As a follow-up to the Nielsen Ratings of the very top TV shows year by year in the USA, I thought I might take a crack at listing MY favourite programs down the decades. Not one of them reached the top, by the way. I have also highlighted the performer in each show whom I felt was the main reason for my enjoying the program (not always the star). Personally, I enjoy reading other people’s lists of likes and dislikes. I think most of us do. It gives us a chance to agree or disagree, to applaud the writer’s excellent taste (when he/she chooses what we like), or to deride his lack of taste when he/she doesn’t. The good thing about having your own website is that you get to indulge yourself every once in a while. I have picked out my five favourite shows per decade, a few of which were mini-series (*). About two thirds of my choices are American productions, the other third are British. So, here’s a trip down memory lane just for the hell of it.
THE FIFTIES
THE HONEYMOONERS 1955-6
Art Carney as Ed Norton
THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW 1955-9
Phil Silvers as Sergeant Ernie Bilko
MAVERICK 1957-62
James Garner as Bret Maverick
THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB 1955-8
The one and only Annette Funicello
THE UNTOUCHABLES 1959-63
Robert Stack as Eliot Ness
THE SIXTIES
HONG KONG 1960-1
Rod Taylor as Glenn Evans
STAR TREK 1966-69
William Shatner (Captain Kirk) & Leonard Nimoy
(Mr Spock)
BATMAN 1966-8
Adam West as Batman
F TROOP 1965-7
Larry Storch as Corporal Randolph Agarn
Frank de Kova as Chief Wild Eagle
Melody Patterson as Wrangler Jane
THE INVADERS 1967-8
Roy Thinnes as David Vincent
SEVENTIES
DAD’S ARMY 1968-77
Arthur Lowe as Captain George Mainwaring
M.A.S.H. 1972-83
McLean Stevenson as Lt. Colonel Henry Blake
Loretta Swit as Major Margaret Houlihan
PORRIDGE 1974-7
Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher
FAWLTY TOWERS 1975-9
John Cleese & Prunella Scales as Basil and Sybil Fawlty
I, CLAUDIUS 1976*
Derek Jacobi as Claudius
John Hurt as Caligula
Sian Phillips as Livia
EIGHTIES
MINDER 1979-94
Dennis Waterman as Terry McCann
YES MINISTER/YES PRIME MINISTER 1980-7
(L to R) Paul Eddington as James Hacker, Nigel Hawthorne as
Sir Humphrey Appleby, Derek Fowlds as Bernard Woolley
FAMILY TIES 1982-9
Michael J. Fox as Alex Keaton
LONESOME DOVE 1989*
Robert Duvall as Augustus McCrae & Tommy Lee Jones as
Woodrow Call
Diane Lane as Lorena Wood
Chris Cooper as July Johnson
Frederic Forrest as Blue Duck
THE GOLDEN GIRLS 1985-92
(L to R) Estelle Getty (Sophia), Rue McLanahan (Blanche),
Betty White (Rose) & Bea Arthur (Dorothy) at front.
NINETIES
HOME IMPROVEMENTS 1991-9
Tim Allen as Tim Taylor
PRIME SUSPECT 1991-2006
Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison
FRIENDS 1994-2004
Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay
Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green
Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing
THE WEST WING 1999-2006
Allison Janney as C J Cregg
Bradley Whitford as Josh Lyman & John Spencer as Leo McGarry
THE SOPRANOS 1999-2007
James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano
NOUGHTIES
BOSTON LEGAL 2004-8
William Shatner as Denny Crane & James Spader as Alan Shore
ROME 2005-7
Ray Stevenson as Titus Pullo & Kevin McKidd as Lucius Vorenus
LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT 1999-
Mariska Hargitay as Olivia Benson & Christopher Meloni as
Elliot Stabler
THE FORSYTE SAGA 2002*
Damian Lewis as Soames Forsyte & Gina McKee as Irene Forsyte
BREAKING BAD 2008-13
Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman & Dean Norris as Hank Schrader
Anna Gunn as Skyler White
Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman
TEENIES
DOWNTON ABBEY 2010-15
Hugh Bonneville as Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham
THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW 2007-
host Graham Norton
WOULD I LIE TO YOU? 2007-
David Mitchell, Rob Brydon, Lee Mack
HAVEN 2010-
Eric Balfour as Duke Crocker
FARGO 2014-
Martin Freeman as Lester Nygaard & Billy Bob Thornton as
Lorne Malvo
I never had any interest in “Friends” or “Seinfeld”, which is probably
like saying you don’t believe in god. Never cared much for American
comedies, although some “Mash.” “Law and Order” for Ice T. Wish I’d
seen more of Helen Mirren’s “Prime Suspect.”
Seinfeld never interested me either for some reason, and I did not get into Friends a lot, although that which I have watched was quite engaging. They released a ‘Prime Suspect’ box set a few years ago and I devoured the entire thing inside about a month. Very enjoyable. I still watch the occasional episode of M.A.S.H. on re-runs, but I lost quite a bit of interest after Henry Blake was killed off. Law & Order SVU is still very popular in our house.
Fawlty Towers: Maybe my all time favorite, each time it was available
on PBS. As I repeatedly watched it, I found new things to chuckle about.
Really? I am surprised it made it to America. Apparently, Basil Fawlty was based on a real life proprietor of a hotel/boarding house in southern England. Cleese’s real life wife at the time, Connie Booth, played Polly the maid.