Tee Vee

Lots of Buffalo bloggers are doing this, so here are mine: my favorite TV shows of all time. Now, with a list like this, I'd probably name five different shows tomorrow if someone else asked me the same question, but here are five shows that I'd love to have with me if I lived on a desert island.

:: Monty Python's Flying Circus. The funniest damn show ever. I mean, this is the funniest damn show ever. I mean, this show was so funny that I'm seriously considering using the hated "blink" tag in writing the words, "the funniest damn show EVER". That's how funny this show was.

:: Frasier. Ask me this same question tomorrow and I'll likely name Cheers, but Frasier was brilliant as well, and even in its inevitable slide in quality in its last several years it was still better than most of the crap on TV. The creators took the Frasier Crane character from Cheers, made some logical progressions as to what he'd be doing after that show ended, and surrounded him with characters who were, for me, as memorable as Norm and Cliff and Woody. Maybe not quite so memorable as Carla, but hey, who is?

:: Star Trek: The Original Series. The first two seasons of Trek were brilliant. The third, not so much. I'll still take the original over The Next Generation, which, despite many brilliant episodes, often felt just a bit "safe" to me. (Of course, I could invoke one of my famous "cheats" for list-memes like this and take TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise all as parts of one giant series that ran for over thirty-five years! In fact, yes, that's what I'm gonna do. It's my blog and I can do whatever I want!)

:: Once and Again. I've waxed poetic about this show before. In terms of human relationships, this might be the most insightful television show I've ever seen, and I consider it one of the hallmarks of TV as an artistic medium.

:: Great Performances. How cool would it be to have every single performance of opera, classical music, theater, or whatever else that's ever appeared on this PBS standby on DVD?