I was thinking a bit about The Sopranos yesterday, in relation to a question I have for discussion: "Judged solely by its worst episode, what is the best TV series?"
So, The Sopranos, for example, gets judged based on 'Christopher' (the Columbus Day episode), not on say 'Pine Barrens', and The Simpsons gets judged on 'Lisa Goes Gaga', not…
I was thinking a bit about The Sopranos yesterday, in relation to a question I have for discussion: "Judged solely by its worst episode, what is the best TV series?"
So, The Sopranos, for example, gets judged based on 'Christopher' (the Columbus Day episode), not on say 'Pine Barrens', and The Simpsons gets judged on 'Lisa Goes Gaga', not 'Last Exit to Springfield', etc. My two thoughts for shows that are in the mix are Fawlty Towers, and Bluey, but I'm interested to hear of others' suggestions.
On the one hand, you could say the boring answer to this is The Wire, which has no outright stinkers, and even in that bumpier final season was still extremely consistent. On the other hand, The Wire isn't really a show you judge based on episodes, so it's not that.
This is interesting. I might next be inclined to say Breaking Bad, which is also remarkably consistent and has no overtly bad episodes, even if I don't like some specific choices (like Mike's decision-making in his final appearance). But the question isn't "Which show didn't really have bad epsiodes?" but rather "Which show had the best worst episode?" And... I yield the floor to the group on this, I think.
It's fun thinking about which of my favorite shows had great episodes across the board. (So really I only know how to answer "Which show didn't really have bad epsiodes?", which, as Alan says, isn't really the question.) As has already been said, the series with the low episode counts have an advantage. I came up with:
The Wire
Halt and Catch Fire
Party Down
My So-Called Life
Broad City
Detectorists
Fleabag
Brockmire
NewsRadio is interesting because it's one of my favorite shows, and I think that every episode is a gem. ...Except that two of the episodes are truly terrible. Just so, so awful. So I guess NewsRadio would be my answer to what show had the highest highs and the lowest lows with nothing in between.
The terrible NewsRadio episodes. Well, the first one is terrible. The second one is only pretty bad, which undermines my argument.
S3 E7 Daydream - "A hot day and a broken air conditioner cause the thoughts of every character to drift"
S4 E7 Catherine Moves On - "Catherine announces she is leaving WNYX"
I love this question, and this is probably going to be my whole day now. I feel like most of my answers would be one-hit wonders like Firefly or Wonderfalls, but that kinda feels like cheating, so I think my snap pick in the longish-running category would be BCS.
I was thinking a bit about The Sopranos yesterday, in relation to a question I have for discussion: "Judged solely by its worst episode, what is the best TV series?"
So, The Sopranos, for example, gets judged based on 'Christopher' (the Columbus Day episode), not on say 'Pine Barrens', and The Simpsons gets judged on 'Lisa Goes Gaga', not 'Last Exit to Springfield', etc. My two thoughts for shows that are in the mix are Fawlty Towers, and Bluey, but I'm interested to hear of others' suggestions.
On the one hand, you could say the boring answer to this is The Wire, which has no outright stinkers, and even in that bumpier final season was still extremely consistent. On the other hand, The Wire isn't really a show you judge based on episodes, so it's not that.
This is interesting. I might next be inclined to say Breaking Bad, which is also remarkably consistent and has no overtly bad episodes, even if I don't like some specific choices (like Mike's decision-making in his final appearance). But the question isn't "Which show didn't really have bad epsiodes?" but rather "Which show had the best worst episode?" And... I yield the floor to the group on this, I think.
For me, Breaking Bad would be number one with a bullet if it wasn't for the finale.
It's fun thinking about which of my favorite shows had great episodes across the board. (So really I only know how to answer "Which show didn't really have bad epsiodes?", which, as Alan says, isn't really the question.) As has already been said, the series with the low episode counts have an advantage. I came up with:
The Wire
Halt and Catch Fire
Party Down
My So-Called Life
Broad City
Detectorists
Fleabag
Brockmire
NewsRadio is interesting because it's one of my favorite shows, and I think that every episode is a gem. ...Except that two of the episodes are truly terrible. Just so, so awful. So I guess NewsRadio would be my answer to what show had the highest highs and the lowest lows with nothing in between.
The terrible NewsRadio episodes. Well, the first one is terrible. The second one is only pretty bad, which undermines my argument.
S3 E7 Daydream - "A hot day and a broken air conditioner cause the thoughts of every character to drift"
S4 E7 Catherine Moves On - "Catherine announces she is leaving WNYX"
I love this question, and this is probably going to be my whole day now. I feel like most of my answers would be one-hit wonders like Firefly or Wonderfalls, but that kinda feels like cheating, so I think my snap pick in the longish-running category would be BCS.