The British mystery crime drama reimagined Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and placed him in the present day.
This show helped introduce me to Benedict Cumberbatch, who led the show as the autistic-like Sherlock, and Martin Freeman, who was his sidekick Dr. John Watson.
The series ran for four seasons, but each season only had three episodes. However, each episode was more like a movie length, running around and hour and a half.
These were all great episodes. Perhaps my favorite was “Sign of Three,” which details Watson and Mary Morstan get married.
One of the cooler sci-fi concepts came in the 1990s with this show where four unlikely people wound up “sliding” through parallel universes, trying to find their way back home.
Much like Quantum Leap, each week Quinn Mallory, Professor Maximillian Arturo, Rembrandt “Cryin’ Man” Brown and Wade Welles found themselves in a new situation where they had to survive until their hand held timer device counted down so they could open up a vortex wormhole so they could depart.
Most of the time, the group encountered plenty of trouble, including variants of themselves. The show’s first few seasons were so great, while on FOX, but after FOX canceled it and it ended up on the Sci-Fi Channel (eventually Syfy), the episodes got much weaker. There were cast members replaced and Sliders, which was really the connection between the characters, became less engaging.
Jerry O’Connell, Cleavant Derricks, John Rhys-Davies, and Sabrina Lloyd were the original cast. Kari Wuhrer joined the cast as Captain Maggie Beckett.
Sliders is one of those underrated gems of the sci-fi genre. It sadly seemed to go too long and weakened its overall memory.
One of the earliest Netflix series was Orange is the New Black, a comedy/drama set inside a women’s penitentiary.
The cast included Taylor Schilling, Laura Prepon, Uzo Aduba, Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne, Kate Mulgrew, Samira Wiley, Taryn Manning, Jason Biggs, Jackie Cruz, Laverne Cox, Diane Guerrero, Lori Petty, Ruby Rose, Adrienne C. Moore, Selenis Leyva, Dascha Polanco, Lea DeLaria, Michael Healy, Michelle Hurst, and Pablo Schreiber.
I enjoyed the series, but the last few seasons did not match some of the first few.
This show is most likely not as well known as some of the others on this list so far. Yet this Netflix series, which went 2 seasons for a total of 16 episodes, was sensational, and remarkably funny.
American Vandal was a mockumentary series that spoofed true crime shows such as Making a Murderer and Serial. The show followed friends Peter Maldonado (Tyler Alvarez) and Sam Ecklund (Griffin Gluck) who created an internet show where they investigated a couple of cases at their high school, Hanover.
In season one, the pair investigated the prank that saw 27 faculty cars vandalized by someone who drew phallic images on them. Season two the investigation was at a Catholic private high school that had someone spiked the school’s lemonade with a laxative. They called this perp the “Turd Burglar.”
Yes, there were a lot of dick and poop jokes. There were plenty of sex jokes. These are usually the types of humor that I do not find entertaining. This was the total opposite. American Vandal was one of the funniest series I have ever seen. It was not only incredibly smart and funny, it was a great mystery.
Netflix canceled the series after the second season, but these first two definitely found a place on my top 100.
One of the best anthology series around. A few of the seasons of Fargo, based of course on the classic movie of the same name, are as good as you get. There were a couple of seasons that were not as good, but the first two and season five were so awesome.
The casts change each season and have included some gigantic stars such as Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Chris Rock, Bob Odenkirk, Jon Hamm, Kirsten Dunst, Jean Smart, Ewan McGregor, David Thewlis, Ted Danson, Juno Temple, Carrie Coon, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Nick Offerman, Kieran Culkin, Brad Garrett, Ben Whishaw, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Patrick Wilson, Jesse Plemons, Joe Keery, Colin Hanks, and Adam Goldberg.
The FX show is always creative and funny with the greatest characters around.
“Theorising that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished… He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home…”
“Oh boy….”
Quantum Leap is a great sci-fi show that aired on NBC in the late 80’s, early 90’s. It starred Scott Bakula as Dr. Samuel Beckett and Dean Stockwell as Al.
