There's a retropective of the films of the 2000s, but I don't see a thread for the TV shows. I gave this a bit of thought (while trying to ignore the blizzard outside) and I've come up with a list that I think covers most of the TV shows that I think made the biggest impact on the decade, or were at the very least the most representative of trends. Some of these choices won't be to everybody's liking - so feel free to make your own list!
I have not confined myself to X number of entries. I list them in the order I thought of them:
1. Doctor Who. In 2003 Doctor Who was, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in The Spirit, "As dead as Star Trek". It had a loyal niche following, and lots of spin-off merchandise as going concerns. But the general public hadn't seen hide nor hair of it since 1989, except the few who saw the 1996 TV movie. In the spring of 2005 Doctor Who made a remarkable comeback under Russell T. Davies and a large group of fans and dominated British TV for the remainder of the decade, becoming a franchise with the addition of the Torchwood, Sarah Jane and the soon-to-debut K-9 spinoffs and a slew of audio, literary and comic book spinoffs. The only comeback I can compare to it is the return of Star Trek to mainstream interest in 2009.
2. Firefly. I don't like Firefly, despite its incredible cast. And I'm not alone. But I nonetheless recognize and respect its remarkable impact (almost as the "anti-Trek") during its dozen-episode run. And it managed to do in a couple of years what it took Star Trek a decade to accomplish - move to the big screen. It still remains an influential show and considered the high watermark by many.
3-4-5. Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother. These three shows have dominated the reality TV genre since the decade began. And they spawned scores of imitators. Depending who you ask, they were either the best thing to happen to network TV in the US, or the televised equivalent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
6-7. CSI and CSI:Miami. As influential to today's TV production and storytelling as Miami Vice was to the 80s, these are the two dramatic shows that will likely be the first shows people cite when asked in the future to name a series from the 00's. The fact both remain ratings powerhouses a decade after CSI #1 started is remarkable.
8. Saturday Night Live. As a thread on this board asks: "Is it still funny?" There are many who feel this show's best days were behind it decade or even decades ago. But in the 2000s it remained a star-generator (Tiny Fey to name just one). It managed to get Obama, McCain, Palin and Hilary Clinton to send themselves up. And Fey's impersonation of Palin showed SNL was capable of generating news (as it did recently when it started to run Obama-critical skits). It may not still be funny, but I'd argue anyone who thinks after nearly 35 years it isn't still relevant.
9. Tonight Show. Ditto. Yes, it's a 56-year-old format that has made a very rocky transition to a new host. But the Tonight Show still generates headlines, from Arnold Schwarzenegger announcing his plan to run for governor, to both McCain and Obama appearing - the latter after being elected, and promptly sparking controversy, to just a few days ago when Conan scored a coup by getting Sarah Palin to lampoon Bill Shatner. That and the fallout from the "reassignment" of Jay Leno to prime time may be felt for years and is already being called a "shark-jumping" moment for an entire network.
10. Late Show with David Letterman. Say what you want about him, Letterman's a survivor. From his heart surgery, to his near-decision to quit after 9/11, to controversy every time Sarah Palin's name was mentioned, to his beating Tiger Woods to the punch, Letterman has remained an intriguing figure. And the almost out of control response to his joking about Palin's daughter and his infidelity prove that people do still give a s*it what happens on TV at 11:30 PM.
11-12-13. Hannah Montana, iCarly, Zoey 101. TV shows aimed at kids are nothing new (see Saved by the Bell from the early 90s). But this decade thanks to the Internet it seemed that more shows aimed at teens and tweens were generating real superstars. Hannah Montana, of course, begat Miley Cyrus' singing career. Zoey 101 brought us Jamie-Lynn Spears. And they became such big stars that when Miley began dressing provocatively and Jamie-Lynn got pregnant, it had an impact that dwarfed anything seen before. iCarly is on this list for another reason; although it too has created some big stars, so far they've managed over 3 years to keep their noses clean, which is a rarity, it seems. It also is a show that is appealing to adults as much as the kid viewers, which is again rare for Nickelodeon for Disney. Mind you, mention "hob knocker" to certain parents and you'd think Miranda Cosgrove was the anti-Christ.
13-14-15. Morel Orel, Frisky Dingo, Sealab 2022. They may not be as well known as, say The Simpsons, but the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block with its innovative, groundbreaking, and definitely-not-for-the-kiddies 15-minute animated series has ushered in a new golden age of animation. I could name a bunch of other shows - Xavier Renegade Angel, the Venture Brothers, to name just two - but I'll just stick with those 3 for now.
16. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? At the turn of the millennium, Millionaire ushered in a huge wave of prime time network game shows, relaunching a genre that died in the 1950s. Many of the shows were crap and short-lived, but for awhile they were as ubiquitous as westerns were in the 60s. By the last half of the decade the fad had faded except for the very popular Deal or No Deal.
17. NCIS. Often thought of as a rip-off of CSI, NCIS quickly found a unique voice and by the end of the decade, along with CSI, showed it was still possible for a weekly dramatic series to get 20 million+ viewers.
18. American Idol. The show-killer. More shows have died as a direct consequence of Idol than any other show in recent memory. Still, Idol has also had as profound an impact on modern pop culture in terms of introducing new stars and celebrities as Ed Sullivan did in the 60s (although Idol has not yet had its Beatles moment). It and All in the Family are the only shows to top the US ratings for 5 consecutive years, and it'll likely make a 6th.
19. Star Trek: Enterprise. I'm listing it because Enterprise is in my opinion the most controversial science fiction series ever produced. It was also the first series that lived and died because of the Internet. Forums such as TrekBBS endlessly debated the show, and Trek fandom divided into camps over it some of whom reacted with extremes never before seen with relation to a TV program (search the archives if you don't believe me). Ultimately, the show ended an 18-year run of Trek on TV and for all intents and purposes ended the original permutation of Star Trek, which was revived after a 4-year hiatus by JJ Abrams. For better or for worse, the trends set by Internet fandom during Enterprise's troubled run have influenced how other fandoms have responded to their shows. And while it wasn't the first series by a long shot whose production team generated fan ire (Freddy Frieberg, anyone?) it did push the "hate the creator" movement to new levels, and shows like BSG and Doctor Who (to name just two) have experienced the fallout from that, as their producers simultaneous were the most adored and most hated people around. It was also during Enterprise that technology became accessible enough that people who said "I can do better than Paramount" were actually able to start putting their money where their mouths were, culminating in a fan-made Trek film being nominated for a Hugo a couple years ago.
20-21. Alias and Lost. Speaking of Abrams, this one-two punch established Abrams as force to be reckoned with. Alias reinvented the spyfi TV series, while still staying true to its ancestors like The Man from UNCLE and Danger Man (for the most part). Lost has proven that American viewers will follow a complex serialized drama that is many things to many people. And if it weren't for Alias and Lost, odds are Abrams would not have been offered Star Trek to resuscitate.
22-23-24. The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Deadwood. Everytime someone says a bad word or shows some skin or kills someone on mainstream network TV, people complain, sponsors balk, and ratings go up and down. Although the made-for-cable drama did not originate in the 2000s, it came of age as far as the mainstream goes, with shows like The Sopranos, Sex and the City and the cancelled-too-soon Deadwood writing new rules during the first half of the decade. And while American audiences continued to harp about whether a CSI episode was too gross, many of them were evidently sneaking to their TV sets (or the Internet) late at night to see what Tony Soprano was doing, who Carrie was going to bed with, and to count how many times Ian McShane would say the word "c**ksucker."
25-26. Mad Men and Entourage. While the above shows dominated the first half of the decade, the fruits of their labors were enjoyed by these two shows from the second half of the decade. From Mad Men being one of the most acclaimed TV shows ever made, to Entourage getting the thumbs up as President Obama's favorite show (a fact that no one seemed to make a big deal of, despite the show's sex and language), they kept the home fires burning that 22-24 started.
27-28. Queer as Folk and The L Word. Like Mad Men and Entourage, and the other cable dramas above, QaF (created by the man who later brought Doctor Who back) and LW proved that there was an audience - albeit on cable - for sexually edgy shows. I've heard that the L Word, with its copious same-sex love scenes, is the ultimate example of the hypocrisy of American TV viewers - they go up in arms if a same-sex kiss occurs on a mainstream network show, but on Showtime or HBO if they want to show Cybil Sheppard going to town with Marlee Matlin, good on them. The shows did not result in the predicted influx of gay-themed dramas on mainstream network TV (indeed quite the opposite), but the long-term impact of these shows might yet to be felt.
29. Battlestar Galactica. If there was a show considered more irrelevant than Doctor Who (and, arguably, Star Trek) in 2003-2004, it was Battlestar Galactica. Ronald Moore and David Eick took a 25-year-old cult series (dismissed by many, rightly or wrongly, as campy and bad) and made the ultimate SF series for the post-9/11 era. Along the way they set the ground rules for reinventing old TV series, which has resulted in both success (arguably the new V) and failure (Eick's Bionic Woman redux). It's upcoming spinoff, Caprica, isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's going to be a darn sight better than Galactica 1980.
