Best TV Shows Ever Watched: My Top 15 (no order)

Following the prior post, I thought of the thousands of hours of shows I have wasted time on in my life. Roughly 3 hours per day for 333 days/year x 35 years = 35,000 hours rounded.  4 years, or 10% of life, yeah, what a waste. So, I like, millions of Americans & Brits have found accidental experience in watch these shows. So here's my top fifteen watched (more than 75% of episodes in the series is my minimum to be included on the list) in no particular order:

1.  M*A*S*H. It's finale still ranks as the all time leader in the United States for most watched TV program. It was a 11-year war story - quadruple the length of the war it fictionally depicts (Korean) and half of the war it truly satirized in Vietnam. In the half-hour situation comedy genre its pace was equally adept at slow and fast messaging, while developing the arcs of the characters in ways that resonated. I was merely a 6th grade child when the show ended in 1983. I watched it as a child, a teenager, early adult, and so on. Looking back, the show was way ahead of its time, then a leader among peers - but MASH's straying from just dark comedy (including Suicide is Painless opening music) came about with Alan Alda's creative consulting, writing, and directing in the late stages. Straying is harsh; it became a drama first - pure and simple, which is no easy tasking. The cast marched in step, created a space for war depiction that was flawed, but enjoyable in its touching moments through 251 episodes. (More here)

2. ER. Buttressing the medical drama genre with more realistic doctoring - Michael Crichton's ed credentials earned at Harvard Medical School helped - ER 326 TV hours were uneven, yet it was ride worth going to surgery for. I watched the majority of the show - missing the early 2K episodes probably around 20-40 -  sticking to the end, watching the finale. This show was not a way to improve your mood. Doctors on edge, nurses annoyed, lead staff showing off, while lives at home were in tatters or strained. John Carter (Noah Wyle) days from a poor little rich boy newbie from med school to stabbing victim, drug addict, AIDs clinic builder to the Africa continent  for answers. His story is the backbone of the ER saga - in my opinion. He finds skill through personal connection after demons he did not unleash nearly destroyed. I would be a fraud to say I know all the remaining characters arcs by heart. I watch TV not for fact - but to pass the time, and live a life I do not have, often thankfully.

3. Batman: The Animated Series. Batman, really enough said. I was in college when this show launched in mid-afternoon, a 22 minute ride in the caped crusader's world of chasing the bad guys to their lairs while always being alone in his focus and thinking. Again, no expert, but Kevin Conroy's voice is what makes this Batman the ticket in animation. (It took only 150 voice auditions to find him....wow.) Only lasted 3 years - but the with Danny Elfman doing the opening score - this piece of TV history should have lasted longer.

4. House. A logical genius, Sherlockian diagnostician, and unflinchingly unethical man seeks to solve his own equation first, but has your life in his hands - and cares nothing about you - do you let him attempt his ever unique solution? I loved Hugh Laurie's snarky sexually harassing to get attention doctor - if only how unreal he truly was. While MASH gave humor only to point out war's flaws, and ER had drama to point out the life-death daily fight, HOUSE gave us humor not on death's inevitability, but on the lies that can cause it. The show had plenty of letdowns, and I missed most of 2008-2010 due to various crises, but I will pop on those episodes soon enough. Laurie attended Cambridge U, is an crack writer, and can play some tunes, charting in the UK. That explains all his talents.

5. Quantum Leap. Back to the 1980s. Sam Beckett. Literary reference and history. This show was able to make time travel have some sense to it - swapping out identities, string theory - while truly trying "to set right what once went wrong.: It was a bit hokey, of course - but 2 characters tied together Al and Sam - made it a lifetime friendship romp through time. The best episode was MIA - where Al is torn to give the truth to Sam about why he is where he is, and what Sam is there to solve. It is beautiful, and the reason for the show's finale.

6. Psych. Amongst the favorites of USA network, this one made sleuthing funny, light-hearted, a bit more about quirks than crime.

7. Burn Notice. Spy vs. USA intelligence, Miami mafia, drug lords, Columbia kingpins, and old fashion bad dudes. As with most shows, the acting is convinces enough - if the tone has darkened from the initial season.

8. Angel.  Back when the world was less Twilighty, Angel was a quirk of a show written and developed by Joss Whedon, now of Avenger fame.

9. Game of Thrones. Prior post.

10. Twilight Zone. This put some nightmares in my head in those heady early days.

11. Star Trek : TNG. Captain Picard - Engage! I am a trekkie first and always!

12. Law and Order. Twenty years of Cops, Bad Guys, and Lawyers can be enough to make you think you know something about the law. Sam Waterston (The Killing Fields) took over for Michael Moriarty made Law and Order a pretty routine affair. I watched likely 250 episodes, of the 391. But I would gather, that the ones missed were not going to get me a law degree.

