certain producers and casting and such.

oh yeah, KITH definitely rules, but I can't think of any sketch comedy show that's directly followed in its footsteps. but I'm sure it's still massively influential on a lot of modern comedy

I was going to mention X-Files as something of a watershed show in the mainstream - it was certainly the first non-comedy import that I can ever remember trying to watch every week (didn't really get into Hill Street Blues and I'm not sure Homicide was shown regularly on British TV). Oh, My So-Called Life too!

I completely forgotten about ER, which I've pretty much watched from the start. Didn't even get nominated. I assume it would do better in a 90s poll.

I just looked up St Elsewhere - can't believe that finished in '88. I'm getting old :(

16. Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Loved it up to Graduation Day (S3 finale), where I thought it should have ended, then it lost its way for me and I stopped watching. Looks like it picked up again from what people are saying.

Do yourself a favor and watch seasons 4 and 5. 4 is entertaining enough, but 5 is ridiculously good. Then brace yourself for season 6, which is essentially an extended depression narrative. But I 'like' it a lot. It's rough going, but you feel better for having gotten through it. And then the unjustly maligned season 7 is just a fun, high-speed rollercoaster ride to the end of the series.

I think for a lot of Americans, this is the only British TV show from this decade they've seen. In some cases I imagine it was driven by curiosity after having become fans of The Office U.S., but even before the U.S. version aired, the U.K. show seemed to attract an awful lot of hype around here.

Voice of America piping up here: Thanks to the wonders of the internet (pre-torrent, even!), I pretty much watched the UK Office as it aired. And I've watched and continued to watch quite a bit of British telly. And a lot of US telly. And it's still my favorite series of the '00s, and one of my favorites of all time.

I would totally be up for a '90s TV poll. I've practically got my ballot written up in my head already.

Thanks DWH, I'll hopefully get a chance to watch the rest of Buffy, I think a friend has the lot on DVD.

Seems unfair that Coogan is nowhere in this list. I've just been watching the second series of I'm Alan Partridge and it's hilarious. Surely he would place in a 90s list?

IAP would probably be my #1 UK 90s show

Great TV shows of the 90s

OK, I've been compiling a noms list from the 90s thread, and there's some great stuff there. I'll get the ball rolling on Monday.

I can't stop watching I'm Alan Partridge. Now onto series 2/ep.3 - "From Spalding to Felixstowe - all the issues"

"Help! He's a mentalist!"

30 Rock isn't funny though?

My list fwiw. I'm one of the people who ranked Mad Men #1 since I'm white apparently.

1. Mad Men
2. Freaks & Geeks
3. Lost
4. 30 Rock
5. American Idol
6. Friday Night Lights
7. Curb Your Enthusiasm
8. Big Love
9. Project Runway
10. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
11. The Daily Show
12. Top Chef
13. True Blood
14. Six Feet Under
15. Arrested Development
16. Weeds
17. The Office (U.K.)
18. Spaced
19. Entourage
20. The Office (U.S.)
21. Planet Earth
22. Extras
23. The Soup
24. The Colbert Report
25. Dexter

Nathan Barley
Peep Show
Mad Men
Deadwood
Doctor Who
Come Dine With Me
The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon
North Square
Arrested Development
Spaced
Ideal
Boy A
Being Human
The Devil's Whore
The Inbetweeners
Criminal Justice
State of Play
Clocking Off
Firefly
Wallander (UK)
Wonder Showzen
Apparitions
Bleak House
A History of Britain
Life On Mars

^Nathan Barley artificially high in a - failed - attempt to get it onto the results list.

i'm sort of shocked the Shield didn't place at all. more than sort of - lets upgrade that to "quite" shocked.

OK, I've been compiling a noms list from the 90s thread, and there's some great stuff there. I'll get the ball rolling on Monday.

Should we be adding nominations to that thread if they aren't already there...?

If you like - though I'll give people a day or two next week to add more to the existing list.

i wonder if i still love doug and hey arnold and etc. enough to nominate them. hmmm.

oh, and biker mice from mars.

this poll gonna be heavily skewed by childhood.

would be so refreshing to have poll results dominated by kids' shows and trad sitcoms instead of big serious serial dramas

was interesting to see the amount of love for American Idol here - the UK equivalents don't seem to be rated by anyone (for me it would be a bit like voting for Blind Date in the 90s poll)

The host for Blind Date used to host a roundtable scifi discussion show where Dwight Schulz would shake intently at Harlan Ellison.

New X Factor suckz. Charlie Brooker put it perfectly in 2 of his saturday articles: 1. adding a crowd from day 1 ruins the joek on retards/making yr mind up on good ones 2. not knowing what to do when the 'step up' was supposed to be how they deal with the added pressure of a crowd etc. so just adding more lights.

The host for Blind Date used to host a roundtable scifi discussion show where Dwight Schulz would shake intently at Harlan Ellison.

― Philip Nunez, Friday, 6 November 2009 19:01 (50 seconds ago) Bookmark

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