Most overrated series ever?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I don't know about "Seinfeld" losing its charm. Kramer is one of a kind, and the more I watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm", the more I appreciate Jason Alexander's talent in portraying George Costanza/Larry David.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

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Friends was successful because it addressed a demographic that had largely been ignored.

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The demographic's key members...

the david schwimmer whiner type lovers

the phoebe "I'm pretty but so incredibly stupid that I should be shot" lovers

twas a shame. the show might have been likeable for me, save for these two. I like Courtney Cox and a couple of the others on the show.


Really I think it was the "hurry up, let's go, starsbucks is almost open!" demographic that they tapped into.

al

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Jason Alexander portrayed George so well that there were times when I wanted to climb in the TV and punch him upside his @!#$%@#@# head for being so W#$ #$%^% irritating! He was great!

But my fav is the one where he goes into the ocean after the whale, who had Kramer's golf ball stuck in its blowhole.

al

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

It's definitely an age thing...

My top four: The Honeymooners, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The George Burns & Gracie Allen Show, and "You'll Never Get Rich" (Bilko).

Of the current crop I have to go with "Two and a Half Men".

Interesting piece on NPR this morning about the end of Friends and the end of Frasier. Their reviewer said that Frasier was the better show...but ran out of ideas, and that Friends started out extremely weak but evolved into a soap opera (as someone else in this thread noted) aimed squarely at its demographic.

I stopped watching Frasier about 2 years ago. I only occassionally watched friends over the last several years. I really started to get annoyed with their titles: "The one where..." as if they expect us to love the show so much that we'll remember them by some event in them. (Never would have known the names except for Cable's/DirectTV's program guide.)

[sfer]

Taxi is absolute genuis.

I still think nothing on TV has been funnier than the early Moonlighting episodes, but maybe that's just nostalgia.

[adios]

Since I assume we're including drama as well, my favorite all time was LA Law by a landslide. Don't have any opinion on the most overrated.

[mosta]

I also think Newsradio is a somewhat overlooked gem, an all-time great, in fact. What strikes me most is the outstanding quality of most of the cast--Phil Hartman, Andy Dick, Stephen Root, Vicky Lewis, and Khandi Alexander! Compare Seinfeld, which has excellent performers in minor roles (Wayne Knight, Patrick Warburton, Jerry Stiller), but for the core of the cast was carried by the writing. Aside from Michael Richards, of course (even though he overdoes it once in a while), and Seinfeld, who would never claim to be an actor (usually perceptibly trying not to stifle laughter), pay close attention to Louis-Dreyfus and Alexander physically sometime. Whenever they are trapped on camera not moving, they become so physically awkward it's painful to watch, and time and again the only way they can find to do something with their hands and bodies (to relieve themselves) is to pantomime their lines. Just horrid. Nonetheless, for me it's probably the best ever. Cheers probably had more depth, but it's been so long now that my memory of the show has faded. MASH had some great stuff in the very early years (with Trapper), but it didn't last very long. The older shows, I don't know as well. Cosby, definitely excellent, but again faded in my memory. Now Friends--I have to admit I never saw the show a single time until three or four years ago, so maybe it was different when... . But as of recently, the show is complete and utter shite, indistinguishable from any other mass consumer sitcom pulp. I wouldn't get in a car with anyone who ever laughed at a Friends episode. The problem with the writing is it is never plausible that the characters in their actual situations could seriously mean their lines, but they act like they are supposed to. And it's just idiotic. It's the kind of jokes we all make every day, when you make a really obvious ironic comment, and it's not really very funny, and you say it in a fake voice. Well the whole show is in that fake voice, but with characters who are supposed to really think that way. If there really were people that stupid, I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch them. I think Frasier is pretty much the same, and the Simpsons every time I've seen it in the last few years. Really stupid formulaic jokes where a character says one thing and then does the opposite, without themselves appreciating the irony. I remember watching the show in 92 and 93, in college, and thinking it was the greatest show ever (I hadn't seen a single Seinfeld at that point). Then I was away from a TV for a few years. And now the show I see is so stupid and lame that I don't trust my memory.

One last thing, I don't get why so many people say the Seinfeld characters are so dislikeable. Sure, if you knew George and Elaine in real life you'd probably find them annoying, and pathetic, and choose to avoid them. But they weren't motivated by malice. They weren't bad, mean people. (Except in the final episode, which I thought was really false to the show.) What got them into their situations was their social ineptitude and over self-consciousness. And while I might find that tiresome in real life, on the show I find it endearing. And regardless whether you see any charm in them, what makes the show and the humor is that you can see how the irony of the situations they get themselves into is plausibly motivated by the actual characters. And as far as debunking their supposed meanness, just think of how for all the times Jerry curses Newman, he never refuses him a favor or a kind turn when he actually needs something.

(PS Another favorite--Beavis and Butthead.)

[mosta]

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Since I assume we're including drama as well, my favorite all time was LA Law by a landslide. Don't have any opinion on the most overrated.

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I always remembered LA Law (and Miami Vice!) as being stylish and cool and dramatic and high quality production, etc, etc, and then I saw one more recently, and, well--let's just say it didn't live up to my memory. I'm most disappointed with losing my image of Susan Dey (I think I was in 6th or 7th grade at the time), and can no longer bring myself to pose the choice, Dey or Lara Flynne Boyle, in casual conversation.

[Philuva]

I have Seinfeld and Simpsons as my top two easy. Cheers and Cosby are probably tied for 3rd.

Night Court was also fairly underrated.

Friends never did it for me.

[andyfox]

I agree it's an age thing. I never like Friends much; I'm too old. While I enjoyed Cosby, the Simpsons and Seinfeld, I prefer All in the Family, MASH, and Taxi, with Taxi being my all-time favorite.

I don't think people realize the impact All in the Family has on TV. To hear Archie Bunker rant, belch, and flush the toilet, was something new for TV. The show was electrifying in terms of dealing with issues. I remember one show where a father who had lost a son in Vietnam had dinner at the Bunkers with a draft dodger who had fled to Canada. Great television.