A few days ago, I was thumbing through a magazine and noticed a list someone made of the 100 best TV shows of all time. This was not a universally acknowledged compilation based on ratings or reviews, but only the opinions of a writer for that specific publication (and, presumably, his fellow co-workers). Admittedly, it's not a bad list, but it does reflect the age of the people who put it together. With that in mind, I decided to make my own list, partly because I don't have anything better to do with my time this week, and partly because I just wanted to make a list that isn't a grocery list. First, and most importantly, there will not be 100 TV shows on my list, although I originally considered it. Now that I've narrowed it down to a more manageable 25, I can proceed, adding a nominal (but not really) bit of commentary with regards to each show. These are my personal favorites, and not based on critical opinions, awards or overall popularity. Also, I have not seen many--or maybe even most--of the currently acclaimed series from HBO Max, Showtime, Apple TV, or the plethora of other streamers, because we only subscribe to Netflix and Prime (which is oft-times two too many) and the shows I have seen from other sources are on DVDs and Blu-rays we've watched. Now that my cards are on the table, let's take a look at this list that should tell you something about my viewing habits from childhood to the present day.
#25 - Nip/Tuck (2003-10, FX): Two brilliant plastic surgeons, one a dissolute man-ho (Julian McMahon), the other a flailing family man courting disaster (Dylan Walsh), beautify the beautiful people while bed-hopping and drugging their way from Miami Beach to Beverly Hills. It's a Ryan Murphy joint so expect a certain element of campiness added to the intrigue.
#24 - House of Cards (2013-18, Netflix): A pre-cancelled Kevin Spacey dominates as the venal U.S. Prez in this riveting, darkly comic political thriller that is both Shakespearean in scope and relentless in its presentation of the dark heart of American politics. Robin Wright is excellent as the morally flexible First Lady/Lady Macbeth.
#23 - All My Children (1970-2011, ABC): Susan Lucci as Erica Kane. Ruth Warrick as Phoebe Tyler Wallingford. The grandest dames in all of daytime soap. Scandals, trials, unwanted pregnancies, illicit affairs, murders, kidnappings and sex trafficking are just some of the sordid going ons beneath the placid, smalltown veneer of Pine Valley USA. This unlikeliest of favorites kept me, the boys in my college dorm, and, later, my workmates glued to the TV set during lunch breaks over the course of several decades. RIP to AMC.
#22 - Moonlighting (Pilot and Season 1 1985, ABC): Sure, the show sucked harder with each progressive season, but the delightful pilot and first season are comedy gold as model Cybill Shepherd spars with wisecracking Bruce Willis after her fortunes take a sharp downturn and they enter into an unholy partnership as owners of the Blue Moon Detective Agency. The sexual chemistry between the two leads is off the charts while their behind-the-scenes antipathy was legendary. The show also made a star of Willis. And, oh, that catchy theme song by Al Jarreau! FYI: when I was young, my friends and I went to see Al Jarreau at a concert in the park just to hear him sing that song live. We wound up getting so drunk on cheap wine that I couldn't even remember him coming onto the stage.
#20 - Deadwood (2004-06, HBO): Rugged, nasty and untamed, the old west mecca of Deadwood, South Dakota, roars to life in this exciting, authentic dramatization of good versus evil. Feisty young hardware owner Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) takes over the role of sheriff as he faces off against the Machiavellian manipulations of saloon owner/mob boss Al Swearengen (a brilliantly psychopathic Ian McShane). Also on hand: an uber-butch Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickock, Charlie Utter, and the splendid Brad Dourif as Doc.
#19 - The Jeffersons (1975-85, CBS): Former neighbors of the Bunkers, George and Louise Jefferson find themselves movin' on up to the east side when their dry-cleaning business becomes a big success. Groundbreaking in its portrayal of a prosperous African-American couple, Norman Lear's biting comedy features Sherman Hemsley as the swaggering, mouthy George, and Isabel Sanford as a much put-upon "Weezy". Marla Gibbs was cast as Florence, the sassy, sarcastic housekeeper who became a fan favorite. And, of course, there's that ear-worm of a theme song.
#18 - The Carol Burnett Show (1967-78): Standing head and shoulders above all the other variety shows that once crowded network line-ups, this program featured the wonderfully funny Carol Burnett, a group of uproarious regulars that included Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner and Tim Conway, and a major guest star of the week who usually sang and performed in sketches along with the crew. Favorite episodes include those featuring Mama, Eunice and Ed, and the Gone With the Wind spoof which is sublime.