Sam Beckett would jump around time, into the body of someone else, and then have to try to fix the history of this person’s life. Some were smaller, more personal stories while others were big and bombastic, featuring famous people’s stories.
Al was a hologram of a man from Beckett’s actual timeline who was there to aid Sam through his missions. Al could only be seen by Sam.
The show had some really exciting moments, some humor, and plenty of sci-fi goodness. The show did not shy away from the deeper subjects either such as racism, sexism and hatred.
Every episode ended with the tie in to the next episode, as we see Sam arrive in the body of someone new. Sam continued to hope that the next leap would be the leap home.
I did not watch the revival of Quantum Leap that aired on CBS for a couple of years. This is completely the original show that is at #88 on my list.
Sometimes a TV show comes in like a comet and burns itself out before its time. NBC’s coming of age show Freaks and Geeks is one of those. It was one of the most universally beloved shows, but only after its run of one season of 18 episodes ended. Freaks and Geeks is on a ton of people’s favorite TV show lists and sits at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Yet it only lasted one season. Why? Part would have been because of the sporadic episode schedule and apparent conflicts between the network and the creators. Freaks and Geeks became a cult classic after the show was gone from NBC.
What a cast! An amazing who’s who of young actors at the time included Linda Cardellini, Seth Rogan, James Franco, Jason Segal, Busy Phillips, John Francis Daly, Martin Starr, and Samm Levine. Joe Flaherty, Tom Wilson (Biff Tannen himself from Back to the Future), Becky Ann Baker, Steve Bannos, Dave Allen, Kayla Ewell, Ben Foster, Joel Hodgson and Ann Dowd also appeared among a group of distinguished actors.
Written and directed by Paul Feig, the show was produced by Judd Apatow.
I have only ever seen this show once, but the memory of it holds a sweet spot in my heart. It is down the list because of its short run, but this is one of those shows that deserves a rewatch.
Olivia Pope and her crew is at #90 in our TV show countdown. Scandal was part soap opera, part governmental thriller and always fun.
Starring Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope and Tony Goldwyn as President Grant, Scandal was created by Shonda Rhimes. Olivia Pope was a DC “Fixer” who would be hired to deal with problems in our nation’s capital.
The big draw for many people was the on-again-off-again relationship between President Grant and Olivia. They were portrayed as soulmates thorughout the seven seasons, but I was never a fan of this relationship. Mind you, I loved Olivia, but I always found Grant to be a jerk and not worth her. Their relationship was definitely toxic, and that brought a ton of drama to the show.
Other stars from the show included Bellamy Young, Jeff perry (whose Cyrus was one of the most intriguing antagonists you would find), Scott Foley, Kate Lowes, Darby Stanchfield, Guillermo Diaz and Joe Morton.
These were some of the most rotten characters you will find on TV, even those that you were rooting for. The levels of GREY on this show was stunning.
I did not love every storyline of Scandal, and it did feel like it went a little too long. Of course, Joe Morton’s character, Rowan Pope (Olivia’s father) was one of those characters like the Cigarette Smoking Man from the X-Files that I would have loved to see a bullet placed into his brain.
The first game show on the list is one of the best of all time. Jeopardy, created by Merv Griffin, has been around for decades, originally debut in 1964.
The longest and most successful host of the show was Alex Trebek, who hosted from 1984 until 2020 when he passed away. They have named the stage where they tape Jeopardy the Alex Trebek Stage. Since, Jeopardy has replaced Trebek with Ken Jennings as host. Jennings was one of the most popular and successful Jeopardy champions the show has ever had, earning $2,522,700 over a 75 day run.
The appeal of Jeopardy is the format of answering in the form of a question and how challenging the questions can be. However, there are usually hints written within the clues that help the audience decipher the answer. The feeling you get as a viewer when you are able to answer a question that the players failed with is a remarkably awesome feeling.
There have been several forms of the show, from the regular syndicated version to Celebrity Jeopardy to Jeopardy Masters. All of the versions are always fun and you might learn something.
