Must See TV

There have only been a few shows that have earned my slavish devotion. 

The first was Northern Exposure.  Quirky, great characters, went disappointingly downhill after the male lead left. My favorite episodes were the one where Joel goes back to New York and where Shelly has her baby (the whole thing about seeing her daughter at various ages in the laundromat was awesome). Least favorite episode was where Joel & Maggie were stuck on a plane to Russia, constantly bickering, and he ended up proposing.  Terrible!

The next was X-files.  This is the one that really topped them all. I wouldn't leave the house on Friday nights, even after Jeff got me my first VCR so I could record it. I always made a huge amount of food and friends would come over to watch.  Sometimes there would only be one or two others, sometimes over half a dozen. Favorite episodes:  Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose and Jose Chung's From Outer Space. Least favorites:  Space and anything from the mytharc (which got so convoluted toward the end). Another show that tried to continue after the loss of the male lead but couldn't.

Then came Lost. The first season of Lost was blow-my-mind-amazing. It also went downhill, and by the end was more frustrating than fulfilling.

The show that I'm most excited to watch now is Fringe.  I have to admit, I wasn't keen to watch it at first.  "It's just another X-files rip off."  Jeff is the one who convinced me to try it, and I thank him weekly for that. And there are certainly similarities, at least on the surface.  There are many episodes that nominally sound like old X-files--even last night's "fungus that kills its host" reminded me of Firewalker. But no matter how much Fringe might start out by sounding like an X-file, it always ends up in a radically different direction. Again, the characters are wonderful.  Olivia and Peter may be the main focus, but Walter is the one who really makes the whole thing work.  John Noble is amazing.  I don't have most or least favorite episodes so far, although I did think the rotoscoped episode last season was clever and interesting. Also, Fringe hasn't started strong and gotten weaker.  If anything, I think it's as good as it's ever been, and I'm always looking forward to where they'll go next.