Posted on 06/03/2013 2:52:47 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
(Newser) – Still reeling from last night's episode of Game of Thrones? Need to take a break and watch a different, but also well-written, TV show? Then the Writers Guild of America's list of the 101 best-written television series arrives just in the nick of time. Here's the top 10:
1.The Sopranos
2.Seinfeld
3.The Twilight Zone
4.All in the Family
5.M*A*S*H
6.The Mary Tyler Moore Show
7.Mad Men
8.Cheers
9.The Wire
10.The West Wing
Click for the complete list. (Game of Thrones doesn't show up until spot No. 40.)
wait... huh?
“Best written” as judged by liberals (who always inject politics)?
just American shows?
for me breaking bad is in the top three.
Sorely disappointed....”The Pretender” is not on the list. My all-time favorite show.
Monk as it first aired. Sopranos after first season.
Hayden has been very good on Nashville , I didn't expect much from the actress who had always played the cheerleader. Glad she finally got known for singing. Very nice to meet her at a convention at Penn Hotel NYC along with Kristen Bell.
I used to think that M*A*S*H was a funny show when I was a kid. As a conservative adult, I now see what a leftist, anti-American show it was.
Hey, how wonderful to meet Hayden. Must have been an interesting convention. I did watch her as the Cheerleader and thought she had promise. Happy to see her career advancing and hope she continues to thrive in the HoWood cesspool..an interesting fresh un-cookie-cutter face.
Once upon a time I saw Brad Pitt in Interview with a Vampire, had hopes that he would be a wonderful actor. I don’t think he is, however, he’s too much the eternal boy to portray a mature, complex man with any conviction.
Caught the Sopranos quite by accident one afternoon....was delighted with the quality of acting and writing...bought the whole series on dvd.
MASH: the apogee of snark and preachiness actually turned off a lot of people. Also note the dearth in Westerns: Bonanza, Rifleman, Rawhide, DNM
Also where is/are on the list: Walking Dead, Rescue Me, Malcolm in the middle, MST 3K?
Agreed!
Person of Interest & NCIS are among the very best shows ever.
Well said. I guess they wanted to see all decades represented and it was hard to overlook a 70s phenomenon. I'd move it well below Mary Tyler Moore and stuff it somewhere a lot further down the list. I'd make room near the top for Buffy, Six Feet Under, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones.
7. Mad Men - Complex characters and multi-layered plots. Very well written and well acted.
I guess so, if you compare it to the average television show. If you compare it to the "quality television" it competes against, there are a lot of questions. The show works because of the actors and the recreation of the era.
I'm not saying the writing is bad, just that it's frustrating and annoying a lot of the time. I didn't get that feeling with The Sopranos. Even if you hated the mobsters, the show didn't seem slack or out of the control of its creators and didn't force its points so heavily.
Maybe Mad Men is so exasperating sometimes because it can be so good at other times.
Bob Newhart-41
Carol Burnett-37
Well, Hayden has been involved with saving whales & with a huge Wladimir Klitschko but Bill OReilly said she is not a pinhead. :)
More than a time or two - NCIS played the PC card with respect to the muslim religion. Placing too much respect toward it.
Other times we see big government abuses with all the high tech gimmickry.
It has a liberal slant - but it is well written. Its not been on 10 years for nothing.
I agree. Babylon 5 was the best series ever!
The voice over narration on The Wonder Years went beyond self parody after a while. “And when I look back on that day now I think...” Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
Ah....thanx ;)
These are some I agree with (although that’s not to say I disagree with those on the list I haven’t listed below or some that I haven’t seen):
THE SOPRANOS - very well written, very complex characters and lots of unexpected twists. Sometimes just when you are feeling sympathetic toward Tony, he does something truly vile, and then every once and a while he does something truly vile you are sorta rooting for him.
SEINFELD – Some of the episodes that took real life situations, even if they took it to an extreme were very funny. Like the one where they wander around a big parking garage looking for the car – been there done that. :)
THE TWILIGHT ZONE – enough said.
