When I write of the last 10 years, I mean shows you started watching since 2000, not *shows that **premiered *since 2000. If you’re 25years old and never saw an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series before you were 15, you can count it if you love it.
Ten years is just an approximation for the sake of convenience. I just want to winnow out shows you love out simply from childhood nostalgia. Thus my list includes both Angel and Gilmore girls, though I think those both premiered in 1999. That said, I’m not allowing myself to include Xena or Deep Space Nine, as those are closer to 20 years old than 15. The number of shows is also arbitrary; if you can’t make it to ten, or can’t stop yourself before fifteen, you can still play.
Common themes means whatever you want it to mean. You can use whatever criteria you wish to define favorite as well. It can be the first 10 that come to mind, or the first ten you’d buy on Blu-Ray if available, or whatever.
Anyway…that’s it. Make your list, and tell us what commonalities you see.
House
Arrested Development
Firefly
Coupling (British version)
Dr. Who (new version – though I was a fan of the original series)
Community
Castle
My Name is Earl
CSI
Pushing Daisies
All have great writing and characters. Also a lot of weirdness and humor.
Firefly
Angel
Castle
Big Bang Theory
Battlestar Galactica
Survivor (some seasons)
Two and a Half Men (Don’t judge me!)
Good Eats
Eureka
Community
The Food Network in general
Several commonalities: witty writing, pretty people, entertaining plots. There are, of course, a couple of glaring exceptions to these. Too bad. I am large - I contain multitudes.
The West Wing
Mad Men
Firefly
Futurama
Archer
Chuck
Psych
Boston Legal
South Park
Good Eats
(Futurama is the only one of those that I watched any of more than 10 years ago, and 1999 is well within the spirit of the question, I think. West Wing and South Park, I didn’t really get into 'till college, and everything else is more recent.)
Well written, in wildly different ways. Usually some elements of humor. Well acted with characters that are strong/cool/interesting. Really just the appropriate combination of Entertaining and Good.
Curb Your Enthusiasm
A lot of strong characters and quirky humor (dark humor for the dramas). Other than Monk, all consistently intelligently written shows. With Monk I guess I was just a sucker for the OCD humor.
Community is quickly becoming my favorite show, subplanting the Simpsons. I like humor and sci fi, but I don’t feel like I have a lot of “appointment” shows that I watch. I wind up watching much of it online.
I also just recently re-watched Arrested Development and am working my way through Futurama via Netflix. Great shows.
I’m going to miss Party Down, that was another good one that got the plug pulled too soon.
House
Lie to Me
CSI
Frasier (discovered this one late)
Kitchen Nightmares
Daria
Kim Possible
The Emperor’s New School
Cupid (the first one)
Joan of Arcadia
I don’t watch a lot of TV, really. House and CSI are the only ones on the list that I make a point to watch every week. It was hard coming up with 10.
Commonalities: Snarky smart guys (Brits or otherwise) (House, Lie to Me, Kitchen Nightmares, Cupid, Frasier, Emperor’s New School); gore (House, CSI, Lie to Me); mysteries (House, CSI, Lie to Me); smart writing (House, Daria, Cupid, Joan of Arcadia, Frasier, Emperor’s New School); well written animation (Kim, Daria, Emperor)
Honorable mentions (a little more than 10 years ago):
The Sopranos
OZ
Mad Men
Arrested Development
The Practice
Malcolm In the Middle
The Middle
Modern Family
Monk
West Wing
In common - I think they’re good and they’re the only shows I’ve watched all the way through. Not just sitting through a single episode, but the entire season. A few on the list I’ve always watched the repeat episode; usually the next day.