The Guardian's top 50 television dramas of all time

[Lo Siento.]

Six Feet and Shameless should be higher I reckon, where the fuck is Trailer Park Boys, Life On Mars i'm a bit surprised about too, but maybe it's too new hmm...

I think it's a pretty good list generally! Lost isn't there anyway, so can't complain!

how many good series of Shameless are there though. It's basically unwatchable from about the 3rd one onwards, isn't it?

 

[kyser_soze]

with no mention of its misogyny-fest of a sixth season

Yeah, that whole thing was kinda the whole point of the season. I'm not going to get into a whole spiel on Warren on this thread, but if you think S6 was a misogyny-fest you really did miss the message.

Agree with you about the lack of real telly history (which is pretty shoddy really - Mangan, Dent and Brooker at the very least are decent telly critics and should know better) tho.

 

[DotCommunist]

No Rome? No I Claudius?

Ridiculous

Rome was excellent, but they fucking killed it. Defying Gravity, ditto.

All my favourite tele gets cancelled

 

[kyser_soze]

Clavdivs hasn't aged well at all. It's not just the Afternoon Theatre sets, the acting looks stilted and hammy to these eyes nowadays.

 

[scifisam]

Yeah, that whole thing was kinda the whole point of the season. I'm not going to get into a whole spiel on Warren on this thread, but if you think S6 was a misogyny-fest you really did miss the message.

Yeah. Claiming that S6 was a misogyny-fest is as daft as claiming that Buffy only got 14th place because of feminism - which is, funnily enough, a bit of a misogynistic thing to say.

 

[danny la rouge]

Clavdivs

Please tell me you also pronounce it that way.

 

[danny la rouge]

Post Wire, it's gutsy of the Grauniad to stick The Sopranos first.

I'd probably have put the Sopranos first, too. I haven't seen the Wire, but sentences like yours make me less and less keen to catch it every time I read them/hear them. "Post Wire". Lol. "Gutsy". Megalol.

 

[kabbes]

Yeah. Claiming that S6 was a misogyny-fest is as daft as claiming that Buffy only got 14th place because of feminism - which is, funnily enough, a bit of a misogynistic thing to say.

For the record, Buffy got 22nd place, not 14th place. Also mentioned on this thread was the fact that it got 13th place in the "Greatest Musicals" list for "Once More With Feeling".

Not mentioned on this thread, but oddly coincidental, was the fact that it DID win 14th place on another C4 list, for "Greatest Horror Moments". It won that for the award-winning episode "Hush".

All from memory, so details might be wrong, of course.

 

[kyser_soze]

Please tell me you also pronounce it that way.

I thought everyone did? It's not even some kind of post-modern ironic thing - everyone I knew when I was a teen and first watched it called it 'I, Clavdivs' too. Possibly one of the first post-modern, self-referential jokes in fact.

 

[danny la rouge]

I thought everyone did?

Well, my family did. But other people would say "it's Claudius, actually. They just wrote Us that way; it was easier to chisel".

 

[kyser_soze]

Those people<-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Getting it.

 

[scifisam]

For the record, Buffy got 22nd place, not 14th place. Also mentioned on this thread was the fact that it got 13th place in the "Greatest Musicals" list for "Once More With Feeling".

Not mentioned on this thread, but oddly coincidental, was the fact that it DID win 14th place on another C4 list, for "Greatest Horror Moments". It won that for the award-winning episode "Hush".

All from memory, so details might be wrong, of course.

You're right, 22nd, not 14th. I didn't check because I don't really care about the order.

I don't think OMWF should have done so well compared to proper musicals, though. I don't think an episode within a much longer TV series counts as a musical in the same way, and even if it did it was nowhere near as good a musical as, well, almost any musical. It was a fantastic episode with lots of character development, a great baddie, good acting and so on, but musically it was only OK and the character development would have been lost on people who hadn't watched the rest of the show.

The baddie is a very good singer, Giles, Spike and Tara can all sing reasonably well, Buffy and Anya are decent singers, Willow's absolutely dreadful and Dawn was so bad that they had her do a dance routine instead - the dance routines in the whole ep were of a high standard. But by the standards of musicals, none of them are good enough singers. Though I guess Mama Mia also cast quite a few actors who can't really sing.