#17 - Downton Abbey (2010-15, PBS): As news swirls around the sinking of the Titanic, an upper-class British family deals with their own trials and tribulations while the downstairs staff scrambles to make the best of it for everyone. Years go by and shit happens: scandals are weathered, marriages come and go, loved ones are buried, fortunes are made (and lost), and yet everyone somehow manages to keep a stiff upper lip. Maggie Smith is at her Maggie Smithiest as the Grand Dowager of Downton Abbey, and the rest of the cast, upstairs and down, deliver equally formidable performances. Soap opera of the highest order.
#16 - Will and Grace (1998-2006, NBC): Let's face it, the series was never really about Will and Grace. It was the screwball antics of their best buds, Jack--aka JUST JACK!--and wealthy booze-hound Karen, that kept us tuning in. A trailblazing comedy featuring mainstream TV's first gay lead character, the show's plot was decent enough--neurotic single woman, Grace, can't get over her college crush, Will, so she becomes best friends with him--but the over-the-top performances of Sean Hayes and Megan Mullaly made this Must-See TV.
#15 - Schitt'$ Creek (2015-20, CBC, Netflix): The fabulously wealthy Rose family--hard-driving dad, Johnny, tipsy queen bee, Moira, and their two entitled adult children, Alexis and David--find themselves on the skids after Johnny's business manager robs them blind and neglects to pay their taxes. With everything gone or confiscated by the federal government, the Rose's sole remaining resource is a ramshackle, misbegotten town in the middle of nowhere called Schitt's Creek, which may be their last saving grace. Or not. The late Catherine O'Hara shines as Moira, and Eugene Levy, Dan Levy and Annie Murphy round out the rest of this dysfunctional and hilarious family.
#14 - The X-Files (1993-2002, Fox): "The truth is out there!" proclaimed Special Agent Fox Mulder, and boy was he ever right. While the majority of episodes dealt with a colonizing species of aliens--and a shady, government cabal's attempts to cover up their presence--there were also inbred hillbilly mutants, a man-size, sewer-dwelling flukeworm, a freakish, liver-eating contortionist, murderous clones, lizard people, psychics, demons, the Great Mutato and the Cigarette-Smoking Man. Assisted by Special Agent (and M.D.) Dana Scully, the pair tore through the X-Files (the FBI's strangest unsolved cases) placing themselves in frequent danger while becoming one of the small-screen's most enduring will-they-or-won't-they couples. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson made a terrific team.
#13 - The White Lotus (2021-Present, HBO): Who wouldn't want to visit one of the posh White Lotus resorts scattered amongst idyllic locales across the globe? The first season we were in Hawaii, the next in Sicily, and this last season found things heating up in Thailand. The one drawback these resorts all seem to have in common: you may steep yourself in the luxurious rooms, spectacular surroundings, wellness and pampering services, spectacular food and erotic friction--all very well and good--except there's the off-chance that you might not be alive by check-out time. Black comedy, biting satire, and vastly entertaining melodrama--The White Lotus is all these things and more. (More meaning, among other things, ass-eating, mate swapping, conspiracies, gunplay, unexpected demises, and a sticky sort of brotherly love that had jaws dropping in Season 3. Jennifer Coolidge and Parker Posey are perfection!
#12 - The Twilight Zone (1959-64, CBS): Even if you've never seen the show, you've definitely heard the theme music. It is that annoying tune friends "hum" (I don't know what else to call it) when something the slightest bit out of the ordinary occurs. Created and hosted by screenwriter, Rod Serling, this legendary anthology series blended the supernatural with sci-fi, humor, horror and heart. The show frequently tackled such thorny social issues as racism, "fear of the other" conservatism, and misogyny, featuring current and budding stars like Robert Redford, William Shatner, Lee Marvin, Carol Burnett, and Robert Duvall. A true classic that remains relevant today.
#11 - Cheers (1982-93, NBC): Yet another unforgettable theme song introduces this well-loved comedy set in a downstairs bar in downtown Boston (between Boston Common and Beacon Hill; I know, I've been there). Ex-baseball player, skirt-chaser and recovering alcoholic, Sam Malone (Ted Danson), operates Cheers (where everybody knows your name), alongside a crew of quirky bar hands who dole out the booze to long-standing regulars. Sam's verbal jousting with the dazzlingly silly barmaid Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) resulted in an ongoing will-they-or-won't they? storyline that kept viewers wondering. Woody Harrelson had an early role as sweet dum-dum Woody, John Ratzenberger was know-it-all Cliff, and George Wendt made a lasting impression as Norm (NORM!). Kelsey Grammer cut his Frasier Crane teeth on this show while Broadway's Bebe Neuwirth was ice-cold and deadly funny as Frasier's sometime nemesis and later, wife, Lilith. Oddly enough, this series was first aired on Saturday night's at 10:30, at least in my neck of the woods. So, I couldn't go clubbing until after the end credits rolled.
