My all-time favorite TV shows

[dangermousie]

In order, here is my Top 6 show list:

1. Farscape: Best Show Ever. I am not kidding either. Wonderful, angsty, clever characters, OTP to end all OTPs, complicated twisted plots, and really tight plotting and writing. Not to mention all the arcs get resolved. Perfection. I cried, I laughed, I screamed, I participated in the fan campaign.

2. Firefly: Short-lived, but what does it matter when it has 14 amazing episodes plus the best movie of 2005 to its credit? It's snarky, heart-breaking, and wildly creative. Plus, Mal Reynolds is my TV boyfriend.

3. Veronica Mars: I thought, a teen detective? Blech. Boy was I wrong. This is hilarious and deeply sad at once. Not to mention witty and complex and slowly developing characters I am madly in love with. Veronica is tough and shattered and funny and deeply insecure and insanely smart. And Logan is my newest TV crush, what with the snark and the vulnerability.

4. Futurama: I have never seen anything so funny and cynical and creative. Watch it. It's all on DVD.

5. Battlestar Galactica: I am not emotionally attached to the show, but what an intellectual pleasure it is. I like a show that takes no prisoners.

6. Roswell: All the lovely Max/Liz romance turns me into a giddy teen again. It really does get the madly in love feeling right.

Honorable Mention: Buffy: The first three seasons of Buffy were some of the best TV anywhere and would have competed with Farscape for Number 1 space. 4 and 5 weren't as good but had their moments. The last good episode was S6's "Tabula Rasa." Unfortunately the corpse lasted for another 2 years. So only "honorable" mention for Buffy.

Guilty, trashy pleasure: One Tree Hill: It's totally bad. Wooden acting, cliched storylines, too much basketball. But I can't resist the soap and the hot guys.

What are yours?

Comments

Well, since you asked...

[ayn-rand-fan-13.livejournal.com]

1. Veronica Mars: My reasoning would take up several dozens of pages.
2. Lost: After each episode, I just kind of gape at the screen, all WTF, and then jump around and scream for a bit. I just never know what's going to happen. Also, as I said to a friend one day "Mmm, I'd stick around if only for Sawyer. and Sayid. and Jin. and Charlie. And I don't swing that way, but there's a lot to be said for Maggie Grace".
3. House M.D.: I love the main character to death, and with the exception of two people, I love all of the other characters. The dialogue is snarkily wonderful, and House's character is so complex. Plus, everybody is just so damn pretty.
4. Firefly: Again, you know why.
Also, regarding One Tree Hill, I actually know people that seriously watch that show. Gosh, I love being a target audience.

Re: Well, since you asked...

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Also, regarding One Tree Hill, I actually know people that seriously watch that show. Gosh, I love being a target audience.

Now, that is scary!

Re: Well, since you asked...

[thelana.livejournal.com]

May I ask who the character are that you don't like on House? I'm fairly new to House and I was wondering who the unpopular characters were :D

Re: Well, since you asked...

[ayn-rand-fan-13.livejournal.com]

Dr. Cameron is probably the most unpopular, for a variety of reasons.
I know a lot of people don't like Chase, because of the Vogler story arc, but I'm shallow and think he's too pretty not to like.
Stacy is generally hated as well, but she's not exactly a main character.
Enjoy!

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

My favorites:

The X-Files- Old favorites live long in my heart, and even though the show lasted too long (the 6th & 7th season were unfortunate), this show owned my soul in high school. Scully and Mulder are the ultimate intelligent OTP. I have no clue why Carter decided the show should continue after Duchovney left, since he MADE that show.

Alias- Even though the third season sucked, I still enjoy this show in all it's bizarre and unrealistic glory. The whole dynamic has changed now that Vartan has left the show though.

Supernatural- I haven't had a show that makes me look forward to a day in the week so much in a long time. LOVE this show with it's humor, horror, and hot guys. It's like what would happen if The X-Files and Buffy had a love child.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Yes, I hated the majority of seasons 4-7, but there were moments this show was just brilliant. Season 2 has got to be my favorite bit of television ever. Evil Angel, evil Spike, crazy Dru and the best of snarky Buffy.

Battlestar Galactic- Yes, I love Jamie, but it's more than that. This is a really smart show. Not high on the comedy end, which normally doesn't win me over, but this show is smart enough to make up for it.

Firefly- Some of the most endearing characters on a tv show with enough emotion and humor to keep the action from lagging. And I love Simon. It's just a thing.

Honorable mentions:
Bones- I really like it, but it doesn't have me hook, line and sinker yet.