13. Hustle. A group of gritty London con men seem to always get their way - I found it refreshingly British.

14. The West Wing. Actually should do summary on this show. Aaron Sorkin crafted this punchy dream team machine of a White House. Can you imagine a Republican version of this show....nope, me neither. (Course, you would have to think brilliantly and socially responsible and sound and look good. Nope not happening.)

15. The Wonder Years. Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) and Winnie Cooper (Math genius Danica McKellar) were the prismatic budding teenagers through which we saw the evolving 1960s, and the frustrations of that time. The opening pilot episode set a beautiful array of emotions - and certainly it touched a 16-17 teenager that still felt Kevin's age: confused, horny, courageous, chicken, hopeful, excited, timid, sneaky, lazy, and loving all in a paragraph of dialogue.

Honorable Mentions, or likely, lacked the knowledge of entire show's run:
Breaking Bad
Freaks and Geeks
The Practice
Royal Pains
The Tudors
The Wire
Battlestar Gallactica
Rome
Homefront
Perry Mason
The Rockford Files
China Beach (Robert Picardo)
Castle
Dallas
All in the Family
Doctor Who
Spooks
Twin Peaks
Remington Steele
The Justice League
Bugs Bunny Show


I could go on all day. I am not a critic. I'd have to watch intently (and get paid) to give you a full rundown.
But here is enough television to burn your eyeballs for a lifetime.

E.R.: How a show intertwines with a life

During the course of your life, if you watch TV regularly, you will find a rare show that mirrors or reflects the march of time.

I can remember the early episodes of ER (1994-2009) with Noah Wyle, George Clooney, Eriq LaSalle and many, many others. I watched the show not for the ER speak, or the never-ending, soapy, romantic hook-ups, or even the Chicago locale that is the backdrop. No, the characters were draw. Somehow, taking Michael Crichton’s brain and putting it with young, inspired actors led to a great and unforgettable TV series.

Though I watch religiously from 1995-2000, meaning, I would put off going to a watering hole just for ER, I also had my periods on sabbatical while going through the ‘ER of Life.’

I went through bankruptcy in 1997 – the 1st real sign my post-college life wouldn’t be quite as charmed as Dr. John Carter’s poor little rich boy early days. There is often a sense of privilege and pride in knowing you are not so screwed up as your fellow classmates. Not I. The finance doctor did teach me a lesson, but that was only one of many trips to the Emergency Room for me.

In 1999, I went to an actual emergency room for various reasons, none of which were really resolved that particular night. The days after my talks to concerned folks did not resolve much, except that I needed a new line of work. And I had to evolve in my thinking…still.

ER evolved too. As George Clooney took his big screen looks to La-La where the ocean laps cold invigorating water, a bunch of new med school grads and nurses came in to bask in the small screen light. Guys name Luka and girls name Sam would become the new hunks and heroines to see on Thursday night at 9PM. (Now George uses his fame to fight the problems in Darfur. Good Egg that Clooney...)

By early 2001, I was up and down, and soon, out on another prolonged ER visit. This time it was a disease of the mind and soul. This disease needs treatment the type of which most would rather swallow arsenic, or take the lash to their bare back, to avoid. Well, I took the treatment for 4 years. My ER visit this time introduced me to terminal folks – not dying, but dead in spirit – as 80% would never seek, or reach a cure on this particular interlude into the abyss.

2005, the episodes of my life seem to drag on…ER too reached a predictable level of success.

The times had changed. Technology had definitely changed. The world in just a matter of a decade had significantly switched from an America going places, to an America going nowhere fast, unless it was with an Ipod, Iphone, Blackberry, or some other digital doo-hickey that I no longer can afford, in hand. Avarice is not my primary vice – but I do love being near the cutting edge or beta testing something... (Like a revolving-MRI or CT scan or other advanced medical tools and devices.)

As 2008-09 has seen its final season of ER, I am praying my crisis of head will not lead my heart and soul somewhere astray. I wish my learning about life wouldn’t have been so episodic – or that I would have marathoned ER several times when the chips got me down during my personal ER trials and tribulations.

I bid ER farewell.

Dr. Carter, I bid farewell. You made the show…come full circle.

Dr. Michael Crichton passed away before the last curtain fell. But he gave us a worthy body of work – writing plenty of interesting thrillers to go along with a TV medical drama that normally goes astray. Yours didn’t in 15 seasons.

So my grow up life has seen it’s last ER…