The Guardian's top 50 television dramas of all time

[belboid]

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.

your speaking voluumes about your own attitudes, but saying fuck all about Buffy.

 

[scifisam]

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

Oh. OK. I thought he must mean something more specific than that, because he said it was homophobic.

Having a female character go bad and try to destroy the world is hardly a trope that's so specific to Dark Phoenix that it's got to be a copy, and hell, even if it was, why would it matter? Fantasy and scifi TV shows and comics feed off each other all the time.

Season six is the weakest season, IMO. I don't like the way that

Spoiler

magic is treated as if it were a drug and drugs are bad, mmmkay?

But misogyny and homophobia are not the problem.

 

[Azrael]

your speaking voluumes about your own attitudes, but saying fuck all about Buffy.

Can we keep this about TV, not your attempts at psycho-political analysis over a net connection.

My "attitude" is that Buffy went to pot in season six, and implied the opposite of what it wanted to apply. I remember that plenty fans of both genders thought the same. Were they revealing deep dark nasties about their attitudes as well?

 

[Azrael]

Is it bollocks!

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

Nothing wrong with police procedurals! The Wire's about the process of getting suspects to trial, and paints a multi-faceted map of Baltimore in the process. All the observations about urban decay, the war on drugs, etc, arise from the procedure. See David Simon's earlier HBO mini-series, The Corner, for a different approach to the same issue.

 

[Reno]

Geek gold !

I think Whedon has acknowledged in several interviews that his Dark Willow storyline was a tribute to Dark Phoenix and he certainly did a better job with it than the 3rd X-Men movie managed. That said, I also thought Season 6 was the weakest Buffy season and the characters were all over the place.

Its biggest mistake was not to have Willow turn bad at the start and have her be the main big bad for the season. I don't think having a gay character, especially one who had been treated so sympathetically, turn bad necessarily homophobic. Her reasons for snapping were quite understandable.

 

[belboid]

Can we keep this about TV, not your attempts at psycho-political analysis over a net connection.

you keep your misogyny out of it, and maybe we will do

My "attitude" is that Buffy went to pot in season six, and implied the opposite of what it wanted to apply. I remember that plenty fans of both genders thought the same. Were they revealing deep dark nasties about their attitudes as well?

you think thats a clever statement?? Odd boy. Maybe your acquaintances thought that, maybe you are making them up (I know which I think is more likely). Either way you and they are wrong and you just didn't get it.

 

[belboid]

I don't think having a gay character, especially one who had been treated so sympathetically, turn bad necessarily homophobic.

of course it isnt. It really is the most stupid thing for anyone to say that that is what happened. The Wire is homophobic cos Omar shoots people. Queer As Folk was homophobic cos not all gay people were lovely. Idiotic lack of thinking. (the stupidest since JC2 lambasted the Wires 'racism')

 

[kabbes]

I was dubious about Buffy Season 6 when I was 25. But having just watched it again at the age of 33, I've found it one of the best seasons of all. It certainly has some of the most sophisticated moments of humour. And seeing her world fall apart from simple everyday life was an inspired and brave piece of writing for a show obstensibly about vampires and demons. In retrospect it's easy to take that for granted. But when you watch all the series back to back in the space of a few months, you notice just what an achievement it was.

 

[scifisam]

I did offer misanthropy as an alternative!

Yes - after admitting that the men got treated badly too. How can it be misogynistic when the suffering wasn't confined to men?

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.

How is having a misogynistic bad guy misogynistic in itself? If they had a racist bad guy, would that make the show racist?

And then:-

[spoile=Spike attempts to rape Buffy, who promptly [I]leaves her kid sister[/I] 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.]

Not promptly. You're forgetting a ton of episodes in between there. And she had pretty much no other choice.

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.

They're a couple in a TV show where relationships are doomed and there's no guarantee any character will stay alive.

Spoiler

Tara wasn't shot for being gay. Hell, she wasn't even shot for being Tara - Warren was trying to get Buffy.

You're really reaching if you think that was homophobic.

What happened was that a mainstream show that's strongly aimed at under 18s as well as adults had a lesbian couple as two of its main characters, and treated them just as seriously as any other relationship. That's the exact opposite of homophobic.

