Mari Ness - Favorite television shows:

(Inspired by a conversation elsejournal and an observation that I've sort of done this for movies and books, so why not TV?)

Note the careful choice of words above. I'm saying "favorite," not "socially important," "innovative," or "great." Yep, I know All in the Family had its moments, but the truth is, I just couldn't stand to watch either Edith or Archie. I've also left out some currently running shows that I suspect will creep into my all time favorites sometime – notably Heroes and How I Met Your Mother and The Office. And before two of you start shrieking at me, no, I still haven't seen Deadwood, which is why it's not on the list. And, of course, like my book list, this is partial at best.

1) Firefly: (No real surprise here, I guess.) The show where Joss Whedon finally became an adult, but kept the jokes going and provided us with a lot of astoundingly good looking people while doing so.

2) Carnivale: I am slowly drawing out my viewing of this, episode by episode, to make it last, and I'm not sure if I will ever watch it again. But this is a beautifully crafted show, and one of the most addictive shows out there.

3) Angel: Admit it; you thought this one would be Buffy. But although Buffy had some better individual episodes, and despite an uneven first season, a wild and contradictory fourth season, and a complete shift in tone and pace in the second, third and fifth seasons, overall, Angel was better integrated and a better show.

4) Friends: It took this show a few episodes to get going, especially since much of its humour turned on self-referential points: the ongoing Rachel/Ross saga, Phoebe's ongoing kookiness, Joey's ongoing dumbness. But once it did, this show was utterly hilarious -- and passes the "can I show this episode multiple times to English as a Second Language students and not end up utterly hating myself and the planet?" test.

5) Animaniacs: True story: So I'm sitting at Fort Lauderdale Airport, humming a bit to myself as I do sometimes, when I find my hum turning to actual words, "There's baloney in our slacks!" and suddenly realize that I am no longer humming, or singing, alone: the elderly woman across the row from me is also merrily singing along, "We're Animaney, totally insaney!"

The cartoon's that good.

6) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The dreck that was much of this show's sixth season was almost enough to knock Buffy off the list – the mere thought of the Xander/Anya wedding episode is enough to make me feel slightly ill – but to balance that, Buffy offered some of TV's best episodes ever: "Hush," "The Body," and of course the Musical.

7) Blackadder: (Series 2-4) The first series, alas, was just not that funny; Rowan Atkinson went for pathetic and slimy instead of intellectually superior, pathetic and slimy, but once the new character was fully established in the later seasons, Blackadder became one of the most consistently funny shows ever.

8) Monty Python's Flying Circus: Yes, decades later, I'll admit that some of the pieces just don't work, and the fourth season, without Cleese, has a lot of missing moments.

But.

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." Even parrots pining for the fjords. No matter how many times you watch that bit. Bring out the comfy chair.

9) Wonderfalls: Another show that was on the air all too briefly: only 14 episodes, only 14 little stories. 14 perfect little stories with astoundingly good dialogue. And, as I mentioned recently, a perfectly happy ending.

10) The Tick, the cartoon show. Just because: "Well, once again we find that clowning and anarchy don't mix." What's not to love?



And shows that almost, but didn't quite make it, in no particular order:

Nightmare Café I am probably the only one that remembers this extremely short-lived series -- Imdb.com informs me that it only lasted for six episodes – about two dead people trapped in a time and space travelling café. Actually, come to think of it, I can sort of understand why it was cancelled, but those six episodes were marvelous.
Bonus! Cigarette-Smoking Man from X-Files apparently appeared in one episode.

Hmm. How did I manage to get two horror shows on this list? Moving on…

And this one is just me: Zoom. You've gotta zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom! You've gotta zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom! I doubt that anyone else remembers this one, but I loved this show when I was four, if only because, well, Zoom! I wanted, desperately, to Zoom!

Alas, the chief lesson that Zoom taught me, over the years, was that I would never be able to Zoom – if by zoom! we mean turn a cartwheel.

Family Guy: Brian. Stewie. The cutaways. The truly brutal Little House on the Prairie joke. I do, however, find that I can only take this show in short doses, which kept it off my favorites list.

Red Dwarf: Because I'm not so secretly in love with The Cat and his wardrobe.

The Wombles: (the 1970s version; I've never seen the 98/99 series) "Wombles of Wimbledon, Wombles are we –" For the American viewing audience that I've lost here, The Wombles were both a book series and a popular poorly animated TV show about a group of bears living in, yes, Wimbledon, with both a highly evolved environmental sensitivity and a a stunning fashion sense. (Check out Biker Womble and Superhero Womble and – gasp – Naked Womble!) They achieved ultimate fame by becoming a McDonald's Happy Meal (scroll down, and thank you eBay for making us aware of this cultural fact.) Bears. In Balloons. Avoiding Tennis Players. You can understand the instant and complete love. 25 years later, and I'm still singing the theme song, which tells me something. Especially since I only saw three episodes of the show, ever, and to keep that memory untouched and joyful, I can obviously never watch it again. Which is the only reason it didn't make the top list.

The X-Files: During seasons 1-7, this was, bar none, my all time favorite show. The Frankenstein episode and "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" still rock my world.

Then Seasons 8 to 9 happened.

Star Trek:, original series. This was one of the very few shows I was allowed to watch as a child, one that I usually watched with my father, with his cautions that I should not believe any of its television commercials. (I was an extraordinarily credulous child.) Years later, even with the atrocious special effects, the plastic rocks, the dumb costumes, the constant pushing of female characters into the background – or using them as sex objects – the show still exerts a powerful pull of nostalgia and intelligence on me.

The Muppet Show: Another exercise in nostalgia – but I have to say, many of the episodes – the ones where the guests were comfortable working with puppets – still rate another viewing. (The Muppet version of "Crocodile Rock," with Elton John, is brilliant.)

The Vicar of Dibley: If you've somehow missed this British comedy about a female Vicar, stop missing it.

Coupling: The British version, not the inane American one. Utterly hilarious and spot on.

Allo! Allo! Leessen very carefully. I shall say this only once. This show is now out on DVD. Go watch it. The only reason it didn't make the top ten is that, like Family Guy, I find I can only watch limited episodes at a time.

(I'm noticing a strong trend towards British comedies here. Hmm.)

Robin of Sherwood: Not just because Michael Praed is a stunningly gorgeous man. Perhaps one of the best filmed Robin Hood adaptations ever – and certainly one of the best Maid Marions: well plotted, well filmed, well acted.

Soap: A ventriloquist. In a soap opera. And alien abductions. In a soap opera. And demon possession. Did we mention the soap opera?

Edit: Whoops, two shows didn't make it through the Word to LJ cut and paste process. Here we go:

News Radio Until, alas, the tragic death of Phil Hartman, which sucked the life out of the show.

You Don't Know Jack. Alas, this show was paired with one of the worst shows of all time, the literally unwatchable Cleopatra 2000. (I know the women looked hot. It was their idiotic dialogue and inane actions and complete lack of acting and…and a lot more…that I objected to.) This did nothing for the show's ratings. As well, the show really needed a full hour for its plot developments; many moments felt desperately squeezed. And the Napoleon character was just idiotic, and…and I'm about to remove it from even the "almost-made it" list, but the early episodes were highly amusing.


I know I'm forgetting several shows here -- but these were the ones that popped to mind.