30. The Simpsons. Like SNL, there are those who think this show should have died 15 or more years ago. Still, it manages to survive, still scoring major cameos (among the many, Thomas Pynchon, Alan Moore, and Patrick McGoohan) and still scoring high ratings as it becomes the first prime time scripted weekly series to meet Gunsmoke's 20-year record. (Where's Law & Order? Believe it or not, although it too has survived to 20 years, it simply trundles on in the background. It doesn't seem to generate near the type of attention the Simpsons, or the CSIs generate.)
31. Family Guy. The Simpson's evil twin, this is one of the only shows on mainstream network TV that actually is as edgy as what you find on cable. It is also groundbreaking as one of the first major shows to truly demonstrate the power of DVD, as it was brought back to TV after cancellation based on DVD sales.
32-33-34. MythBusters, Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch. While mainstream networks, and a growing number of cable networks, began straining under the weight of phony, "fly on the wall" celebrity reality shows, as well as dubious ideas such as one about parking lot attendants and the like, Discovery Channel has been quitely producing reality TV shows that rival some of the best scripted shows. MythBusters actually teaches science in what is almost a "reality sitcom", and the same term "reality sitcom" also applies to Dirty Jobs, which may be remembered as much for preserving footage of some of the less-glamorous jobs that kept 2000s society going, as it will be for Mike Rowe's playful banter and hilarious screw-ups. And as for Deadliest Catch, it proved that you can take a potentially boring subject -- the lives of crab fishermen -- and come up with gripping drama that rivals the scripted shows out there. If more reality TV was like Deadliest Catch I wouldn't hate the genre (as a whole) so much.
35-36. The Guiding Light and As the World Turns. I'm not a fan of the daytime soap opera, but it is sad to see it gasping its last. Any show that survives 72 years (radio and TV) deserves respect, as do its creators and actors. As the World Turns lasted a half-century, too, and was no slouch. Before you say "good riddance", do some research and find out how many of YOUR favorite actors got their starts in the soap opera genre. Neither of these shows "dominated" anything, but they were representative of a genre of programming that very likely will not survive the '10s.
Yikes! 36 shows! And there are probably others I'll remember after I click "submit". I guess this decade wasn't a wasteland for TV after all...
Pardon any typos - my eyes are blurry after typing all this and I don't feel like going through it again!
Alex
I have not confined myself to X number of entries. I list them in the order I thought of them:
1. Doctor Who. In 2003 Doctor Who was, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in The Spirit, "As dead as Star Trek". It had a loyal niche following, and lots of spin-off merchandise as going concerns. But the general public hadn't seen hide nor hair of it since 1989, except the few who saw the 1996 TV movie. In the spring of 2005 Doctor Who made a remarkable comeback under Russell T. Davies and a large group of fans and dominated British TV for the remainder of the decade, becoming a franchise with the addition of the Torchwood, Sarah Jane and the soon-to-debut K-9 spinoffs and a slew of audio, literary and comic book spinoffs. The only comeback I can compare to it is the return of Star Trek to mainstream interest in 2009.
2. Firefly. I don't like Firefly, despite its incredible cast. And I'm not alone. But I nonetheless recognize and respect its remarkable impact (almost as the "anti-Trek") during its dozen-episode run. And it managed to do in a couple of years what it took Star Trek a decade to accomplish - move to the big screen. It still remains an influential show and considered the high watermark by many.
3-4-5. Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother. These three shows have dominated the reality TV genre since the decade began. And they spawned scores of imitators. Depending who you ask, they were either the best thing to happen to network TV in the US, or the televised equivalent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
6-7. CSI and CSI:Miami. As influential to today's TV production and storytelling as Miami Vice was to the 80s, these are the two dramatic shows that will likely be the first shows people cite when asked in the future to name a series from the 00's. The fact both remain ratings powerhouses a decade after CSI #1 started is remarkable.
8. Saturday Night Live. As a thread on this board asks: "Is it still funny?" There are many who feel this show's best days were behind it decade or even decades ago. But in the 2000s it remained a star-generator (Tiny Fey to name just one). It managed to get Obama, McCain, Palin and Hilary Clinton to send themselves up. And Fey's impersonation of Palin showed SNL was capable of generating news (as it did recently when it started to run Obama-critical skits). It may not still be funny, but I'd argue anyone who thinks after nearly 35 years it isn't still relevant.
