Best Of The Decade

The best decade for movie comedy was the 20s (if you're into silent comedy, as you should be). The best decade for rock music, the 60s. Every decade of the past century was the best at something in the popular culture. So I asked myself what did the last decade excel at?

Not much, perhaps, but one thing stood out: TV drama. There'd been good stuff in the 80s and 90s, but the variety, power and sophistication of the best TV drama during the aughts surpassed all previous decades. (For what it's worth, it was the first decade of TV where drama easily beat comedy.)

What am I talking about? Well, at the top of the list, you've got The Sopranos, The Wire, Lost, House, Mad Men, Breaking Bad and (the first half of) Battlestar Galactica.

You may wish to add other shows to the list--or maybe subtract some--but these seven alone make the case that the last decade was unparalleled.

(You can see what TV Squad thought about the decade here. Here's Buffyhead Herc's picks from Ain't It Cool News. And Alan Sepinwall's here. Sepinwall picks some odd moments to represent shows--his choice from Lost is a fairly weak selection, and I would nominate his moment from West Wing as one of the top ten worst things I've ever seen on television.)