My 20 Favorite Television Shows 1. Cowboy
Bebop Jason B. Bell's Commentary 1. Cowboy Bebop -- Great characters. Great music. Great stories. Great overall plot. (To those who complain that there isn't one... Yes, it's there. You just have to realize that Cowboy Bebop tends to tell stories without actually telling them, if that makes any sense.) The title might look funny, but it makes absolutely perfect sense once you've seen it and if you actually put some thought into it. 2. Mystery Science Theater 3000 -- One of the best ideas and funniest things ever to be put on TV. I've actually learned a lot from this show in their humorous deconstruction of bad movies. 3. Monty Python's Flying Circus -- It's a succession of one crazy, funny thing after another. The Pythons are some of the greatest comedic talents of our times. 4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- I used to be a little embarrassed to tell people I liked watching a show with this title because of the inevitable reactions and scoffing. But I suppose that if you're too stodgy to believe that something called Buffy the Vampire Slayer could actually be a smart, good, and fun show to watch, then you probably don't deserve to see something this smart, good, and fun. 5. Angel -- I find that this Buffy spinoff actually tends to be more even in terms of quality than its predecessor (especially in the last few years of Buffy's run), but Buffy's best episodes tend to be better and more memorable than Angel's, so that show gets listed ever so slightly higher. 6. The Kids in the Hall -- Great, funny sketch comedy. 7. Aqua Teen Hunger Force -- More strange, goofy, and hilarious stuff from some of the people responsible for Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and it's even stranger, goofier, and more hilarious. 8. Cartoon Planet -- Brak's songs and the general goofiness of the show were pure demented genius. 9. The Big O -- Simultaneously an homage to Batman and to classic super robot anime, with some significant doses of film noir, Blade Runner, and the Book of Revelation mixed in, this is an extremely clever, mysterious, and atmospheric animated show (something I've come to expect from head writer Chiaki Konaka). It also has some very striking visual direction. 10. Family Guy -- It's just a really funny show. 11. Doctor Who -- This is the absolute best show possible when you're a kid. B-movie sci-fi plots, creepy monsters, time travel, weird and eccentric characters, it's full of great and imaginative stuff. It wasn't afraid to embrace its cheesiness at times, and it was the ultimate evolving show, changing with the times and with the many cast changes over its incredibly long run (its format even seemed to thrive on such changes), but still somehow staying the same at its core. 12. Babylon 5 -- A noble attempt at telling a "novel for television" over the span of five seasons that was more or less successful. It had its weak points, but the epic long-term story arc, the twists and turns of the plot, and the consistency from having a single creative vision really raised the bar for American sci-fi TV, which had become stale after years of the same Star Trek plots being told over and over. 13. The Prisoner (1967) -- This show really is timeless. It manages to stay incredibly relevant, no matter the current societal climate. And it's a just plain good show, period. 14. Invader Zim -- Unusually smart, witty, twisted, and morbid for a cartoon supposedly aimed at kids. 15. Space Ghost Coast to Coast -- It's really just some funny guys having a bunch of fun with old Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters and the talk show format, and the results are great. 16. South Park -- I think the show has greatly improved over the years. Other people will probably tell you otherwise, but they're probably the ones who only ever watched it for the vulgarity and for seeing Kenny get killed, not for the biting wit and topical humor. 17. Beast
Wars: Transformers -- Far and away the best of
the Transformers series, and actually a decent sci-fi TV
show that balances a complex, intelligent plot with
staying true to the overall continuity of the original
and providing all the fightin' 18. Twin Peaks -- Great show. Too bad it suffered because people couldn't see that it wasn't really all about the "who killed Laura Palmer" mystery. 19. Seinfeld -- Despite what everyone says (and what the show said itself), it's not really a show about nothing. It's a show about all the little, mostly insignificant annoyances and idiosyncrasies in daily life. 20. Mobile Suit Gundam -- This last spot on my list was a hard choice to make, as it was essentially a four-way tie in my mind between Gundam, Macross, Batman: The Animated Series, and Stargate SG-1. Gundam won out because of its impact on anime history and the way it changed the "giant robot" genre. It turned the half-hour robot toy commercial format on its head and used it to tell a serious war story and even provide some subtle social commentary on Japan's attitudes regarding World War II, rather than copy the many "boy commands giant hero robot to smash evil monsters" shows that cluttered Japan's airwaves. Plus, it's got really cool robots that make great toys. |
Copyright © 15 Sep
2003 We
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