Leaving aside the picky ramifications of the whole "desert island" metaphor, I chose my ten television shows the same way I chose my movies—the channel-surf stop test—as I outlined in my list of desert-island movies.
However, I have to admit that while I've certainly spent my share of hours in front of the boob tube, and have certainly stopped to watch episodes of any number of shows from Mister Ed to Law and Order: Criminal Intent to Doc Martin, I've found that over the years there are actually very few television series that I find truly memorable enough to want to examine them again. That combines with the "phases" or "infatuations" I will go through with shows (recent ones have included Arrested Development and Malcolm in the Middle), but like a summer crush their appeal leaves me soon enough, and I let them go without missing them too much.
Furthermore, I simply haven't kept up with current programming in the last several years. People rave to me about shows they love such as Breaking Bad, Dexter, or Mad Men, and they all look very engaging, but I have become very selective in the amount and kinds of television I watch.
Make no mistake: I'm from the school that believes that the top-line television programs have gotten better in the last couple of decades compared to decades past, dating back to when former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow famously declared in 1961 that television was "a vast wasteland." In an age with an explosion of cable and satellite channels to choose from, the proportion of quality shows to crappy shows has probably mushroomed in favor of the latter—how else to explain Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo?—but the best shows display tremendous talent and creativity, indicating that there is indeed continuous improvement.
Finally, though, I simply don't have time anymore to spend hours at a single sitting watching television. So, in choosing the ten television series for a desert island, I have kept with the series that have stuck with me over the years. Presented in reverse order of preference.
10. Nova
(1974 – present. PBS. United States)To call Nova simply a "science show" is to call the Smithsonian simply a "museum": Yes, Nova covers typical science topics ranging from the structure of DNA to the structure of the universe, but just as the Smithsonian reflects just about every aspect of American life, Nova has reflected just about every aspect of life, the universe, and everything over its long television tenure. Along with branches of science from astronomy to zoology, Nova encompasses history, sociology, and anthropology in its quest to explore the natural (and sometimes supernatural) universe, emphasizing human interest and thus broadening its appeal to viewers who might find "science" too brainy or too boring.
Using a mix of talking heads, documentary footage, and animation, each episode tells a smooth story, using broad strokes to paint the framework in order to acquaint viewers with the overall premise before narrowing the focus to key details of the explanation. This usually produces an insight that helps the uninitiated understand the subject or that reveals new information or interpretations to expand existing knowledge. (Nova now points viewers to its website to learn more about the subject.) And even though not every topic will be of interest to everyone, you might find yourself surprised at how easily Nova pulls you into something you thought you'd never care to know.
9. BBC World News / BBC World News America
(1991 – present. BBC; PBS [in United States]. Britain.)It's an indication of how trivial and provincial American news broadcasting has become that you need to rely on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to learn not only what's going on in the rest of the world, but sometimes even what's going on in the United States if it doesn't involve a tawdry celebrity scandal. BBC World News (and the targeted BBC World News America) simply reports on the major news stories around the world, which might be a surprise to viewers who don't realize that events happen in Asia, Africa, and South America that don't always have to involve Americans.
BBC News properly insists on calling its on-air personalities "news presenters," but those "presenters" have journalistic instincts and general knowledge superior to American "anchors" and "reporters," which results in informed, intelligent discussion that assumes that the audience is informed and intelligent as well. The concept of "objective journalism" is a myth, and BBC World News is not free from bias (it is regularly accused by Israel's supporters of being "pro-Palestinian," which I take to mean that the BBC thinks the Palestinians are people who have a side of the story too), but minute-for-minute, you won't find a more substantial news program anywhere else. And every day you come away with a little better understanding of our complex world.
I'd also tack onto the schedule the BBC Newsnight program, a weekly, half-hour, in-depth examination of selected news stories.
8. Corner Gas
(2004 – 2009. CTV. Canada. 107 episodes.)This ensemble comedy, the Seinfeld of the Great White North, injected freshness and originality along with a deadpan prairie spin into its fish-out-of-water premise. Set in fictional Dog River, Saskatchewan, Corner Gas was based around Corner Gas station owner Brent Leroy (Brent Butt) and Toronto transplant Lacey Burrows (Gabrielle Miller), who inherited The Ruby, the diner that adjoins Corner Gas. Supporting them were an array of wryly colorful locals, from Brent's sarcastic, college-educated cashier Wanda (Nancy Robertson), his ornery parents Oscar (Eric Peterson) and Emma (Janet Wright), and bumbling slacker buddy Hank (Fred Ewanuick) to the town's Laurel and Hardy-like police duo Davis (Lorne Cardinal) and Karen (Tara Spencer-Nairn).
