What about Daybreak? That show with Taye Diggs about his day repeating over and over? I liked it anyway…
02.23.11 at 3:02 am
Donny House
Terriers was great, I’m going to miss it. Wish I would have seen Journeyman on here, maybe even Life on Mars. Freaks and geeks is another very missed show.
02.23.11 at 7:09 am
Nickjaa
What about durrr? What about DURRRRR? What about HURRRRRRRRR?
02.23.11 at 7:28 am
fanny bunz
you really nailed down my pretentious love of rapes in every episode.
02.23.11 at 7:34 am
Gay TV Critic
Soderbergh has made some seriously great films in the past dozen years. Fuck, Traffic & Che were brilliant. Pull the dick out of your eyes and stop talking like every other NYU clown. You’re a fucking jerk, Kirk. You can have that one. I wrote it specially for you.
Sincerely,
Chuck Buttsteak
02.23.11 at 7:41 am
Jenniphr Goodman
It’s “Goodman”, not “Goodwin”. And she’s an alumni of yours so you can probably find her given handjobs in battery park for the chance to write a terrible blog post about shit that’s beyond her comprehension. Book. Roasted.
02.23.11 at 8:49 am
akzionz
Wut about that ESPN series Play Makers. That show was pretty sick
02.23.11 at 8:58 am
Slagger5000
Finally! I knew that John from Cincinnati was enjoyable. For all these years I’ve thought that I just had weird and terrible tastes because I was the only one on the planet who wanted a second season. Hooray for Uproxx and hooray for me!
02.23.11 at 9:13 am
Kirk
Ill give you traffic, but if I had to sit through Che again I’d probably push the dick further into my eye so I could puncture my brain. With the dick. That was in my eye. The ol dick eye.
Idiot.
02.23.11 at 9:14 am
Kirk
This is a safe place for all John From Cincinnati fans. Let’s hug.
02.23.11 at 9:19 am
The Barber
And what about Rubicon ??
02.23.11 at 9:34 am
Erswi
What about the fact that “the show is often sited(sp) as proof that . . . ” should read cited instead on the Freaks and Geeks write up?
Oh, also Nightmare Cafe. Look it up.
02.23.11 at 9:35 am
Pax Arcana
George Cloney and Claire Daines? Did Dan Quayle write this shit?
02.23.11 at 9:37 am
Aeyo's Cot
Jesus, Kings. I thought I dreamt that.
02.23.11 at 9:38 am
simon
Caprica ? seriously ? What about Day Break, or even SGU ?
02.23.11 at 10:05 am
Taco_Jones
Good list, though I disagree with you about Louie. I like the new show better.
I’d have thrown Undeclared on there as a replacement, but all these things are subjective, anyway.
Nickjaa brings up some good points, though.
02.23.11 at 10:22 am
dayman123
undeclared
02.23.11 at 10:51 am
Obligatory
I’d add “Profit”. If the FX Network had existed back then, it would have run for a few years.
02.23.11 at 11:36 am
Watanabex
Louis CK sucks
02.23.11 at 12:03 pm
Kirk
Never saw Profit but some prelim research shows that a. you are probably right, looks awesome and b. it is incredibly hard to download on the internet. Used DVDs on their way from Amazon.
02.23.11 at 12:51 pm
liquidhalcyon
I must say, I agree with almost all of these,(read: the ones I’ve seen) but in my opinion, it’s missing Studio 60. I wear those DVD’s out on the regular.
Good list though.
02.23.11 at 12:52 pm
Latrell
Ummm… Bridget Loves Bernie?
02.23.11 at 1:24 pm
Balls of Steel
Carla Gugino has the most perfect breasts in the world. Anyone that has seen Sin City can verify that.
No mention of Secret Girlfriend on Comedy Central?
/ducks
02.23.11 at 1:31 pm
chasenheimer
Kings was 2009. Fact check, please.
02.23.11 at 1:55 pm
CB
Amelioration? Who’s the pretentious rape-lovin’ C**ks***er now?
02.23.11 at 2:06 pm
porky1
TV Funhouse is still missed.
02.23.11 at 4:19 pm
Truthteller
This was an entertaining article but Jesus Christ man, you had many, many, MANY typos, lots of incorrect information and that’s the stuff that people haven’t pointed out. You’re getting paid to do this, right? Do you think people that make cars can get away with making them wrong?
02.23.11 at 4:20 pm
Just_A_Rat
This week’s Castle also featured Castle’s mother going to a spa and when he asked her about it, she said “You haven’t heard of the Serenity?” Cue smirk and cocked eyebrow from Nathan Fillion.
02.23.11 at 6:06 pm
spazmodic
I was willing to let “YOU’RE relationship with S.M. GELLER’s breasts” slide, but then I got to “Gugina” and “Cloney”.
You write for Seltzer & Friedberg, don’t you Kirk?
02.23.11 at 6:07 pm
spazmodic
*prays that ‘Mike & Molly’ will be on this list next year*
02.23.11 at 6:48 pm
Patty Boots
Are you saying that the second season of Pushing Daisies wasn’t good?
Because I am very protective of that show and I will fight you.
02.23.11 at 7:23 pm
spazmodic
RUN, Kirk! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!
02.24.11 at 10:31 am
Kirk
I didn’t make it to the second season of Pushing Daisies. But if you want to fight we can go at it. I could use the exercise.
Also I have no excuse for the spelling mistakes except that I wrote this article while on heavy duty pharmaceuticals, so we are all just lucky that I actually wrote about TV shows and not just different types of bread.
02.24.11 at 11:44 am
Kirk
Typos have been fixed but the record of them will live on forever in these comments. Thank you all for vindicating my 8th grade English teacher and her assertions that my inattention to detail would one day ruin my life.
As for Studio 60, I really like that show as well, but its portrayal of a sketch comedy show that is completely devoid of humor reminded me so much of the actual SNL that it just got too depressing to stand.
Also I realized that I forgot to include “That’s My Bush” which was one of the funniest shows ever to only get 8 episodes.
02.24.11 at 4:45 pm
Joel
Flashfoward?
02.24.11 at 5:04 pm
spazmodic
Kirk: did you think the piemaker in ‘Daisies’ was the wettest, dullest, lamest leading character in recent TV history?
If so, do NOT let Patty know that.
02.24.11 at 5:36 pm
JD
Nobody remembers it but Knights of Prosperity on ABX was one of the best sitcoms around
02.24.11 at 5:46 pm
KJT77
@Watanabex Only smart enough for Mencia jokes I see
What about Life? I know it lasted 32 episodes, but it just ended without resolving.
02.24.11 at 7:37 pm
pascoe
Caprica and Wonder Falls were bad shows. Caprica had its moments but was too much a soap opera and every virtual reality scene just brought the show to a thudding halt. Wonder Falls, arrrgghhh, I somehow made it through two episodes and felt like I deserved a Presidential Medal of Freedom for my efforts. 60% snark + 40% uber-annoying quirkiness = That Show.
Otherwise, pretty decent list. Props for Karen Sisco. I would have included Rubicon and the early Fox show Flying Blind (for a brief time Tea Leoni was the most gorgeous person I’d ever seen on television).
02.24.11 at 8:46 pm
mstuff
Sons and daughters never gets any love with a freaking awesome cast..
02.24.11 at 9:35 pm
caseyr
I am a huge Aaron Sorkin fan, and loved Studio 60 when it first aired. I have it on DVD and permanently in my streaming Netflix. I recently got my wife to watch it, and after EVERY episode, she says “I can’t believe this was canceled!” NBC dropped the ball on this only because they didn’t want to have two shows about sketch comedy on the same network, and that is why I resent 30 Rock…
02.24.11 at 10:52 pm
Moose (ROCKS NEEDED URGENTLY IN [insert middle eastern country here]!)
“and people who were actually into Deadwood are a bunch of pretentious assholes who can’t put their support behind anything that doesn’t have at least one rape per episode.” Guilty as charged bitch. You forgot the injun beheadings and the whore cuttin’.
02.25.11 at 1:13 am
C Banga
What about “Models Inc” on Fox???
02.25.11 at 10:55 am
Kirk
@Moose I have watched the scene where Dan Doherty fights the Captain in the thoroughfare like 50 times. The grimmest grittiest parts of that show are my manna from heaven.
02.25.11 at 2:21 pm
JB
I 100% agree with John from Cincinatti! It was brilliant.
02.25.11 at 4:40 pm
JFC Sucks
John From Cincinnati didn’t suffer from the Sopranos ending, it suffered from Deadwood not coming back for another season…and 3/4 of the cast of Deadwood being on it, which made all the Deadwood fans (pretentious or not) wonder: “why didn’t they just do another season of Deadwood instead of this piece of trash?” and violently turn against the show. Everyone who wasn’t in Deadwood, with the exception of Ed O’Neill (the original Swearingen)and the girl surfer (who played a girl surfer) didn’t really seem to fit their roles, so any scenes that weren’t entirely Ed O’Neill or all Deadwood alumni felt awkward or out of sync.
02.25.11 at 6:03 pm
The Kush
Not on this list but was god damn hilarious was
- Dog Bites Man
02.25.11 at 9:03 pm
Mark
Legit impressed that Kings was the first one. Before I started the slide show, I said “I bet they won’t have Kings, those fools” to nobody in particular. Pleasantly surprised. NBC is terrible at promoting the right shows.
02.26.11 at 5:45 am
Leigh
My additions:
Robbery Homicide Division. Tom Sizemore before he went nuts.
EZ Streets. More Joe Pantoliano is always a good thing.
American Gothic. How can anyone not love a show where Gary Cole plays The Devil?
Also, I want to second Profit. If it were on today, it would be on Showtime as a companion to Dexter, and get lots of Emmy nominations (although it wouldn’t actually win).
02.26.11 at 10:08 am
Kirk
@JFC Sucks
I disagree about the other actors EXCEPT the kid who played Sean yost, the healed surfer. That kid sucked. I know he was a non actor who Milch cast for his surfing ability but the kid delivered his lines like a wet bag of cement. I just embraced it and decided that there was some backstory where he got hit in the head with a surfboard and that is why he talked that way.
And how awesome was it to see Zack Morris and Dylan McKay in the same show! It’s like my early teen years’ homo erotic dreams all coming true!
02.26.11 at 12:13 pm
Sam
Sitcoms use hero’s journey, don’t they? Over at [www.clickok.co.uk] they seem to argue that case.
02.27.11 at 11:39 am
CJ
If you “finally got to see Pamela Adlon” in “Lucky Louie”, you’ve not been paying attention at all. She’s been offering uplifting on-scren appearances on TV since “Facts of Life”…
02.28.11 at 2:22 pm
bfg666
I would have included “Persons unknown” in this list: it was a nice blend of “The prisoner” and “Lost” which deserved a proper ending.
About Caprica, the show was good in itself (except for some cheap CGI scenes), but there was one major inconsistency: during the last season of BSG, we learn that Cylons lived on the 13th colony centuries before the events in the show. Caprica is set some 60 years before BSG, so how come the Cylons are said to have been created then when they’re actually way much older?
02.28.11 at 5:32 pm
AspreyJ
Dude, Arrested Development much???
02.28.11 at 6:54 pm
D in the D free Zone
Carla Gugino……. yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm Oh my she was great and so was the rest of the cast in Threshold… i really liked that one. sigh…… Dresden files…? anyone?
03.02.11 at 5:00 pm
Syxmyx
My top 10 list would include “Cupid” (the original one, with Jeremy Piven) and “Keen Eddie”. “Caprica” sucked.
03.03.11 at 1:52 pm
Jake
I thought me and Felder were the only people that actually liked John From Cincinnati. You liked it too? Damn it, Kirk! If you’d mentioned that at the time, we could have had that conversation. But now I’m on the other side of the country, and it’s just been too many years for us to talk about it.
03.03.11 at 1:58 pm
Jake
Also, just to add – I thought Comedy Central’s “Halfway House” had potential.
ABC seems to really likes to cancel shows after their second season. “Better Off Ted” was a brilliant show fairly unlike anything else around, but like most things liked by young people without Nielson boxes, it went the way of the dodo.
03.03.11 at 2:56 pm
Syxmyx
A list of shows that SHOULD have died after the first season, because they went were really good but became really awful almost right away:
1. Twin Peaks
2. Heros
3. Desperate Housewives (say what you will, it was a great mystery that comletely paid off in the season finale)
Personally, I feel that Rubicon would have wound up on this list had it been renewed. It was great, but had nowhere to go.
03.07.11 at 2:56 pm
Norm
Ok what about Vampire: The Masquerade? Sure the lead actor was killed when his car kissed a bus at high speeds, but the show was a winner.
04.24.11 at 9:16 pm
Shaun
I cant believe NBC Black Donnellys didnt make the list!
What about Daybreak? That show with Taye Diggs about his day repeating over and over? I liked it anyway…
Terriers was great, I’m going to miss it. Wish I would have seen Journeyman on here, maybe even Life on Mars. Freaks and geeks is another very missed show.
What about durrr? What about DURRRRR? What about HURRRRRRRRR?
you really nailed down my pretentious love of rapes in every episode.
Soderbergh has made some seriously great films in the past dozen years. Fuck, Traffic & Che were brilliant. Pull the dick out of your eyes and stop talking like every other NYU clown. You’re a fucking jerk, Kirk. You can have that one. I wrote it specially for you.
Sincerely,
Chuck Buttsteak
It’s “Goodman”, not “Goodwin”. And she’s an alumni of yours so you can probably find her given handjobs in battery park for the chance to write a terrible blog post about shit that’s beyond her comprehension. Book. Roasted.
Wut about that ESPN series Play Makers. That show was pretty sick
Finally! I knew that John from Cincinnati was enjoyable. For all these years I’ve thought that I just had weird and terrible tastes because I was the only one on the planet who wanted a second season. Hooray for Uproxx and hooray for me!
Ill give you traffic, but if I had to sit through Che again I’d probably push the dick further into my eye so I could puncture my brain. With the dick. That was in my eye. The ol dick eye.
Idiot.
This is a safe place for all John From Cincinnati fans. Let’s hug.
And what about Rubicon ??
What about the fact that “the show is often sited(sp) as proof that . . . ” should read cited instead on the Freaks and Geeks write up?
Oh, also Nightmare Cafe. Look it up.
George Cloney and Claire Daines? Did Dan Quayle write this shit?
Jesus, Kings. I thought I dreamt that.
Caprica ? seriously ? What about Day Break, or even SGU ?
Good list, though I disagree with you about Louie. I like the new show better.
I’d have thrown Undeclared on there as a replacement, but all these things are subjective, anyway.
Nickjaa brings up some good points, though.
undeclared
I’d add “Profit”. If the FX Network had existed back then, it would have run for a few years.
Louis CK sucks
Never saw Profit but some prelim research shows that a. you are probably right, looks awesome and b. it is incredibly hard to download on the internet. Used DVDs on their way from Amazon.
I must say, I agree with almost all of these,(read: the ones I’ve seen) but in my opinion, it’s missing Studio 60. I wear those DVD’s out on the regular.
Good list though.
Ummm… Bridget Loves Bernie?
Carla Gugino has the most perfect breasts in the world. Anyone that has seen Sin City can verify that.
No mention of Secret Girlfriend on Comedy Central?
/ducks
Kings was 2009. Fact check, please.
Amelioration? Who’s the pretentious rape-lovin’ C**ks***er now?
TV Funhouse is still missed.
This was an entertaining article but Jesus Christ man, you had many, many, MANY typos, lots of incorrect information and that’s the stuff that people haven’t pointed out. You’re getting paid to do this, right? Do you think people that make cars can get away with making them wrong?
This week’s Castle also featured Castle’s mother going to a spa and when he asked her about it, she said “You haven’t heard of the Serenity?” Cue smirk and cocked eyebrow from Nathan Fillion.
I was willing to let “YOU’RE relationship with S.M. GELLER’s breasts” slide, but then I got to “Gugina” and “Cloney”.
You write for Seltzer & Friedberg, don’t you Kirk?
*prays that ‘Mike & Molly’ will be on this list next year*
Are you saying that the second season of Pushing Daisies wasn’t good?
Because I am very protective of that show and I will fight you.
RUN, Kirk! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!
I didn’t make it to the second season of Pushing Daisies. But if you want to fight we can go at it. I could use the exercise.
Also I have no excuse for the spelling mistakes except that I wrote this article while on heavy duty pharmaceuticals, so we are all just lucky that I actually wrote about TV shows and not just different types of bread.
Typos have been fixed but the record of them will live on forever in these comments. Thank you all for vindicating my 8th grade English teacher and her assertions that my inattention to detail would one day ruin my life.
As for Studio 60, I really like that show as well, but its portrayal of a sketch comedy show that is completely devoid of humor reminded me so much of the actual SNL that it just got too depressing to stand.
Also I realized that I forgot to include “That’s My Bush” which was one of the funniest shows ever to only get 8 episodes.
Flashfoward?
Kirk: did you think the piemaker in ‘Daisies’ was the wettest, dullest, lamest leading character in recent TV history?
If so, do NOT let Patty know that.
Nobody remembers it but Knights of Prosperity on ABX was one of the best sitcoms around
@Watanabex Only smart enough for Mencia jokes I see
What about Life? I know it lasted 32 episodes, but it just ended without resolving.
Caprica and Wonder Falls were bad shows. Caprica had its moments but was too much a soap opera and every virtual reality scene just brought the show to a thudding halt. Wonder Falls, arrrgghhh, I somehow made it through two episodes and felt like I deserved a Presidential Medal of Freedom for my efforts. 60% snark + 40% uber-annoying quirkiness = That Show.
Otherwise, pretty decent list. Props for Karen Sisco. I would have included Rubicon and the early Fox show Flying Blind (for a brief time Tea Leoni was the most gorgeous person I’d ever seen on television).
Sons and daughters never gets any love with a freaking awesome cast..
I am a huge Aaron Sorkin fan, and loved Studio 60 when it first aired. I have it on DVD and permanently in my streaming Netflix. I recently got my wife to watch it, and after EVERY episode, she says “I can’t believe this was canceled!” NBC dropped the ball on this only because they didn’t want to have two shows about sketch comedy on the same network, and that is why I resent 30 Rock…
“and people who were actually into Deadwood are a bunch of pretentious assholes who can’t put their support behind anything that doesn’t have at least one rape per episode.” Guilty as charged bitch. You forgot the injun beheadings and the whore cuttin’.
What about “Models Inc” on Fox???
@Moose I have watched the scene where Dan Doherty fights the Captain in the thoroughfare like 50 times. The grimmest grittiest parts of that show are my manna from heaven.
I 100% agree with John from Cincinatti! It was brilliant.
John From Cincinnati didn’t suffer from the Sopranos ending, it suffered from Deadwood not coming back for another season…and 3/4 of the cast of Deadwood being on it, which made all the Deadwood fans (pretentious or not) wonder: “why didn’t they just do another season of Deadwood instead of this piece of trash?” and violently turn against the show. Everyone who wasn’t in Deadwood, with the exception of Ed O’Neill (the original Swearingen)and the girl surfer (who played a girl surfer) didn’t really seem to fit their roles, so any scenes that weren’t entirely Ed O’Neill or all Deadwood alumni felt awkward or out of sync.
Not on this list but was god damn hilarious was
- Dog Bites Man
Legit impressed that Kings was the first one. Before I started the slide show, I said “I bet they won’t have Kings, those fools” to nobody in particular. Pleasantly surprised. NBC is terrible at promoting the right shows.
My additions:
Robbery Homicide Division. Tom Sizemore before he went nuts.
EZ Streets. More Joe Pantoliano is always a good thing.
American Gothic. How can anyone not love a show where Gary Cole plays The Devil?
Also, I want to second Profit. If it were on today, it would be on Showtime as a companion to Dexter, and get lots of Emmy nominations (although it wouldn’t actually win).
@JFC Sucks
I disagree about the other actors EXCEPT the kid who played Sean yost, the healed surfer. That kid sucked. I know he was a non actor who Milch cast for his surfing ability but the kid delivered his lines like a wet bag of cement. I just embraced it and decided that there was some backstory where he got hit in the head with a surfboard and that is why he talked that way.
And how awesome was it to see Zack Morris and Dylan McKay in the same show! It’s like my early teen years’ homo erotic dreams all coming true!
Sitcoms use hero’s journey, don’t they? Over at [www.clickok.co.uk] they seem to argue that case.
If you “finally got to see Pamela Adlon” in “Lucky Louie”, you’ve not been paying attention at all. She’s been offering uplifting on-scren appearances on TV since “Facts of Life”…
I would have included “Persons unknown” in this list: it was a nice blend of “The prisoner” and “Lost” which deserved a proper ending.
About Caprica, the show was good in itself (except for some cheap CGI scenes), but there was one major inconsistency: during the last season of BSG, we learn that Cylons lived on the 13th colony centuries before the events in the show. Caprica is set some 60 years before BSG, so how come the Cylons are said to have been created then when they’re actually way much older?
Dude, Arrested Development much???
Carla Gugino……. yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm Oh my she was great and so was the rest of the cast in Threshold… i really liked that one. sigh…… Dresden files…? anyone?
My top 10 list would include “Cupid” (the original one, with Jeremy Piven) and “Keen Eddie”. “Caprica” sucked.
I thought me and Felder were the only people that actually liked John From Cincinnati. You liked it too? Damn it, Kirk! If you’d mentioned that at the time, we could have had that conversation. But now I’m on the other side of the country, and it’s just been too many years for us to talk about it.
Also, just to add – I thought Comedy Central’s “Halfway House” had potential.
ABC seems to really likes to cancel shows after their second season. “Better Off Ted” was a brilliant show fairly unlike anything else around, but like most things liked by young people without Nielson boxes, it went the way of the dodo.
A list of shows that SHOULD have died after the first season, because they went were really good but became really awful almost right away:
1. Twin Peaks
2. Heros
3. Desperate Housewives (say what you will, it was a great mystery that comletely paid off in the season finale)
Personally, I feel that Rubicon would have wound up on this list had it been renewed. It was great, but had nowhere to go.
Ok what about Vampire: The Masquerade? Sure the lead actor was killed when his car kissed a bus at high speeds, but the show was a winner.
I cant believe NBC Black Donnellys didnt make the list!