 

[kabbes]

Uh-oh -- in the classic style of all muscials, we're about to have a reprise...

 

[scifisam]

Uh-oh -- in the classic style of all muscials, we're about to have a reprise...

I don't want to reprise your muscials - I'm practically a married woman!

 

[kyser_soze]

Uh-oh -- in the classic style of all muscials, we're about to have a reprise...

 

[Azrael]

Yeah, that whole thing was kinda the whole point of the season. I'm not going to get into a whole spiel on Warren on this thread, but if you think S6 was a misogyny-fest you really did miss the message.

I got the intended message; and I got the fouling up. Marti Noxon and co didn't intend Buffy season six to be a misogyny-fest, but it was the unintended consequence of demeaning and beating down every female character in the show for the length of the season. Add in the use of an egregious homophobic cliché for bad measure. (Fan'll know what I'm referring to. Warren, pistol, bang, Dark Phoenix rip-off.) The whole season is packed with unfortunate implications, which is what happens when the creator has swanned off to direct his new pet project (and short as it was, if Grange Hill can make the list, so can Firefly).

The guys (in defence of my gender, hey!) didn't come out of season six well, either. Perhaps it's also a misandry-fest, or perhaps its good ol' fashioned misanthropy. Unintended, natch.

Agree with you about the lack of real telly history (which is pretty shoddy really - Mangan, Dent and Brooker at the very least are decent telly critics and should know better) tho.

Is there anything much on the list from before 1970, beside The Prisoner? And if EastEnders bags a spot, can't M*A*S*H feature? Or, in another omission, Roots. It might have aged badly, but it's a TV landmark.

Yeah. Claiming that S6 was a misogyny-fest is as daft as claiming that Buffy only got 14th place because of feminism - which is, funnily enough, a bit of a misogynistic thing to say.

See above, re. misogyny claim. How claiming Buffy bagged 22nd spot (not 14th, that's The Wire, mea culpa) from the Guardian's critics due to feminist credentials is a "misogynistic" statement, I'm none too sure, especially since Joss Whedon has bigged up Buffy's feminism many a time, and the series is founded on a feminist-subversion of the fleeing, helpless blonde beloved of horror movies everywhere. It's a comment on the agenda of the Guardian's critics, if anything. From their summary:-

"[Buffy] made old-fashioned ideals like honour and sacrifice relevant and accessible again, and even resurrected ancient feminist beliefs by fighting back against the demons that sought to subdue her. Instead of forever being rescued (or punished – for having sex or self-confidence) like the damsels in horror stories of yesteryear, she saved the world. A lot."

I'm not sure how many of them even watched the show regularly. When the sorry season seven was airing, they were still praising the "tale of a vampire-slaying cheerleader" to the rafters.

I'd probably have put the Sopranos first, too. I haven't seen the Wire, but sentences like yours make me less and less keen to catch it every time I read them/hear them. "Post Wire". Lol. "Gutsy". Megalol.

I'm giving the nod to how the Wire is hyped up crazy, not its actual merits. I wouldn't put it above The Sopranos myself. It's an involving and complex police procedural that I'd recommend, highly, but not the greatest thing ever, as critics claim.

For the record, Buffy got 22nd place, not 14th place. Also mentioned on this thread was the fact that it got 13th place in the "Greatest Musicals" list for "Once More With Feeling".

Not mentioned on this thread, but oddly coincidental, was the fact that it DID win 14th place on another C4 list, for "Greatest Horror Moments". It won that for the award-winning episode "Hush".

All from memory, so details might be wrong, of course.

Wouldn't begrudge "Once More, With Feeling" its spot. It's a pastiche of old school musicals, but so what, its packed with hummable tunes, and uses the form to advance the arc plot in what could've easily been a gimmick.

Maybe I was thinking of the other list when I said it'd got 14th. (Actually I was probably thinking of The Wire.) "Hush" is easily in the top five episodes Buffy ever made, and one of the few scary bits in the series (the scariest is season three's "Helpless", IMO, or Anya's Hallowe'en costume, take your pick.)

The baddie [in "Once More, With Feeling" is a very good singer ...

Hinton Battle (Sweet) is an amazing singer, and a much, much better villain than big-bad Warren "limp" Mears. (Or was Dark Phoenix the real big-bad, can't remember.)

