Maybe Heroes belongs in the list too. And how about Top Gear, even though it's British?
I considered Heroes, but really it only made an impact over one season. Length of run, of course, is irrelevant in my list, but it clearly didn't hold the momentum. It's not a failed show - no series that makes it to 4 seasons can be called a failure - but it didn't make the cut for me. Although I'm aware of Top Gear, what's its influence been?
I wouldn't include LOST, if only because we haven't seen the ending yet.
Fair comment, but even without an ending (which technically occurs next decade - and I'll be coming to that issue in a minute) it's been very influential and acclaimed, so I think it's justified. As for whether it's overrated or not, well I included Firefly, so whether a show deserves its accolades doesn't really count. (JOKING!)
Thanks for the responses so far. Bear in mind my list has nothing to do with favorites,
Balderdash. Doctor Who has no business being top of the list if that's the case. Heck, I want to know what TV series it's influenced - and no, spinoffs do
not count.
Take away the spinoffs and it still was hugely influential. What shows? EVERY fantasy or action series produced on BBC and ITV since 2005, to begin with, including the very popular Merlin and Primieval. And I'm sorry, spinoffs do count, otherwise you cannot be allowed to consider Star Trek: The Next Generation to be one of the biggest shows of the 1980s or 1990s, and most people do. Also, the list was not presented in any particular order of preference. I happen to list DW first because I had just watched an episode. I could have just as easily listed iCarly first, as that was the most recent show before DW that I had watched.
And The Wire, love it, hate it, or honestly admittedly have been too lazy and feckless to actually try following it (guilty as charged) is like the most critically acclaimed series of the decade by a ludricously huge margin. 'Influence' might be a little hard to quantify or define, but the show's impact can be safely undisputed.
What's good for the goose - name the shows that were influenced by it. I'm not saying the show is good, bad, or indifferent - I have no opinion in any direction.
Technically doesn't the decade end on 31 December 2010? Since there's no year 0 and all that jazz?
Oh no not this again!
While that argument is appropriate for centuries, decades are universally considered to begin on the 0's. No one on earth considers 1980 to be part of the 1970s decade. And even if people do, I have Life magazine, CNN, Time, Newsweek, and every other media on the planet supporting the view that this decade ends on Dec. 31, 2009, including the notoriously anal Wikipedia.
No love for Curb Your Enthusiasm?
I gave that some thought. Again, popularity and acclaim aren't the only factors, and it's not as if we've had a wave of metafictional series as a result of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I suppose one might argue that, metafiction aside, The Office might have followed a similar path. And I suppose The Sarah Silverman Program owes more than a bit. As might Entourage, now I think about it (it's got metafictional aspects with occasional actors appearing as themselves in fictional contexts). Does it deserve to be #41 on my list? Maybe. Then again, it could just be seen as a followup from It's Gary Shandling's Show.
Everyone has mentioned some seriously noticeable shows and the OP did a great analysis. I think we missed a big one, though. Batman. The cartoon(s) have been running in one form or another for years. Currently, Brave & the Bold has center stage. I don't know about adults but my 3 yr old is heavily influenced by this show. He knows who most of the heroes are by name and is mesmerized. More importantly, IMO, the show is done "American style" vs manga-influenced animation. This show may very well keep that particular style alive for the next generation despite all of the Dragonball Z clones floating around out there.
Again, I considered Batman, but the show that started it all, the original animated adventures series that kicked off the Timm-verse or whatever you want to call it, was made in the 1990s. Most of what we've seen this decade, including the spin-offs like JLU, followed from that. Also, there have simply been so many different Batman series, each offering different takes, I don't know if I could pick one. "The Batman"? "Brave and the Bold"? "Batman Beyond"? If I were compiling a 1990s list (or a "TV Shows of the last 25 years" list) I'd include both the animated Batman and the animated Superman because of their transformative effect on animated TV shows, showing that it was possible to have mature storylines and ongoing arcs in an American animated series based on a comic book (we love them to bits, but really you cannot even try to compare something like JLU with, say, Superfriends or Ralph Bakshi's Spider-Man). Since much of its impact, however, was felt in the 2000s, I'd be willing to make the Batman Animated and Superman Animated series of the 1990s "honorary" TV Shows of this Decade.
Alex
). It could be argued that other cable dramas (cable in the US, anyway) like Six Feet Under, The Tudors, Weeds and Rome could be listed, but I felt the ones I mentioned rather set the tone that these other shows followed.