I hate it when people complain about gay characters or gay couples being hurt in TV shows where characters getting hurt is a matter of course. All those complaints do is discourage writers from creating storylines where gay characters and couples are big players with interesting things happening to them. I don't want shows where the only gay characters skip blithely on by holding hands while the straights get all the good storylines.

This is getting heated for a programme 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.

I am pretty certain you're wrong. Buffy was enormously, enormously popular in criticial circles. I'd bet you a million quid that they did watch it. And, if you think the show was that good, why do you still think it was tokenism?

Who said 'vampire-slaying cheerleader'? You didn't provide a cite for that. Besides, while the TV Buffy might not have been allowed to be a cheerleader, she did want to be one, she was one in the original movie, and she was very much the cheerleader 'type.'

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

Why does the origin of the story make such terrible misogyny and homophobia OK? I mean, if treating women and gay characters badly = misogyny and homophobia, then it doesn't matter what the source material is.

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

Yes, I know where Dark Phoenix is from. You said that a certain character's death was a rip-off of Dark Phoenix and I can't see any similarities at all - I certainly can't see how it would be homophobic if there were any similarities.

 

[kyser_soze]

Geek gold !

I think Whedon has acknowledged in several interviews that his Dark Willow storyline was a tribute to Dark Phoenix and he certainly did a better job with it than the 3rd X-Men movie managed. That said, I also thought Season 6 was the weakest Buffy season and the characters were all over the place.

Its biggest mistake was not to have Willow turn bad at the start and have her be the main big bad for the season. I don't think having a gay character, especially one who had been treated so sympathetically, turn bad necessarily homophobic. Her reasons for snapping were quite understandable.

I have no idea why Azrael invoked Jean Grey TBH.

I'm not in disagreement about the overall quality of S6 in comparison with other seasons (obv individual eps are excepted from this), but to write the whole season off as a misogyny-fest is wrong.

 

[scifisam]

I was dubious about Buffy Season 6 when I was 25. But having just watched it again at the age of 33, I've found it one of the best seasons of all. It certainly has some of the most sophisticated moments of humour. And seeing her world fall apart from simple everyday life was an inspired and brave piece of writing for a show obstensibly about vampires and demons. In retrospect it's easy to take that for granted. But when you watch all the series back to back in the space of a few months, you notice just what an achievement it was.

I see what you mean, but my opinions are coloured by just how much I hated the magic analogy.

We also rewatch the entire series from start to finish every so often. Rewatching has made me dislike Dawn a lot less.

 

[kyser_soze]

http://wondercow.blogspot.com/2005/05/joss-whedon-is-misogynist-homophobe.html

Makes basically the same argument as Az, but makes many, many basic errors. For example, the stuff about the Watchers, completely ignores the fact that:

Spoiler: buffy

Buffy rejects the authority of the Watcher's council on a number of occassions, and in fct Giles is left, on several occassions, wondering what his role is since he can't train Buffy any more skills wise and she's simply grown out of him

 

[kabbes]

One thing's for sure: any series that can generate this level of serious debate certainly deserves its place in the top 50 list.

Can I just throw The Body in Season 5, in which

Spoiler: buffy

Buffy's mum dies

as being one of the most powerful single pieces of drama that I have ever seen? And sublimely acted from start to finish too -- the cast really came of age in that series.

 

[belboid]

http://wondercow.blogspot.com/2005/05/joss-whedon-is-misogynist-homophobe.html

god thats bad. Some sad sod trying far too hard and just missing the point by a fucking mile. It does seem like he thinks vampires are real, and that the whole story isn't a simple analogy for growing up.

 

[kyser_soze]

Indeed. It's up there with The Wire for it's ability to induce pseudishness in anyone

And yeah, I'd second that comment about The Body too.

Actually, this poll is shit for not placing Buffy higher.

 

[kyser_soze]

god thats bad. Some sad sod trying far too hard and just missing the point by a fucking mile. It does seem like he thinks vampires are real, and that the whole story isn't a simple analogy for growing up.

More undiscovered critical genius here:

http://www.slayageonline.com/SCBtVS_Archive/Talks/Hall.pdf

 

[Azrael]

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).

I agree about Angelus. He was a metaphor for "sleep with a guy and he turns bad", and it was superbly done. It could've tipped over into misandry if they weren't careful, but Joss & co had a good game back at the beginning.

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 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).

