The end of the year is almost upon us and all the new episodes have almost run dry, so it’s time to review how they stacked up, or at least, how I thought they did. I also appear to be in the mood to make top 10 lists now, as you could tell from my favorite Christmas movies blog yesterday.
This was a strange fall TV season for me, one in which I dumped CSI completely from my season pass list, and where other shows just didn’t stack up.
If you know me, you probably can guess what the #1 will be, but perhaps you will be surprised at the overall list. This ranking is just a look into what I enjoyed the most this year and why. It obviously is missing out on shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica, but those come in the winter/spring season. And on a side note, this will just talk about main network shows, not cable. I plan on making a separate listing of my favorite cable shows of the year.
So without further delay, time to jump right in.
Ranking the Fall TV season: Top 10 Network shows.
Wow, this show has really taken a slight little tumble for me. I was pimping it before the season started, and I still like it (it sure beat out a lot of other popular shows to make it on this list), but it lost a bit of itself over the summer.
The plot line with Landry killing a rapist was a little too much I think, especially for an easy-going character who we used to love for his innocent banter with Matt Saracen. He was far too serious this time around. And there have just been some situations that don’t feel as real and true to life as they did last year.
9. At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper
This may be a weird choice, but it’s on network TV and it’s definitely a show I cannot miss each week. I’ve become quite the movie buff, probably somewhat a movie snob in a way, but it’s because there is only so much time in the world, and to waste some of it on movies that are going to suck is just not worth my time.
This show has opened both myself and my wife up to movies that we wouldn’t hear of normally. This year, it was Once and Paris je T’aime that we’d likely have never seen if it wasn’t for Richard Roeper and this show. They talk about the blockbusters, but also about the little indie films that you don’t see advertised, and it’s those little gems that really have been rewarding as of late.
And we keep watching for the moment Roger Ebert returns, which will undoubtedly be an emotional occasion.
I really, really like these two little shows. It’s all about fun and goofiness with both of them.
With Reaper, Sam is a guy who’s parents sold his soul to the devil when he was a kid, and now he has to help return souls that have escaped from Hell back to where they belong. Ray Wise plays Satan himself and he’s hilariously evil. Along with Sam are his two buddies, the best being Sock who is big, loud and funny, they hunt these spirits down and save the day. It’s the comedic version of Supernatural.
Gossip Girl I watch because of my wife, but it’s really hilarious and much more interesting than some of the other crap out there. The writing is pretty good, the cast is full of hot looking people and the situations are so absurd you cannot help but get sucked in.
And besides, Kristen Bell does the narration as the “Gossip Girl”, so how can you not love it? (xoxo)
7. Life
Now we’re starting to get into the good stuff. This show was a big surprise for me, I didn’t think it would pan out, but Damian Lewis was a great casting decision to play the role of Charlie Crews, and he’s the reason I keep watching. The plot is good, the journey to clear his name is fine, but it’s really Crews himself that gives us our reason to watch.
The midseason finale was awesome (you can read my review here) and gives us something to look forward to down the road. The show has been picked up for a full season too, which is great news.
This show really hasn’t lost any of its juice and energy in my eyes. Whereas Survivor became boring to me because everyone seems to do the same thing on it over and over, the Amazing Race is more about who the people are and how they interact, than what they are doing on the race.
And that’s the beauty of it. Watching Ronald this season with his hernia and trashing his daughter, or Nate and Jennifer using the race to gauge their relationship and constantly berating each other is hilarious.
It never gets old for me, and it’s really the only reality show besides American Idol that’s still fun to watch.
What a wonderfully delightful find. You have a bit of fantasy, you have some comedy, you have love and you have awesome characters. A simple story of a guy who can touch dead people to bring them to life, but only for a minute lest someone else close by die turned out to be so much more than it sounds.
The writing is unique and different and the narration is fantastic. The simple love story between two people who cannot touch is such a refreshing change of pace from what you normally see on TV these days.