9. Tonight Show. Ditto. Yes, it's a 56-year-old format that has made a very rocky transition to a new host. But the Tonight Show still generates headlines, from Arnold Schwarzenegger announcing his plan to run for governor, to both McCain and Obama appearing - the latter after being elected, and promptly sparking controversy, to just a few days ago when Conan scored a coup by getting Sarah Palin to lampoon Bill Shatner. That and the fallout from the "reassignment" of Jay Leno to prime time may be felt for years and is already being called a "shark-jumping" moment for an entire network.
10. Late Show with David Letterman. Say what you want about him, Letterman's a survivor. From his heart surgery, to his near-decision to quit after 9/11, to controversy every time Sarah Palin's name was mentioned, to his beating Tiger Woods to the punch, Letterman has remained an intriguing figure. And the almost out of control response to his joking about Palin's daughter and his infidelity prove that people do still give a s*it what happens on TV at 11:30 PM.
11-12-13. Hannah Montana, iCarly, Zoey 101. TV shows aimed at kids are nothing new (see Saved by the Bell from the early 90s). But this decade thanks to the Internet it seemed that more shows aimed at teens and tweens were generating real superstars. Hannah Montana, of course, begat Miley Cyrus' singing career. Zoey 101 brought us Jamie-Lynn Spears. And they became such big stars that when Miley began dressing provocatively and Jamie-Lynn got pregnant, it had an impact that dwarfed anything seen before. iCarly is on this list for another reason; although it too has created some big stars, so far they've managed over 3 years to keep their noses clean, which is a rarity, it seems. It also is a show that is appealing to adults as much as the kid viewers, which is again rare for Nickelodeon for Disney. Mind you, mention "hob knocker" to certain parents and you'd think Miranda Cosgrove was the anti-Christ.
13-14-15. Morel Orel, Frisky Dingo, Sealab 2022. They may not be as well known as, say The Simpsons, but the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block with its innovative, groundbreaking, and definitely-not-for-the-kiddies 15-minute animated series has ushered in a new golden age of animation. I could name a bunch of other shows - Xavier Renegade Angel, the Venture Brothers, to name just two - but I'll just stick with those 3 for now.
16. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? At the turn of the millennium, Millionaire ushered in a huge wave of prime time network game shows, relaunching a genre that died in the 1950s. Many of the shows were crap and short-lived, but for awhile they were as ubiquitous as westerns were in the 60s. By the last half of the decade the fad had faded except for the very popular Deal or No Deal.
17. NCIS. Often thought of as a rip-off of CSI, NCIS quickly found a unique voice and by the end of the decade, along with CSI, showed it was still possible for a weekly dramatic series to get 20 million+ viewers.
18. American Idol. The show-killer. More shows have died as a direct consequence of Idol than any other show in recent memory. Still, Idol has also had as profound an impact on modern pop culture in terms of introducing new stars and celebrities as Ed Sullivan did in the 60s (although Idol has not yet had its Beatles moment). It and All in the Family are the only shows to top the US ratings for 5 consecutive years, and it'll likely make a 6th.
19. Star Trek: Enterprise. I'm listing it because Enterprise is in my opinion the most controversial science fiction series ever produced. It was also the first series that lived and died because of the Internet. Forums such as TrekBBS endlessly debated the show, and Trek fandom divided into camps over it some of whom reacted with extremes never before seen with relation to a TV program (search the archives if you don't believe me). Ultimately, the show ended an 18-year run of Trek on TV and for all intents and purposes ended the original permutation of Star Trek, which was revived after a 4-year hiatus by JJ Abrams. For better or for worse, the trends set by Internet fandom during Enterprise's troubled run have influenced how other fandoms have responded to their shows. And while it wasn't the first series by a long shot whose production team generated fan ire (Freddy Frieberg, anyone?) it did push the "hate the creator" movement to new levels, and shows like BSG and Doctor Who (to name just two) have experienced the fallout from that, as their producers simultaneous were the most adored and most hated people around. It was also during Enterprise that technology became accessible enough that people who said "I can do better than Paramount" were actually able to start putting their money where their mouths were, culminating in a fan-made Trek film being nominated for a Hugo a couple years ago.
20-21. Alias and Lost. Speaking of Abrams, this one-two punch established Abrams as force to be reckoned with. Alias reinvented the spyfi TV series, while still staying true to its ancestors like The Man from UNCLE and Danger Man (for the most part). Lost has proven that American viewers will follow a complex serialized drama that is many things to many people. And if it weren't for Alias and Lost, odds are Abrams would not have been offered Star Trek to resuscitate.
