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Columbo (1968 - 1978) |
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The best detective show of all time.
Intelligently written and elegantly plotted, Columbo changed the
rules of the detective show by showing the audience right at the
beginning of the show who the killer was, and how and why they
committed the murder. The main star of the show (Peter Falk as
Columbo) didn't usually appear until a good fifteen or twenty
minutes in which was also unheard of at the time. Each episode is
identically constructed, with the murder being shown, Columbo
turning up and figuring out pretty quickly who's responsible then
the fun would be watching him setting about getting his man -
usually with help from the murderer himself, as they would always
underestimate Columbo's intelligence. Columbo has a few phrases he
always uses such as 'Just one more thing', and a few amusing props,
such as his rumpled raincoat, his beat-up car and his all but inert
dog. And just for the record his first name and the first name of
his wife was never released, and the only name his dog ever had was
Dog. |
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Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000 - Present) |
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Larry David's follow-up to the phenomenally
successful Seinfeld. David stars as himself - that is a very
successful and wealthy writer who's just finished with a very
successful comedy show on TV. He has a house in Malibu and a wife
who doesn't really understand where he's coming from most of the
time. In fact, nobody ever seems to see where he's coming from. This
show is very similar to Seinfeld in that it focusses on the main
character and his relationship to those around him but whereas
Seinfeld is supremely inoffensive, this is the adult version. Larry
David gets very frustrated at the idiocy all around him and he lets
rip when it all reaches boiling point. This show is the best example
of the comedy of inappropriateness and social embarrassment around.
Makes you feel physically uncomfortable at times identifying with
the socially awkward situations in which David finds
himself. |
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Fawlty Towers (1975 - 1979) |
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Absolutely the best sitcom ever made. A mere
twelve episodes over two seasons, there isn't one episode that's
less than brilliant. John Cleese is absolutely hilarious as the
hapless and willful Basil Fawlty, proprietor of a ramshackle
seat-of-the-pants hotel in Torquay where if a thing can go wrong it
surely will. Basil's lot in life seems to be to deal with a series
of misfortunes, misunderstandings or misdeeds. His wife is an
insufferable nag (especially when she's right), the guests are a
constant thorn in his side, and his head waiter can barely
understand English. Cleese and co-star Connie Booth - who plays
earnest waitress Polly - were responsible for the writing of Fawlty
Towers and you can tell there was a lot of hard work and fine tuning
involved in the construction of this little gem. John Cleese has
never been funnier - as a writer or as a performer. Impeccable. |
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House (2004 - Present) |
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I would say this is the best medical show there's ever been. Gregory House is an irrascible (to say the least) doctor who specialises in outlandish cases no-one else can solve. As with Columbo there is a formula that is rarely deviated from: Patient appears, House has as little contact with them as possible while he and his team brainstorm solutions to the puzzle until they find a cure that works, the patient lives, House is a hero. That's fine, but the reason this show is a hit is purely to do with House the character - brilliantly played by Hugh Laurie. He's damaged both physically (he's always on the lookout for more Vikoden) and psychologically and it's this psychological interplay between House, his patients and his colleagues that makes this show so fascinating. The dialogue is frequently priceless, with House delivering some excellent put-downs and exquisite rudeness. The double act of House and his colleague cum friend Wilson is also very amusing, and in later episodes quite fascinating from a psychological point of view. |
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In Treatment (2008 - Present) |
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Who's never wanted to be a fly on the wall in a psychiatrist's office? Gabriel Byrne stars as Dr. Paul Weston - a psychiatrist working out of his home in New York. He puts in a terrific performance here as the perceptive and sometimes troubled shrink who has a tendency to get a little too involved with his patients. Each episode is devoted to a different patient, whom we get to know more as the season progresses. We also get to know more about Paul, as he attends his own sessions with his psychiatrist - another great performance by Dianne Wiest. The acting by all concerned is of the highest standard and the writing is probably the best on television right now. It's not often a series comes along that's as intelligent, thought-provoking, absorbing and emotionally challenging as In Treatment. This is another show that can last for quite a few seasons because it delves deep into the psyche and there's no more fascinating subject than human beings, their fears, hopes and dreams. |