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm giving the nod to how the Wire is hyped up crazy, not its actual merits. I wouldn't put it above The Sopranos myself. It's an involving and complex police procedural that I'd recommend, highly, but not the greatest thing ever, as critics claim.

Ah. Fair enough.

 

[kyser_soze]

*considers whether to spend the weekend watching S6 of Buffy and come back with a whole thread to debate it*

 

[Azrael]

And anyone else spot the flaw in, "Instead of forever being rescued (or punished – for having sex or self-confidence) like the damsels in horror stories of yesteryear, [Buffy] saved the world." Is Angelus wasn't a punishment for dancing the horizontal mambo, I don't know what is! (Buffy was an equal-opportunity punisher, mind. If anything Xander got the worst of it, and as for Willow in "Seeing Red", gah.)

 

[scifisam]

Marti Noxon and co didn't intend Buffy season six to be a misogyny-fest, but it was the unintended consequence of demeaning and beating down every female character in the show for the length of the season. Add in the use of an egregious homophobic cliché for bad measure. (Fan'll know what I'm referring to. Warren, pistol, bang, Dark Phoenix rip-off.) The whole season is packed with unfortunate implications, which is what happens when the creator has swanned off to direct his new pet project (and short as it was, if Grange Hill can make the list, so can Firefly).

The guys (in defence of my gender, hey!) didn't come out of season six well, either. Perhaps it's also a misandry-fest, or perhaps its good ol' fashioned misanthropy. Unintended, natch.

How can it be misogyny if, as you admit, the men were all beaten down too? It was the season where the real big bad was themselves. The only reason lots of female characters had bad things done to them is because, unlike many shows with an action focus, Buffy had lots of female characters in the first place.

Which homophobic cliche are you talking about? Do you mean when

Spoiler: I'm hiding this for those who haven't seen this far yet

Tara got shot

? God, I hate it when people act as if that was homophobic - as if all the straight couples in the series got treated wonderfully. Which other element of supposed homophobia are you talking about?

See above, re. misogyny claim. How claiming Buffy bagged 22nd spot (not 14th, that's The Wire, mea culpa) from the Guardian's critics due to feminist credentials is a "misogynistic" statement, I'm none too sure, especially since Joss Whendon has bigged up Buffy's feminism many a time, and the series is founded on a feminist-subversion of the fleeing, helpless blonde beloved of horror movies everywhere. It's a comment on the agenda of the Guardian's critics, if anything. From their summary:-

You look at one of only two* female-dominated shows in the top of the list and conclude that it's there because of feminism, because the Guardian critics have an 'agenda,' rather than because the show's very good. That's straight-up, clear-cut misogyny. It's exactly the same thinking that looks at female CEOs or ministers or top poilce officers and concludes that they're there because of positive discrimination rather than because they were the best for the job.

*The other being Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, where women and gay people get treated pretty damn terribly, which I guess means it's misogynistic and homophobic.


BTW, I'm really not seeing where you get the Dark Phoenix stuff from.

 

[Azrael]

Ah. Fair enough.

Yeah, could've made that clearer. I'd forgotten that some would type "Post Wire" in earnest!

*considers whether to spend the weekend watching S6 of Buffy and come back with a whole thread to debate it*

A demon, I made a demon!

I found Buffy season six a decent watch, if I pulled down the fourth wall, and ticked off all the ways it backfired. Slayer drops out of college, has to hold down a scummy McJob to feed herself & lil' sis, and spends the best part of the year in a mutually-abusive relationship with a demon because it's the only way she can feel alive, and to cap it, her Teutonic lummox of an ex returns to rub in just how big a trainwreck her life has become. This is empowering?

 

[scifisam]

And anyone else spot the flaw in, "Instead of forever being rescued (or punished – for having sex or self-confidence) like the damsels in horror stories of yesteryear, [Buffy] saved the world." Is Angelus wasn't a punishment for dancing the horizontal mambo, I don't know what is! (Buffy was an equal-opportunity punisher, mind. If anything Xander got the worst of it, and as for Willow in "Seeing Red", gah.)

