The other day The Guardian published a list of the top 50 television dramas as chosen by it's a group of it's critics. Basically each one of them picked their top series and then rated them out of ten and the scores were added up to produce the order. The list was as follows :
1. The Sopranos
2. Brideshead Revisited
3. Our Friends in the North
4. Mad Men
5. A Very Peculiar Practice
6. Talking Heads
7. The Singing Detective
8. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
9. State of Play
10. Boys From the Blackstuff
11. The West Wing
12. Twin Peaks
13. Queer as Folk
14. The Wire
15. Six Feet Under
16. How Do You Want Me?
17. Smiley's People
18. House of Cards
19. Prime Suspect
20. Bodies
21. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
22. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
23. Cracker
24. Pennies From Heaven
25. Battlestar Galactica
26. Coronation Street
27. The Jewel in the Crown
28. The Monocled Mutineer
29. Clocking Off
30. Inspector Morse
31. This Life
32. Band of Brothers
33. Hill Street Blues
34. The Prisoner
35. St Elsewhere
36. The L Word
37. The Shield
38. Brookside
39. 24
40. The Twilight Zone
41. Pride and Prejudice (BBC 1995)
42. Red Riding
43. Oz
44. The Street
45. The X-Files
46. Bleak House
47. The Sweeney
48. EastEnders
49. Shameless
50. Grange Hill
It's surprising I think to see the likes of Eastenders and Coronation Street make the list ahead of things like Lost, ER (although it's forerunner St Elsewhere is there), Cardiac Arrest and Life On Mars.
But apart from those I don't think there is much there that doesn't deserve to be, though I admit I've never really seen what's so good about Queer As Folk and I think Shameless badly lost it's way after a couple of years. And there are a few on the list I'm not familiar with.
Good to see Grange Hill on there though since it did actually deal with from very serious issues and a way that didn't talk down to or lecture kids. In it's time it covered drugs (famously), alcoholism, depression, bereavement and more alongside tales of, well, kids getting up to mischief.
And at least three of my picks made the list!
4 comments:
I definitely raised an eyebrow over Eastenders and Brookside. Red Riding as well. I don't think Mad Men has really proved it's top 10 entry either. But I agree about Friends in the North, Oranges (which I needed prodding to remember how good it was), House of Cards and Jewel in the Crown.
I also question where Cardiac Arrest is.
Where the hell is Deadwood?? Outrageous.
Nothing beats Our Friends in the North. Although admittedly I haven't actually seen any of #1 or #2
It's certianly an interesting list and the lack of Deadwood does seem to be one of the main bones of conetention.
At some point I'll have to get round to watching that and giving Mad Men a go
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