4. Scrubs
It’s the final season and it’s been pretty good so far. There is worry that we wont get to see the ending we want what with the WGA strike going on and no end in sight. If it drags on and no more writing is done, the final un-produced episodes may never get made.
But it’s such a fun show and has has some hilarious moments already this year. It will always be one of my favorites.
3. The Office
A slow start to the season with four hour-long episodes still delivered some of the funniest moments on TV this fall. The bed and breakfast at Dwight’s was top-notch, and the club that Pam forms with Oscar and Toby was fantastic.
The show can really do no wrong. When you have Michael Scott doing Man vs Wild and cutting up his suit to make socks and jackets out of it, you know that you are watching something brilliant.
2. 30 Rock
Man, this show is still an absolute riot. Tina Fey is so much fun to watch (I think I may have a crush on her), and the support cast including Tracy Jordan and Alec Baldwin are hilarious. The writing really makes this show what it is, and there are so many lines worth repeating that my head can’t contain them all.
If you haven’t watched it, you should get season one first, fall in love with it like we did, and then pick up season two when you can.
And that leads us too……
1. Journeyman
Such a sad day to come out with this list and name a lame duck show as my favorite this fall. But it’s true and it has to be said.
Journeyman was the best thing NBC had going for it on Monday nights and it blew it, as usual. I never saw enough advertising for it or promotion, which is horribly sad now that it appears to be canceled.
But what else can you say about this show? I loved the characters and the story. Some of the episodes were really hard core and caused much fingernail biting over in this house. But it was very clever and well written, with plots being extended over multiple episodes and emotional issues looming all season long, being dealt with slowly over time.
They were great at not missing anything, of leaving something in one episode that might matter a few later. It was such a pleasant surprise to find out this show was nothing like Quantum Leap, which is what everyone thought it would be like when they heard of it.
Ah well Dan Vasser, I hope you find your answers. Two more episodes left…
—
So there you have it. It was a tough task to whittle down the shows we watch on a regular basis. In looking over this list, I don’t see Heroes, or Chuck, or Prison Break. Not even Grey’s Anatomy.
We also dumped Without a Trace this year.
Now I don’t watch everything obviously, and I think House is one show I’d love if I watched it, but even that one I hear is off its game this season.
What about you? Do you agree with the list? How would you rank yours?
Well, I can’t agree with many of the choices on your list…Reaper and Gossip Girl didn’t even make my list of shows to watch once…but I do agree with much of what you said about the shows I do watch.
You’re spot on with Friday Night Lights (one of last season’s best shows period). Amazing Race is always fun, but I still love Survivor (which I write about weekly). I like Pushing Daisies immensely, but I think parts of it are starting to wear a bit thin (has it begun to irritate anyone else that they can’t touch?). I’ve always loved Scrubs but I do think it’s time is done…sadly. The Office and 30 Rock have both been brilliant this year.
I’m not sure I’d put Journeyman in my #1 spot, but it is (was) a good show… I’ll miss it.
Jason A Clark’s last blog post..What The Remaining 5 Survivors Must Do To Survive – Further Musings On The Strategies Of Survivor: China
Well, 7-10 don’t really work for me and I don’t watch 30 Rock, but I do hear it’s good, so I’ll take your word for it.
I still love Survivor, so it would make my top 10 as would Prison Break. I know it’s a bit tired, but I have to give credit to the writers, it’s never dull. I’d also add Criminal Minds which is really good. Adding Joe Montenga was a good move for the show. I also like Top Chef (credit to my wife for turning me on to that one) as someone who enjoys cooking it’s a fun show.
Kinda sad that after the top ten there’s not much else I really care about, except sports. hmmmm.
Scott’s last blog post..Breaking the workaholic addiction
I still am not buyin Journeyman is cancelled officially just yet. The trash show Bionic woman and a couple of other shows are still in limbo, not hearing any word from NBC about renewal or cancel. I think the strike has bought some more time, but with all reports like Variety saying Journeyman is as good as cancelled, its probably helping NBC ease the announcement for them, when in reality they havent axed some of their prize shows just yet either. But, good choice for it at #1!!
