Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Random Post

nope, I'm not dead, I'm just still avoiding Megan as the full impotency of the Obama Admin soaks in and depresses me. I'm not surprised, but I can still be saddened by it.

But anyway, I'm here now for far more frivolous purposes. It seems Thers suffered a recent blow to the head, as there's no other way to explain the horrible mistake that is his authoritative top 10 shows of the aughts list. Yesyes, there's no accounting for taste and so on, but let's be realistic. The Wire was not included in his list. This would be like leaving the Velvet Underground off a best bands of the 70s list. Not having heard of them simply was no excuse.
And now, so you have the chance to quibble similarly with me, the REAL MOST TRUEST EVAR top 10 list of shows of the aughts, with the caveat that for reasons I cannot explain I haven't watched Battlestar Galactica or Mad Men.

1. The Wire The only real debate about this was whether to list each of the first 4 seasons separately in the first 4 spots, and in what order. Probably 4, 1, 3, 2.

2. Deadwood I thought the first season was the best, which apparently is a minority opinion, but watch this;

and tell me that's not fucking poetry.

3. The BBC series Blue Planet and Planet Earth w/ Attenborough narrating. Someday I'll show these to my grandchildren and have to say "that's what we lost". *sigh*

4. Wonder Showzen You're excused for not having heard of it, it was on MTV2 Friday nights for two seasons. I only found it later myself. As cliche as it sounds, you've never seen a tv show anything like this. For some reason embedding is off on this clip sample, but it gives a better idea of the show than I can in words.

5. Arrested Development I don't need to dwell on or justify this. That no one watched it only validates its quality, perversely.

6. The Sopranos The Derek Jeter of tv shows. Vastly overrated by some, but still a no doubt Hall of Famer. It wasn't quite the same after 9/11, but that can be said of most of us.

7. Stella Comedy Central giving this only one season is a crime on par with HBO acing Mr. Show. Like Arrested Development, it was simply too good to survive.

T8. Tim & Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job! The funniest show currently on tv, hands down, and quite possibly Adult Swim's last great production.

T8. The Brak Show I don't care if you don't get it or thought it was juvenile. I really don't.

which brings us to another tie to conclude;

10. The Daily Show/Countdown with Keith Olbermann I wouldn't necessarily argue against putting TDS higher, or with leaving out Countdown, but both unquestionably had their moments. Both also were unquestionably weakened by their strong second leads leaving for their own shows in the following time slots, but such is blogging tv programming.

Honorable mention to Oz, which was hurt by straddling decades, Colbert and Maddow for general excellence in the field of awesomeness, Birdman and the handful of Space Ghost eps from this decade, and Mythbusters for being good geeky escapist fun. You have to be or have been a comic book geek to fully appreciate The Venture Bros., but for those with the right eyes it's quite a beautiful thing. Crossballs and Dog Bites Man were both single season Comedy Central productions which were probably too raw and ragged to have justified more seasons, but both also had moments in which they truly shined, and an incredible wealth of talent on cast.

Lost is watchable and all that, but the season in the cages was just awful, and since then it has become, for me at least, almost predictable. Family Guy has devolved into using straight up racism, fuck it, it was never really that good.
Also, fuck 24.

Superjail and Bored to Death get incompletes.

You may now quibble, I'm going to go back to sleep.
But I'm right.

16 comments:

NutellaonToast said...

Venture Bros is funny and I never read most of the comics it parodies.

Clever Pseudonym said...

Family Guy is fucking stupid. Beyond stupid. Fart and barf jokes can be funny, but they can't be the entire premise of a show with a few pop culture references dropped in. After you show your grandkids Blue Planet, show them an episode of Family Guy and watch them go "huh?" as every joke is lost on them because it's a you-had-to-be-there-in-the-80s crack.

The rest of the shows, I've either never seen or never heard of. But I've got two words: Little Britain.

And the Velvet Underground are over-rated art-trash crap. They probably invented oh-so-obscure hipster shitheadery.

bulbul said...