#10 - Ken Burns Documentaries (1990-Present, PBS): If you've even a passing acquaintance with PBS, you've doubtless watched at least one of Ken Burns's heralded documentaries that have kept discerning viewers and critics captivated for decades. With major stars (Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Sam Waterston, my dad's brother, Uncle Don) giving voice to some of the most revered and reviled prominences in history, our nation's background has come alive in Burns's lovingly photographed, intelligently put-together masterpieces such as The American Revolution, The Civil War, The American Buffalo, Jazz, Lewis and Clark, The War, Prohibition, and The Dust Bowl. And let's not forget his biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Jackie Robinson, Leonardo da Vinci, Hemingway and Muhammad Ali. These films are just a fraction of Ken Burns's output, much of which is narrated by the great Peter Coyote. Over many years, Ken Burns has demonstrated a peerless ability to create a body of work of the highest order.
#9 - The Bob Newhart Show (1972-78, CBS): Another one of those Saturday night shows I watched in reruns when I was home from college on summer break. Deadpan, lovably befuddled everyman, Bob Newhart plays a Chicago psychiatrist dealing with an idiosyncratic clientele, as well as oddball colleagues and neighbors. Suzanne Pleshette shines as his archly witty wife, Emily. A sitcom that was neither groundbreaking nor notably unique, it still entertains me nearly 50 years later.
#8 - Frasier (1993-2004, NBC): Say what you will about Kelsey Grammer, he performed the part of Dr. Frasier Crane to perfection. It's important to note that you have to be able to separate the character from the man in order to really appreciate his comic genius. And if you can't, you can't: I get it. But, every time I have tuned in to watch reruns of this series, there's not a moment when he doesn't have me LOLing. Frasier, a recurrent character on the beloved sitcom, Cheers, found the recently divorced Frasier returning to his hometown of Seattle to start a new life dispensing psychiatric advice to listeners on an open-line radio show. Taking his disapproving, blue-collar, ex-cop father, Martin (John Mahoney) under his wing, the pompous Frasier moves into a chic apartment and collects a menagerie of misfits and kooks who keep his life interesting. Frasier, himself, self-important, haughty and oh-so-horny (though tastefully so), is his own worst enemy--and also a buffoon. His equally uppity brother, Niles (David Hyde-Pierce), is also a psychiatrist, which only makes double trouble for both them, and everyone else in their orbit. A very, very funny classic TV show whose reputation has been somewhat tainted by the lead actor's outspoken personal convictions.
#7 - True Detective, Seasons 1 & 4, (2014, 2024, HBO): Wow, this one was difficult. Both the first and fourth seasons of this anthology series were so riveting that, try though I might, I couldn't place one above the other, so I gave it up as a tie. Each season of the series is a self-contained, neo-noir crime thriller. Season 1 features Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as troubled detectives reopening a decade-old investigation into the strange, ritualistic murder of a Louisiana woman. The body's staging and the scattering of occult-like items lead the pair later to suspect that the same killer may still be operating in the area, despite that case being officially declared "solved". Meth heads, bikers and corrupt evangelicals only serve to complicate the investigation, which becomes creepier and more harrowing as events unfold. In Season 4 (Subtitled Night Country), Jodie Foster is cast as the tough, hard-drinking police chief of a small town in the Alaskan Outback. Just north of the Arctic Circle, the inhabitants of Ennis, AK, are settling in for, roughly, 60 days of polar night as the sun disappears below the horizon. After eight scientists disappear from a remote research station, Police Chief Liz Danvers finds herself taking charge of the case but her former partner, State Trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) insists that there is more going on here than meets the eye. A severed tongue and a grisly tableau in the ice seem to confirm her suspicions. Both seasons 1 & 4 offer up a sort of supernatural tinge that makes the situation all the more unsettling. I originally watched this entire season (6 episodes) on a flight back from Paris to the U.S. In a bit of perfect timing, the plane landed in Miami just about the time the season ended.
#6 - The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017-23, Prime): Mrs. Maisel is the role Rachel Brosnahan was born to play! She's pitch perfect as an aspiring stand-up comic treading water in the male-dominated field of entertainers who ruled New York comedy clubs in the late 50's-early 60's. Midge Maisel is a bored uptown housewife supporting her flailing husband's comedy career--which is bombing spectacularly. Hubby Joel (Michael Zegen) can be a sweetheart but he's also a nebbish who sleeps around with other women. When he unexpectedly leaves Midge, she finds herself and her two children adrift in the uptown apartment of her well-to-do parents. Midge's father, Abe Weissman (Tony Shalhoub, Monk), is a cultured, neurotic and overly inquisitive professor at Columbia University while high-maintenance mother Rose (an unrecognizable Marin Hinkle, formerly Alan Harper's wife in Two and a Half Men) climbs the rungs of Jewish New York's social ladder. Midge, eager to move out of her parent's apartment and into her own place, decides to pursue a career as a comic--she's confident that she's far more talented than the luckless Joel. And, eventually, she's proven right, but only after she's hired pint-sized toughie, Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein) as her manager. Along the way, Midge stubbornly (and wittily) faces obstacles head-on while Susie, Joel, the Weinstein's and the Maisel Family keep us laughing as their own lives and careers change over the years.
#5 - Babylon Berlin (2017-Present, Netflix, Sky 1, Das Erste): Set during the waning days of Germany's Weimar Era, Babylon Berlin is not so much a tale of good versus evil--although there is that--but more about those who dwell in the gray areas in between. Produced for German TV, the series relies on expertly translated subtitles so if you're unable to deal with that then you may want to skip over this entry. Oh, and the tone of the show is uncompromisingly bleak. It's late 1920's Berlin. Brownshirt thugs are making life hell for the Jewish citizens of the city, and squalor is everywhere. Competing gangs, spies and terrorists aren't exactly keeping the polizei on their toes, especially since some commingle with the criminals. Meanwhile, the beautiful and the damned dance the night away at the Moka Efti nightclub (a place that actually existed), where the lead entertainer is a cross-dressing countess who keeps things lively while sex workers ply their trade in the back rooms. Gereon Rath, a WW1 vet afflicted with PTSD and addicted to morphine, is one of the few (well, most of the time) honest detectives left in a city overwhelmed by evil forces. For better and for worse, he is the hero who, with the aid of police clerk and part-time sex-worker, Charlotte Ritter (Liv Lisa Fries), takes us through 4 (so far) seasons of conspiracies, madness and murder that builds one upon the other with each successive episode seamlessly segueing into the next. But, as the Nazis come to power, our dynamic duo may meet their match in the true malevolence that has infected their ranks. Will they manage to survive the savagery of the Nazis and turncoats? And will they or won't they just do the deed already?
#4 - Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City (1993, PBS): Sweet. That's the first adjective that comes to mind when I think about Tales of the City, a 3-episode showcase for both the actors, and one of the greatest queer writers of our time. Based on Armistead Maupin's book of the same name, Tales takes us back to the hedonistic LGBT community of late-70's San Francisco, shortly before the specter of AIDS began creeping stealthily into the city. Plucky, naive Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) arrives in San Francisco from Ohio, where her critical mother plans out her future. But Mary Ann isn't having it. On a whim, she calls her shocked mother and tells her that she's decided to remain in San Francisco. Mother isn't happy but Mary Ann hangs up the phone feeling liberated. Looking up former classmate, Connie Bradshaw (a delicious Parker Posey), Mary Ann arranges to stay with her until she can find a job and her own apartment. This arrangement doesn't last long because of Connie's predilection for picking up strange--and I mean strange--men at bars and bringing them home. Luckily, Mary Ann arrives at a charmingly ramshackle apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane and meets Anna Madrigal (Olympia Dukakis) the theatrically flamboyant woman who owns and lives on, the property. Mary Ann is, initially, put off by Anna's free-spirited eccentricity but that doesn't stop her from renting the apartment. From there on, it is a wild ride as Mary Ann begins her new life among a group of (mostly) wonderful strangers. By the end of the series, our characters have bonded and become Mary Ann's "found family", consisting of a crew of gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and, yes, a few hetero characters, the likes of whom straight-laced Mary Ann would never have crossed paths with back home in Ohio. The series pays tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, as Bernard Hermann's familiar score plays over the opening credits. There's also a scene that, after an untimely death, finds Mary Ann and her new best friend, Mouse, standing in the exact spot where Kim Novak jumped into San Francisco Bay in that fake suicide attempt. Armistead Maupin created a whole series of bestselling Tales of the City books based on the same-titled weekly serial he wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, which was, in turn loosely (or not) based on his own experiences as a young man living in the queer mecca. An unforgettable cast in a TV classic crafted with love and affection.
