The other day, Music Wench did a meme of her 6 Fave Shows of All Time. Hundreds of shows came to my mind and I figured I'd never be able to narrow it down to just 6. So I decided to apply a much stricter criteria, and after I did that, I found it extremely difficult to come up with 6! I have loved shows like The Brady Bunch, X-Files, Simpsons, King of Queens, Partridge Family, and LOCI, but my interest has always dropped off after the first 3-4 seasons, which also coincides to when I have deemed that a TV show has "Jumped the Shark". That may not necessarily be when others, or the TV industry, thinks that a show has jumped the shark.
The criteria I decided to use is to list my fave shows, of which I have loved from Season 1, Episode 1, to the last episode (or current episode if the show I like is still airing). I couldn't in all honesty include LOCI based upon this criteria, b/c I pretty much stopped watching halfway through Season 7, and only watched the Bobby episodes at that. For me, LOCI's jump the shark moment was the episode, "Frame".
In no particular order, my 6 faves are:
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., which aired for only one, short season from 1993-1994, and I'm STILL not over the fact that it was canceled. Brisco was absolutely brilliant, and so far ahead of its time. The casting was perfect, the writing extremely clever...but FOX, being FOX, decided to renew the tit & jiggle "Models, Inc." over "Brisco". You can still hear the Brisco County theme song sometimes, if you watch NBC sports, like during the Olympics. It's wicked good. I miss it. It had at least 2 or 3 more seasons left in it. I fell in love with John Pyper-Ferguson's character, Pete Hutter, and I've followed his career since then. He is, by far, my longest celebrity crush and he graciously accepted my Facebook friend request.
Friends. I love this show and we watch it obsessively. Every. Single. Night. Weekends too. We've seen the episodes so many times we can do all the dialogue. If it's listed, we'll watch it. In all those years and IMHO, it never jumped the shark. We own the series on DVD but since Friends has been shown on at least one station since it went off the air, we haven't hardly watched any of the DVDs!
Made In Canada, a/k/a The Industry in the USA. I stumbled on this show a year or so after we moved up here, because Comcast Cable TV carries the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC). I was seeing Rick Mercer on other shows, and I'd developed quite a crush on Peter Keleghan on The Red Green Show, and both Rick & Peter were on this show. It's a very humourous, and brutally accurate, take on the TV & film industry. I have only been able to get Season 1 on DVD, which was only 7 episodes. Whoever owns the rights to the rest of the seasons isn't selling right now, and my email inquiries to Alliance Atlantic/Salter Street Films, the CBC and even Rick Mercer's production company have gone unanswered. Fortunately I have most, if not all, of them on videotape. Here's another one that ended, in my opinion, way too early, but Rick wanted to go out on top and they did. In the early 2000's, it aired on some PBS stations, and also on Bravo, under the name "The Industry". It ended in 2003.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Music Wench and I diverge with our opinions on this show. Where she finds Benson & Stabler annoying, I adore them. We didn't even discover this show till 2005 when it finally went into reruns on USA. This is another one that I will watch if it's on. Like right now as I'm doing this blog post.
Lost In Space. LIS was dangerously close to jumping the shark when it went off the air. It did not, however, resolve the Space Family Robinson's predicament and for that I am disappointed. I love all 3 seasons, but even I admit that the storylines at the end were ridiculous and bombastic (don't get me started on "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" episode near the end of Season 3). Dr. Smith went from being a sly, greedy villain in Season 1 to a completely useless coward. Still, Don West was always hot. Some time in the 70's or early 80's, Bill Mumy approached Irwin Allen to obtain his blessing on a script he wrote, which would have wrapped up the series. Apparently all of the original actors were on board, but Irwin Allen didn't want to pursue it, so Bill gave up. Now Guy Williams and Jonathan Harris have passed away so it's too late now. The 1997 movie sucked out loud. I hear that Robot is at the Sci Fi museum in Seattle, so I simply must go up there and see him!
The Monkees. The swinging 60's SoCal beach scene, 4 likable & adorable young men and some wicked catchy music. What's not to love? The only reason I haven't bought them on DVD is that I heard the quality of the DVDs sold by Rhino isn't very good at all. I wish this was still on in reruns, but I haven't seen it listed anywhere in many, many years.
