The Best of the Decade: Television in Review

Entertainium’s best of the decade series continues with television-in-review.

• “The tribe has spoken”: In May 2000, an American version of the Swedish game show Expedition Robinson premiered on CBS. The show’s first season attracted 28.3 million viewers and was a summer hit. The show’s second season premiered after the Baltimore Ravens decimated the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV and was the most-watched show on television during that 2000-01 television year. That show, of course, was Survivor and launched the phenomenon known as reality-competition television.
  • Ironically, the show that popularized the format never won an Emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program. Another show on the Tiffany Network, The Amazing Race, has won the Emmy each year since it was first awarded in 2003.

• “Come on down”: Bob Barker retired from The Price is Right in 2007 after fifty years in television and thirty-five years hosting. Comedian Drew Carey replaced him as host of the popular game show.
• The UK kills the traditional sitcom: In 2001, comedians Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created the BBC mockumentary The Office, a comedy series shot in the documentary style. In 2003, BBC America began broadcasting the show and it became a popular hit. Around the same time, both Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond left the airwaves as NBC, looking for a sitcom hit after the Americanized version of Coupling was a failure. NBC remade The Office with Steve Carell occupying the main role as a bumbling office manager. The series was a great success and has prompted most every new comedy series to shoot in a single-camera, no laugh track, and interstitial-based format.
  • Coincidentally, the original episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm was a 1999 mockumentary that detailed Larry David performing an HBO special. The show adopted its current format in 2000. This information has no real relevance other than the fact that it got me to talk about Curb Your Enthusiamsm, a show of which I’m particularly fond.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: Janet Jackson revealed her nipple during a halftime performance with Justin Timberlake on Super Bowl XXXVIII. This incident sparked a review of live television policies that led to the institution of tape delay for most major live performances. Furthermore, this incident prompted a wave of re-editing violent or sexually suggestive television programming.
• “Tell me where the bomb is!”: 24 premiered in 2001, giving new life to the careers of men previously known for the roles of a KKK leader in A Time to Kill (he became the counter-terror hero) and Pedro Cerrano (he became the president).

• “You think that’s bad…”: Fox cancelled Family Guy in 2002, only to bring it back to air in 2005 after a series of fan petitions and strong DVD sales. Seth McFarlane launched a comedy empire with spin-offs American Dad and The Cleveland Show. However, much like the fact that the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t holy, wasn’t Roman, and wasn’t an empire, McFarlane’s empire lost its humor with dumb cutaway gags (Family Guy) or were never funny to begin with (American Dad and The Cleveland Show)
• All good shows go to cable: HBO cements itself as the place to watch great serial dramas and comedies with the success of The Sopranos, Rome, Deadwood, John Adams, Entourage, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Six Feet Under, and True Blood among many others. Additionally, Michael Chiklis finds success on The Shield on FX, Bryan Cranston with Breaking Bad on AMC, and of course, Mad Men on AMC.
• Science fiction finds its way into the mainstream again: Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG-1 pick up a strong cult following over the decade while Lost premieres to much success on ABC.
• The success of game shows: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? continued to build on its momentum from its 1999 premiere and spawned a host of competitors (including shows hosted by Maury Povich, Dick Clark, and Anne Robinson). Ken Jennings won over $3 million on Jeopardy! in 2004.
• Hard science goes primetime: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which detailed forensic science investigations, premiered in 2000. The show spawned two other spin-offs and led to the success of other science-based television shows such as Numbers.

…and Law and Order is still on the air.