#3 - Dark (2017-2020, Netflix): What? Another German series? And in the top 3? What is going on? That's a good question and one that I kept asking myself in "Dark", a Netflix series that requires your undivided attention and patience (it pays off in spades, trust me). If you're addicted to your phone or, otherwise, easily distracted, this is not the show for you. Complex, brooding and packed with compelling characters, Dark juggles multiple timelines that center around a nuclear power plant, and a cave in the forbidding forest just outside the small town of Winden. It all has to do with missing boys in the past and the present, dark secrets, dysfunctional relationships, the cause and effect of existential trauma, and deadly experiments. Whew! Let's just say it's never boring. Beginning with a man's suicide, his traumatized teenage son is released from a mental health facility a few months later. Soon afterward, we find the young man and his friends wandering through a creepy forest, searching for the marijuana stash hidden in a deep cave by a missing drug dealer. Strange noises prompt a mass exodus as the little group takes off. One of them (the youngest son of Ulrich, the local police chief) is discovered to be absent when the teens finally come to a halt. Much to the horror of his older brother and sister. When the body of a young boy is found in the woods the next day, it turns out that something is all wrong. Instead of the son of the police chief, this child is wearing outdated clothes--like Ulrich might have worn when he was young--and the boy's eyes appear to have been burned out. Mysteries pile upon mysteries as the town's obscured history gradually comes to light, and four families must contend with events in the past, present and future. If this sounds like a lot to take in, my description barely scratches the surface of this diabolical pleasure. Consider that a dare.
#2 - M*A*S*H* (1972-83, CBS): This series started the day I turned 18, and I was hooked from the very first episode . By turns, quick-witted and deeply moving, this series explores the moral and ethical dilemmas of physicians and soldiers stationed at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (or MASH unit, get it?) on the frontlines of the Korean War. Alan Alda as prankster Hawkeye Pierce, a sensitive top-notch surgeon with a caustic wit that hides a heart of gold, is the star of the show and truly brilliant in the role. But the rest of the cast is equally up to the task. Wayne Rogers, Mike Farrell, Loretta Swit, Gary Burghoff, McLean Stevenson, Harry Morgan, Jamie Farr, Larry Linville and David Ogden Stiers are perfection in as the various characters who populate the 4077th. They have you in stitches (not literally) one minute and break your heart the next as they tackle such touchy (at the time) issues as the cost of war on innocent civilians, racism, misogyny and homophobia. The series ran for 11 years, while the Korean War lasted only 3, which says much about the quality of the writing and performances, and the affection the public had for the show.
#1 - Twin Peaks (1990-92 ABC, 2017 Showtime): "She's dead. Wrapped in plastic." With those words sawmill owner Pete Martell kicks off what is, perhaps, the strangest cultural phenomenon of the 20th Century. Conceived by the brilliant minds of David Lynch and Mark Frost, Twin Peaks is a dark and deeply disturbing journey into the psyche of a seemingly normal small town in the Pacific Northwest. It is also--sometimes--very funny, and certainly eccentric. Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), high school homecoming queen, cheerleader, and all-around do-gooder appears to be the quintessential All-American girl.
But there's another side to Laura. When she's not delivering meals-on-wheels to shut-ins, teaching English to immigrants, and tutoring mentally challenged youngsters, she's a coke-snorting, party girl and part-time sex worker. She's a self-destructive young woman in distress and no one in town seems to notice. At least not until Pete Martell comes across her nude body--wrapped in plastic--washes up on the beach near his fishing hole. You might think Laura Palmer is the principal character in this deep dive into the weird and uncanny--and she is the driving force in the series--but we only see her in photographs, home movies, and flashbacks.
Solid, stoic Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) and his lovable, oddball constabulary (Harry Goaz, Michael Horse, Kimmy Robertson) begin a preliminary investigation, but it's the arrival of affable FBI Special Agent/boy-next-door Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) that kicks things into high gear. Dictating notes on tape to a never-seen associate named Diane, Cooper takes charge of the investigation. Soon, he and Harry dedicate themselves to solving the brutal crime(s), becoming best friends in the process. Along the way, they encounter an assortment of bold, beautiful and peculiar characters who all have their own secrets. There are really too many characters to mention--it's a huge cast--but notables include Piper Laurie, Peggy Lipton, Miguel Ferrer, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Catherine Coulson, Ray Wise, Grace Zabriskie and Joan Chen, while newcomers Sherilyn Fenn, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dana Ashbrook, Madchen Amick and Eric Da Re (and Sheryl Lee as Laura's lookalike cousin) leave an unforgettable first impression. There's also a dancing dwarf, a visionary giant, the Arm, various doppelgangers, evil spirits and a place known only as the Red Room, which is a sort of purgatory existing in a realm separate from our world, and an entryway into the horrifying Black Lodge. But it's Killer Bob (Frank Silva)--an entity so terrifying that he seeps into your nightmares--that you really need to watch out for.