No Firefly, really?
BSG yes, but only the first two seasons.
Fuck Family Guy. Fuck Mad Men. Fuck Bored to Death. I might want to check out Superjail. Also, fuck those glibertarian douchebags Stone and Parker. Their show, however, still kicks ass.
Lost is a category of its own, with the way it influenced storytelling on teevee.

As for Olbermann, he had a real moment of pure awesome on Monday. I'd put Colbert before Stewart, though, for reasons that are far numerous to, um, ennumerate. Also, Stewart is starting to piss me off. Lately he's acting all "I'm not a part of the left, I'm sooooo independent". Recently, he even said something like this: "For those of us who do not measure our lives on the Hannity-Colbermann". Hey, dude, it wasn't that long ago when it was the 'O'Reilly-Stewart scale'! Plus he's way out of line in his criticism of MSNBC, especially as far as the comparison with FOX is concerned.

Some guy said...

Olbermann is a sexist, shirts-and-skins hack with terrible editorial judgment. (I don't need distractions like Prejean or red meat about sex scandals or how stupid Palin is.) Maddow's not much better with her similarly terrible editorial judgment & occasional lapses into sneering elitism.

I love The Wire, though.

NutellaonToast said...

yeah, I gotta agree. The left wing pundits on TV are just as smarmy, obnoxious and ad hominem as the shitfaces on the right.

I haven't watched much Olberman, but Rachel Maddow is just annoying and not funny, but she clearly thinks she is.

Downpuppy said...

This was the decade of reality TeeVee. Nothin' on The Wire can top Sumthin crapping her pants on Flavor of Love II.

For Good reality TV, the first 2 seasons of Survivor, the 1st & 4th of Project Runway, & American Idol.

For bad, there was Celebrity Fat Farm & dozens of others.

The format is worn out now, but you can't just pretend it didn't exist.

As far as scripted, How I Met Your Mother can be funny, sometimes.

Susan of Texas said...

My Name Is Earl is the funniest sitcom I've seen in years.

brad said...

Yeah, Olbermann's nerdy, non date-raping fratboy schtick does get old, but Countdown filled a need and was once a much more vital show.
N yes, the faux 'balance' TDS is putting up is obnoxious, especially the unquestioning, and never revisited, acceptance of the mostly manufactured assault on ACORN. On pure awesomeness as people Colbert swamps Stewart, but we're talking tv shows, and Colbert's is sometimes a little too tween for me.

And yes I sure can pretend reality tv does not exist. I haven't watched any of it since the second season of The Real World, and my life is better for it.

Alsoalso, the thing about the Velvet Underground is you have to have some sense of them in context. Jane's Addiction, for comparison, are a fucking joke today and their music sounds dated, but in 1991 they were genuinely good. The VA might be over-deified, but in their time they were legit.
Or so I've been told, I wasn't around.

CaptBackslap said...

Always Sunny in Philadelphia might be the funniest sitcom on the air now.

Also, if Superjail was written by the disembodied spirits of Noel Coward and Dorothy Parker, I would still loathe it, just because the art style is so damn ugly.

Dhalgren said...

So glad you didn't choose Lost. I'm a firm believer that good dialogue is the foundation of good movies and TV. Lost has good characters. But at its core, it is unintentionally a 'Bush era' show (much like 24 is intentionally a Bush era show). It's about people paying for their sins, it has a shitload of torture, and it has a plane crash and an Iraqi character, because you know, it's such an important post-9/11 story and all. Thanks, Disney.

Mad Med has great dialogue, but in essence, it is an A-grade soap opera for men. Nothing wrong with that.

But The Wire might be the greatest TV show of all time. It had it all. Season 4 was so great, I think it changed my life.

Anonymous said...

No Venture Brothers? Surprising omission.

rapido said...

Your choice of the VU as one of the best bands of the 70s seems strange. Lou Reed left in August, 1970 and Loaded (1970) was the last release with his presence on it for a long time. Cale left long before.

