My Desert Island (TV Version)

One month ago I turned off my television and, except for PBS and Turner Classic Movies (a guy's gotta live), haven't turned it on since. Basically, I just couldn't take one more ISIS video. Same with my computer. Email, Facebook, Twitter, my public library – all of them nice and innocuous. But I have to admit, like an absent lover, my Samsung keeps whispering sweet nothings from afar. So I've finally decided, not to capitulate, but merely to dwell on old times for a few minutes.

Here's a rundown of my top ten TV programs ever, not necessarily the great and hallowed, but some of the ones I would never tire of watching. Of course, this list is strictly subjective, likely to change from minute to minute, and based on affection, not Emmys (necessarily). Note: I'm omitting any programming from pay cable stations such as HBO. Do I have a valid aesthetic reason for this? Yes – I'm cheap.

My Top Ten TV Shows

10.  Austin City Limits: I've discovered so many great acts here that I might never have heard of otherwise. Nanci Griffith and Australian singer Kasey Chambers are just two of the performers who come to mind. Not household names, but that was the point. Gosh, there were just so many for so many seasons. The show isn't what it used to be – the last few times I've checked, the acts were pretty top-drawer, nothing intimate or revelatory anymore. The audiences were larger and a bit louder, at least the ones I saw. Hey, it might return to its roots yet. I just need to tune in someday when ISIS is defeated and I'm watching TV again.

9.  SCTV: I've been an SNL fan for 40 years, but I'll readily admit the show has always been hit and miss. Second City Television, on the other hand, was the Canadian blueprint for how sketch comedy should be done. The bits were truly creative, they didn't pander to tweens, and they knew when to end. The cast was uniformly great (Catherine O'Hara! Eugene Levy! John Candy!). My single favorite bit was a long sketch called “Play It Again, Bob.” Dave Martin was a jaded, smarmy Bob Hope, and Rick Moranis was a flawless Woody Allen who wanted his idol to appear in his next movie. I think SNL only ever approached that level of inspired brilliance a few times, back when it gave its players room to breathe. (I'm thinking of the Star Trek parody featuring John Belushi as James T. Kirk, trying to remain in command while the network is dismantling the set after the show's cancellation.)

8.  The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: Tom and Dick Smothers are up there in a comedy pantheon I reserve for the likes of Richard Pryor, Woody Allen, George Carlin, and pre-op Joan Rivers. The show was hysterically funny and controversial enough in the days of Vietnam and campus riots for CBS to cancel it after just two seasons. Besides the boys, Leigh French was a groovy hippie chick with her own segment, “Share a Little Tea With Goldie,” Mason Williams and John Hartford gave the world “Classical Gas” and “Gentle on My Mind,” Don Novello and Rob Reiner both made appearances before achieving fame later on, Steve Martin (!) was one of the writers, and Pat Paulson was the world's drollest and funniest Presidential candidate. It was good enough to give Bonanza a serious run for its money when no other show could.

7.  What's My Line: My favorite game show not just for its clever premise, but because it was urbane, witty, and about as far a cry from today's game shows as you could ask for. My favorite segment was when the panelists put on their black blindfolds so the famous Mystery Guest could enter and sign in, please.

6.  The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: I was raised on Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and The Invaders. But sometimes, if I was lucky, I could stay up to watch the Master himself host his own creepy anthology series. The hour-long seasons, which followed a long, successful run of half-hour episodes called Alfred Hitchcock Presents, were just about the scariest things I'd ever seen. To this day, the episode “An Unlocked Window” remains (just ahead of “The Zanti Misfits” from The Outer Limits and “Home” from The X Files) the most suspenseful, jaw-dropping hour of TV I've ever seen. I know, because I saw it again not long ago, and it still fried me. How did they ever get away with it back then?

5.  Twin Peaks: When that little guy in Agent Cooper's dream said, “She's filled with secrets” at the end of episode 3, I knew I was hooked. Even though episode 4 began with a real cheat that angered many viewers, I hung on because David Lynch and Mark Frost's surreal nightmare was the closest thing to brilliant feature filmmaking on TV. Great casting and acting, spooky photography, and Angelo Badalamenti's mesmerizing score (he also did great work for Lynch in the movies Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and others), added up to some real quality television. It might have run out of steam before the end of season 2, but I didn't care. I couldn't get enough.