The pilot episode and first season of the series were masterpieces, possibly Lynch's best work (at least until 2017), but when he turned over the reins to less seasoned writers and directors after deciding to take a step back (to film Wild at Heart), the show faltered badly. It's not that season 2 was bad exactly (each episode has its redeeming qualities), but with Lynch and Frost out of the picture, the ratings tanked. It didn't help that the suits at ABC got antsy and demanded that the killer be revealed early in the second season. Lynch hadn't planned on revealing the killer at all, so once the gig was up, there was nowhere really to go with the show, especially without Lynch's hands-on expertise. Stepping in to try and get the series back on track, Lynch found it was too-little-too-late. After shifting Twin Peaks to various days and times, ABC unceremoniously pulled the plug and left a significant number of viewers angered. Expecting there to be a third season, Lynch and Frost ended season 2 with multiple cliffhangers, apparently never to be resolved thanks to the cancellation. Undaunted, Lynch released a movie prequel to the series--Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me--that details the last week of Laura Palmer's life. Relentlessly grim, and with none of the TV show's heart and humor, the movie was greeted with condemnation from critics and audiences alike. (Since then, the movie has been reassessed by film critics and cinephiles who consider it one of Lynch's best works). After the movie fiasco, it appeared that it was the end of the road for the show.
"I'll see you again in 25 years," Laura Palmer (or her doppelganger) says to Cooper in the Black Lodge/Red Room during the TV show's second season finale. And, miraculously, she does. Long thought to be a lost cause, a third season of Twin Peaks--premiering as Twin Peaks: The Return--began airing on Showtime in 2017--25 years after Laura uttered that promise. This third season is not, however, a trip down memory lane. It starts out in the Black Lodge with older versions of Cooper and Laura still occupying the same space as they did at the end of the second season, and then we are whisked away to various locales in Montana, Manhattan, Las Vegas and New Mexico. In fact, the town of Twin Peaks scarcely makes an appearance in the first few episodes of the show's 18 episode run. But, make no mistake, this is not the Twin Peaks we remember from the original series. This Twin Peaks is darker, more harrowing, and even more violent than it was: there are bad guys--and gals--aplenty and there are no safe havens for anyone. The broader themes of evil set loose in the world and innocence destroyed are expounded upon time and again. And this time around, it's JUDY and those frightful woodsmen we have to keep an eye out for (BOB being busy occupying the body of another and committing dreadful acts of mayhem).
Kyle MacLachlan returns to the series in 3 very different roles: befuddled Vegas insurance agent, Dougie, Coop's monstrous doppelganger aka Evil Cooper, and, finally--finally--good old FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper. There are still supernatural entities engaged in dastardly deeds across the continent, but, in the end, everything will converge in Twin Peaks--or some version thereof. David Lynch directed the entire third season, with many of the original cast members (Miguel Ferrer, Peggy Lipton, Catherine Coulson, Sheryl Lee, Michael Horse, Madchen Amick, Grace Zabriskie, Harry Goaz, Kimmy Robertson, Sherilyn Fenn, Dana Ashbrook, Russ Tamblyn, and Richard Beymer--among others) reprising their roles. Robert Forster steps in as Harry Truman's brother--also a sheriff--after Michael Ontkean, for whatever reason, didn't return. Also on hand are Naomi Watts, Amanda Seyfried and Laura Dern as major players. The ending of this third, and likely final season (Lynch died last year), offers little comfort to viewers, although there's really no other way for it to end. It's a true mindfuck that challenges everything we've believed from the very beginning. Or does it? "The owls are not what they seem" has never been truer. If you know, you know.
So that's it. If some of your faves are missing from this list, there are still 75 more of my personal picks that I was too lazy to add. Besides, would you really want to read my thoughts on 75 more shows? Of course not, the paragraphs above should be ample evidence of that. There are other series that a lot of people I know love but somehow failed to capture my fancy. It's all subjective, anyway, so don't make too much of it.
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