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[Valdezi]

I love pop culture, it is true. I love music, television shows (on DVD) and film.

With my friends and family, I often discuss these things via email and make lists. Famous former lists of mine include: Best Movie Every Year You Have Lived (1982 - The Wrath of Khan), Best Album Every Year You Have Lived (I'm just glad I hadn't been born yet in 1966 - The decision would have killed me) and Top Ten Albums of the Noughties (Sufjan Stevens - Illinois - makes No. 1).

I thought, why not share this process with people I sorta know fakely and occasionally respect?

So here is my next famous list:

ALL TIME, TOP 5 TV SHOWS

Now if you’d asked me this ten years ago, I’d have said the greatest TV shows ever are MASH, Buffy and Quantum Leap, but so much has happened since then.

For the criteria, I tried to ensure:

1) Not all shows can be from HBO.
2) Not all shows can be from the Noughties (GOLDEN AGE OF TV)
3) Try to embrace a mix of genres (ie. Drama, Comedy, Sci Fi)

So here they are:

[Valdezi]

5) Star Trek – Often called TOS by people who want to differentiate between this and other shit Star Trek, this show makes my top 5 and pips Battlestar Galactica (the new one) for the Sci-Fi spot.

Now this show is rather plotless, it’s a week-by-week business, which is fairly standard for the period. And the special effects are hokey, to say the least. And the aliens are often stupid.

But this show wins, because it has the greatest characters ever. The interplay between Kirk, Spock and McCoy, which is the basis of the whole show and every Star Trek movie that counts, is so transixing, that we forget that the show itself isn’t really that good. There’s a reason these characters became phenomenons.

The other Star Trek shows will have apologists, and that’s cool. But for me, the characters in Next Gen or whatever could never hold a character to these and never will. I can’t care about Data like Spock, and if Data sacrificed himself tragically for his crew, I would probably care so little I would almost pass out (This is probably a bad example – Data being a robot and all.

[Ashar Kor-Azor]

1) The West Wing
2) Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
3) Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex, either season
4) Cowboy Bebop
5) Possibly Doctor Who

In no particular order.

[Valdezi]

4) Deadwood – Once, the western owned TV screens. This show came on in a time that this was no longer true. However, Deadwood is awesome. Aside from a brief lull in the middle of the second season that I didn’t really dig, the whole show kept me rapt.

The characters again are awesome – Al Swearengen is the obvious, showy character and his relationship with temperamental sheriff Bullock the centrepiece of the show, but the creators draw such a broad palette of the American frontier, without any apologism.

The third season is frankly amazing, and I don’t want to spoil it, but many hated the ending. I will say no more.

3) Buffy/Angel – Still makes it, even if I haven’t watched it in years. The second season of Buffy is still one of the best seasons of Television I’ve ever seen and this was one of the first shows I ever saw to take a more epic story structure that was built over the course of one or several seasons, rather than it being monster of the week.

Yes, the sixth and seventh seasons blowed, but by then Angel (The terrible fourth season aside) was awesome.

For me, the first show of the GOLDEN AGE.

[Valdezi]

2) Arrested Development – The funniest, most misunderstood show, ever.

That is all

1) The Wire – The TV show as a novel, as an epic deconstruction of everything that is wrong with a city, from the streets to the ports, to the politics, to the schools, to the media.

With a broad, far reaching plot and some of the most memorable characters ever: Yes, there was the showy Omar, but also the understated and awesome Lester Freamon, my favourite character. If you haven’t seen The Wire, do. That’s all I can say. It is the greatest TV show ever made.

So please, as Ashar has done, post your own lists, or tell me why I'm right, or why you're wrong. 

[Valdezi]

Oh, yeah, just remembered:

Honourable mentions:
Rome, Battlestar Galactica, Freaks and Geeks, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, among others.

[Laurentis Thiesant]

5) NCIS
4) Law and Order: Particularly SVU
3) Buffy/Angel
2) Star Trek: Particularly Voyager
1) Dr. Who/Torchwood

[Bong-cha Jones]

1) Scifi:  Deep Space Nine.  It is, IMO, the best Trek.
2)Dramedy:  Buffy/Angel.  I'd list them separately, but it wouldn't be fair to the rest of TV.
3)Animated:  Avatar the Last Airbender.  Seriously, it is the best kids show I've ever seen, with excellent animation, strong writing and characterization and loving fidelity to martial arts forms to rival the best wuxia.
4)More Sci-fi:  Babylon Five.  You've seen my first nomination, this one should come as no surprise.
5) More Dramedy?:  Dead Like Me.  It pleases me, plus it's theme song is teh neat.

Close Contenders:  Deadwood, Gargoyles, Firefly and Kings (both too short to tell), Arrested Development.

[Dex_Kivuli]

OK, I don't think I'm gonna win any friends with my list - maybe some enemies - but here goes:

1. Magnum PI: Magnum freakin' Pee Eye!!! Yes, in-game, the toon "ThomasMagnum PI" is one of my alts.
2. Dexter, seasons 1 and 2 only: That show had me gasping and cringing more than anything else I've ever watched.
3. Walker: Texas Ranger. I'm sorry. I'm so very, very sorry. But the episode with the psychic kid kills me every time (I'm listing his under comedy).
4. Monkey: It's just pure awesome. For those of you that don't know what it is, I strongly advise you spend an hour or two on youtube ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series) )
5. The Simpsons: I know it's trite, and gauche, and has well and truly jumped the shark, but it still has the perfect quote for any occasion. I just can't go past it.

Oh, and since Mammal started this, here's a special bonus one for the Australians:
Frontline: hilarious stuff... it really is. The toff, elitist, wanker in me loves it.

[Indahar]

1) Veronica Mars
2) Cowboy Bebop
3) Firefly
4) Six Feet Under
5) Frisky Dingo

Honorable Mentions: Lost, Boardwalk Empire (early, but it's SO GOOD), The Tudors (for over-sexualized luls)

[Benjamin Shepherd]

1. Lost, before it went all confusing after season 4. After spending almost all of the first season trying to enter the hatch, this happens. M. Night Shyamalan, be jealous.

2. The Office
3. Futurama
4. Boardwalk Empire (best new show ftw)
5. Arrested Development

[Saxon Hawke]

I don't watch much TV these days, but when I do it's usually something on Discovery or The Learning Channel. However, when I was a kid there were shows that I did not miss. They were:

1. The Dukes of Hazzard
2. The A-Team
3. The Incredible Hulk
4. Star Trek: TOS (The original run was before my time, but it showed on Friday nights in syndication when I was in junior high.)
5. Thundarr The Barbarian

[Aodha Khan]

1. Spartacus
2. Rome
3. Star Trek (the original series)
4. Monkey
5. Shameless

[Gottii]

Im my humble opinion

1.) Arrested Development -- if you dont agree, you havent watched it yet
2.) The Wire
3.) Battlestar Galatica (new series)
4.) Law and Order: it keeps going and going and going....and who doesnt love that sound (du duh!)
5.) The Simpsons  (first decade or so)

[Esna Pitoojee]

Does Firefly count?