The New York Times has released its rankings, to much umbrage on social media — which of course was largely the point. This content is designed to stir engagement even if that engagement is mostly outrage. No point lamenting this at length since it’s the water we have been swimming in for most of my adult life at this point. Besides, I get the business incentives.
But it’s still, of course, a mostly bad list. In addition to harvesting clicks, the ranking does lots of other predictable ideological work. It’s rationing out plaudits to different favored demographic and sociocultural in-groups and themes as much as it’s attempting to measure artistry or entertainment value.
Excluding shows I have not seen enough of (and they are legion) I would say the worst choices are:
(4) Succession: A showcase for talented actors and clever writing, but the latter is inevitably too clever by half and, like the next choice, it exists almost entirely to flatter the half-cocked pieties of pinot-sippers on the coasts.
(7) Veep: See above. Funny moments for sure but way too high.
(14) Friday Night Lights had legitimately terrible seasons in the middle due, as I recall, to network interference. Too high.
(27)/(28) Better Call Saul and Band of Brothers: These are egregious and outrageous. (BoB was a miniseries, so I can see dinging it a little bit for brevity, but the total runtime of the British Office is something like seven hours end to end, and it comes in at No. 16 on the list while the American Office comes in at No. 11. There’s no universe in which the American Office is a better show pound-for-pound, so the edge here is clearly for quantity.)
As for Better Call Saul, there are days when I think it was better than Breaking Bad, which comes in at No. 1 on the Times list.
(74) The Bear — I have never watched so much of a show that I hate so much. I don’t know what compelled me. There are like three good episodes, and they all involve recurring Jamie Lee Curtis and guest stars. I don’t care about any of the regulars besides Richie, and I actively loathe most of them.
(77)/(97) Modern Family and Community — Modern Family is one of the most consistent sitcoms of all time, and it was probably the last mockumentary-style sitcom that should have ever been made. It also performed an admirable cultural service in finding middle ground between what we’d call normie and woke politics. Community was created by one loathsome jerk in Dan Harmon and co-starred another in Chevy Chase, but both are very good at what they do, and that show has some of the most memorable episodes of any on the list.
Not on the list? New Girl, which deserved a spot on the back half. Is it precious and twee? Yes. But also the male leads are hilarious, and the female leads charming, hot, and also very funny. It’s basically the Millennial sitcom, and my people are offended by its exclusion. Also Party Down should have gotten a spot somewhere in there both on its own merits and for launching and sustaining a bunch of careers that provided lots of laughs and pathos.