My top ten current TV shows

OK here it is, my top ten current TV shows.

I decided I should have some rules before starting this list, basically, the show has to be on Peasant TV (aka Freeview) and, preferably, currently airing a new series.

1. Dexter (ITV1 on Thursday nights).
Best show on TV at the moment. Possibly the best anti-hero ever created. The show revolves around a forensic blood-spatter expert who is also a serial killer in his spare time, brilliantly played by Michael C. Hall (of Six Feet Under fame). The dark humour, combined with the title characters narrative on normal, emotionally driven human reaction and the strong supporting cast, truly make this a show you shouldn’t miss. Dexter is currently in the second season and I hope there are many more to come.

2. Horne and Cordon (BBC3 on Tuesday nights).
I must admit, I was dreading this being a flop like That Mitchell and Webb Look, but I was pleasantly surprised by the first episode, I was laughing throughout. I never really watched Gavin and Stacey, but having seen these two on various talk shows, particularly James Cordon, I had an idea of what they were about. The humour is fresh and genuinely funny, and I hope they don’t run into the ‘repeating a sketch to it’s death’ pitfall that I find most other shows inevitably do. If the writers can keep it imaginative and innovative these two could be the best double act since Smith and Jones.

3. Shameless (Channel 4 on Tuesday nights).
Now in it’s sixth season, I find I never grow tired of this gross over-exaggeration of a council estate family and their eccentric neighbours. The mix of varying forms of humour with emotion and drama keep this show engaging. The characters are all likeable and interesting, and I can see plenty of mileage in the this show for several more series to come.

4. QI (BBC1 on Friday nights).
I can honestly say that Quite Interesting is the most interesting show on TV. Miles ahead of any other ‘quiz’ show, celebrity or otherwise. The facts continually amaze me almost as much as the panellists stumbling into the obviously wrong urban myth answers. Learn something new and laugh a lot while you do it.

5. Heston’s Feast (Channel 4 on Tuesday nights).
I never used to like this guy. When he had his show on BBC2 he just came across as another arrogant chef trying desperately to be different to his rivals. Safe to say I wasn’t impressed. This show however is imaginative, innovative, exciting cooking that really does put some fun back in to food. The sheer scale of some of the dishes is staggering and I can’t help but think ‘I wish I was there’. The next one is a Tudor feast, I have no idea how he can top the Medieval or Victorian feasts but I’m looking forward to finding out.

6. Grand Designs (Channel 4 on Wednesday nights).
This has been a great show for some time now. Watching people with silly money building their dream homes is strangely compelling. Some of the ideas are simply genius and that’s what compels you to watch the whole episode to see how the whole building fits together (if it ever gets completed). It also gives me some great ideas for when I, inevitably, win the Lotto.

7. Family Guy (BBC3 most nights of the week).
By far the best animated adult comedy series ever created. If there was a new series currently airing this would have been number one on the list. The random nature of the show, mixed with the use of all forms of humour is a huge hit in the hands of the shows highly imaginative writers. No matter how many times I watch old episodes I still find myself laughing as if it’s the first time I’ve seen it. Animated comedy classic.

8. Life (ITV1 not currently on TV)
OK, so I’m cheating a little with this, but I’ve run out of currently showing TV programmes, and the last two are blatantly cheating! This cop drama stars the UK’s Damien Lewis as a LAPD detective just released from prison after 12 years. It was a crime he didn’t commit, and having proved this, and winning millions dollars in compensation, Lewis also won back his badge and gun. Like many of the programmes already in this list, it perfectly combines humour and drama, but this time with interesting and inventive weekly cases and the shows main plot involving Lewis’s character trying to discover who framed him. This is a cop drama like none that have come before it. I look intently for the start of the second season every week.

9. Battlestar Galactica (Sky 1 - sadly not on peasant TV).
Described by Time Magazine as ‘the best TV show of 2005’, this new take on the camp 70’s cult classic is a cut above almost all other TV dramas. Anyone put off by sci-fi would probably have ignored it’s existence, but they are the ones missing out. This show charts the fight for survival for the remnants of human kind, travelling through space to find a new home, after almost annihilation at the hands of the robotic enemy Cylons. Sounds sci-fi I know, but this general premise is secondary to the show tackling most of the controversial political themes of our time. Torture of prisoners, suicide bombers, an occupying enemy army, political backstabbing, labour strikes, biological warfare, coup d'état,… the list goes on. Combine this with some wonderful writing and brilliant acting from a great cast and… well, how many more superlatives can I throw at this vastly superior show?

10. The Wire (coming soon to a BBC2 near you).
This one has truly thrown the rule book out the window. I’ve never even seen an episode. I know how that sounds but please stick with me. This series has been critically acclaimed for years as one of the best ever produced. It’s about a group of Baltimore police officers and a drug gang, but rather than being a run-of-the-mill cop verses robbers show it focuses more on the issues affecting the community including drug dealing (obviously), corruption, poverty, etc. I can’t in good conscience comment on the acting, writing, plot or much else, but I can tell you that I have never been waiting in anticipation of a television series quite like this.

Well there you have it, my top ten (almost) current TV shows. Agree? Disagree? Please let me know, I welcome all comments.

Just for the record I also highly recommend The West Wing, House, 24, Being human, and probably many more to come in the future.

Trev.

Why am I doing this?

Seems an obvious place to start.

I never really understood why anyone would want to spend day after day writing down random thoughts on a web page, seemingly so that everyone can read them and realise they aren't the only nutters in the world.

Then I read this article and decided I wanted to tell people what I think.

I actually tried to start a movie review website a few years ago, being crap at web design and having no where near enough movie reviews to fill out the site, the novelty quickly wore off. But maybe I should have seen that as a sign of things to come.

Anyway, I am determined to be as honest as possible and try to view all (if any) criticism objectively.

So here goes, my first blog - I hope it outlives my first plant. Sometime over the weekend I'll have my first real post - 'My top ten current TV shows'. It will probably turn into a rant about the state of current TV programming, but I'll give it a go.

Trev.