YOU'VE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE: The polls are closed, the results have been tallied, the dissenters have been disappeared, and the stonemasons and demolition men are getting set to replace the God-hewn face of a pristine mountain with the pop-culture equivalent of three great presidents and Teddy Roosevelt. That's right, the ALOTT5MA commentariat has elected its four favorite television seasons of all time (roughly coinciding with its four favorite television seasons of the last decade), and they are:
Arrested Development, Season 1 (2003-04) (40%). Just a brilliant, messy, self-aware, unhinged season of cascading and compounding jokes, where even the reaction shots got belly laughs. I wonder how it's going to hold up -- it was so unusual for its time, and so unlikely to be repeated, that I suspect that it will lose nothing at all with the passage of time, like, say, Being There (which it parodied in Season 3) or Midnight Run.
Veronica Mars, Season 1 (2004-05) (31%). Wow, this surprised me. I couldn't even get through that first season on DVD. Maybe I'll give it another shot. Wish I could say something, but all I've got is that Kristen Bell seems appealing to a unique combination of young women and geeky men, and that can't account entirely for this showing. Incidentally, if you want to see Bell in a different light, try her two-episode arc in Deadwood.
The West Wing, Season 2 (2000-01) (30%). The President and Josh got shot, some talk show host refused to stand when the President walked into the room, Ainsley Hayes set up camp in the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue, Josh had PTSD, we flashed back to Bartlet's first campaign, Bartlet decided to run again, Ambassador Robin Colcourt offered his advice, Big Block of Cheese Day convinced CJ that the map was upside-down, and then there was that scene at the Cathedral that everybody except me thought was so spectacular. Interesting factoid: Maddy named this one of her favorite seasons even though she was eight when it aired.
Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000) (27%). Off the top of my head, I can't think of a weak episode of this show. A pioneer of awkward comedy that launched the careers of unknowns Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, James Franco, Busy Phillips, Linda Cardellini, Martin Starr, and Samm Levine, with smaller pre-fame roles for Lizzy Caplan, Joanna Garcia, Kayla Ewell, Samaire Armstrong, and Ben Foster (who apparently annoyed everybody with his method approach), the show knew its characters and delighted in exposing their flaws. I would have given Franco the supporting-actor Emmy for his work in the penultimate episode, when Daniel both needled Ken for who he was dating and later calmed him down about it.
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