I think it’s pretty amazing how much of a wide variety people watch out there, where one guy’s list would be totally different from another’s.
What about MOONLIGHT?
Tried to watch that Michael, but it was tough…I hear some people like it, but the first episode’s writing and acting felt really bad
I think it’s safe to say these are your favorite 10 shows on network TV, but not necessarily the best shows. I think FNL, while not as amazing this year, still is better than a lot of crap TV out there.
And… you really do watch many shows that I don’t! Interesting!
MOONLIGHT pilot wasn’t great, but most aren’t. Not sure why networks air them anyway. They should be re-worked before broadcast.
I didn’t like the pilot either, but it got much better.
@ Jason – You mention that some of my shows weren’t even on your “check them out” list, but I tend to try and give the new stuff a sweeping over to see what I think. Not everything of course, but a lot of stuff that at least sounds interesting. Helps me be more informative on this stuff
Also, Jina is annoyed at me for having FNL so low, and maybe I have it lower than I should, but it just wasn’t as good as last year and I probably penalized it too much.
Heck, Heroes didn’t even make the list, so FNL should feel lucky!
I used to do the same thing Mike. I practically wore out our DVR trying to watch pretty much every show on TV. This year we had our first child, though, and I started a new job and got into my blog and decided that I wanted to read more books. Something had to give.
I cut out A LOT of television. I gave the ax to a lot of shows that I’ve been watching for a long time (goodbye ER, CSIs, Grey’s Anatomy, etc.) and was a lot more picky about the new shows I chose to give a shot to. I actually did check out parts of various shows such as Reaper (even though the actual premise does not appeal to me at all) and Moonlight (which was God awful), but I don’t have the time to give them the multiple episode opportunity I would have in years past.
Which makes the loss of Journeyman even more of a loss.
Jason A Clark’s last blog post..“Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bayâ€? Posters and R-Rated Trailer
Jason,
That’s a cool story and congratulations on your first child. We’ve been trying for quite awhile and hasn’t happened for us yet, but we’re praying it will.
I love that you turned to reading more books, which is something I’d like to do as well.
I feel like with being at the University of Phoenix in getting my degree, and working full time, AND blogging, I lack some time to just sit and read. With everything I do, TV is a nice mindless task to get through the day.
But I do see myself starting to slowly go the route you are…cutting out shows that aren’t worth it is a good step.
Great post Mike! Of course, you know Ugly Betty is way up there on my list. This second season is even better than the first. I also watch Gossip Girl and have loved it so far, total guilty pleasure! I’m also a sucker for fashion related shows like Top Model and Project Runway, which I’m sure you have no interest in! Starting back with Amazing Race has been fun too, we hadn’t watched it in awhile. And I can’t wait for Lost to come back on!
nicky’s last blog post..Baking time has arrived.
HOUSE would be my #1 and JERICHO my #2.
Yeah, but Jericho wasn’t even on this fall!
OOPS!! My bad. Can’t wait for JERICHO to return but I’m really going to miss Gerald McRaney.
By the way, welcome to the site
I’m not sure where you heard that House was ‘off its game’, but that is simply not true (at least to me it isn’t). The writers of that series were bold enough to really shake it up by letting three characters move on and getting three new underlings to work for House. That shows a lot of confidence. In my estimation the way that it was executed was clever and it worked like a charm.
As for your Top Ten List, well, it is *your* list.
I agree with your choices of Journeyman and Life my two new favorites of the season. I’m hoping for a Christmas miracle to happen for Journeyman. I also agree with your choices of 30 Rock and At The Movies with Ebert and Roeper. The latter turned me on to smaller films as well. I’ll be forever grateful to that show for that.
My list would consist of many cable programs that’s for sure. As for the main networks, it would include (in no particular order) Life, Journeyman, Chuck (it’s cute, mindless fun), House and Ugly Betty for now. I would have to work on the rest. It would also have included L&O: SVU but I feel that *this* season it is ‘off its game’. It would also have included Without A Trace, but I’m not getting the same buzz as I used to with this series. I can’t really pinpoint why that is.
