Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Tuesday's Top Ten: Shows On Television

This weeks Top Ten List is made up of the Top Ten Television shows on television. A few disqualifiers from making the list being no sporting events, the show must have a constant cast and must still be in production or else this list might be as long as the day and I'd never be able to condense it into just ten. Keep in mind I'm a black male between the age of 18-24 so a lot of these shows have to do with viewer demographics. So without further adieu:

  1. Lost - (Thursday, 9PM EST, ABC) Crash Survivors stranded on a seemingly magical island with more twists than you can account for when watching it. This is quite honestly the most gripping sho won television. Too bad the show takes a five year hiatus in between seasons. I'm not kidding. I'm 24 now and when the show returns for it's 5th season next year, it will be as old as me.
  2. The Boondocks - (Sunday, 11PM EST, Adult Swim) Hip-Hop's more intellectual version of Beavis & Butthead. Poignant, deep-cutting social commentary that reveals the complexity of black culture and characters within it's borders. Uncle Ruckus is for my money one of the top ten television characters on television (I'm thinking future Tuesday Top Ten list nominee). He alone is worth the price of admission but you also get John Witherspoon, Charlie Murphy & Samuel Jackson too? The show is crack. Can't wait for Season 3.
  3. Hardball With Chris Matthews - (M-F,5PM EST, MSNBC) This is a political show with some bite and some balls. Before Tim Russert died that was the only show that was in the conversation when you discussed tough, fair, no-nonsense tv journalism. You want to keep up to date on all the issues of the day and not be put to sleep you watch Chris.
  4. Curb Your Enthusiasm - (Sundays, 10PM EST, HBO) Funny story. An ex of mine was a fan of this show before I even gave it a shot. If it wasn't for her, I would be missing out on one of the funniest off the cuff tv shows out. To make a long story short we were trying to make it a blockbuster night one time, she picked a season of this, we went back to the crib, I couldn't have been more disinterested but I really liked this girl a lot, so I sat through a show I found insufferable solely for her. Probably a mixture of my focus on her and my hardheaded nature of having already made up my mind before she threw the DVD in. Months later, I'm sitting around the house and it's one of those nights where nothings on and I'd gone through all the stations 2 or 3 times and finally gave up and decided to go somewhere new on the remote searching for unchartered land like a modern-day Christopher Columbus and actually stopped on Curb and ever since I've been hooked. People are used to comedy's with live audience but this show doesn't have one but once you get past that and wrap yourself around that idea you're sold. Thanks Lindsay for putting me onto the show. I love you more than you'll ever know.
  5. Man V. Wild - (Fridays, 9PM EST, Discovery Channel) Bear Grylls has to be gullier than anyone I've ever seen in my life. Not just regular 'gully' but 'gully' with the volume up and bass thumping like a nigga in a caprice in front of a movie theater pulling up trying his best to show off for anyone who'll pay him attention. If you've been living under a rock, the premise of the show is the producers drop him out of a plane into remote and foreign lands with no water/food with just the clothes on his back and a camera and he's forced to rely on his military training to help him survive and maneuver his way through the various landscapes as he hunts prey to eat, looks for strange objects to build shelter like MacGyver and searches for the nearest town or civilization where once he discovers it, his hellish ordeal is complete. We've never seen cavemen first-hand but this is the closest thing to watching primitive early man behavior.
  6. RealTime With Bill Maher - (Fridays, 11PM EST, HBO) One of my favorite comedians weekly show on the hottest political issues of the week from his witty and honest viewpoint. Part standup routine/part interview/part roundtable discussion, Bill has you covered. People don't agree with every since thing he says on the show but really there's no one better than him on television at what he does and how he makes politics funny and points out the backwards thinking and mishandled policies and shines a spotlight on things to focus on. Very insightful program.
  7. Dexter - (Saturdays,9MP EST, Showtime) Showtime very rarely gets much shine on my television and yet I can't seem to muster up the courage to cancel the barely useful network because of one particular dark television drama, Dexter. It's like how nobody would fuck with the Cavaliers if LeBron didn't play for them. That's the perfect analogy. Anyway, Dexter is a forensics crime scene analyst that works in conjunction with the Miami police department (not gully), but goes around while off-duty, generally at night, and stalks upon the bad guys of the city and kills in the name of good (pretty gully). You come for the killing every week, but stay for the storylines and dialogue. Probably the best on television.
  8. Sportscenter - (Pretty much all day, ESPN) No description necessary.
  9. Family Guy - (Sundays, 9PM EST, FOX) Funniest Cartoon period, end of discussion.
  10. Countdown With Keith Olbermann - (M-F, 9PM, MSNBC) Former sportsbroadcaster turned serious newsman. He's the anti-Bill O'Reilly. He's on the left and will admit it but when he presents news stories, he seldom injects opinion and if he does, he back them up with facts not made up slime as packaged by FOX News and their blood-sucking dishonest television anchors. He's very charismatic and his Worst Person In The World segment is pure genius. Must see program nightly right here.

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