I’m wiped out from work and scant sleep, but I will post the remainder of the T.C. Boyle Talk Talk roundtable next week (which also offers the group some time to formulate more responses). In the meantime, from Rarely Likable comes this lazy Friday meme:
Bold television series of which you’ve seen at least three episodes, and bold and italicize those for which you’ve seen every episode.
Most of my television watching precedes 1998, but there were a few surprises here.
24
7th Heaven
Adam-12
Aeon Flux
ALF
Alfred Hitchcock Presents [Ed: 1950s or 1980s?]
Alias
American Idol/Pop Idol/Canadian Idol/Australian Idol/etc.
America’s Next Top Model/Germany’s Next Top Model
Angel
Arrested Development
Babylon 5
Babylon 5: Crusade
Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Baywatch
Beavis & Butthead
Beverly Hills 90210
Bewitched
Bonanza
Bones
Bosom Buddies
Boston Legal
Boy Meets World
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Bug Juice
Chappelle’s Show
Charlie’s Angels
Charmed
Cheers
Columbo
Commander in Chief
Coupling (the UK version, of course)
Cowboy Bebop
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Dancing with the Stars
Danny Phantom
Dark Angel
Dark Skies
Davinci’s Inquest
Dawson’s Creek
Dead Like Me
Deadliest Catch
Deadwood
Degrassi: The Next Generation
Designing Women
Desperate Housewives
Dharma & Greg
Different Strokes
Doctor Who (new Who) [Ed: Does second season count here? If so, yes through “Doomsday.” Count me as a fanboy.]
Dragnet
Due South
Earth 2
Emergency!
Entourage
ER
Everwood
Everybody Loves Raymond
Facts of Life
Family Guy
Family Ties
Farscape [Ed: almost italicized, but I gave up on the last season when it got too smug for its own good.]
Fawlty Towers [Ed: many, many times!]
Felicity
Firefly
Frasier
Friends [Ed: Yes, I’m one of the few and proud to have only viewed two episodes.]
Futurama
Get Smart
Gilligan’s Island
Gilmore Girls
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Green Wing
Grey’s Anatomy
Growing Pains
Gunsmoke
Hannah Montana
Happy Days
Hogan’s Heroes
Home Improvement
Homicide: Life on the Street
House
I Dream of Jeannie
I Love Lucy
Invader Zim
Invasion
Hell’s Kitchen
JAG
Jackass
Joey
John Doe
LA Law
Laverne and Shirley
Little House on the Prairie
Lizzie McGuire
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Lost
Lost in Space
Love, American Style
M*A*S*H
MacGyver
Malcolm in the Middle
Married… With Children
Melrose Place
Miami Vice
Mission: Impossible [Ed: 1960s or 1980s?]
Monk
Moonlighting
Mork & Mindy
Murphy Brown
My Life as a Dog
My Three Sons
My Two Dads [Ed: Oh, great shame.]
NCIS
Nip/Tuck
Northern Exposure
Numb3rs
One Tree Hill
Oz
Perry Mason
Picket Fences
Pokemon
Power Rangers [Ed: Don’t ask.]
Prison Break
Profiler
Project Runway
Psyche
Quantum Leap
Queer As Folk (US)
Queer as Folk (British)
ReGenesis
Remington Steele
Rescue Me
Road Rules
ROME
Roseanne
Roswell
Saved by the Bell
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? [Ed: I own the DVD box set.]
Scrubs
Seinfeld
Sex and the City
Six Feet Under
Slings and Arrows
Smallville [Ed: About a season behind on this, I think.]
So Weird
South Park
Spaced [Ed: Brilliant UK comedy that deserves US release.]
Spongebob Squarepants
Sports Night
Star Trek [Ed: I’m assuming this is TOS.]
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager [Ed: Crap.]
Star Trek: Enterprise [Ed: Good riddance.]
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate SG-1
Superman [Ed: If George Reeves version, yes.]
Supernatural
Surface
Survivor
Taxi
Teen Titans
That 70’s Show
That’s So Raven
The 4400
The Addams Family
The Andy Griffith Show
The A-Team
The Avengers
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Brady Bunch [Ed: I may have seen them all, but the notion of going through a Brady Bunch episode guide and checking off episodes is about as salutary to me as plunging my head in liquid nitrogen.]
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show
The Dead Zone
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Flintstones
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Golden Girls [Ed: One episode was enough, frankly.]
The Honeymooners
The Jeffersons
The Jetsons
The L Word
The Love Boat
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mighty Boosh
The Monkees
The Munsters [Ed: A poor man’s Addams Family.]
The Mythbusters
The O.C.
The Office (UK)
The Office (US)
The Pretender
The Real World
The Shield
The Simpsons
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Sopranos
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
The Twilight Zone [Ed: 1960s, 1980s or UPN bomb? If the first two, yes to all.]
The Waltons
The West Wing
The Wonder Years
The X-Files
Third Watch
Three’s Company [Ed: Yes, I’ve seen them all. There are reasons for this, too complicated to get into.]
Top Gear
Twin Peaks
Twitch City
Veronica Mars
Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK) [Ed: All that were broadcast on Comedy Central, at any rate.]
Will and Grace
No Deadwood!? If there is any show that is as good (if not better) than Battlestar, it’s Deadwood. The dialogue alone is amazingly literate. You actually have to listen to it and pay attention, unlike most tv/movies.
I’ve avoided Deadwood, Derik, because I don’t want to get hooked on another TV show. Two regular shows to watch is enough already. 🙂
I’m surprised the list didn’t include one of my persona favorites: WKRP in Cincinnati.
Two regular shows to watch is enough already.
Please tell me one of those shows isn’t Lost. If for no other reason than that every time someone watches Lost instead of Veronica Mars, an angel loses its wings.
(Did you like “Doomsday”? I enjoyed the episode but the more I think about it the more it seems like empty calories.)
Ed, Deadwood is ending this season (already halfway over). You’d only have like 36 episodes total to watch. It’s completely worth it.
And I’m in agreement with Abigail, Veronica Mars is way better than Lost. It actually completes storylines in ways that make it worth following.
Why aren’t any of the Law & Orders on the list? For the record (and because I don’t do memes), I’ve seen every episode of all five Law & Order shows (two were sadly short-lived), plus the brief but good L.A. Dragnet with Ed O’Neill as Detective Joe Friday.
Criminal Minds should be on the list, too. And Iron Chef.
Spaced [Ed: Brilliant UK comedy that deserves US release.]
Ed: They’re currently airing “Spaced” on BBC America; a few years ago they ran the whole series on the Sundance Channel (I think? I know we videotaped the series here in the U.S., so it must’ve been). Cross your fingers for a DVD this time around.
What a genius show. Do you ever find yourself dancing like Tyres to the sound of car alarms? Or is that just me?
And speaking of great British comedy, tell me you’ve seen “Black Books”…