Double dog dare? You're ON! So long as you provide the dogs.
Anyway, I can't believe no-one's mentioned The West Wing! Here's mine, not that I've been actually watching tv for 20 years, but still:
The West Wing: Smart, utterly hilarious, with characters you'll grow to love without even noticing it. CJ Cregg. It was especially wonderful when Bush was in office though - it made you feel so optimistic that things could actually just
work. Some of the best writing I've ever seen on TV.
Ally McBeal: I'll always have a soft spot for Ally. Partly cause it seems to be eternally Christmas in it. This show is so brilliantly weird and wonderful. The humour is often quite like Joss' more surreal offerings, and it has the same emotional connection as Buffy does. Plus, who doesn't love unisex toilets? And face bras? And dancing babies? And on-stage sing off cat fights? And...
Fringe/A Town Called Eureka: Ok, ok, two shows, I know, I'm cheating. But there's a reason. Fringe is fantastic. But it's very intense pseudo-science, with Lost-esque plot arcs. (In the sense that they are all twisty and obscure. They do end, once in a while, however.) It's also very funny, and pretty scary when it wants to be. But sometimes, you don't want pseudo-science that you actually have to think about. Sometimes, you want the science to be so stupid that they can say "radiation did it" and you don't care. Sometimes you just want to laugh and watch the shiny things shine. I give you: Eureka. Fringe, without the need for thought. Now, you might be thinking that makes it "less" of a show, but it doesn't. It's almost as good, just different. It's like Leverage - you climb on the fun train and don't ask too many questions. I love it.
Skins 1: A UK series that you all should watch. Well, if you're old enough, of course. It's one of the truest representations of teenage life I've ever seen on TV. It doesn't shy away from the ugly, but it doesn't revel in it either. It manages to take the grim realities and make them funny and heart-wrenching. You can't help but fall in love with these characters, but it's the parents (played by established actors and comedians) who steal the show.
And, the last spot can be a fight between Leverage, Friends, Firefly (I know, no Joss...
😛), Veronica Mars, Dexter...there are so many....
Edit:
Kean agrees: I actually don't know how I've managed to not see the West Wing. I'll ad that to the list. Oh and I see ya on the scary Fringe thing, I saw 5 mins of an ep. There were killer butterflies. They continue to freak me out to this day!
You won't regret The West Wing. You also won't understand two thirds of what they say, but somehow that doesn't matter. It just makes you like them more! And those butterflies were horrible. Out of all the scary stuff on Fringe, those freaked me out the most. It was the way it would just float past so slowly, then...eugh! No!