Oh yeah, Angelus is definitely a punishment. They're quite open about that in the show. However, it's a punishment for Angel as well as Buffy. Angel's the one that loses his entire self and ends up getting killed, all as a result of having sex. Buffy only loses her boyfriend and gets sad. Imagine if the outcomes were reversed - people would say it was horribly misogynist.

(Can't be arsed with spoilers for such an early season).

 

[London_Calling]

I'm giving the nod to how the Wire is hyped up crazy . . . It's an involving and complex police procedural

Is it bollocks!

Like Hamlet is an involving and complex version of Kevin and Perry.

 

[The Octagon]

I found Buffy season six a decent watch, if I pulled down the fourth wall, and ticked off all the ways it backfired. Slayer drops out of college, has to hold down a scummy McJob to feed herself & lil' sis, and spends the best part of the year in a mutually-abusive relationship with a demon because it's the only way she can feel alive, and to cap it, her Teutonic lummox of an ex returns to rub in just how big a trainwreck her life has become. This is empowering?

Surely the whole point was that 'Life' was the big bad of the season, the comparative mundanity of the geek trio only re-inforcing that, until the big finish

Spoiler: S6

with Darth Rosenberg. The 'Buffy torn out of heaven' aspect was only going to lead one way (although I think Marti Noxon was the wrong person to do it, for many reasons, including over-worship of Spike and a weird fixation with rape).

The show didn't have to hammer home the 'empowering' message all the time, occasionally the characters need to be taken down to their lowest points before re-asserting themselves (as seen in S7).

Spoiler: S6 ending

And as for the homophobic aspect of the final 3-4 episodes with the shooting, Joss Whedon has made a specific point of never letting couples be happy for very long

Oh yeah, Angelus is definitely a punishment. They're quite open about that in the show. However, it's a punishment for Angel as well as Buffy. Angel's the one that loses his entire self and ends up getting killed, all as a result of having sex. Buffy only loses her boyfriend and gets sad. Imagine if the outcomes were reversed - people would say it was horribly misogynist.

(Can't be arsed with spoilers for such an early season).

Yep, it's a fairly obvious high school metaphor for a girl's fears about sex (girl sleeps with sweet boy and once it's done he turns into a wanker, albeit taken up a notch).

 

[kyser_soze]

I assumed the Dark Phoenix reference was based on

Spoiler: buffy

Willow going ape when Tara gets shot and going all Jean Grey/Dark Pheonix on the world's ass in revenge

Other than that I have no idea what Az is banging on about. As you point out, S6's Big Bad is themselves, and Warren is supposed to be a weak, disgusting example of manhood, which is why, out of all the Buffy seasons

Spoiler: buffy

he has to use a gun to attack Buffy, because all his previous efforts had failed. It's the final act of a weak, desparate man and it goes horribly wrong

 

[danny la rouge]

Is it bollocks!

I suspect so. But each to their own.

 

[kyser_soze]

Oct, you might want to spoiler code a few of those references to the specific goings on in S6.

 

[belboid]

Post Wire, it's gutsy of the Grauniad to stick The Sopranos first. Justification's a string of clichés, though, contradicted by their own list. Reads like American TV was The Waltons before HBO stormed the scene and began the revolution in '83. HBO was sports'n'porn'n'Larry Sanders until the late nineties, with a few decent TV movies. Hill Street Blues (no.33), NYPD Blue, Homicide and the rest of the Bochco stable were chipping away years before the wiseguys from Jersey rolled in.

The list makes me think that TV critics don't watch that much TV. Who needs to, with fashions to follow? Buffy bags fourteenth due to its feminist credentials, with no mention of its misogyny-fest of a sixth season, and Angel doesn't show up at all. The flashy but one-note Mad Men bags no.4 spot and beats The Wire, and Deadwood is beaten by Eastenders and Grange Hill. No Generation Kill? I've not seen it, but those who have rate it highly.

What's their criteria for drama series, anyway? Several mini-series get on the list, but we see nothing from Stephen Poliakoff. Not even Shooting the Past.

Oh, and they give The Wire credit for introducing novelistic structure to TV. That was Babylon 5, in the early 90s.

And no Rome. Bet they never got beyond the BBC2 hatchet job.

