Masthead
One of my photos

Best TV of the 21st Century?

October 2nd, 2019 · Posted by Skuds in Life · No Comments · Life

The Guardian has been running a series about the so-called best culture of the 21st Century. One of the articles is about the 100 best TV shows of the 21st Century. Now I am no expert in TV and I know this sort of list is designed to stir up controversy, but even so I am completely baffled by it.

I have to admit that I have only actually watched 26 of the 100 shows in the list. Of the rest I have heard of another 40 and of those only 5 are programmes that I have been tempted to watch, but never got round to it. Looking at the list I feel a bit disconnected from popular culture because I have only watched 2 of the top 10 shows (The Thick of It and The Office). That’s right: I have not seen The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Fleabag or Peep Show!

So I guess I am not qualified to say whether, say, RuPaul’s Drag Race deserves to be on the list if I haven’t seen it, or whether other shows I have not seen (e.g. Broadchurch, Peaky Blinders, The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Chernobyl, The Night Manager) should be on it instead, but I’m not going to let that stop me having an opinion! I may not have seen those shows, but people have been talking about them and saying really good things about them, so I’m a bit surprised to see them missing – especially Chernobyl which everyone has been raving about.

I’ll admit that I was disappointed to see some of the shows I have enjoyed and admired greatly that were far lower in the top 100 than I would have put them – Killing Eve only at 30, Justified all the way down at 70,  Sherlock only at number 60, and Life on Mars just scraping in at 99 for example.

I have never really seen the point of the bake off show, or the dancing show, though I appreciate that a lot of people enjoy them, but are they actually good or just popular? Although it became a bit of a freak show for attention-seekers, I can see why Big Brother is included. It did start with an interesting premise, but quickly fell apart. I can’t see any such justification for I’m A Celebrity. Anyway, at least none of the endless stream of talent shows was in there.

There are quite a few shows that I particularly liked which don’t get a look-in, but These things are subjective and I can see how maybe they are not so special that they warrant a place, except in my personal top 100:

  • Green Wing – for being so gloriously silly
  • Episodes – for being engaging but also for having such a clever ending that brings it right back to the start.
  • My Name is Earl – just for being so funny with some surreal touches
  • Being Human – for mixing humour with blood & guts
  • The Wrong Mans – for being a roller coaster of events
  • House of Cards – for Kevin Spacey’s virtuoso performance and for being a first-class US adaptation of a British original.
  • The IT Crowd – for being so spot-on. Really, how on Earth is it not on the list?
  • Brassic – for being so well-written and funny
  • Manifest – for being like Lost but not so willfully weird (so far)
  • Yonderland – for its mixture of people and puppets, for its brilliant cast and for the fantastic Kraftwerk pastiche in one of the episondes
  • Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach – for the sheer audacity of the concept
  • The League of Gentlemen and Psychoville – for general excellence
  • Ripper Street – for the amazing sets, and the hypnotising language
  • Moone Boy – for the genius concept and how brilliant was the young lad playing the title character?
  • Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle – for giving us a masterclass in stand up comedy
  • Heroes – for having a buzz to rival Lost. “Save the cheerleader, save the world”

Not everybody’s taste I know, but I would argue that any one of them is more deserving that RuPaul’s Drag Race, and I would add to the list Mad Dogs, A Touch of Cloth, Trollied, This Week Tonight, Jeckyll, Torchwood and maybe even Primeval (just for that scene. We all know the one I am talking about…)

Above all, where the hell is Pointless? How could they miss out the greatest quiz show of the century?

Having said that, at least Mrs. Brown’s Boys didn’t make an appearance. That really would have been a travesty.

 

 

Tags:

No Comments so far ↓

Like the collective mind of the Daily Mail, comments are closed.