A Follow Up: My Favorite TV Shows Ever

So Stella is great, but where does it rate on my FAVORITE TV SHOWS EVER?

Seeing as I love lists, I decided to spend a few minutes creating a list of my top ten favorite TV shows ever. A quick note on criteria. I considered 5 factors in determining the relative quality of these shows. The factors are:

1. Peak Performance. How good was a show when it was running on all cylinders?

Obviously the writer's strike version of the Daily Show is facing difficulties that they did not when they had their full contingent of idea generators.

2. Average Performance. If I select a show at random from a series history, how good is it likely to be?

Here, the basic point would be not having many "bad" episodes. Simpsons at its best might be unimpeachable, but who knows when you're going to get one of the down episodes?

3. Output. Did the show entertain people for years or did it fizzle (even if it was funny) after 6 months?

A show like the aforementioned Stella wouldn't score well in this category because of its regrettably short lifespan.

4. Formative influence on Nick Gregory. How important was the show to me during different periods of my life? What kind of formative effect did it have on my own comic sensibilities?

David Letterman is a good example here. Though I rarely watch his show anymore, when I was in High School I assimilated his every word and gesture.

5.. Innovation. Was the show fresh and funny? Did it make us see comedy in a way we hadn't seen it before?

Most the shows on my list were innovative in some way. A notable example would be something like The Real World, which, despite scoring extremely high in this category, suffers in some of the others and therefore didn't make the cut. Colbert has that same thing going now.

I didn't assign a numeric value in all of these categories or anything because that would be really tedious. But that's just an idea of some of the things I'll be taking into consideration. That being said, here is the list of Top Ten TV shows in the World According to Nick Gregory:

1. Simpsons-- It is impossible not to place this show first: 19 seasons, millions of laughs, a cultural revolution. Rarely do I pass a day in my life without citing and/or having a Simpsons episode cited to me.

2. Seinfeld-- Took the cadence of the stand-up routine and morphed it into the cadence of friendly banter. Seinfeld, along with the Simpsons, provided the one, two Fox syndication knockout punch that made (and continues to make) coming home from school so pleasurable.

3. The Late Show with David Letterman-- Invented college humor and nurtured me when I was young.

4. Daily Show w/ John Stewart-- Finally, the smart kid sitting at the back of the class cracking jokes also turns out to be a hard worker, an incisive interviewer, a subversive, and a vital component of our democracy.

5. The Colbert Report-- Why isn't this show listed higher than the Daily Show? I don't know, I can't explain it either. It's funnier, and Colbert at his best is better than Stewart at his best. Maybe it's the 100's of hours I've spent watching The Daily Show. Maybe it's the fact that Stewart created Colbert. Colbert 1 year ago might have been in the top 10, but barely. Now he's threatening Stewart for a Top 4 spot. I have never seen a comic who can do what he does as well as he does it. Brilliant.

6. Stella-- See below

7. Blind Date-- This is probably the selection that people will disagree with the most. I have never met anyone in the world who has defended this show over the years more than I have. I think the main problem that people have with Blind Date is that they confuse it with all of the other dating shows that are really awful. Take MTV's Fifth Wheel for example. Fifth Wheel is a mean, pointless show that encourages people to be incredibly rude to each other in competition for the affections of some lame guy/girl. In Blind Date, the people might be rude, but it's at their own peril, because they're trying to win the affections of the only other person on the show. It doesn't matter how you slice up the participants: 2 lame people on a date, one cool person and one lame person, 2 cool people, stupid people, smart people, funny people, boring people, posers, gentleman, badasses, wisecrackers, egomaniacs, basketcases, limelight seekers, . . . it's ALWAYS fun to watch. Add on the incredible writing (in the form of blurbs and fake dialogue) and you've got both a hilariously funny/heartwarming show and a thoughtful meditation on the bizarre and inexplicable world of the human courting ritual.

8. Curb Your Enthusiasm-- I almost feel kind of like a poser putting this on here because I haven't even come close to watching all of this series. But maybe I'm just being a extremely neurotic and hyper-obsessive. Like Larry David.

9. Dr. Katz-- Along with Stella, probably one of the most underwatched Comedy Central shows ever. It successfully mixes the stand-up, observational humor of Seinfeld, with the visual flexibility of the Simpsons (it's animated), and the obsession with psychotherapy of a Woody Allen film. I remember once in high school catching an episode and immediately trying to watch it whenever it was on (which wasn't very often). About 18 months ago I finally got the full first season and have never looked back.

10. Conan O'Brien-- In many ways I feel like, had several circumstances been different, Conan could have been sitting in David Letterman's #3 spot. Out of everyone on the list, Conan O'Brien is the only person who I've seen in person, making a trip to see his show during a week-long theater binge in NYC. So he's go that going for him. He also might be the most naturally funny person in the world. You know that part in Seinfeld where George is asking Jerry not to be funny and then everyone decides that it's not possible for him? That's not true. I've seen Jerry be unfunny. I've never seen Conan not be funny. I think the main problem for Conan, as it has always been, is scheduling. If he was on just one hour earlier. . .


Notable Omissions:

A lot of people might be wondering where the hell some of their favorite shows are. Keep in mind that this is just a snapshot of a single moment in time. Like I said, last year the order would have been different. The world of preference ranking is an inherently mutable place. Plus, some of the criteria (formative influences on Nick Gregory's life, for example) is going to make this an inherently personal list. That being said, these are just a few of the exclusions which might cause so much discord that I feel like I should probably explain.

1. South Park-- I've never taken to South Park in the same way that some of my friends have. When it first arrived on the scene I remember it being self-consciously crass, artificially subversive, and studiously "controversial." These are some of the exact same concerns that I have with Family Guy. Over time I have warmed to its (what I still consider to be) hit and miss genius. A good friend calls me up frequently to relay plot synopses to me and I find the plots to be creative, novel, and hilarious. But then again, I find my friend to be creative, novel, and hilarious, so maybe South Park deserves less credit for that than I originally thought.

2. The Office (British version)-- This was the hardest show for me to leave off. I watched all the seasons straight through and it has had an indelible impact on my life. I'm going to stop talking about it or I'll have to find some space for it in the Top 10.

3. The Office (American version)-- Incredibly solid counterpart to the British version, but lacks points in the "innovation" category because I came across the British version first. As Dwight would say: Question: will this show, after repeated and more intense viewing, ever make it into my Top Ten? Answer: only time will tell.

4. Arrested Development-- Something tells me that if I watched the entire series, first episode to last, of this masterpiece, it would be included in the list. As it stands, I've only seen the entire third season of this show, which at the time was as good as anything on TV. It's like looking at the Sears Tower on a really cloudy day. I'm pretty sure its one of the tallest buildings in the world, but I'd still need to see it unobstructed by clouds before I start singing its praises to the world.

That's my list. At least until I'm convinced otherwise, which I invite you to try to do. Feel free to add your own two cents or your own top ten list.