Lost- This evil show has trapped me into not wanting to miss it just so I can find out what those stupid numbers mean.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I must confess I nver watched more than an ep of X-files because I was so squeamish :)

Season 2 has got to be my favorite bit of television ever

Oh YES.

[lpmufinfiend.livejournal.com]

Yes, X-files was my first blissful taste of science fiction. The truth is so out there.

[plazmah.livejournal.com]

I'm joining in on the fun! For the sake of simplicity I'm excluding all the anime shows I love, which would be a list unto itself.

1. X-Files: My very first TV obsession, back when I was only 13 years old. I lived and died for that show. I couldn't breathe without it. I was a stalwart NoRomo, afraid that MSR would destroy the show like Lois and Clark. It was the fandom that first led me to fic and pr0n. So many sweet memories. I can't believe I don't have a single season on DVD yet.

2. Lost: What can I say? I'm in love with the complete WTF factor of this show. I prefer the lush creepiness of this to JJ's other creation, Alias. The multitude of hot characters doesn't hurt either.

3. House: I started watching this out of casual curiosity. Best casual curiosity ever. The snark, the insanity, the angsty relationship possibilities. It's all good. It's all VERY good. If I ended up being a doctor, I'd want a piece of that action :)

4. CSI (Vegas): My friends in undergrad were crazy about this show, and crazy about Nick and Sara in particular. Daily did I hear them wax escatic about George and Jorja. But I just didn't get into it. Fast forward a year or two later and I discover CSI reruns on Spike TV. It was the beginning of the end. My love for forensics and geeky science, seeded from my love for Scully, took hold. I fell in love with the stories and the entire cast. I really need to get some CSI DVDs.

5. The Simpsons: How can one not love this show. The sheer hilarity of the classic episodes are unforgettable. I seriously believe that everything in life can be related to an episode of the Simpsons. It's a part of my cultural consciousness.

6. Futurama: I'm watching it right now! Anthology of Interest, the one with the giant Bender, impulsive Leela, and the rip in the time-space continuum. Futurama is like the Simpsons, but ineffably different in some intangible way. It's more in your face, but not as in your face as something like Family Guy. Plus, Bender makes the world go round ;)

7. Alias: Come on! JG and MV are hot and kicking ass! What more could one ask for. The mythology is a bit too much for me, but it's still incredibly fun to watch the drama unfold when you're not too emotionally involved in the show.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Futurama is one of those "I can watch each episode 70 times" things. *loves*

[plazmah.livejournal.com]

Exactly! wasabi_girl1 has every single season on DVD and I can't get enough of it every time I come home to visit. She's getting annoyed ;)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Bender icon! You rock so hard! (TM Fireball)

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

Whoo! Scully and Mulder 4eva.

Really, this was an incredibly smart show that has influenced a lot of shows with its style since then. The X-Files showed stuff on television and seriously used the "parental guidence" status long before it was in fashion.

[plazmah.livejournal.com]

Agreed; XF shaped the future of Creepy Drama.

[equustel.livejournal.com]

Must chime in with the XF love. My all-time favorite show. Mulder and Scully are still two of the most complex and fascinating characters ever to grace the small screen, and their relationship pretty much transcends the romantic/platonic argument.

And Gillian Anderson is an amazing actress.

[/gushing]

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

I agree. Scully and Mulder were soul mates if there ever were ones in a tv couple. It was more than the fluffy sitcom romances or the angsty teen drama stuff, these two loved each other on the deepest level. Both of them messed up beyond belief, both of them lonely, both of them looking for "the truth" whatever that may have been. They were two lost souls who found each other, which was beautiful to watch. It was just something you'd never expect in a show with so much gore and creep value.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

It was also one of the first dramas that would end on an "off" beat. Everything didn't wrap up nicely at the end and the episodes felt like they just stopped a lot of the time. X-Files was one of the first shows I remember doing that. A lot of them do that now days.

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily in order:

1. BSG
2. Firefly
3. ST DS9
4. Deadwood - (and I've only seen season 1 because we don't get HBO)
5. Buffy/Angel
6. Over There - I'm currently obsessing over this, but it's really a guilty pleasure rather than something I picture fanning for life.

I probably would have liked Farscape, but never got to see it as we only started getting SciFi channel recently. I used to like Babylon 5 as well, but missed a lot of it as we were living in England when it was on.

There's other shows I usually make a point to watch, like CSI and Lost, and I like L & O Criminal Intent, Nip Tuck for pure outrageousness...but I'm not a crazed fan over any of them. House I'll watch if it's on and I feel like watching TV, I just find the plots a bit contrived, though I do like Hugh Laurie.


