of all time
Best TV shows by decade! 1950s to 2017!
Best TV shows by decade!
1950s
DRAGNET
GUNSMOKE
HONEYMOONERS
I LOVE LUCY
THE LONE RANGER
RAWHIDE
RIFLEMAN
1960s
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
RIFLEMAN
STAR TREK
TWILIGHT ZONE
GUNSMOKE
HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL
OUTER LIMITS
THE FUGITIVE (the template for decades of shows to follow, from THE HULK to WEREWOLF)
RIFLEMAN
1970S
SANFORD AND SON
GOOD TIMES
HAPPY DAYS
MASH
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
MORK AND MINDY
UFO
SPACE 1999
1980s
THE COSBY SHOW
SPENSER FOR HIRE
HILL STREET BLUES
MIAMI VICE
QUANTUM LEAP
THREE’S COMPANY
STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION
WEREWOLF (Starred the great Chuck Connors, this short lived series was great!)
ROBIN OF SHERWOOD (Best interpretation of Robin Hood ever!)
1990s
ER
FAMILY MATTERS
FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR
THE SIMPSONS
MARRIED WITH CHILDREN
MARTIN
SEINFELD
WINGS
STAR TREK DEEP SPACE NINE
BABYLON 5
X-FILES
HOMICIDE
NYPD BLUE
BUFFY
2000s
EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM
SPOOKS
BREAKING BAD
HUSTLE
TOP GEAR
TORCHWOOD
DOCTOR WHO (The Dave Tennant Years)
THE WIRE
FIREFLY
THE VENTURE BROTHERS
JUSTICE LEAGUE
2010s (There was a while in the 2000s where after the writer’s strike everyone was signaling the death nell of scripted television, as channels ramped up their reality tv programming. Thankfully the 2010s sees scripted television not only alive and well, but thriving on an unprecedented level. The rise of streaming TV has created an unprecedented production of shows to fill the VOD demand.
With Streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu becoming world class producers of content, the 2010s sees not only the quantity of Television options at the highest it has ever been in the history of the world (with exoosure to the best TV shows of other nations), but the quality of the programming exponentially better. 2010s is a golden age of TV.
HEMLOCK GROVE
BATES MOTEL
PENNY DREADFUL
ROME
SPARTACUS
BLACK MIRROR
AMERICAN HORROR STORY
HOUSE OF CARDS
DAREDEVIL
RIPPER STREET
LUKE CAGE
JESSICA JONES
SUPERNATURAL
GREEN ARROW
IZOMBIE
ELEMENTARY
THE FLASH
THE GOOD WIFE
LONGMEYER
WALLANDER
THE AMERICANS
LEGION
LUTHER
BADLANDS
ALPHAS
COSMOS
BEING HUMAN BBC 1ST 3 SEASONS ONLY
TEEN WOLF
BLACKLIST
STRANGER THINGS
TOPGEAR BBC ONLY
NARCOS
THE 100
MARCO POLO
GLITCH
SHERLOCK
RECTIFY
HAWAII FIVE-O
LEVERAGE
THE CLONE WARS
ZOO
HELL ON WHEELS
AGENTS OF SHIELD
ASCENSION
CRIMINAL MINDS
TRANSPORTER
BURN NOTICE
HATFIELDS & MCCOYS
BROADCHIRCH
HELIX
INSPECTOR POIROT
JACK TAYLOR
HINTERLAND
THE MAGICIANS
LIFE
YOUNG JUSTICE
DOLLHOUSE
BEING MARY JANE
PERSON OF INTEREST
FRONTIER
THE MESSENGERS
ALMIGHTY JOHNSONS
DARK MATTER
MARSEILLE
THE CLEVELAND SHOW
BOONDOCKS
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES -Nickelodeon
How do you wrap up 2016?! TV and Streaming BARBARIANS RISING
2016 was a FANTASTIC year for TV.
Netflix and streaming options such as Amazon Prime and Hulu has effectively changed how the world consumes and watches tv.
Tonight I discovered History Channel’s BARBARIANS RISING, which tells the tale of one of the greatest warriors in the history of the world, Hannibal Barca, and his insane dream, obsession, vision, to conquer the unconquerable Rome.
I have my issues with the HISTORY CHANNEL, I think their VIKINGS TV show, that paints a friendly, proto-feminist, misunderstood anti-hero view of the Vikings, is irresponsible and misguided film-making at its worst.
I don’t expect a documentary, and even in a documentary, much of what we know, must be colored, romanticized, dramatized. The truth of over 2000 years ago like the truth of yesterday, will never be exactly seen by any two people, exactly the same.
But that said while the telling is fluid, blatantly changing the morality of what is known is not. That is simple mendacity.
It’s white-washing of history, that is beyond romanticism to bald-face lying. Like making the ancient Egyptians white. :).
Here’s the thing the Vikings, in their approach to nonvikings, were proto-Nazis, Nazis in their purest form. They were what Nazis dreamed of being. They believed in rape, and pillage, and death, and wholesale slaughter of their enemies. They were in battle, drug addled butchers and thieves and rapists, who put to the sword any land they could reach. War and Pillaging, was not an end, it was a practice, it was a purpose, it was a past time, it was the reason to wake up and the reason to go to bed. As it was for many of the ancient people. Blood, unfortunately, is under most of our ancestors nails.
They did monstrous things, but they also did admirable things. But art, to be honest, must not dismiss the one, to elevate the other. And that’s what the show VIKINGS does, it glorifies that which has no glory in it, and ignores that, which should not be ignored. And to do this is analagous to havaing a show called Nazis, and to portray them as heroic, with no look into the programs of genocide, and the Nazi Work and Death camps.
I’m not saying don’t have a show about Vikings, but tell the truth, don’t make saints out of sinners, and if you find your characters are too reprehensible when you do that, then maybe that’s telling you something.
So I have my issues with HISTORY CHANNEL.
But those issues do not extend to BARBARIANS RISING. Which quite frankly is my last great television discovery of 2016!
The first episode, RESISTANCE, simply must see television.
“I swear by the Deathless Gods that I shall not rest till the heart of Rome bleeds dry on the sword of Carthage.” –Hannibal Barca, Son of Carthage, One of the Greatest Generals in the History of the World
This is one I have to own the Blu-Ray of! It’s not a show you want to have disappear off of streaming.
Get your copy here: