Jump to content

UKFF'S TOP 50 FAVORITE TV DRAMAS


LaGoosh

Recommended Posts

  • Paid Members

The countdown begins!

 

50) House

=48 The X-Files

=48 Homeland

47) American Horror Story

=45 ER

=45 Hill Street Blues

=43 Coronation Street

=43 Rescue Me

42) Sons Of Anarchy

41) Neighbours

=39 Dallas

=39 The Walking Dead

38) Inspector Morse

37) Friday Night Lights

=35 Our Friends In The North

=35 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

34) Entourage

33) Threads

=30 Generation Kill

=30 Buffy The Vampire Slayer

=30 I, Claudius

=28 Firefly

=28 Carnivale

27) Justified

=25 Boys From The Blackstuff

=25 Doctor Who

24) Star Trek: The Next Generation

23) Mad Men

22) Cracker

21) Quantum Leap

20) Band Of Brothers

19) Prison Break

18) The Bill

17) This Life

16) Life On Mars

15) Twin Peaks

14) Spartacus

13) The West Wing

12) Prisoner: Cell Block H

11) Dexter

10) 24

9) Lost

8) Boardwalk Empire

7) Deadwood

6) The Shield

5) Oz

4) Game Of Thrones

3) Breaking Bad

2) The Sopranos

1) The Wire

 

 

Shows that got votes but didn't make the top 50!

Rockford Files

Luther

Auf Weirdersen Pet

The Chinese Detective

The Prisoner

Maverick

Psych

The Wonder Years

Ashes To Ashes

The OC

Van Der Velk

Columbo

Dream team

Battlestar Galactica

Tales Of The Unexpected

Six Feet Under

Shoestring

CSI

CSI NY

The Newsroom

The Twilight Zone

Hawkins

Sharpe

V

The A Team

Manimal

GBH

Torchwood

Sugar Rush

Quincy

Edge Of Darkness

Damages

Braquo

The Mentalist

Batman

Rome

Rock Follies

Supernatural

The Killing

Smallville

The Take

Alien Nation

Veronica Mars

Queer As Folk

Sherlock

MASH

House Of Cards

The Singing Detective

Teachers

Wallander

Castle

The Proffessionals

Shameless

Due South

Skins

Eastenders

Glee

Greys Anatomy

Jekyll

Hell On Wheels

Casanova

Arrow

Californication

This Is England '86 & '90

Murder One

Lie To Me

Jonathan Creek

Lonesome Dove

Spooks

Downton Abbey

The Take

NYPD Blue

Mulberry

Angel

Streets Of Laredo

Talking Heads

Homicide: Life On The Street

Nip/Tuck

Blue Bloods

Sports Night

Cold Feet

First Born

Jake's Progress

Survivors

The Returned

Poirot

Mad Dogs

Harpers Island

Hamish Macbeth

Fastlane

 

 

50)

 

"What would you prefer - a doctor who holds your hand while you die or one who ignores you while you get better?"

 

dr-house-greg-house-house-house-md-hugh-laurie-Favim.com-203141_large.jpg

 

House

 

Voted number 1? No.

 

What's it about?

 

Hugh Laurie chucks on an American accent as star Dr. Gregory House. A drug-addicted, disabled tough talking no-nonsense arsehole doctor with a heart of gold. This show has sometimes been described as a medical version of Sherlock Holmes as House has to uncover the causes of mysterious illnesses.

 

Clips!

Do I look like an idiot?

 

=48

 

"When convention and science offer us no answers, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?"

 

X-Files-tv-ff24.jpg

 

The X-Files

 

Voted number 1? No

 

What's it about?

 

Agent Mulder, man of faith, and Agent Scully, woman of science, team up to investigate unexplained phenomena. This leads to them battling mutants, aliens, government conspiracies and various monsters of the week. It was probably one of the first shows to really embrace a huge overarching mythology. Unfortunately it was this mythology that eventually ended up bogging down the show and turning viewers off but during the first four seasons it was fantastic stuff that really penetrated pop culture. Some of the monster-of-the-week episodes were brilliant. "Squeeze" and "Home" in particular are still to this day two of the scariest TV episodes ever. What really made this show click was the wonderful two lead performances.

 

What do you say?

 

"Yes, fuck you. Ok, it tailed off a lot in quality near the end, becoming almost a parody of itself. But the first 4 series redefined whole genres. I don't remember a series which had such a huge cultural impact - people glued to their sofas for each episode. It made household names out of its stars, brought geek culture into the mainstream, and fuelled generations of paranoid schizophrenics on the internet. It introduced the concept of the story arc to television drama which probably did more to create the US television boom than any other innovation. And it marked a demarcation line for horror, setting a gold standard for how to write, shoot and produce the 1 hour format."

 

"Hit and miss, certainly, and the ongoing main storyline became very boring and stupid very quickly. But its monster of the week stuff was often absolutely tremendous. At its best, The X Files is some of the best TV of the last 20 years."

 

Clips!

The brilliant, spooky intro.