And I'm sure I've forgotten some big favorite and I'll feel stupid as soon as I post!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

You know, I've heard such good things about Deadwood, but I've never seen it. Is it really gruesome?

Deadwood

[grace-om.livejournal.com]

Gruesome? Hmmm. It's blunt in all regards: language, nudity, violence. After all Deadwood was a town with "no law at all." So I guess at times, yes. But the body count does slow down after the first few episodes... LOL!

And yet, for all the profanity, the language is downright Shakespearean in its poetic density of meaning. (which I hope makes sense).

Really, it's worth giving a try.

[(Anonymous)]

I'll try my luck with this one. Number one is set, the others are random.

1) Veronica Mars
2) The Simpsons
3) In Living Color
4) Smallville
5) Battlestar Galatica
6) Numb3rs
7) Viva La Bam
HM) Titus
HM) The Joe Schmo Show

I should note that I just started watching the Buffy reruns on FX when they started from the beginning.

== BearDogg-X ==

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Love your list!

[antiqueskies.livejournal.com]

This is hard. Stop posing hard questions.

1. Star Trek The Next Generation: I literally "grew up" with this show. It premiered a year after I was born, and my mom and I watched it together until it ended in '94. Yes, I'm totally an old-school fangirl here, ha. Aside from the whole odd connection with my childhood, it rarely didn't have a solid storyline that, now that I'm capable of examining episodes, seems all the more important given the socio-political world of the time. And, also, Data is my favoritest character ever.

2. The Pretender: Okay, so, by the fourth season it was getting kind of...disturbing. But that doesn't mean I didn't love it and it's mind-twisting ways! After all, where else could I have learned to love a character that is an admitted psychopathic cannibal who has a torture room hidden behind his closet? And at the tender age of tweleve no less! Oh yes indeed. This is my "demented but delicously fun" show.

3. The X-Files: How can you not love this show? At least until the point where Mulder disappeared. Yeah, then it kinda sucked. Woe. But the first six seasons were brilliance!

4. Alias: In tretrospect, S3 was slightly less crappy than it was when I first watched, but it still stunk horribly. Ahhh, but S1 and S2... Beautiful things they are. The intrigue! The betrayals! The contrast between always leading a double life in some context! The angst! The OTP of Syd and Vaughn and the longing glances! Huzzah! And, of course, ass-kicking action. Excellence.

5. The Invisible Man: Short-lived, yes, but it didn't deserve its early death. Snarky! Humorous! Action! Sci fi! Hot male lead! Ahhh, it had it all. Except for really exceptional plots. But I didn't care because, dang it, the main character goes psychotically wicked every now and then. And I loooove me an evil man.

6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Seasons 1-3, end of Season 6): Seasons 1-3 = quite possibly the best stuff ever written. Season Two is my personal favorite, with all the bad guys and the fun of that, but Season Three is good too with Faith! Totally love Faith. And then in S6 (I think), evil!Willow! Huzzah! I had been waiting for her to go evil since S3. Hee!

7. Red Dwarf: Woe is the person that hasn't seen this great British comedy from the late eighties and early nineties! Yes, I watched it when I was a kiddie and it was on PBS. Yes, it's probably part of the reason I can be so damnably sarcastic now. Sarcasm + cheeky British sci fi + lovable characters + zany situations = great British humor. I would put it above Monty Python, actually. Though I do love my Monty Python as well.

HM: House: I've seen a grand total of three episodes so far, so I can't make too much of a judgment, but a cheeky Brit playing a sarcastic American rocks my socks.

HM: Roswell: Because teen angst makes super good watching, especially when combined with hot boys and aliens. Mmmm. Back when the WB was pure quality!

HM: Family Guy: Stewie is insane, but in such a fun way. "I love God. He's so deliciously evil!" Mmmm, random British accent and megalomania. Totally the way to be.

HM: Futurama: Definitely one of the best cartoons ever. Right up there with Pinky and the Brain, only this is more adult-oriented than our friendly megalomaniac mouse and his idiotic cohort.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Woo on Roswell and Futurama. No show did the giddiness of perfect love than Roswell...

[thelana.livejournal.com]

I was quite surprised that you rated it this low :)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Not low...just adore the others even more. Roswell gives me much more of a high than Futurama and BSG but they are cleverer...

[antiqueskies.livejournal.com]

Hee, very true. Many were all about the angst of it. Sure, M/L had the angst, but somehow you knew it would all work out because they were so crazily in love.