Didn't the Nox more or less admit that she was using season six to work through her "issues" in one interview? (can't be sure, years since I read this stuff). The "Life is the big bad" thing is a clever idea, but y'know what, Buffy writing staff? I live life. Like the best fiction, Buffy was about transcending the mundanities of the world. It was driven by its joie de vivre, and watching the cast come down with communal clinical depression sucked worse than an undead sucky thing.

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

Yep.

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

Except that he succeeds in bumping off you-know-who (we don't need no stinkin' laws of physics!), punishing Willow for getting her life back together. (It was such blatant audience manipulation that it tore down the fourth wall for me. My considered response back in 2002 was, "Oh, for fuck's sake!".) Combined with a season in which the writers rub all characters' faces in it (Buffy comes off worse, but Willow's not far behind) unfortunate implications abound.

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.

Which fashion prefs are these? I'm doing a Jay Sherman on Buffy season six because it blew the show's earlier mission statement. From showrunner and sky-tyrant himself, Joss Whedon, no less.

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.

Actually my Poliakoff candidate would be 1980's Caught on a Train, since the little-seen 1993 Century would be asking too much. Shooting the Past would be a good winner, although I don't agree that it lacked significant message, or was shallow. I do agree that his recent work (Lost Prince onwards) isn't his best, although I've yet to see his new film, and I enjoyed the creepy ghost story in Capturing Mary. You could well be right about the vote being split. Something similar probably cost Babylon 5 its first Hugo. (It won the next season when they only entered one episode.)

Odd voting twists are how these lists work tho, and its because oft hat I bet that MM did so well.

Mad Men is good, solid melodrama, and defines period chic. It's more accessible than a five season examination of Baltimore's criminal underbelly. Its fans have been criticised for gushing over the surface and ignoring its dark message, but really, what else can you do? "The Fifties was a land of lost content for good ol' boys who don't treat women right." Yep, got it, agree. Next?

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'

It's a TV show. About vampires. And cheerleaders. Allegedly. Repeat until the desire to post personal abuse leaves you. And even if it doesn't, don't.

Buffy was about using vamps, werewolves, and magical shit as metaphors for life. Why it needed to ditch them, I don't know, but it wasn't an improvement.

 

[scifisam]

http://wondercow.blogspot.com/2005/05/joss-whedon-is-misogynist-homophobe.html

Makes basically the same argument as Az, but makes many, many basic errors. For example, the stuff about the Watchers, completely ignores the fact that:

Spoiler: buffy

Buffy rejects the authority of the Watcher's council on a number of occassions, and in fct Giles is left, on several occassions, wondering what his role is since he can't train Buffy any more skills wise and she's simply grown out of him

Yeah, I've seen that argument in a few places.

It's a bit odd to say that there's a subtext of the watchers' council being patriarchal and sexist. It's not a subtext at all. The show makes them partriarchal and sexist on purpose, has it be completely out in the open that they're patriarchal and sexist, has Buffy first leave them then defeat them, then do the watcher's job much better than any of them ever did. Being patriachal and sexist, and then being defeated, is the whole point of the watcher's council.

It's true about Willow and Tara's love scenes being really mild when compared to those between some of the straight characters. I don't blame the writers for that, though. They would not have been allowed to show lesbian sex on a show with such a demographic.

He also complains that the girls who don't have superpowers aren't very good at fighting vampires and other bad guys. I guess all the male characters without superpowers were really strong and never had to be rescued and never felt useless and never got hurt or killed or mutilated ... oh, wait.

BTW, even before checking his profile, I was fairly certain that that blog would be written by a straight man. A few straight men see homophobia and sexism where all that's happening is female or gay characters being taken seriously, and that's because they don't expect female and gay characters to be taken seriously. They're sexist and homophobic and also really, really stupid. And they make it harder for writers to create good gay and female characters - thanks guys!

 

[Azrael]

you keep your misogyny out of it, and maybe we will do

Okay, that's crossing the line. Apology, please.

you think thats a clever statement?? Odd boy. Maybe your acquaintances thought that, maybe you are making them up (I know which I think is more likely). Either way you and they are wrong and you just didn't get it.

"Think that's clever statement"? What are you on about?

This is a discussion for TV shows. Can we keep it pleasant, instead of accusing people of hating women for, erm, criticising a season of show for, erm, having misogynistic implications. Yeah, that figures!

