Top TV Shows: What are your favorites?

At this point in our home-bound, surreal, pandemic-limited existence, many of us have just about watched out all of our top TV shows on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu.  Fortunately, the availability of so many streaming options means TV has many more high quality shows than in the past.  Since we’re stuck at home, we have more time to watch our favorites, too.  Personally, I avoid binge watching because I prefer to ponder each episode before I move on to the next one, but to each their own.

Here are my current favorites:                                                                     

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

I adore everything about this show.  The period wardrobe is fantastic, the mid-century era is captured perfectly, the acting is terrific and the story lines are full of twists and turns.  Rachel Brosnahan, who plays aspiring comic Midge Maisel, does an excellent job with the stand-up comedy routines, as well the acting. The rest of the cast is top notch, too.  It’s a hard show not to binge watch, but I limit myself to no more than 2 episodes a week.  I’m anxiously awaiting Season 4.

Westworld

I wasn’t sure I’d like this show because of the violence, but I’m hooked.  Based on the book by Michael Crichton, each episode of Westworld has the production values of a full length feature.  The show just got picked up for a 4^th season, too.  As the world is currently on the cusp of an AI revolution, Westworld is a timely reflection on what can happen when we can create intelligent artificial life that’s indistinguishable from human.  The show addresses the implications of corporations or the government having massive amounts of data on us and using it for their own purposes.  The visual effects are truly amazing, and the trailer after every episode shows how the incredible effects were created.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

This show is 10 seasons of hilarity from the wacky mind of Larry David.  It’s the perfect entertainment for this time of stress and high anxiety.  I read that the show is mostly improvised, which is probably why it always seems so real and in the moment.  If I were to pick a show I’d love to be on, this would be it.  The final episode of the 10^th season, The Spite Store, is priceless.  Fingers crossed there will be a Season 11.

The Hollywood Reporter came out with a list of Hollywood’s 100 Favorite TV Shows, as chosen by Hollywood insiders.  Here are their top 10 picks:

1. Friends
2. Breaking Bad
3. The X-Files
4. Game of Thrones
5. Seinfeld
6. The Sopranos
7. Saturday Night Live
8. I Love Lucy
9. Mad Men
10. The Simpsons

My own list would probably have more classic TV shows near the top.  Here are a few of my picks:

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a pivotal show for women starting their careers in the 1970’s and would be in my top 10.  The show even made reference to birth control, which was a first on network TV.

M*A*S*H showed how the members of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, the 4077, cope with the horrors of war through humor and humanity and it remains timeless.  The final episode had 125 million viewers, which shows how much a part of our culture this show had become by the time it ended.

Bewitched was my favorite childhood show and I still love it.  Samantha, played by Elizabeth Montgomery, promised her husband Darrin she wouldn’t use her extraordinary powers of witchcraft when she got married, but of course she always did.  Agnes Moorhead was wonderful as Endora and Paul Lynde played the funny, bitchy Uncle Arthur.  Classic TV at its best.

I Love Lucy pretty much invented the modern sitcom genre and it remains at the pinnacle of classic television.  Lucille Ball inspired generations of TV comedians with her gift for physical comedy and impeccable timing, and the show has been airing non-stop for almost 70 years.  How many shows can make that claim?

So that’s my line up of TV favorites, past and present.  Since I’ve just about watched out my current favorites, I’m ready to find new shows to watch.  Any favorites you’d like to share?  I’m grabbing my remote right now.