Obviously, you should have said "Steely Dan" or, somewhat arguably, due to similar lineup changes and departures of original band members, "Canned Heat".

Besides, cardle wrote this today:

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/more_snow_in_copenhagen.php

it needs to be dealt with.

brad said...

Anon- I had em in honorable mentions.

Rapido- oooooooops. My bad.

rapido said...

I was kind of joking there. Besides, your heroic work here more than makes up for any errors.

Anonymous said...

jamorama crack
vocab builder crack
shogun total war cd crack
site spinner crack
windows xp product key crack
mobile music polyphonic crack download
winter assault crack
softros lan messenger crack
system mechanic 4 warez
izotope ozone 3 crack




mgtek help producer crack
auction sentry crack serial keygen
dvdfab express crack
gridgen crack
age of conquerors crack
morpheus ultra crack
hamsterball gold keygen
spamnix 1.3.8 crack
keygen for registry mechanic
keygen.exe virus
dvd idle crack
vampire the masquerade bloodlines crack 1.2
crack downloadstudio
crack band in a box
wise installation system crack
conceptdraw pro crack
easy cd ripper 2.30 keygen
fast file recovery 2.1 crack

Anonymous said...

[url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/ivnpbzr6f6/start/]payday loans in 1 hour[/url], fast payday loans [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/xzdeg3tok9/start/]payday loans online overnight[/url], cash payday loan online [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/tphr6c1/start/]paycheck cash advance[/url], fast easy payday loan [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/xz79oty8/start/]savings account payday loans[/url], no fax no teletrack payday loans [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/ihae8i9c2/start/]instant no fax payday loan[/url], one hour payday loan [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/i1u3med27/start/]24 hour loan payday loans[/url], instant payday advance [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/fd8zr28/start/]online payday loans instant approval[/url], payday loans in 1 hour [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/1idu75u/start/]advance cash instant payday[/url], instant cash loan till payday [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/dg1hdc3kdl/start/]online payday loans 1 hour[/url], fast cash advance payday loans [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/lnljjtm7rn/start/]cheap and quick guaranteed payday loan[/url], no fax no credit check payday loans [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/o6hzzl38/start/]instant decision one hour payday loan[/url], cash loans till payday [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/o6xz07te6x/start/]24 hour payday loans[/url], instant overnight payday loans [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/2z0g7da/start/]payday loans no credit check low interest[/url], easy loan payday quick [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/lxbuh4ljs/start/]direct payday loan lenders[/url], no teletrack payday loans direct lenders [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/mrgllo6ok/start/]payday loan with no faxing[/url], advance cash loan online payday [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/g2br746/start/]direct payday loan lenders[/url], advance cash loan online payday [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/7ym17a0p/start/]no faxing payday loans[/url], direct payday loan lenders [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/b3842rayno/start/]payday loans no faxing[/url], payday loans online overnight [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/n26d8c34yb/start/]us overnight payday loan[/url], 1 hour payday loans [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/jngkv60/start/]payday loan direct lenders[/url], easy approval payday loans [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/43452cr/start/]24 hour loan payday loans[/url], payday loans guaranteed no fax [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/m0v4ci30/start/]no credit check cash advance loans[/url], payday loans with low interest [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/epstdtnd/start/]fast loans online no credit check no fax direct lenders[/url], payday loan one hour [url=http://www.wikihost.org/w/3jzt6bzv/start/]payday loans direct[/url], payday loan no faxing required
200cash offer all types of loans online. Get payday loans, payday cash advance loans, no fax pay day loans with quick approval. The best source for cashHot Payday provides online payday loans and instant low fee cash advance services to assist your financial situation. Complete an application and receive
Payday Loan Experience is the short-term lending industrys #1 source for fast, easy cash advances and loans. Explore our site today, find out what needs toPay Day Loans are available online with Pay Day EZ and you can get a pay day loan with no hassles. Services for No Fax Pay Day Loans and instant pay day