Honey, I Shrunk Time's 100 Best Shows, 2.0

In the tradition of using that substance that "helps" turn a patty
of ground chuck into a meal for four, and in the fear that the Supreme Court will wipe out my earlier votes, I have selected ten more elite TV shows from James Poniewozik's list of the 100 greats. Amid the volleys of suggestions from readers, the two omissions that made readers want to fine him, oh, $106 million, were The Andy Griffith Show and Law & Order. We'll address the latter below, but can't pick up any more unlisted stragglers. As much as we may have enjoyed the unapologetic kitsch of Mission Impossible or the blissfully comic Aaron Sorkin gear that drove Sports Night, they didn't crack this gaggle of landmarks in what used to be called "appointment viewing".

The Abbott and Costello Show

This is how a generation learned manners--if thine friend shall offend thee, smite him in the face. When so abused, howl and jerk backwards, tipping your hat off to be crushed in your hands, while blowing air out through your eyes. Works every time.

I Love Lucy

Lucille Ball's greatest acting asset was her yocks-milking reaction shot--the lower jaw slides back, the eyes freeze on a spot on the wall, the body goes stiff, and of course she has some `splaining to do. The odd thing was between her and the testosterone-laced Ricky, she was somehow the more libidinous one.

Dragnet

Though he's seen here with the cool, clear eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth, Dragnet in fact took its noir-ish tinge from Jack Webb's expressionless, hound dog face and rat-a-tat narration. But it wasn't that, nor Harry Morgan's equally hangdog affect (both had two-packs-a-day growls), that sucked some Los Angeles viewers in, but the locale-spotting, `Hey, they're on Sepulveda!' factor. In this regard, props are also due to The Rockford Files and Hunter, the shared products of episodic-TV auteurs Roy Huggins and Stephen Cannell. Before Tivo, this is how people guiltlessly wasted long, tranquilized stretches of time.

The Larry Sanders Show

Garry Shandling showed us an unembarrassed disaffection from the human condition that makes Larry David look cuddly. And what is Alec Baldwin's exquisite turn each week on 30 Rock but a mash-up of his own little green men with the false bonhomie Rip Torn's Arthur could project in a room? Finally, only an actor of Jeffrey Tambor's savvy could trust himself to shamelessly inhabit the role of a late-night couch weasel and thereby create a lonely, splendid tower on the plain of black-comic television.

Late Night with David Letterman

It was my privilege to interview Dave twice. (He and everyone around
him hated the second story, about the abrupt departure of longtime Late Night producer Robert Morton). He has the troubled humility to disdain his own deeply intelligent comic gift--he's spring-loaded to deliver the quick take, spoken or otherwise, that perfect marries cynicism with wit--and to forever be longing to match the otherworldly ease of Johnny Carson.

Moonlighting

Showrunner Glen Gordon Caron had the smarts to subvert the familiar TV touchstone of the flirty duo without discarding it. He also had the wits to pluck Bruce Willis from obscurity and find go-to writers like--okay, he's my pal-- Roger Director, who became a showrunner himself. (And N.Y. Giants fan--see his hilarious
new book I Dream in Blue, here) Moonlighting anticipated shows like The Office by breaking
the fourth wall (Man: You can't just burst in here like that.
David Addison: Oh yeah? Tell that to the writers. ) and stacked up Emmys like cordwood; it's the sit-com that's remembered for calling all subsequent ones into question.

The Office [American]

Time's Poniewozik had it about right--Ricky Gervais knocked our socks off first and farther (the French version even steals the actor's surname for the character), but this ensemble is pretty tasty.To watch Jenna Fischer's Pam is to test yourself for prurient thoughts, and fail, then laugh. John Krasinski is the camera's droll Greek chorus of one, using just a raised eyebrow, while Rainn Wilson is that guy who's so scary in real life and so fun on the box, and Steve Carrell is a wickedly watchable encyclopedia of phoniness, lust for acceptance, and self-deception.

Leave It to Beaver

In college, I didn't study Schopenhauer and all those fancy people. I aleady knew the life lesson that it's all going to be okay by the end of the episode, as this show taught us, and one still clings to such memories of socialization by TV. There are the wise (if robotic) Ward and June, the ever-innocent Beav, the puberty victim Wally, and the legendarily loathsome Eddie Haskell. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need know.

The Twilight Zone

Help me out with this--those people in the legendary episode where the earthlings are supposed to be the butt-ugly ones, and the elephant man-looking people are normal--at the end of the day (or 11 p.m., whichever comes first), here on earth, the elephant people are still ugly, right? So what's their point? But October, 1963's Nightmare At 20,000 Feet, directed by Richard Donner and starring William Shatner as the passenger who sees a creature on the plane wing, is etched into the national consciousness as the worst flight you could ever take. Well, short of facing those fraternity boys in the sextet of front seats on Southwest.

Law & Order

Fred Dalton Thompson is--am I allowed to say this?--so much more important to the orderly roll-out of network re-runs than he is to the electorate (or even Libya). But his candidacy, under the equal time rule, means he can't be doing his grumbling-D.A. thing night and day during the campaign. (Or maybe Mitt Romney finds work as the butchest dude the cops grill at the country club. We won't even go into the show's 2005 "slur" against Tom DeLay.) ) Meanwhile, wondering about that ninth episode of season 9 (we're up to 18 seasons now), or one of the muitplying spin-offs? Go to their web site and look it up. One theme remains persistent--rich city folk are terrifically aggravated (shades of Columbo) by cops, and lawyers are a profoundly sour race. You learn that most murderers, etc., have been messed up in the head since at least third grade. That echoing chord that starts and ends the segment breaks has a Pavlovian message--remain here with us and watch the bad guys sweat.