Dec. 30, 2009 - Issue #741: 10

BEST TV OF THE 2000s

In 2000, there was no HDTV or flat-screen, most Canadians had only basic cable and most shows we watched lasted about 22 weeks’ worth of new episodes. Now, improbably in (but perhaps because of) the era of YouTube, it’s become another golden age for the boob tube, a time of seasons on DVD or episodes streamed online (legally or not). But did the change in the medium lead to a change in the message?

Not really. Reality TV took off, perhaps largely because of its Internet-voyeurism quality, but series continued, on the main networks, to be pretty dull hospital, lawyer, cop, or sitcom fare. There were two genuine Canadian hits—the smooth but downhome, small-town comedy, Corner Gas, while the coarser comedy of Trailer Park Boys showcased low-level schemers on the other side of the tracks.

HBO, on the rise in the ’90s, peaked creatively as its strategy of rebroadcasting films to bankroll its less lucrative original programming paid off—thanks to critical buzz and the popularity of shows on their DVD releases and in syndication on main networks. Even HBO’s less acclaimed shows—Tell Me You Love Me, showing the cringingly real self-absorptions of relationships; Flight of the Conchords, far less contrived in its quirkiness than the overpraised Arrested Development; Hung, finding a downtrodden comedy in the economic collapse—trumped its nearest rival, Showtime, whose series never had the production values, camerawork and character nuances that made HBO’s shows feel like they existed in the real world, a little rough around the edges but lived-in. Other cable series in the 2000s increasingly stole from The Sopranos’ conceit and ran with it, showing middle-class folks crossing legal lines to get by, but HBO’s shows remained never just escapist, water-cooler entertainment, but serious art with a populist energy that rejuvenated TV’s throwback appeal of a serialized novel, making you want to tune in week after week—or rent disc after disc, or download episode after episode.

Best TV of 2000s:

1. The Wire (HBO, 2002-2008; created by David Simon)
A five-season dissection of urban America, in the guise of Baltimore, placed under the microscope for all to see its racial tensions, back-alley and office-tower crime and steadily sprawling grey zones between right and wrong. Cynicism and police-desk humour battled with a police chief’s hope for a schoolkid avoiding the corners or a cop singing a lullaby to her son about the ’hood below their window. Featured the most fascinating anti-hero (Omar Little) and one of the most achingly struggling characters (drug addict Bubbles) on TV. Plus a great opening song riffed on by different musicians each season (Steve Earle, the Blind Boys of Alabama and others). The third season, with its war on drugs, or fourth season, focusing on education and the fates of four teenage boys, may be the best, but the second season, on the city’s dockside, is particularly underappreciated in its look at a working-class America that’s rusting away.

2. The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007; David Chase)
Only second on this list because of the weak episode “Keisha,” this series was otherwise an astonishingly incisive satire of the American Dream, culminating in what may be the best final season of any TV series, as Tony Soprano descends through unspoken dread and fear into the lurching limbo of that controversial and brilliant last scene in the family diner. You don’t get any easy closure when America has corrupted its supposed values this brutally, Chase reminds us, and the economic collapse a year later echoed the show’s outlook, except without any of its rich black humour (who can forget “Pine Barrens”?). Gandolfini and Falco were brilliant as husband and wife bonded, and bound, by money and comfort. Even one of the weaker seasons (three) had the decade’s two most searing hours of television: “Employee of the Month” and “University.”

3. Carnivàle (HBO, 2003-2005; Daniel Knauf)
Cancelled after two seasons because of production costs—the Depression-era dirt and dust was too expensive to throw around, literally—the rich period detail and mysterious fantasy world that this show, set in the ’30s, slowly paraded out made it a fascinating mix of the gritty and surreal. Plus sexual complexity and female fieriness (from a bearded lady and a paralyzed psychic to a darkly supportive sister and a defiant daughter), along with great character acting.

4. The Office (BBC, 2001-03; Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant)
Cringe-comedy right out in front of the water-cooler, with the added element of a mockumentary. Gervais was perfectly squirm-inducing as a man always trying to be funny among the cubicles, while Mackenzie Crook was perfect as the thin, Uriah Heep-like second-in-command at their paper company in woeful Slough. The touching romance between Tim and Dawn only made boss David Brent, impossible to love, all the more likably unlikeable. A two-season, brilliant sprint of a series, unlike the still running marathon of the good American remake.

