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.

Tidbits from the Tele: The World is Going Mad

TV Series Going, Going, Gone!!!

I woke today...a bit...hungover. Yes, I danced with the devil last night under a pale moon. The graduation ceremonies at Purdue were rocking, and people came a knocking. So I went out - and drank a bit more than a socially acceptable limit, and likely said, some socially unacceptable things, but all in good fun. No personal jibes.

So, back to the real point of this post. Seems most of my Hulu favorites to kill some time on are going bye-bye. GCB, Pan Am, The Finder, and House are all finished. House, after a glorious if an uneven run at times, bids us farewell and leaves a trademark character in the TV universe, that of Gregory House. I hope the finale is worth all the psychological and philosophical ground trekked over the last decade by Hugh Laurie's character. But, everybody lies.

GCB was a replacement show; but, it seems television execs actually thinks they can get the same ratings out of all the shows they put up. Instead, reality shows, winning money for singing, business planning, cooking, or quiz show mastery seems the pace of things in TV land for the foreseeable. Pan Am too was doomed by high expectations and very poor script writing. The Finder - my quirky favorite, like Psych  -  likely a product of bad timing, a Fox overkill of weird shows (so the Finder is actually normal by comparison), and no place on the network.

It seems many of the shows I like get axed quicker than most. For example, these shows all had good casts - GCB was a real hoot, superficial Texas people with modest charm, pulled off by a half-dozen real talents from David James Elliot, Leslie Bibb, Kristin Chenoweth to lesser-known names like Annie Potts. The Reillys (Miriam Shor, Mark Deklin) are an interesting set that will get lost to the ratings axe: that of a successful rancher and gay man with a career-always-first woman both engaged in hiding their arrangement while striving towards a more friends-with-benefits-and-responsibilities marriage. As sit-coms go, it just came too late to get the Modern Family treatment and accolades. That formula did not save it.

China's Rating System IS No Better...Still, America, Wake Up!

Moving on to other TV stories, China is pumping their kids up with IV fluids to get them higher test scores. And they achieve it- #1 in math, science, and reading - at least in Shanghai, which is not counting the other one billion point three souls (1.3 billion) who probably like to be educated too, and lo, were not studied. As James Fallows deduces about those Chinese 15-years old children:

It is certainly arguable the Chinese educational system and culture leads the world in training students how to take tests. But it is not clear whether this type of training prepares students for much else other than taking tests. Certainly I have seen much evidence for this proposition in the Chinese graduate students that I have worked with. My favorite examples were the Chinese students with perfect TOEFL scores who could neither read nor write English in any meaningful way. 

That said, what does it say about the United States of America? How does one cope with the hysteria (over the lagging scores in the US, #24) and still motivate our kids to scholastic achievements and to be more able to score well, and also, adapt well to a changing balance in the race (and it is a race) to properly use Earth resources towards humanity's best ends? (As someone is always deciding - consciously or unconsciously.)  And does that fit with U.S. domestic and foreign policies? How do we play the long game - as China has for 5,000 years?

Because whether you believe it or not - it is a competition; their are sides; and, lest we forget, many of those soon-to-be-attending American universities, will, one day, assume positions of power, in business or in government, in their respective countries. And, China is still communist; one party that designs and destines what it sees fit for its people, including which ones get ahead in their system and which ones will have advantages based on those pesky scores. Sure, at 15, they are seen as just eager little sponges of knowledge - but, remember: who amongst them might be the next Mao with a capitalistic bent? Mao did little right, but nonetheless led the nation with personality plus (Chinese style) for 40 plus years (1930s -1976).

I said the world is going mad because I find myself straddling two points of view: sure, China is still underdeveloped in most areas, yet, the high growth areas are rivaling America without democracy; and, I really worry that the above picture is not some righty wing nut's version of the future, but a bitter reality prediction. The second point is not to scare myself or others into extreme behavior. Sure, we need better education - less TV, social media, playing of video games - to be structured towards turning out some real genius level winners in the 21st century of the race to make a better future. 

It is a maddening thing - change. We can accept it; evolve with it; or defy it - or deny it. What camp do you feel you are in?

Stay tuned...

The Idiot Box: Things I've watched and liked

Since we often find ourselves plopping down in front of it, while awaiting a new adventure to take form somewhere inside us, or around us, here is a list of the shows I've took an interest in over the years....

