Someone at Empire magazine is smoking crack

[viktor_haag]

According to AICN, here's the shows that Britain's Empire magazine are better than The Wire on their alltime best TV list:
- Friends
- 24
- Lost
- The West Wing
- The Sopranos
- Buffy
- The Simpsons

Oh, please. These sorts of lists always reveal more about how the source feels about their target demographic than it reveals about anything closely approximating an impartial judgement of quality.

MASH? not listed.

Mary Tyler Moore show? not listed.

I Love Lucy? not listed.

Dick vanDyke show? not listed.

The Honeymooners? not listed.

Jack Benny? not listed.

Gunsmoke? not listed.

Any television show at all made before 1980? not listed.

Bah. These sorts of lists only serve to add that frisson of enragement to my day. I must learn not to glance at them.

Comments

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I see it as heir to the Prisoner, but with a larger cast.

And without a tenth of the writing talent, unfortunately. And without the grace to realize that it's not a longterm series. But then, that latter is a problem that's generally applicable to US television.

[doc-lemming.livejournal.com]

Consequence of how US series are sold in contrast to UK series. (And the different meaning of the word "series" and how the two different series are kept on the air.)

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

True. These days, I far prefer series built by the cable networks in the US -- they seem to be much more in line with the kind of TV produced in the UK and elsewhere that's not American Network TV... (i.e. Six Feet Under, Rome, Deadwood, Sopranos, Carnivale, etc, etc)

Now if only those bastards at Showtime would release the Chris Isaak Show on DVD my life would be happier (and now, cue The Bitter Guy pionting and guffawing)... 8)