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TOP TEN TV SERIES TO TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND

Index



4. The West Wing

TheWestWing

(1999 – 2006. NBC. United States. 156 episodes.)

If you ever despaired about how we have been continually scolded for being ignorant about social studies and civics, a few episodes of the political drama The West Wing will get you back up to speed. And thanks to writer and series creator Aaron Sorkin's patented rapid-fire approach, you did need to pay attention to keep up. Originally centered on the key staff members to fictional Democratic President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen), The West Wing provided a fairly realistic—if dubiously idealistic—behind-the-scenes look at governance from the nation's highest political office, often pulling real-life events and personalities into fictionalized accounts that were smart, riveting, and, for the most part, plausible. (We'll leave aside the kidnapping of Bartlet's daughter for now.)

Fumbling for style and pace, the first season was shaky and snarky, but by the second season The West Wing hit its stride, delivering intelligent, adult drama illustrating how many people, regardless of their political stripe, wished the country could be run, even if the series' original focus, Rob Lowe (as speechwriter Sam Seborn), had exited the show; this left Allison Janney (press secretary C.J. Cregg), Richard Schiff (communications director Toby Ziegler), John Spencer (chief of staff Leo McGarry), and Bradley Whitford (assistant chief of staff Josh Lyman) as the show's core (although, sadly, Spencer died in 2005). By the fifth season, Sorkin and producer Thomas Schlamme had left, buffeting the series' run until its demise although The West Wing was anything but a lame duck, finishing with a flourish that included added cast members Alan Alda as Arnold Vinick, a Republican presidential candidate, Jimmy Smits as Matt Santos, Bartlet's eventual successor, and, as Matt's wife Helen, Teri Polo (AKA the Angel of Death—Polo has appeared as a guest or new regular in a number of series nearing their demise, including Monk, Northern Exposure, and Sports Night). Thoughtful and topical, The West Wing still gets my vote.

3. Danger Man / The Prisoner

Danger Man

(1960 – 1962, 1964 – 1966. ITV. Britain. 86 episodes.) / (1967 – 1968. ITV. Britain. 17 episodes.)

If it looks as if I'm trying to squeeze two series into one slot, that's probably true. I'll explain. Both Danger Man and The Prisoner feature the same actor, Patrick McGoohan, possibly playing the same character (although I highly doubt it), and both shows were produced and aired by the same channel, Britain's Independent Television (ITV). Furthermore, The Prisoner had been designed as a limited-run series, so I'm treating it as a miniseries bonus to Danger Man. With me so far? No? All right, I'll continue.

McGoohan debuted as John Drake, a NATO secret agent, in the original (1960-62) run of Danger Man, a taut, well-executed, half-hour spy drama. Danger Man presaged the 1960s mania for spy shows from Mission: Impossible to Get Smart, with charming and resourceful Drake a thinking man's operative not afraid to duke it out. (McGoohan had been initially offered the role of James Bond; obviously, he refused.) Danger Man returned in 1964 (now called Secret Agent for the American market, with Johnny Rivers's theme song "Secret Agent Man" still a nostalgic favorite) in a one-hour format to expand the intrigue and character development, and with Drake now an operative for Britain's "M9" (a nod to Britain's actual MI6). Those typically smart episodes included "Colony Three," with Drake infiltrating a secret training village on the other side of the Iron Curtain, a seeming preview for The Prisoner.

The Prisoner

Tired of the standard spy formula, McGoohan instead wanted to produce a show that explored the individual's freedom in modern society. Enter The Prisoner, in which McGoohan played a British spy who angrily resigns his post and is then kidnapped and taken to the Village, a scenic prison where all the Villagers are known only by a number (he is Number Six)—and who is running the Village, for "which side," and for what purpose formed the show's dramatic tension.

Provocative, enigmatic, and compelling, The Prisoner examined questions of freedom, power, and control, and it has dated very little because it focused on the psychological dynamics of the adversaries rather than actual events or personalities. The series' 17 episodes were split among escape bids ("The Chimes of Big Ben," "Many Happy Returns"), Number Six's resistance to his captors' attempts at mind control and manipulation ("A, B, and C," "The Schizoid Man," and "Living in Harmony," with its striking Western motif), and his efforts to turn the tables on his captors ("Free for All," "Hammer into Anvil"). Debate has raged for decades as to whether Number Six was actually John Drake from Danger Man—and The Prisoner does offer tantalizing allusions to McGoohan's previous show—but in the last analysis Number Six remains a unique icon. The Prisoner's Kafkaesque "wilderness of mirrors" approach influenced later TV shows like The X Files and Lost, and despite a few outmoded details and a (perhaps deliberately) messy, bizarre final episode ("Fall Out"), it is still one of the most revelatory television series ever.

All make sense now? Right, be seeing you.

2. Doctor Who [Original series]

Doctor Who Logo 1973

(1963 – 1989. BBC. Britain. 693 episodes.)

With its multi-episode stories and cliffhanger endings, the original Doctor Who was a family-oriented serial designed to interest youngsters in science and history through the adventures of the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who traveled the universe in his TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) space-time machine. The original series was short on two vital commodities—time and money—and modern audiences might scoff at the low-budget props, costumes, sets, and special effects, which means they might also miss the imaginative stories and striking characters—particularly monsters such as the Daleks, which became Doctor Who icons—that came to epitomize this endearing science-fiction series.