M*A*S*H - while I was growing up, this was usually high on the watched list. Between Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and Hotlips Houlihan, I guess it was a small microcosm of the Vietnam War, although it's approach was not quite what I think should have been. Still retains title as highest rated TV show ever in its finale...And no show nowadays will ever amass that sort of audience with Cable/Direct TV.

The Wonder Years - Fred Savage as Kevin Arnold was a top-flight casting decision. He brought plenty to the role of a teenager growing up in the late 1960's, early 1970's. Daniel Stern doing that classic voice over, like The Christmas Story Red Rider Bee Bee Gun guy, also was top flight. Since the story moved in the same period, Vietnam, it was interesting how it could take on that topic, then come back down to antics of growing up, figuring out girls and getting into trouble. Olivia D'abo (left) was also a then schoolboy crush. (She's 38, plays on a show I really want to watch, but can't, since it is on SciFi and my cable company sucks - Eureka - and probably still pretty good looking.)

Remington Steele - Pierce Brosnan (pre-Bond) and Stephanie Zimbalist formed a partnership that was chaotic and funny. As a detective combo, they both worked pretty well. With Pierce's English verve and Stephanie's understated hotness (left), the show did enough for my 12-13 year old attention span. Sorta of a Moonlighting without the funny, sharp and quippy language. Which lead us to...

Moonlighting - Bruce Willis (pre-Die Hard) and Cybil Shephard (post-The Last Picture Show) did what Remington Steele couldn't usually: laugh at itself on screen. Breaking through the "4th wall" of TVLAND and adding plenty of spice in the sack that Remington didn't. A typical quote from the series:

Petruchio/Addison: You see through me, Kate. No tuner I. But I wish it were within my talents to play piano for you.

Kate/Maddie: 'Tis a sad thing indeed. You're the only man I know who suffereth from pianist envy.

House - what better way to understand a pseudo-Sherlock Holmes than to watch a drug-addicted doctor ply his craft on the cases and medical team members of his choice. It sometimes makes a good statement; other times it stretches any medical ethics to the point of absurdity. Hugh Laurie (pre-House) though does an excellent job. His pop was a doctor from a few sources.

Psych - this is a pretty decent show, though it will have to step it up a bit to garner any acclaim like Monk did. The references to old TV shows, characters and plotlines though sometimes really funny, are getting a bit too much. The characters are all likeable, which is why the show works. Gus (Dule Hill) and Sean (James Roday) are a tight duo that works well on the weird cases they solve through the photographic memory of Sean and awkward smarts of Gus.

The Black Sheep Squadron: Based very loosely on the WWII heroics of Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington, Robert Conrad and John Laroquette led this show in a short-lived airing of 36 episodes. The dogfights staged as they were with 1970's technology was pretty good. Laroquette would go on to Night Court and his own show.

The Dead Zone - Even being based on a Stephen King novel, I was surprised to see the big 3 (ABC, NBC or CBS) did not take this on their airways. (Though USA Network must be owned by NBC.) Anthony Michael Hall (of Chevy Chase's Vacation & The Breakfast Club) has really done a unique job -- though the character has ran its course. The showdown with Vice President/President is coming...Hope it doesn't suck.

Hustle - Nothing like thieves in Londontown to make an interesting adventure. Led by Mickey Stone (Adrian Lester of Primary Colors) and Albert Stroller (top character actor Robert Vaughn, who was nominated for Oscar in The Young Philadelphians) in the con game played for the moral good of others (they get the really bad men) in a Robin Hood without-the-giving-to-the-poor always scenario, I like the backdrop and the action.

I don't always get to this one. I've like the 8-12 episodes I've seen, but alas, I forget AMC plays something other that movies like For A Few Dollars More or From Here to Eternity, which are both fine, but I've seen.

Burn Notice, Heroes, Family Guy, Law & Order original, Star Trek and plenty of others are things I've watched.

A very poor segway to more educational stuff:

Connections & Connections 2 & Connections 3: Englishman James Burke takes you on a ride to see the connections in history between divergent technologies and vastly different people. How one thing or item became instrumental to the fabric of another item, sometimes 500 years removed from each other. This series started in 1979...

The Universe - New show on how this thing called a Universe is created and shifting from place to place, and time to time. It is always interesting to learn about Physics and the crazy things that are capable in just one star 1 billion light-years away.

Cities of the Underworld - Nice to see 1,000,000 skeletons (Paris), drawings from 2000 years ago (Rome) and dungeons (London) in these places just 100 feet below your feet. Entire lives and streets exist just under the parking garages of your current existence.

Just about anything on the History Channel or Discovery, is pretty cool at times.