Ahhh, season three, how I loved thee.

And I can never get enough Futurama. They're funny no matter how many times I've seen the episode!

[thelana.livejournal.com]

1. The X-Files: What is it they say? You never forget your first love? Well the X-Files was my first forray into fandom, fanfiction, the online-world, everything. I still remember hogging my father's office and printing out all the gorgeous black and white episode ads they had and collecting them. Or spending Christmas night with my cousin printing out buckets of slash epics. She says that there's even a picture of her looking tired, sitting surrounded by towers of printed out paper. They had some novel lenght stories that I printed out and collected. In fact they had a whole archive which was exclusively dedicated to only novel lenght fanfictions. How can you not love that? And the show? Pretty good as well, the hotness of DD and GA. The angst! The insanity. The great obsessive and scary monster of the week episodes. I watched it up until season 5 when I thought the Mulder/Scully angle was getting too obvious.

2. Smallville: So what if I actually only like the first 2 seasons? They are awesome enough to sustain my nostalgic love for the show.

3. Prison Break: Ok, so it's relatively new, but the obsession is already there full force.

4. Prey: Should probably get some sort of award for most short lived tv show I ever loved. So what if it wasn't actually *good*, I loved the concept, I loved the pretty. I mean, brainwashed, programmed since childhood contract killer being sent to murder pretty scientist, but can't bring himself to kill her, because he falls for her on sight? => Me going, awwwww.

5. Scrubs: Cute, funny. Running what 4 seasons and not one bit of drop in quality. You really gotta respect that.

6. Various crime series: Sorry, just can't pick just one. Since I like all of the, but I'm usually not outright obsessed with any of them, characterwise, Monk, The Dead Zone, CSI mothership, CSI: Miami (seasons 1 only), Law and Order: SVU, Profiler... you name it, I love it.

Runner ups:
The Simpsons: Awesome, insanely funny.
DS9: Ok, so technically it probably doesn't really count because I actually only *loved* was the whole arc around Gul Dukat. Sure, the other characters and character relationships were strong and interesting as well, but deep at heart, I really was around mostly for the Dukat love.
Soap Operas: The Bold and The Beautiful (the Omar storyline, early Bridget/Deacon) and General Hospiral (mostly early!Courtney)

[antiqueskies.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I agree on Scrubs. It is sheer brilliance, but always scheduled badly, woe. I'm content just to buy it on DVD. (Ahhh, tv on dvd. God is good to the fangirls. ;)

[wasabi-girl1.livejournal.com]

I will admit, I'm not that big on TV. But The Simpsons and Futurama are waaay up there. I also still like the X-Files. Of course, I am starting to find appreciation for That 70s Show as well, it's really really good. :)

And then of course, there are tons of animes that they play on TV, but that's a whole different story.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Futurama...Bender...Heeeee.

[chalkare.livejournal.com]

Some of my favorites were part of the one night I used to look forward to all week: FOX's Sunday Lineup (7pm-9pm):

1. The X-Files--my first ever obsession, from Middle School all teh way to my senior year of High School. I really don't know how or why I got so into it. I remember seeing the preview for "Small Potatoes" and it amused me. So much I made plans to leave a party early that Sunday night it aired so I wouldn't miss it. I watched it and by the end I was hooked. It was my first episode and I was already a MSR shipper! The chemestry of those two was just intense. It was great! My favorite episodes were the humorous ones (Bad Blood, Je Souhite, Jose Chung's.., Dreamland, ect.), the experimental ones (Post Modern Promethius & Triangle) and those that studied M&S relationship and their individual lives. At one point I had almost the entire Season 1-7 episodes recorded (I still have the recording from when "Small Potatoes" first aired). The rest of the seasons were ok (I actually like the Monica Reyes and John Dogget characters), but it just wasn't the same. Now I'm getting back to rewatching the series again. Lots of memories.

2. The Simpsons--LOVE this show! Never get tired of the reruns.

3. Futurama--Why OH WHY did they cancel this?!!!? :(

4. The Amazing Race: It gets your adreniline pumping by just sitting on the couch. Fastest and most exciting hour on television!

5. LOST: Watched the reruns during the summer and I'm hooked.I also want to know what's the significance of those numbers. And how long will the survivors stay in the island? And what's with the underground lab? So many questions!

6. Lonely Planet/Globe Trekkers/Pilot Guides: Men and Women go on 7 day adventure travels exploring the culture, people and landscape of different parts of the world. I love travel and this is the best informative travel show out there.

Honorable: Roswell, Smallville & Survivor.