GET SMART – “Written by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry” I repeat – Mel Brooks! When I call someone into my office to talk about something confidential, I wish I had the “cone of silence”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWtPPWi6OMQ
THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW – my favorite might have been when Chuckles the Clown died and in the middle of the service, Mary can’t stop laughing. I have a story about my Norwegian grandmother’s funeral - my brother and my mother and I had to really restrain ourselves from laughing when a woman from her church, a really big woman who BTW looked like she should have been wearing braids and a horned helmet, sang a hymn, very badly and way out of key but loudly and boldly and verse after verse and just when she took a deep breath and you thought it was over, and the minister started walking back toward the pulpit, she’d start in with yet another verse and the minister would bow his head and walk away. Tears were streaming down our faces but it wasn’t because of our grief but because we were laughing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92I04DkMEps
MAD MEN – like the Soprano’s, it is very well written but has a lot of unsympathetic characters, yet you still want to know what happens to them next (or what they will be wearing as the 1960’s fashion styles change).
CHEERS – great chemistry between the characters especially in the earlier episodes. Loved Coach.
TAXI – great ensemble cast. I think my favorite was when Rev. Jim goes to take his driving test: What does a yellow light mean? Slow down. What…..does…… a……Yellow……Light….Mean? SLOW DOWN….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvn-tBeLpCk
FRASIER – perhaps even better than Cheers.
HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET – I’m perhaps prejudiced as I lived in Baltimore when this show was on and they filmed in my neighborhood and a couple of times where I worked, but the writing, the dialogue was amazing, especially any scene with Andre Braugher. And FWIW, I knew a few cops who said it was probably the closest that any TV cop show ever came to reality.
FAWLTY TOWERS – my mother loved that show and so did I.
SOUTH PARK – OK, once you get past the very extreme potty humor – it’s actually well written and makes some very good points, most of them very non-PC but true.
Here are some I don’t agree with and why:
THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART & THE COLBERT REPORT – Really. That’s writing?
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS – a soap opera about HS football….snooze……
FRIENDS – there were a few moments here and there that were funny but I found the characters mostly highly annoying and not in an over the top Seinfeld sort of so annoying they are funny sort of way. I was really hoping that one day they’d contract e-coli from eating at the Central Perk and die a painful death – especially Joey.
ER – I would agree that the first couple of seasons were good but then…..blah
FAMILY TIES – blech.
STAR TREK – a great show and interesting story lines but totally ruined by William Shatner’s scene chewing.
THE BOB NEWHART SHOW – not a bad show at all actually, really good in fact but the later show “Newhart” was much better IMO. And the way they ended that series was brilliant.
ROSEANNE – barf!
EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND – I’m torn on this one. When it was good it was really, really good and funny but too often it was not all that good or funny.
THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW – for some reason, even as a kid, I never liked this show. I know it’s all homey and nostalgic but I could never stand Andy Griffith even before I found out what a lib he was.
HOUSE – While I like Laurie as an actor and his character was interesting, it was way too formulaic. It was the same plot every episode – patient dying from some yet undiagnosed disease – House insults the patient, insults his staff, his staff works hard but go down many dead ends, they argue with each other, they argue with House, House insults them some more, House almost get’s fired, he insults the patient some more, then in the last 5 five minutes he finds the “cure”, he’s the hero and he insults everyone some more but they love him even as he rewards his accomplishment by doing more drugs and feeling sorry for himself and we are supposed to feel sorry for him: rinse repeat, repeat, repeat.
Some shows that didn’t make the list that probably should have:
Green Acres – way ahead of its time perhaps.
Big Bang Theory – but then I’m a geek.
The Waltons – but only the first couple of seasons.
Sons of Anarchy – Breaking Bad on Harley’s
WKRP - “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly”
Designing Women – Dixie Carter was great.
Firefly and Dark Skies
Coach
Mad About You
Becker
The Drew Carey Show
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Wings
Sons of Anarchy
Firefly
Veronica Mars
Angel
Buffy should have been in the top ten.
I used to think it was funny too, but a buddy of mine told me to watch what's going on, look how the writers have handled patriotic, good soldiers, and then look at how the jackass soldiers were portrayed. Look at the American deserters and "shell shocked" soldiers were portrayed and listen to how the two main characters show their contempt for America and patriotism.
Then the show wasn't funny at all, and when the two main stars of the show were always campaigning in real life against all that America stood for and, if I'm not mistaken, still have a great contempt for all that is good in America.
Got to toss in “Are You Being Served,” British
Ah, low information voters who consider politics for about 2 weeks every 4 years.
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