The Guardian's top 50 television dramas of all time

[belboid]

I am pleased that the list include A Very Peculiar Practice as it was pretty obscure but groundbreaking and very funny

how was it groundbreaking? ( not saying it wasn't, I just can't remember)

 

[butchersapron]

Or obscure?

 

[danny la rouge]

Or obscure?

Quite. I seem to remember it as Prime Time. Am I wrong?

 

[butchersapron]

Prime time but for BBC2 i think.

 

[danny la rouge]

Prime time but for BBC2 i think.

Ah, maybe BBC2 is obscure for some folks.

 

[London_Calling]

This seems fair enough:

A Very Peculiar Practice is in many ways Andrew Davies' definitive work. A savage satire on Thatcherism, using the University as a microcosm of a Britain in the grip of cutbacks and American intervention, it is also one of the writer's most thorough studies of sexual politics and male insecurity.

<snip>

Brilliant doctor but disastrous human being Stephen Daker arrives at Lowlands from a broken marriage and with a phobia of being touched. His idealistic dedication to his job is challenged when he meets his colleagues, including a belligerent Thatcherite and the drunken practice head, who when he is sober is writing a satirical expose of his crumbling kingdom. Stephen's fight to heal the sick in the face of the Vice-Chancellor's threats to turn the practice into a cash cow form the main plot of the series. Alongside this, Stephen meets sexy sociologist Lyn, a woman who embodies many of Davies' beliefs in how the modern male is to coexist happily with independent women. Davies manages in Stephen and Lyn to express an honest and realistic depiction of a relationship that journeys through the insecurities of modern sexual love and finds some telling solutions.

Although a second series and a further one-off special could not sustain the brilliance of the programme, A Very Peculiar Practice remains a magical and remarkably acute satire from a time when Britain desperately needed one.

 

[danny la rouge]

This seems fair enough:

I liked it at the time, but what it strongly reminded me of is the novels of David Lodge.

(Some of which, incidentally, were - unsuccessfully, in my view - televised around the same time, unless I'm mistaken).

 

[belboid]

I liked it at the time, but what it strongly reminded me of is the novels of David Lodge.

(Some of which, incidentally, were - unsuccessfully, in my view - televised around the same time, unless I'm mistaken).

Small World & Nice Work were both televised around then. Weren't as good as The History Man, or a host of other Campus Dramas

 

[London_Calling]

20 years ago I didn't have the knowledge or experience I have now so I hugely underrated it, though I was sure it was rubbish. It’s interesting to go back and review what you knew so assuredly as a much younger man.

 

[kyser_soze]

Shame Porterhouse Blue isn't in there. I loved that.

 

[IMR]

No Private Schultz - Michael Elphick's best telly work (Boon was shite).

 

[danny la rouge]

Small World & Nice Work were both televised around then. Weren't as good as The History Man, or a host of other Campus Dramas

Whatever you think of the genre, Lodge is a terrific writer. That would never come across on screen, I don't suppose.

 

[Grandma Death]

Sopranos and Mad Men above the Wire?

Bullshit

The Sopranos is better than The Wire. FACT

 

[Nanker Phelge]

The Sopranos is better than The Wire. FACT

I think so too.

 

[strung out]

not better than doctor who though

 

[Grandma Death]

I think so too.

The Wire is great and the critical adulation is well placed...its just not as good as The Sopranos.

 

[The Octagon]

not better than doctor who though

*coughs, prepares ghetto impression*

Girl please, you talkin' craaaazy.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

The Wire is great and the critical adulation is well placed...its just not as good as The Sopranos.

Yes, I agree.

The Wire occasionally suffered from some duff acting (especially when any of the cast acted drunk), and some scenes appeared to be just plonked in to get the story from A-B, which never really happened in The Sopranos, which did the opposite and would often leave a story thread hanging and never go back to it.

...but I really enjoyed the Wire - it was bloody good TV.

I thought Deadwod was better writing than the Wire - not sure it was a better show, was one series short of being truly great, whereas The Wire went one series too long.

 

[speed-it-up]

I'd have thought Rome would have got in there.
I Claudius would be expecting a bit much.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'd have thought Rome would have got in there.
I Claudius would be expecting a bit much.

Rome was seriously truncated and axed early. Shame, it was brilliant.

 

[belboid]

why on earth should Rome get in? Enjoyable tosh, yes, but total tosh. Historically laughable, plenty of dodgy acting/writing in the first half of the first series, not particularly inventive or anything. It might just get in a top 50 of the last decade but it was really no better than that.

 

[danny la rouge]

why on earth should Rome get in?

I think you answered your own question: because of when the article was written.

I enjoyed it, though. Especially the first series. And it's 2 brazillian times better than 24.

 

[belboid]

I always think we've these lists the selectors give themselves a limit of how many <whatevers> from the last couple of years can go in, they have to show they are knowledgeable about the whole history of <whatever>. So Rome gets bumped by Mad Men & Red Riding

 

[London_Calling]

I just spotted the absence of Northern Exposure? I'm sure it's been mentioned though . . .

 

[Idris2002]

I still haven't seen the last few eps of season 1 of the Wire. . . but I have to say, there's no way you could say the Sopranos is better.

 

[London_Calling]

They have different agenda's, different ambitions, different strengths and weaknesses. You may as well ask which is better, the 1966 England football team or a blow job from Princess Diana.

 

[scifisam]

I just spotted the absence of Northern Exposure? I'm sure it's been mentioned though . . .

That's categorised under comedy.

 

[DotCommunist]

They have different agenda's, different ambitions, different strengths and weaknesses. You may as well ask which is better, the 1966 England football team or a blow job from Princess Diana.

Sopranos is certainly more episodic and concerned with one particular criminal subculture. The wire has wider focus, which imo gives it far more to say.

 

[London_Calling]

Indeed, and you can write lengthy lists on that basis. For example, I can't imagine David Chase saying "Fuck the casual viewer". In fact, he rather did the opposite. IMO.

 

[coccinelle]

Did anyone mention "Hormblower"? I remember being really impressed when they came on British television