Similar to Seinfeld, each episode featured intersecting story threads, often with a droll finish; everyone was conversant in cultural references; and every character had occasionally annoying personality traits. Where Corner Gas parted company was with its gentler approach, offhand fantasy sequences, and stunt casting of Canadian cultural and political figures. Foregoing a live audience or a laugh track, the show's relaxed, offbeat approach didn't belabor punchlines and it didn't linger for the laugh. And Corner Gas struck an admirable balance between everyone's mutual antagonism and their grudging affection. Kind of like your family and friends, eh?
7. Barney Miller
(1975 – 1982. ABC. United States. 168 episodes.)More so than any other 1970s studio-bound series filmed before a live audience, Barney Miller had a very stagy manner: This was particularly so in the first couple of seasons, in which the actors' set-pieces, notably ones by Abe Vigoda's aging Detective Philip K. Fish, were executed with that crowd-pleasing, theatrical affect, and it continued through the series' run as the last few seasons featured one set, the detectives' squad room, almost exclusively. Not that it detracted from the show's droll dialog and thoughtful approach that deftly combined bright humor with gritty realism to emerge as one of the finest police shows in television history.
New York City Police Captain Barney Miller (Hal Linden) headed the 12th Precinct, a grimy, run-down Greenwich Village police station through which passed daily an array of arrestees from shoplifters and prostitutes to mad bombers and werewolves (or at least a man who thought he was one). Under his command were detectives Fish, kvetching his way toward retirement; Stan Wojciehowicz (Max Gail), gung-ho and a low-key womanizer; Ron Harris (Ron Glass), an urbane aspiring writer; Nick Yemana (Jack Soo), inveterate gambler and bad-coffee maker; and Arthur Dietrich (Steve Landesberg), the deadpanning intellectual. With consistently sharp writing and closely rendered performances that neatly underscored the mundane daily routine of police work along with the officers' fallibility—these were no glamorous supercops but neither were they Keystone Kops—Barney Miller remains a superlative ensemble comedy-drama.
6. Kolchak: The Night Stalker
(1974 – 1975. ABC. United States. 22 episodes [includes 2 pilot movies].)The music over the opening credits to Kolchak: The Night Stalker begins with a bright, cheerful melody and ends with a dark, ominous tone, signaling that beneath our benign natural world lurk malevolent, supernatural forces. Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) is an itinerant but intrepid reporter who keeps stumbling upon unearthly phenomena but can't convince the police or his editor, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland), of their existence. The brief series offered essentially a monster-of-the-week format ranging from standard ghouls (zombies, a werewolf, vampires) to exotic entities from the East Indian Rakshasa (a deadly beast that took the form of the victim's most trusted intimate) to murderous mannequins, a beheaded biker, and an out-of-this-world, marrow-eating unseen force.
A meager budget meant minimal costumes and special effects, so the show's ghastly encounters look positively ludicrous by today's standards. The show, and McGavin, knew it; they labored to inject wit and intelligence into the premises, attaining a fairly high success ratio. (David Chase, later of Northern Exposure and The Sopranos, was one of the writers.) McGavin, though, sold it: Kolchak was by turns skeptical but credulous, brash but persuasive, ultimately coming up empty-handed but relentless nevertheless, the precursor to Fox Mulder in The X Files (and it's no coincidence that McGavin twice guest-starred on that show), with Oakland an engaging foil à la Mulder's sparring partner, skeptical Dana Scully. The series was preceded by two TV movies whose popularity fostered the series, with the first one, The Night Stalker, being the better of the two. (Vampires in Las Vegas—who'd a-thunk it?)
5. Lost
(2004 – 2010. ABC. United States. 121 episodes.)One of the first truly 21st-century series, Lost broke free of most storytelling conventions while responding to its fan base's largely internet-based feedback, becoming as close to an interactive TV dramatic series as we've yet seen. It didn't hurt that this sci-fi thriller began with an explosive premise—a jet airliner crashes on a tropical island, with the survivors now forced to adapt to being marooned on a most unusual island—and then it parsed out tantalizing clues as to much, much bigger things controlling the survivors' destiny, provoking profound questions of both existential and spiritual reality.
Despite the superior writing and execution, there did come a point where one had to wonder: Are they just making this up as they go along? By abandoning even its own internal logic, at least as revealed to viewers, Lost became by definition untrustworthy, and viewers just simply had to go along for the ride to see how it all turned out. (It could be that the show's creative element was simply trying to stay one step ahead of the increasingly rampant internet speculation.) Still, the bravura blending of crime story, science fact and fiction, magical realism, political intrigue, romance, and Gilligan's Island Meets the Prisoner made Lost one of the most fascinating television series ever, with Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) becoming one of TV's most memorable villains. Chalk one up for the Dharma Initiative!
4. The West Wing
(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
(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.
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]
(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
(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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