You know what? I think that in order for me to make a Best Of list when it comes to television, I would have to include both main network and cable programs to complete it. The fact is cable produced more intriguing, suspensful, intelligent television in 2007.
Hey Tania, not sure where I heard about House, it was either from some review I read on EW or somewhere else. They had just said it was a great show, but had lost some steam this season.
Nice to see someone like the At the Movies pick, because your reasons for liking it are the same as mine.
AND finally, your point about the cable shows is totally accurate and tomorrow morning you’ll get my Top 10 cable shows for 2007, which hopefully will have some shows you like on it.
Is cable better? In doing my Top 10, I had to think at least 4-5 shows on it could have easily replaced 6-7 shows on my Network list.
[...] given you my favorite Christmas movies and my favorite network TV shows of the fall, and now it’s the Top 10 Cable shows for this entire [...]
[...] I wrote last week, I picked Journeyman as my favorite network show of the fall, and I think I really fell in love with it during the episodes with Aeden Bennett. It reached new [...]
You are completely right to put jourenyman as your number one show! But please dont make it sound like it is over we still have a chance to save the show if we all work together.
To all who seem confused NBC had a deadline to pick up Journeyman for a second season and they didnt make a decision in time. So there are some out there who believe the show is cancled, but there are others out there who feel that it still has a chance that because NBC let the deadline slip doesnt mean that it is necessarily canceled.
So to all of you who love this show like i do here is my suggestion to you. JOIN THE FIGHT TO SAVE JOURNEYMAN. Tell everyone you know to help out. There are many websites out there whose sole purpose is to save journeyman and if we all work together i think we have a chance of bringing it back. I dont know about the rest of you but i am not ready to see this show go it is too good. Journeyman is the best show on TV right now and it is only getting better. Here are a list of websites you can look at. Sign in and voice your oppinions, sign the petitions, join the discussion, send out rice-a-roni, do something anything to help.
http://www.petitiononline.com/jmf/petition.html
http://www.journeymanfansite.com/
http://save-journeyman.blogspot.com/
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/11/journeyman-nbc.html
http://savejourneyman.funurl.com/
http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/journeyman/287886
http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/detail/index.jsp?uuid=a210f827-8ffc-4882-834d-8fc1af7eb40c#commentstart
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2007/12/journeyman-spoi.html
http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-News-Blog/Todays-News/Times-Journeyman/800029221
http://blog.nbc.com/journeyman/2007/11/a_message_from_kevin_falls.php#comments
PLEASE!! WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER IF WE WANT TO BE HEARD WE NEED TO WRITE TO THE EXECUTIVES AT NBC AND TELL THEM HOW WE FEEL, WE NEED TO PROTEST NOW. NOW IS THE TIME TO FIGHT. IF WE DONT DO IT NOW THEN OUR FAVORITE SHOW WILL BE GONE FOREVER. JOURNEYMAN IS THE BEST SHOW ON TV AND IT IS ONLY GETTING BETTER!!
[...] Top 10 lists lately to close up the year 2007. We’ve gone over the best Christmas movies, the best Network TV shows and my favorite Cable [...]
Thanks Jennifer for the links, maybe I’ll turn this into a blog post.
[...] left us a comment a few days ago, with all kinds of links to ways to save the show and where people are talking about [...]
You know what would be a perfect Christmas gift? More Journeyman episodes! number 1 indeed. You know what makes it so great? The focus of the show isn’t on time-traveling, it’s how he(and his family) deals with time-traveling. Damn! I love this show. I also like Life a lot. Bionic Woman is trash.
Thanks for stopping by Paul…I agree with you, would have been a nice Christmas gift!
Glad Life made it to the top 10 list, the past few months I’m all about Life and am suffering from the lack of new episodes so finding Life in anyone’s top 10 list is enough to make me happy.
[...] in December I gave you a Top 10 list of my Favorite Fall Shows up to the writer’s strike that shut everything down. It also delayed other series that were [...]