5. Saxondale (BBC, 2006-07; Steve Coogan)
From the man who pioneered cringe-comedy (with The Alan Partridge Show), this ingeniously written series, also just two seasons, was a supremely nuanced look at a former roadie turned pest-controller, living in a suburb and going to anger-management classes at the local library. Half-blind to his faults but strangely likeable in his middle-aged decline, Tommy Saxondale (Coogan) is the “bit of a dick” that we all are at times. Although he’s probably the only dick who tries to use the life of Sid Vicious for an inspirational speech or gets routinely flummoxed by the cackling wit of his bottle-blonde, gum-chewing secretary.

6. Malcolm in the Middle (Fox, 2000-06; Linwood Boomer)
A superb series finale reminded us that this was a show about a rag-tag, lower-class family ... held together by a daffy father and lay-down-the-law mother, superbly played by Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek. It’s hard to make a family sitcom never twee, never grating, never sentimental and never predictable, but this show did all that and more, always tweaking the nose of family values. Not to mention hitting stylistic high-points with “Bowling,” deftly questioning patriotism with Hal’s idiotic “Pearl Harbour Day,” or climbing up from the gutter (the boys are entranced by, then vandalize a strip club ad) to reach for political thoughtfulness (the boys become committed to feminism) in “Billboard.” Even “Hal’s Christmas Present” unwrapped Christmas-episode convention.

7. Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness (ITV, 2003; writ. Peter Berry, dir. Tom Hooper)
The whole series was one of the best police dramas ever made, and Detective Jane Tennyson (an increasingly beaten-down Helen Mirren) went out with an excellent closer in PS7, but this penultimate instalment was riveting in its descent into underground immigrant-work in London and then a war crime 10 years earlier in Yugoslavia. The just-around-the-corner camerawork didn’t let the suspense up for a second.

8. Intelligence (CBC, 2006-07; Chris Haddock)
Easy but foolish to dismiss as Sopranos-lite, with a pot-king (Ian Tracey) working out of a strip-club in Vancouver, this cross-border, back-alley thriller series shifted loyalties constantly and stabbed a dozen different backs, as everyone got sucked into the CSIS informer network overseen by Mary Spalding (Klea Scott). Far and away the best Canadian show of the decade, and the cliffhanger ending of the second season, which proved to be the ending to the series—given CBC’s stupid cancellation decision soon after—was strangely satisfying.

9. In Treatment (HBO, 2008- ; Rodrigo Garcia)
Adapted from the Israeli series BeTipul, this show turns HBO’s seemingly favourite theme, therapy, into a world of the wounded, some seeking psychological counselling as an easy out, others returning for its glimmer of slight relief. Byrne’s steady calm and patient inquiry pull you in to each character’s aching problem (perhaps all the more realistically strained because of the apparently exhausting shooting schedule). Every episode’s showed that two people just openly talking to each other can be human drama in its most potently distilled form.

10. The Colbert Report (Comedy Central, 2005- ; Stephen Colbert and his writing staff)
A consistently hilarious use of a narcissistic right-wing pundit persona to turn the blathering conservative shout-osphere inside-out, and so cleverly done that even Bill O’Reilly (“Papa Bear”) came on for an interview. The brilliant side-note feature “The Word” and the self versus self segment “Formidable Opponent” show this kind of Swiftian, funhouse-mirror satire at its best. And though it wasn’t part of the show, Colbert’s speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner may be the most brilliant fifteen-minutes-of-shaming ever seen, with Dubya sitting there, dead in the man’s sights. This past year, though, particularly after a muddled show for the troops in Iraq, Colbert has lost some of his full-on force.

Also Essential Viewing: Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008- ; Vince Gilligan); Big Love (HBO, 2006- ; Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer); Mad Men (AMC, 2007- ; Matthew Weiner); Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO, 2000- ; Larry David); The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1999- ; Jon Stewart and his writing staff)

 

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