I liked the ABC sitcom Roseanne during its original run. I am not a fan today of Roseanne Barr for many reasons, but I decided that it would not be fair to leave off this show that I did enjoy because my opinions of Barr changed.
This show was very funny. It had some great sitcom performances from Roseanne, John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, and Sara Gilbert.
This show gave a perspective of a low income family during the 1980s, something that we did not see at the time. How they faced all kinds of troubles and they battled through them all, even if they were fighting with each other along the way.
The last couple of seasons of Roseanne was considerably down from the first five or six years. The final season with the Connors winning the lottery was just so opposite what this show was supposed to be.
Apple TV + has its first show in the top 100 with the musical parody Schmigadoon!. Two seasons with two different types of musicals. Season one was much like the Oklahoma type of musical (based upon the 1947 movie Brigadoon) and the second one was based on Chicago or Sweeney Todd.
The show starred Keegan-Michael Key and Cecily Strong, as Josh and Melissa. Some of the other actors appearing on the show were Fred Armisen, Alan Cumming, Dove Cameron, Ariana DeBose, Jane Krakowski, Martin Short, Tituss Burgess, Kristin Chenoweth, Jamie Camil, and Aaron Tveit.
Season one was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. Season two directed by Alice Mathias and Robert Luketic.
One of the best mini series of this year, Adolescence was four episodes of near perfection. Appearing on Netflix, this show is about the murder of a young girl by a young boy. And it is absolutely brilliant.
Owen Cooper played the 13-year old Jamie and his performance has earned him an Emmy nomination. His work on episode three was spectacular as it was basically him and Erin Doherty in the episode.
The episodes are also shot with a continuous one shot which was unbelievable. I can’t imagine how they shot this and how these actors were able to deliver their lines without any chance for error. It is an amazing accomplishment.
It is this low on the list because it only had four episodes, but those four are so amazing. I initially intended on watching one a week, but, I started on a Sunday and wound up binging the entire thing on that day. It was so compelling and great.
Chernobyl was a 2019 historical drama mini series based on the meltdown that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union.
A strong ensemble cast included Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Emily Watson, and Paul Ritter.
The five part series won multiple Emmy Awards in the limited series category.
It was a truly powerful series that dealt with the backlash of the monumental failure at Chernobyl and the eventual loss of life of the people in the surrounding area.
The show was fairly accurate with its history, though there were a few things that had been altered for dramatic purposes.
The end of the Civil War was near When quite accidentally A hero who sneezed, abruptly seized Retreat and reversed it to victory
His Medal of Honor pleased and thrilled His proud little family group While pinning it on, some blood was spilled And so it was planned he’d command F Troop
Where Indian fights are colorful sights And nobody takes a lickin’ When paleface and redskin Both turn chicken
When drilling and fighting get them down They know their morale can’t droop As long as they all relax in town Before they resume with a bang and a boom, F Troop
The theme song of this show stuck with me to this very day. A great theme song should not be underestimated in helping to create a great show. F Troop was silliness, slapstick and dumb fun that I loved.
Starring Ken Berry, Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, Melody Patterson, James Hampton and Frank de Kova, F Troop had 65 total episodes over two seasons. The first season was in black and white and the next season was in color.
The iconic war show on HBO was the first TV show that I did this past February during the Sunday Morning Sidewalk. I watched an episode a week every Sunday and I enjoyed it tremendously.
The show focused on the true story behind the Easy Company, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. The show was executive produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
It was ten episodes and each one of them was excellent.
The cast included Damian Lewis as Major Richard D. Winters, Ron Livingston as Captain Lewis Nixon, Michael Cudlitz as Sgt. Denver Randleman, Scott Grimes as Sgt. Donald Malarkey, and Donnie Wahlberg as 1st Sgt. C. Carwood Lipton. The ensemble also includes Neal McDonough as Capt. Lynn D. Compton, Rick Gomez as Sgt. George Luz, James Madio as Staff Sgt. Frank Perconte, and Shane Taylor as Staff Sgt. Eugene Roe.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 