22-23-24. The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Deadwood. Everytime someone says a bad word or shows some skin or kills someone on mainstream network TV, people complain, sponsors balk, and ratings go up and down. Although the made-for-cable drama did not originate in the 2000s, it came of age as far as the mainstream goes, with shows like The Sopranos, Sex and the City and the cancelled-too-soon Deadwood writing new rules during the first half of the decade. And while American audiences continued to harp about whether a CSI episode was too gross, many of them were evidently sneaking to their TV sets (or the Internet) late at night to see what Tony Soprano was doing, who Carrie was going to bed with, and to count how many times Ian McShane would say the word "c**ksucker."
25-26. Mad Men and Entourage. While the above shows dominated the first half of the decade, the fruits of their labors were enjoyed by these two shows from the second half of the decade. From Mad Men being one of the most acclaimed TV shows ever made, to Entourage getting the thumbs up as President Obama's favorite show (a fact that no one seemed to make a big deal of, despite the show's sex and language), they kept the home fires burning that 22-24 started.
27-28. Queer as Folk and The L Word. Like Mad Men and Entourage, and the other cable dramas above, QaF (created by the man who later brought Doctor Who back) and LW proved that there was an audience - albeit on cable - for sexually edgy shows. I've heard that the L Word, with its copious same-sex love scenes, is the ultimate example of the hypocrisy of American TV viewers - they go up in arms if a same-sex kiss occurs on a mainstream network show, but on Showtime or HBO if they want to show Cybil Sheppard going to town with Marlee Matlin, good on them. The shows did not result in the predicted influx of gay-themed dramas on mainstream network TV (indeed quite the opposite), but the long-term impact of these shows might yet to be felt.
29. Battlestar Galactica. If there was a show considered more irrelevant than Doctor Who (and, arguably, Star Trek) in 2003-2004, it was Battlestar Galactica. Ronald Moore and David Eick took a 25-year-old cult series (dismissed by many, rightly or wrongly, as campy and bad) and made the ultimate SF series for the post-9/11 era. Along the way they set the ground rules for reinventing old TV series, which has resulted in both success (arguably the new V) and failure (Eick's Bionic Woman redux). It's upcoming spinoff, Caprica, isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's going to be a darn sight better than Galactica 1980.
30. The Simpsons. Like SNL, there are those who think this show should have died 15 or more years ago. Still, it manages to survive, still scoring major cameos (among the many, Thomas Pynchon, Alan Moore, and Patrick McGoohan) and still scoring high ratings as it becomes the first prime time scripted weekly series to meet Gunsmoke's 20-year record. (Where's Law & Order? Believe it or not, although it too has survived to 20 years, it simply trundles on in the background. It doesn't seem to generate near the type of attention the Simpsons, or the CSIs generate.)
31. Family Guy. The Simpson's evil twin, this is one of the only shows on mainstream network TV that actually is as edgy as what you find on cable. It is also groundbreaking as one of the first major shows to truly demonstrate the power of DVD, as it was brought back to TV after cancellation based on DVD sales.
32-33-34. MythBusters, Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch. While mainstream networks, and a growing number of cable networks, began straining under the weight of phony, "fly on the wall" celebrity reality shows, as well as dubious ideas such as one about parking lot attendants and the like, Discovery Channel has been quitely producing reality TV shows that rival some of the best scripted shows. MythBusters actually teaches science in what is almost a "reality sitcom", and the same term "reality sitcom" also applies to Dirty Jobs, which may be remembered as much for preserving footage of some of the less-glamorous jobs that kept 2000s society going, as it will be for Mike Rowe's playful banter and hilarious screw-ups. And as for Deadliest Catch, it proved that you can take a potentially boring subject -- the lives of crab fishermen -- and come up with gripping drama that rivals the scripted shows out there. If more reality TV was like Deadliest Catch I wouldn't hate the genre (as a whole) so much.
35-36. The Guiding Light and As the World Turns. I'm not a fan of the daytime soap opera, but it is sad to see it gasping its last. Any show that survives 72 years (radio and TV) deserves respect, as do its creators and actors. As the World Turns lasted a half-century, too, and was no slouch. Before you say "good riddance", do some research and find out how many of YOUR favorite actors got their starts in the soap opera genre. Neither of these shows "dominated" anything, but they were representative of a genre of programming that very likely will not survive the '10s.
Yikes! 36 shows! And there are probably others I'll remember after I click "submit". I guess this decade wasn't a wasteland for TV after all...
Pardon any typos - my eyes are blurry after typing all this and I don't feel like going through it again!
Alex
And I have to admit, Mad Men is very well made. I just find it too boring to really like all that well.
I mean seriously.....what's not to love?
). It could be argued that other cable dramas (cable in the US, anyway) like Six Feet Under, The Tudors, Weeds and Rome could be listed, but I felt the ones I mentioned rather set the tone that these other shows followed.