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Rescue Me (2004 - Present) |
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The brainchild of Denis Leary, who started off as a scathing comedian back in the nineties, then moved into films briefly, and with this series has finally found the perfect vehicle for his acerbic wit and refreshingly bleak outlook on life. He plays an unstable New York firefighter who's haunted by the events of 9-11 and has a truck-load of demons to wrestle with. For much of the first season he's followed around by various ghosts of the people he lost in fires and his twin obsessions - alcohol and women provide endless scenarios to chew over, as an observer. The absurd situations in this show - penned by Leary and Peter Tollan - are frequently hilarious, the writing is solid - often profane and always authentic sounding
and the characters are well-drawn and interesting. It has much to say about modern life; alcoholism, religion, sex, death, you name it and it's always entertaining and rarely preachy. Superb fun for people not easily offended. |
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The Sopranos (1999 - 2007) |
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At first I ignored The Sopranos because I felt it
was just a re-hash of Martin Scorsese's film Goodfellas, in which
everything there was to be said about modern-day Italian American
gangsters seemed to have been said, and said very well. But how
wrong I was. Obviously there are comparisons to be made, but
writer-creator David Chase takes an entirely different tack early on
in the first season and runs with it brilliantly. James Gandolfini
stars as Tony Soprano - a mid-level gangster in New Jersey headed
for the top of the family. He's troubled with strange dreams and
goes to see a psychiatrist. His wife and kids are only vaguely aware
of what he does for a living but have no idea what a ruthless man he
can be. Both sets of family dynamics are explored with a lot of
insight and humour. The series peaked in season three but continued
to be entertaining and interesting until the last episode three
seasons later. |
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Twin Peaks (1990 - 1991) |
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From the opening sequence of the first episode
with a young girl's body wrapped in plastic being fished out of the
river David Lynch's Twin Peaks was set to be something a bit special
and it was certainly that, and then some. Never before or since has
quite such a weird or extreme show surfaced on TV, though a few have
subsequently tried. It did though change the face of television for
good in that it showed there was a market for unconventional
programmes with weird characters and odd ideas. Twin Peaks is
basically a murder mystery but as the show progressed this became
less and less important as people became entranced by the
strangeness of the characters and the odd situations arising each
week. Only lasted two seasons but the season two finale was
unbeleivably good and certainly the most outrageously bizarre hour
of television you'll ever see. |
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The West Wing (1999 - 2006) |
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Follows the lives of the White House staff under
democratic President Jed Bartlett - exactly the kind of intelligent,
responsible, and fair-minded president America doesn't have. The
acting is uniformly excellent - helped no end by impeccable scripts
courtesy of Aaron Sorkin, who obviously knew somebody who worked
somewhere near the centre of the American political machine. The
first four seasons of The West Wing, right up until Sorkin's
departure were of a uniformly high standard - in fact I can't think
of one weak episode. This show was realistic and knowledgeable
enough about American politics to be able to give the viewer the
impression they were privvy to insider knowledge about the inner
workings of the real White House. When it was at it's best this was
head and shoulders above anything else on television at the time in terms of
overall quality. |
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Yes, Minister & Yes, Prime Minister (1980 - 1988) |
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The UK predecessor to The West Wing? Not quite,
but even better in terms of writing. Whereas West Wing is pretty
serious - sometimes earnest Yes, minister and the follow-up Yes, Prime Minister are thought-provoking
and extremely intelligent but always played for laughs. Featuring ambitous bumbler Jim Hacker
rising through the political ranks thanks mainly to his assistant,
the pompous Sir Humphrey Appleby's astute maneouvering on his
behalf. Politics has never been such fun and I don't believe the
writing in these two shows has ever been surpassed on television. The
acting by Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne - both sadly no longer
with us - is a delight to savour and the verbal sparring between the
two is an absolute treat. I can't imagine this ever being remade or
added to as the idea of these series of programmes without these two is
inconceivable. Masterful. |
