I am thinking of doing a Top 20 list of my favorite situation comedies, hour-long dramas, talk shows and the like. I do have a simple problem; I have not seen all the television shows some of my friends rave about such as Seinfeld, Cheers or Oprah.
Also, I think some readers will kill me if I don’t put I Love Lucy in the top five. I liked the show but I thought it was a bit overdone halfway through its run.
Would I be laughed out of town if I put The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as one of the top comedies? How will people feel if I say Ozzie Nelson was one of the best actors I ever saw?
Some of my favorite shows lasted a single year, such as Firefly and the American version of Life on Mars. Is my taste so bad or is network television a true wasteland interrupted occasionally by a good show, many of which disappear into the ether? I remember when NBC discussed buying my sit-com Lower Education and then rejected it with these famous words, “Your show is too intelligent for NBC.”
I’ll mull all of this over as I watch my huge collection of videos of shows such as Blackadder, Vicar of Dibley, The Honeymooners, Fawlty Towers, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Arrested Development, Star Trek, Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory along with others.
Hmm, the 20 best shows I ever saw. Coming soon. I asked my wife for her input and she said, “You watch too much TV.”
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