Please tell me this is a wind up? Otherwise, you're one confused poster!

 

[Dr. Furface]

The Prisoner only at 34!?! JOKE! It should be no lower than #3.

Six Feet Under and Twin Peaks should be higher up.

Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz is a glaring omission - should be in the top 10.

And where's Auf Wiedersehen Pet?

 

[kyser_soze]

Mad Men is good, solid melodrama, and defines period chic. It's more accessible than a five season examination of Baltimore's criminal underbelly. Its fans have been criticised for gushing over the surface and ignoring its dark message, but really, what else can you do? "The Fifties was a land of lost content for good ol' boys who don't treat women right." Yep, got it, agree. Next?

But one of the things that becomes clear as the seasons go on is that none of the men are happy; Don remarking he doesn't know who he is anymore; Roger's 2nd marriage; Coopers complete impotence

Spoiler: Mad Men

in the face of the takeover

It's as much about how the perpetuation of the patriachy trapped the men in boxes as much as the women were disempowered. So no, it's not a one-note series by any means.

Oh, and re: The Wire - 3 season, maybe 3.5 at best. S5 is a steaming pile of doodoo, and S4 doesn't know what it is.

 

[The Octagon]

Also, it's a bit rich to criticise S6 for having a misogynist as a villain, when in S7 -

Spoiler: Season 7

The physical big bad, Caleb, is pure misogyny and hatred of women, who is eventually killed by having his balls sliced (amongst other things). Overt much?

 

[belboid]

Okay, that's crossing the line. Apology, please.

"Think that's clever statement"? What are you on about?

This is a discussion for TV shows. Can we keep it pleasant, instead of accusing people of hating women for, erm, criticising a season of show for, erm, having misogynistic implications. Yeah, that figures!

Please tell me this is a wind up? Otherwise, you're one confused poster!

lol, is this post meant to be a joke? I am judging you from your incoherent posts old boy. Ones opinions do say a lot about oneself, and I'm afraid yours reek (sp?) of you projecting your own mysogyny. Sorry.

 

[The Octagon]

http://wondercow.blogspot.com/2005/05/joss-whedon-is-misogynist-homophobe.html

More undiscovered critical genius here:

http://www.slayageonline.com/SCBtVS_Archive/Talks/Hall.pdf

You think they're bad, try "A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon & Firefly"

http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html

Truly frightening

 

[kyser_soze]

BTW, even before checking his profile, I was fairly certain that that blog would be written by a straight man. A few straight men see homophobia and sexism where all that's happening is female or gay characters being taken seriously, and that's because they don't expect female and gay characters to be taken seriously. They're sexist and homophobic and also really, really stupid. And they make it harder for writers to create good gay and female characters - thanks guys!

Yeah, it's a funny thing that response - it's like female or gay characters (or black for that matter, and the race issue is one tat BtVS is very easy to critique over) can either be paragons or demons, but not real characters who can be good/bad/mixture of the two but who also happen to be female or gay.

 

[kabbes]

We all dived straight into defending Season 6 so quickly that I forgot to ask the more general question that I found interesting:

If you have five great seasons and then one bad one, do you suddenly go from being a great drama to a bad one? Shouldn't the single bad season be at worst neutral when you come to judge it?

 

[belboid]

Buffy was about using vamps, werewolves, and magical shit as metaphors for life. Why it needed to ditch them, I don't know, but it wasn't an improvement.

because most people grow up. That was much of its point, a point that seems to have gone over your head.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I've only watched maybe half of those

 

[kabbes]

Quite. What do you do when the characters in your coming-of-age drama have actually come of age? If you're a bad drama, you carry on pretending that your twenty-somethings are still teenagers. If you're an average drama then you end it. If you're a good drama then you progress things to the natural next level.

 

[The Octagon]

We all dived straight into defending Season 6 so quickly that I forgot to ask the more general question that I found interesting:

If you have five great seasons and then one bad one, do you suddenly go from being a great drama to a bad one? Shouldn't the single bad season be at worst neutral when you come to judge it?

True, I found S5 of The Wire to be a massive drop in quality, yet I view the whole thing as brilliant, regardless.

Ditto S3 of Deadwood, S5 of The West Wing, and the final season of The Sopranos.