4.  Hill Street Blues: This show was so groundbreaking, I didn't at first know what to make of it. But I ended up counting the days each week until the next episode would air. What I respected most about it was that the characters weren't your ordinary good guy/bad guy cliches. They could be heroes one minute and disappointments the next. I also respected the scripts for drawing on genuine moral dilemmas, a TV rarity. Just like the characters, the situations often weren't clear-cut, either. (One quibble, though: The character of Howard Hunter was such a one-dimensional buffoon. Why are there so many of those on TV? The Mary Tyler Moore Show had great characters who were fully fleshed out, except for Ted Baxter, a walking punch line. During that same era, M*A*S*H took its characters seriously even among all the laughs, except for Frank Burns – Larry Linville played him so broadly that I almost wept when Charles Emerson Winchester showed up. Movies aren't exempt from this trend: In The Silence of the Lambs, it's clear that the psychopath Hannibal Lecter is drawn more fully and thoughtfully than Frederick Chilton, the vain doctor who oversees Lecter's containment and whose awkward pass at Agent Starling is only a little less offensive than Buffalo Bill skinning dead women.

3.  Lonesome Dove: OK, now don't get me started. This was a six-hour CBS miniseries, and I must have spent the last two of those hours trying not to bawl like a baby (sometimes unsuccessfully). Robert Duvall gave the performance of his life, which is really saying something. He once described his character, former Texas Ranger Augustus “Gus” McCrae, as his Hamlet. I agree. Everything about this production is first-rate. When I heard about plans for a TV version after I finished reading the book, I thought it would just be another watered-down exercise in mediocrity. But it's as good as anything coming out of Hollywood, perhaps the greatest Western of all. I love it.

2.  The Fugitive: My parents knew if they didn't let me stay up for this, there'd be no living with me the next day. Four seasons -- one chase -- and any episode that promised Lt. Gerard or the one-armed man in the opening credits was not to be missed.  One series that just got better and better as it went on, with a final two-parter that was everything fans had hoped for.

1.  The Honeymooners: Nothing on TV has ever made me laugh harder or more frequently than the original 39 episodes of this show. Gleason and Carney had the moves, the timing, and the chemistry of any of the greatest comedy teams. Alice might have lived with Ralph, but she was no pushover, and we both knew he was all bluff, anyway. Their apartment was tiny and threadbare, yet it must have boasted the largest bedroom on television, because whenever one of them disappeared in there, the other had to shout full blast to be heard. Favorite episode: “Pal o' Mine,” which ends with Kramden in a hospital, prepping for a transfusion for Norton, who he thinks has been injured in the sewer. But Norton is fine, standing at the nurse's station as Kramden is wheeled past. He nods hello, Norton nods back, then we get not one but two classic double-takes – Norton's as he realizes who that was, and Kramden's, who rushes back onstage in his hospital gown in disbelief.

As long as I'm on a roll, here are my picks for seven of the worst shows I've ever seen. (No hard feelings if one of your favorites is listed here.)

7.  Two and a Half Men: I tried watching this sleazefest, but I should have known better by the promos, which were just lewd and crude. If it had bombed, I wouldn't be listing it, but its popularity far, far outweighs its value.  And, I mean, I like Jon Cryer, and Conchata Ferrell, too, a good character actress I'd been following for years.  I think the kid was right to bail.

6.  The Bachelor: And any other reality program that treats love as some sort of competition sport. I mean, seriously – so these woman all fall in love with this one guy, and he falls in love with all of them, and they get waaaay too intimate for contestants on what is ultimately a glorified game show, and finally you know that all but one woman is going to get her heart stomped on. I'd heard about this show for years and read about it online, but even when I got around to watching an episode, I was still gobsmacked.

5.  The Chevy Chase Show: Chevy Chase must be the bravest man on television, because he actually showed up for episode 2. I would have just gone into the FBI's witness protection program.

4.  One Day at a Time: A struggling single mother of two girls, one of whom should have been sent to reform school long ago, who can afford to buy them good clothes but somehow never gets around to buying herself a bra. Schneider, the super, is on hand to provide some cheap laughs at his expense.

3.  Candid Camera: When I was a kid, I thought this show was funny because my parents thought it was funny. But I cringe now when I see any of those old original episodes or any of its remakes (Punk'd being a recent incarnation for a new generation of suckers). Sorry, but I just can't laugh at the humiliation of others.

2.  Queen for a Day: Another show I never questioned as a kid because my mom enjoyed it. But yikes! Housewives vie with one another for prizes by seeing whose true story of despair is the best. The audience registers its measure of approval by some kind of applause-o-meter, the winner gets a cape and a crown and I think some flowers, and then of course watches from her throne as a new refrigerator or oven is wheeled out that will make her life all better.

1.  Hogan's Heroes: Wondering how this popular '60s sitcom could be worse than Queen for a Day?  It's easy.  Imagine a sitcom, complete with laugh track, about American POWs in Vietnam that debuts just 20 years after the war has ended. I'm not laughing.