During its original run, the Doctor was played by seven different actors, with changes explained as the centuries-old Doctor's "regeneration," or rebirth. Each Doctor had his distinct personality, which kept Doctor Who lively if somewhat uneven. Doctor Who hit its high-water mark in the 1970s: Despite then-producer Barry Letts's penchant for sprawling stories and a preceding storyline circumstance that kept the Doctor largely earthbound, Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor came on like a dashing superhero in exciting stories that dealt with technological arrogance ("Doctor Who and the Silurians") and environmental degradation ("The Green Death"), while battling his enemies the Daleks, relentless and merciless armored creatures bent on intergalactic domination, in "Planet of the Daleks" and "Death to the Daleks," as well as his arch-nemesis the renegade Time Lord the Master (Roger Delgado) in "Terror of the Autons," "The Daemons," "The Sea Devils," and several other episodes..

The Doctor best-known to American audiences, Fourth Doctor Tom Baker began under producer Philip Hinchcliffe, whose darker, more literary stories yielded at least two Who classics in "Genesis of the Daleks," a gripping Dalek origin story, and "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," a sci-fi romp set in Victorian London. Graham Williams produced the six stories of Season 16 (1978–79), arguably the greatest single season of the original series, which formed the Key to Time saga, with Baker's Doctor and another Time Lord, bright and fetching Romana (Mary Tamm), searching for the six pieces to the Key to Time before the Black Guardian found them and plunged the universe into eternal darkness. By the 1980s, though, Doctor Who was running out of gas—although the Seventh Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy, was an overlooked but crucial link to the series' eventual reboot—and finally called it quits in 1989.

Or did it? Doctor Who "rebooted" in 2005 with a big production budget and state-of-the-art special effects, and it even sired a spin-off series, Torchwood. It also introduced romantic attraction between the Doctor and at least two of his female companions. Note: I enjoy the rebooted series, but while it maintains continuity with the previous series, it largely adheres to contemporary convention and lacks the seeming innocence and the charming spit-and-baling-wire approach of the original series. This is why I haven't included it here.

1. Northern Exposure

northern exposure

(1990 – 1995. CBS. United States. 110 episodes.)

"Quirky" was the adjective of choice used to describe this fish-out-of-water dramatic series set in the fictional Alaskan town of Cicely, but while each of the ensemble cast was certainly distinctive, the richly layered characters along with the thoughtful, sophisticated storytelling and, crucially, abiding respect for the audience's intelligence made Northern Exposure one of the greatest dramatic series in American television history, filled with intellectual expansiveness, endearing charm, and emotional complexity.

Mythical, remote Cicely's microcosm comprised diverse individuals, many of whom had come to begin new chapters in their lives. These included New York physician Joel Fleishman (Rob Morrow), recently arrived as Cicely's doctor in a quid pro quo with the state of Alaska for his medical education. This premise catalyzed self-absorbed Joel's rich contrasts and conflicts with the natives, including headstrong bush pilot Maggie O'Connell (Janine Turner), pompous astronaut-tycoon Maurice Minnifield (Barry Corbin), stoic outdoorsman-barkeep Holling Vincoeur (John Cullum), philosophical disc jockey Chris Stevens (John Corbett), wide-eyed, half-breed film buff Ed Chigliak (Darren Burrows), vain but cunning beauty-contestant waitress Shelly Tambo (Cynthia Geary), independent-minded general store proprietor Ruth-Anne Miller (Peg Phillips), and Joel's wise but taciturn Native American office assistant Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine Miles), all of whom provided life lessons at one point or another with involving stories laced with humor and insight.

Indeed, dry wit was crucial to Northern Exposure's strategy: for example, Maggie's former boyfriends all died under odd circumstances, including one who was hit by a falling satellite ("Slow Dance"), while Maggie and Joel's stormy courtship climaxes in one of the nuttiest TV seductions ever ("Ill Wind"). Yet for all the left-field "quirkiness," the series' forte was conveying the rich and varied nuances of interpersonal relationships—this was very much a character-driven show—and even when Northern Exposure stretched into dream sequences ("Mr. Sandman," in which the aurora borealis causes townsfolk to have each others' dreams), magical realism (in "Fish Story," Joel, conflicted about his relationship with Maggie, is swallowed by a giant sturgeon along with his New York City rabbi), and historical flashback ("Zarya" details an abortive summit meeting in Cicely between Lenin and Princess Anastasia during the time of revolutionary Russia), it remained of a piece with an ensemble cast exploring the richness of human interaction.

For example, Joel receives a humbling reminder about dying and death in the moving "First Snow," which also sees a sobering revelation about Maurice and Shelly's prior relationship. "Three Doctors" finds Joel finally assimilated, via "glacier dropsy," with Cicely as Ed receives the calling to be a shaman. And in the final-season episode "The Quest," a gem of magical realism modeled on Joseph Campbell's "hero's journey" paradigm and arguably the greatest Northern Exposure episode, Joel and Maggie reconcile their long and stormy relationship as Joel returns to New York. Morrow did leave the show, and Northern Exposure limped onto its demise, losing its sparkle as exemplified by the disappointing finale "Tranquility Base."

Better to recall a quintessential Northern moment from "A-Hunting We Will Go": When Ed takes elderly Ruth-Anne to the hilltop burial plot he got her for her birthday, Ruth-Anne suggests that they dance—how often, she smiles, do you get the opportunity to dance on your own grave? And they do, to joyous music on the soundtrack. "Quirky," yes—but beautifully uplifting, too. Just like Northern Exposure.

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Last modified on Thursday, 22 March 2018 01:54

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