Original TV spot for 'Squeeze'

Edited by LaGoosh
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 513
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • Paid Members

Surprised X-Files wasn't higher, if I'd had 11 on my list it would've made it, I loved it when I was 13 (until it got shit) if X-files barely made it there's no hope for most of ny shows. Are you doing that thing where you chuck together a few that only got one vote outside of the regular countdown? That was cool in the sitcom one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

=48

 

"This is how everything works. You wait. You lay low. And then you come to life."

 

Vogue-august-homeland-2.jpg

 

Homeland

 

Voted number 1? No

 

What's it about?

 

Claire Danes is a mentally ill CIA agent. Damien Lewis is a US marine who has just been rescued from 8 years of imprisonment by terrorists. He comes back to the US hailed as a war hero however Claire Danes believes he has been turned into a terrorist planning to attack America and sets out to try and prove it. I loved the first season but it's starting to get a bit far fetched now, I definitely see it going the route of 24 where each season gets more and more contrived and over the top. But like X Files, this is a show that is grounded by the two fantastic leads. My middle-eastern wife also tells me that Lewis and Danes Arabic is really authentic sounding too so good for them.

 

What do you say?

 

"Controversial choice even for myself. It's very slow paced and the characters can often be very irritating yet I've watched two seasons and look forward to the third. The only reason I kept up with it was because I had Sky+d it and there was nothing else on at the time that or I'd watched everything else on my Sky+ box so I was able to back-up a few episodes and watch them back to back. If I'd waited each week I probably would've lost interest quicker."

 

Clips!

 

I'd say start a fresh thread for the countdown proper Gooshinator.

 

Ok, will do.

Edited by LaGoosh
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

I too put in Rockford Files as my second pick, disappointed it missed out, great show if anyone hasn't seen it, cut above the usual detective type show from that era, the amount of action is class. It's all on US Netflix too

Edited by Maverick
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

My list was rubbish, I only really wanted to get it in, in time to show some love for what I put at number 2. That list of 10 gives me hope it may have actually made it and someone else voted for it. Blatantly loads of stuff I forgot which this thread will remind me of and already has with X Files, probably the first show I ever really got into and watched semi-regularly. Was a bit young to really give that much of a shit at the time though.

 

I'm going to have so much shit to get watching following this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ten shows that got votes but didn't make the top 50!

Poirot

Hamish Macbeth

Rockford Files

 

Unlucky Poirot, unlucky

 

Poirot- The Famous Belgian Detective, better than Ustinov. David Suchet completely embodies Poirot and the murder-mysteries he takes part in are a joy to behold. It's a shame it's finally coming to an end but I really want to watch the last episode as it is a bitter sweet twist to the whole story line.

 

Hamish MacBeth was excellent and a little dark iirc lots of supernaturally stuff in there as well as a bone idle, not wanting promotion copper. I completely forgot about the Rockford Files as well, balls! It's brilliant stuff, took over from the likes of Petrocelli and a n other show that may or may not make the list in the BBC afternoon slot. The interplay between Jim and his dad, Rocky took it a step above, and has been riffed on in series like Nash Bridges since.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

I voted for Hamish Macbeth. The tv show was great, but never read the books. M.C Beaton is not the most politically correct writer. It is full of stuff like "She deserved a slap because she was a woman" and "Never trust a gypsy they are all thieves"

 

The TV show was quality, Robert Carlyle was superb in it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

47)

 

"No matter how gruesome or horrible the murder, you can always find someone who'll buy the house."

 

American-Horror-Story-Asylum.jpg

 

American Horror Story

 

 

Voted number 1? No.

 

What's it about?

 

Each season is a different story with new characters and a beginning, middle and end but the overall themes seem to be haunted houses, the criminally insane, sex and brutal murder. From the creators of Glee!

 

What do you say?

 

"Absolutely motherfucking crazy. But brilliant. Some shows have one of those insanely over the top moments that make idiots who wank over their own farts go “Aaaand we've just jumped the shark,” every now and then, but AHS does that shit that multiple times every week, and they pull it the fuck off. It's not even a “so bad it's good,” as it's just really, really great. Utterly insane, but really, really great."

 

"What started as a seemingly obvious affair-induced family new start on the other side if the country-style series, this soon proved itself to be something different. It was somewhat disturbing in places with characters including the PVC-clad gimp, the mistress hell-bent on revenge and the not-quite-so-normal next door neighbour all playing their roles so perfectly that it left the viewer thirsty for more than an hour-long episode each week. Wacky meets ghoulish - aliens, Nazis, psychopaths, lesbians, this series had it all. The way it mixed the bizarre with everyday life was brilliantly done where you, as a viewer, weren't even sure what was real and what was an hallucination. The Name Game episode is a particular stand-out."

 

Clips!

Season 1 trailer

Asylum - Opening...very Se7en-ish

Edited by LaGoosh
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

Wow surprised X-Files didn't figure higher. I loved the monster a week stuff but tuned out after a couple of seasons so it was never getting on my list but I have friends who were obsessed with that show. Thought the UKFF would have more love for it. This is going to be a very interesting list.

 

This project has done me good already. I was shame faced into starting Breaking Bad yesterday when I was writing up my list. I'm now on season 2 episode 3 within a day. Its pretty good so far. I think next I have to do Twin Peaks. I've always been ashamed that I haven't watched that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...