You could make a case for the original Trek, given the TV field it had to play in. Doctor Who's as inconsistent as a hyperactive inconsistent thing, although the Moffat reboot could make it a contender if it lives up to expectations.

while you have a point about the Grauniads current love of anything HBO, and that Mad Men getting 4th is abusrd, the rest of your points are utter nonsense.

That you got Buffy S6 so totally wrong has already bveen dealt with. then you lambast the guardian for their fashion following, and then whine that its not following your fashion preferences - which is all you've done, come up with a slightly different, older, list.

Just to take the specific of Poliakoff - personally i think he's one of the most over-rated writers going, but even then...I bet he got a lot of votes but they would bve split across so many of his series' none of them would do well enough to crack the list. The best/most popular would be Shooting The past, but it (frankly) didn't deserve to get into the list due to its ultimate shallowness and lack of anything significant to say.

Odd voting twists are how these lists work tho, and its because oft hat I bet that MM did so well. It will have appeared on almost all their critics lists, maybe not in the top three or even top ten, but somewhere. And that will raise it above things like The Wire which maybe half the voters loved, but the other half hated. Hence it came in quite low. That was the way the Yeah Yeah Yeahs made second in this years Urban Album of the Year despite not getting a single vote for it actually being the album of the year!

 

[Azrael]

How can it be misogyny if, as you admit, the men were all beaten down too? It was the season where the real big bad was themselves. The only reason lots of female characters had bad things done to them is because, unlike many shows with an action focus, Buffy had lots of female characters in the first place.

I did offer misanthropy as an alternative!

Having a villain who was defined by his hatred of women is what punched home the inadvertent tone. The writing staff were obviously blind to it (and the sucky, self-pitying dialogue), and thought they were writing something profound and empowering. Would've been funny if it wasn't so icky.

And then:-

[spoiler='Buffy' season six]Spike attempts to rape Buffy, who promptly leaves her kid sister to stay round his dank crypt. This isn't included to examine the issue, but as a plot device to allow Captain Peroxide to bag redemption and a soul. Ick, double-pluss ick.[/spoiler]

Which homophobic cliche are you talking about? Do you mean when

Spoiler: I'm hiding this for those who haven't seen this far yet

Tara got shot

? God, I hate it when people act as if that was homophobic - as if all the straight couples in the series got treated wonderfully. Which other element of supposed homophobia are you talking about?

Yeah, that's it, and it's not just that X got shot (by a magic bullet that changes trajectory mid-flight, no less), but the circumstances. The morning after a night of make-up sex, like she's being punished by the plot-gods. I remember it well, got quite nasty at the time. Not bad for a TV show about a teenage vampire slayer, I guess.

I don't for a minute think that the writers intended to be homophobic. Yet another unintended consequence.

You look at one of only two* female-dominated shows in the top of the list and conclude that it's there because of feminism, because the Guardian critics have an 'agenda,' rather than because the show's very good. That's straight-up, clear-cut misogyny. It's exactly the same thinking that looks at female CEOs or ministers or top poilce officers and concludes that they're there because of positive discrimination rather than because they were the best for the job.

*The other being Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, where women and gay people get treated pretty damn terribly, which I guess means it's misogynistic and homophobic.

This is getting heated for a thread about TV shows!

I'm concluding that the Guardian's critics are bigging up Buffy for ideological reasons because it's clear most of them don't watch the show they lavish praise on. (Gals and guys, she was a cheerleader in a single season one episode, and she didn't make the squad. ) Sounds like tokenism to me, which I'd have thought you wouldn't be hot on. I'd pop it in the top ten myself, for the quality of its comedy, writing, and performances, and the way early seasons were empowering. Which is what all successors to John Knox would do.

Oranges was (semi?) autobiographical, and an adaptation. Buffy season six wasn't (I hope ).

BTW, I'm really not seeing where you get the Dark Phoenix stuff from.

X Men, apparently (I don't read it, but I saw the juddery Sat morning cartoon.)

 

[belboid]

Surely the whole point was that 'Life' was the big bad of the season, the comparative mundanity of the geek trio only re-inforcing that

absolutely, 6 is about how fucking dull real life actually is. No vampires or werewolves or magical shit, just silly little boys (who dont grow up as fast) and shitty jobs. As encapsualted in the Normal Again episode.

Only a fucking idiot could call that season 'mysoginistic'