There have been some great TV shows aired over the last 10 years and just like my film list I thought I’d try and highlight my favourite 15 shows of the decade.

The only prerequisite to consideration is that the show must have aired an episode in its first season some time in the year 2000.  That essentially means that any show which premiered from the 99-00 season onwards is eligible.  It also means that The Sopranos is ineligible because the first season aired entirely in 1999.

Also worth noting is that I’m only now just starting to work my way through the first season of The Wire, and I’ve never seen an episode of The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Battlestar Galactica, Big Love, Breaking Bad or Mad Men so none of them appear on the list.

Honourable Mention.  The O.C. (Aug ’03-Feb ’07)

I know The O.C. isn’t the best show show ever but it was probably my #1 guilty pleasure show for the decade.  A late 20s/early 30s guy shouldn’t really be watching something geared towards teenage girls, but the combination of hot girls, soapy drama and endless love triangles was irresistible.  I was hooked on this show from the minute I saw the pilot right to the very end.  The show had its ups and downs (1st season good, 2nd season average, 3rd season very poor, 4th season good), but it was pretty much always a fun show to indulge in.  And even if you hate this show any guy has to appreciate it just a little because it’s responsible for giving us the blazing hot Rachel Bilson and Autumn Reeser.

15.  Firefly (Sept-Dec ’02)
To be honest, I haven’t watched Firefly since it first aired, but I know that I really enjoyed it and that my love of Joss Whedon is unlimited.  Hell, I suffered through the first half of a very mediocre Dollhouse because of my faith in him.  It’s a shame he never learnt his lesson about partnering with Fox.  Maybe Dollhouse would of lasted longer if he’d wised up after Firefly was cancelled.

14.  Andy Barker P.I. (Mar-Apr ’07)
A second cancelled show, this time from the great comedic duo of Andy Richter and Conan O’Brien.  Richter plays the title character, an accountant who’s just opened his business in a strip mall and is mistaken for a private investigator, and Tony Hale from Arrested Development play a video store clerk who works in the same mall and helps him.  It doesn’t sound like much but with these two and some great cases, it was a very short-lived (only six episodes aired) but thoroughly entertaining show.

13.  John from Cincinnati (Jun-Aug ’07)
David Milch effectively shut down Deadwood to make this show and for that I hate him just a little bit.  The show deals with the appearance of a strange young man of mysterious origin (who may or may not be a Jesus like figure) and the effect he has on a dysfunctional family of professional surfers and their community.  Even though for the most part I have no idea what was going on in the show, something about it just mesmerized me and I was hooked from the beginning.  I don’t have to know everything that’s intended to be conveyed in a show to like it.  I like ambiguity.  Maybe that’s why I’m also a fan of Lost and Twin Peaks.

12.  Weeds (Aug ’05-Current)
I’ve only seen the first three seasons of the show but Mary Louise Parker’s supremely sexy Nancy Botwin and her pot smoking friends sure do make for great TV.  It was fun to watch her try and grow her empire whilst dealing with rival dealers, ATF agents, a bitch of a best friend, a caring but immature brother in law, and whining self-centered kids.

11.  Eastbound & Down (Feb ’09-Current)
Danny McBride on an HBO show exec produced by Will Ferrell is just about the best thing you could ask for in a comedy and Eastbound & Down doesn’t disappoint.  McBride plays Kenny “Fucking” Powers, a washed up pro baseball pitcher who returns to his hometown to take a job as a gym teacher, whilst all the time trying to get back to the majors and win the affection of his old high school flame.  A milder comedy of awkwardness as made popular by The Office, it succeeds mostly because of the delusional bravado of McBride’s Kenny Powers.

10.  Pushing Daisies (Oct ’07-Jun ’09)
Yet another show cancelled too soon.  The show centered on the pie-maker Ned (Lee Pace) who could bring dead things back to life with a touch, but if he touched them a second time they went back to being dead for good.  Ned helps P.I. Emerson Cod (Chi McBride) solve crimes in quick fashion by bringing the victim back to life, asking them what happened, and then touching them again.  Along for the ride is his childhood sweetheart Charlotte Charles (Anna Friel) who he brought back to life but refused to touch again.  Their romance is made all the sweeter because they can never touch each other.  The show has a fantasy visual unlike anything else on TV with hyper-real colours saturating every episode.

9.  How I Met Your Mother (Sept ’05-Current)
It’s currently the best “standard” sitcom on TV (meaning of the 3 camera + laugh track sitcoms it’s #1) thanks to the appeal of all five cast members and some truly fantastic storylines.  The standout is clearly Neil Patrick Harris as the womanizing Barney, but everyone is given a pretty equal opportunity to shine.  The only real negative to the show is that the gimmick of Ted describing to his kids how he met their mother somewhat hinders the enjoyment of the show because “the mother” is almost constantly hinted at or teased but hasn’t ever appeared.  Couple this with the fact that we know every time Ted gets into a relationship and it’s not revealed that the girl is “the mother” then we know that the relationship is not going to last.

8.  Undeclared (Sept ’01-Mar ’02)
The second of Judd Apatow’s “failed” attempts at TV, this time focusing on a group of five freshmen at college, is just as good as Freaks and Geeks and serves as a great introduction to Jay Baruchel and Carla Gallo, plus also featuring the likes of Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Kyle Gass, and David Krumholtz.  Add to these some great guests/cameos from Adam Sandler, Allen Covert, Amy Poehler, Will Ferrell, Fred Willard, Ben Stiller, Martin Starr, Jenna Fischer and Ted Nugent.  That’s one hell of a list.  Just like Freaks and Geeks it’s disappointing to be left with barely one seasons worth of episodes (17 in this case), but the episodes are so good it almost makes up for the tiny sample size.  Almost.  I’d love Judd Apatow to return to TV but I think he’s moved well beyond it now and so have just about all the the actors and actresses he cast in both Undeclared and Freaks and Geeks.

7.  The Office (US) (Mar ’05-Current)
I’ve never seen the original UK version so I can’t comment on which is better, but it started off pretty slow in the 1st season with people saying it stuck too closely to the UK blueprint.  There was definitely a shift during the second season to much better stories and dynamics within the office.  The Pam and Jim romance has always been great with standout episodes being “The Dundies”, “Casino Night”, “The Job, Part 2″ and “Fun Run”.  Michael Scott can at times be a total and complete prick, like in early season 6 when he screws with Jim, but this is often tempered by other things.  I like the awkward humour but when the writers have Michael go out of his way to seem vindictive I can get turned off the show pretty quickly.

6.  Freaks and Geeks (Sept ’99-Jul ’00)
Great because of the examination of the social divide in high school, the early 80′s setting and the fantastic young cast featuring James Franco, Linda Cardellini, Busy Philips, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, John Francis Daley, Martin Starr and Samm Levine.  Plus it featured Tom Wilson (Biff from the Back to the Future trilogy) in a recurring role as the gym teacher.

5.  30 Rock (Oct ’06-Current)
To think that before this show aired I was only mildly interested in Tina Fey and thought that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip would butcher 30 Rock.  What the hell did I know huh.  The show catapulted Fey into stardom and made her an object of nerd lust everywhere, and despite somewhat average ratings the show has garnered a shit-ton of awards every season it’s been on the air.  All the success of the show is well and truly deserved.

4.  Deadwood (Mar ’04-Aug ’06)
A show more about how times change, people progress and communities build than a traditional white hat vs. black hat western.  It features extremely rich dialogue which is sometimes poetic, often profane and nearly always confusing, and has a look and feel that you’d expect more from a Hollywood production than a TV show.  Absolutely everyone in the cast is fantastic but the standout it clearly Ian McShane as Al Swearengen.  I’m kinda bummed that creator David Milch hasn’t followed up on his promise of a couple of TV movies to finish the story now that John from Cincinnati is over but three seasons of a show as great as Deadwood shouldn’t be sneezed at.

3.  Veronica Mars (Sept ’04-May ’07)
Season 1 was damn near perfect as a season long murder mystery about the death of Veronica Mars’ (Kristen Bell) best friend Lily, her sheriff father’s pursuit of one of the most powerful men in the country, his firing from the sheriff’s department and her subsequent ostracism in high school.  As a girl who’s able to straddle both sides of the social divide she helps her classmates solve problems whilst all the time trying to find the real killer of her friend.  Season 2 upped the ante by having two consecutively running season long mysteries, both of which were very dark, with the season culminating with one of the best season finales ever which rewarded viewers of the first season in a way that pretty much no-one expected.  Season 3 was still great but Fox decided that they didn’t want season long mysteries as this may deter new viewers from jumping in and decided that a couple of mysteries broken up in the season would be better.  It wasn’t.  Add to that the introduction of some pretty shitty characters and the change from the high school setting to the college setting and the third season was a letdown.  There were still flashes of greatness and Kristen Bell continued to shine as the cute but clever Veronica Mars, but it simply wasn’t up to the same quality as the first two seasons.  There have been continued rumours of a movie which would extend the story but I think too much time has passed since the show went off the air for that to happen now.

2.  Arrested Development (Nov ’03-Feb ’06)
The absolute best comedy of the decade and along with Seinfeld it could arguably be the best comedy ever.  The cast is top to bottom excellent and the guest stars and cameos that the show brought in over three short seasons is equally impressive.  There’s layer upon layer upon layer of jokes that demands repeat viewing and doesn’t aim for the laugh track crowd like lowest common denominator shows such as The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Frasier or any other high rating but shit sitcom.  Add to this the fact that the show rewards fans by including constant in-jokes and references and it becomes clear why it’s regarded so highly by anyone who takes the time to watch it.  A damn dirty shame that it was cancelled by those fucking asshole executives at Fox.  One small consolation is that because of the diehard love for the show a movie is set to start filming during the first half of 2010.  Hopefully this means a release sometime in late 2010 will be possible.

1.  Lost (Sept ’04-Current)
Felicity was good, Alias was better, but Lost made J.J. Abrams into a fucking God.  And with good reason.  The dense mythology and piecemeal way in which the details are sometimes fed may turn off viewers but there’s simply no denying how compelling the show has been on an episode to episode and season to season basis.  Starting off with an already huge cast, the show has added more and more as the seasons have progressed with all but two of them (Nikki and Paulo) being near perfect.  The addition of Ben Linus would have been enough by itself but there’s also been Richard Alpert, Horace Goodspeed, Mikhael, Radzinsky, Desmond, Penny, Mr Eko, Miles, Charlotte, Daniel, Frank Lapidus and probably a ton more I’m forgetting.  Aside from just a few stumbles (like the overly long time spent with Kate and Sawyer locked in cages at the beginning of season 3) the show has been an example of near perfect television.  Add to that the fact that it was able to reinvent its entire story structure thanks to the brilliance of the season 3 finale and you’re looking at not just the #1 show of the decade but arguably the #1 show of all time.  It still makes me laugh when I think that people were saying Heroes was a better show.

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