If someone in a foreign country told you that he had the time to watch a complete year of an American TV series and asked you to suggest the one that would give him the best idea of what Americans and life in America were like, which show would you recommend he watch? Restrict yourself to non-news and non-“reality” shows and to series of the past ten years or so.
Seriously: The West Wing
Non-seriously: The Simpsons
My Name is Earl
The Drew Carey Show
Working class schlub, modest house, normal looking people on the show.
Unfortunately, American Idol.
Cheers?
For representing lower-middle class America (the majority, I think…right?), there is no better than Roseanne. The earlier seasons, at least.
King of the Hill
Another vote for this!
For me, back in HS in the 70’s…“That 70’s Show”…My mom was Red Foremann
I came in to post these very two shows, but I was beaten to it.
I don’t think any one show can represent “America”, but I think Friday Night Lights is a good representation of many aspects of American life – all kinds of relationships, ambition, ethics, work, school, sports, race, small towns, etc.
Star Trek!
Another vote for King of the Hill
The Simpsons.
Ever since the early-90s when George Bush Senior said, “Americans should be more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons”.
That’s even better, I was gonna say Married…With Children. Similar to Rosanne with the added benefit of the nagging wife.
But yeah, Rosanne would be my top pick.
I came in to say Roseanne, but I converted to King of the Hill. Honorable mentions would perhaps be Drew Carey and My Name is Earl (though the fact I don’t live in Manhattan or LA makes a difference), with the US version of Brit import The Office also ironically appearing.
Least representative (not that it was asked): Friends, Desperate Housewives or most things on the top 100 (which is not a judgment but totally understandable as who wants to watch a TV that’s just like daily life?)
It’s only about one part of America… but no show ever does a more real job of showing what life is like than The Wire
The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree with this one. It’s not a perfect representation of America as a whole (a bit too Texas-specific, for one thing), but neither is anything else.
The OP is a great question, but I think it’s also ultimately an unfair one. No TV show can accurately depict more than one segment of life out of a huge variety in a country as diverse and large as the United States. King of the Hill is a very realistic depiction … if you’re a white person from a medium-sized town in the South or Midwest. (This is me; my best friend from college IS Hank Hill, just 20 years younger.) The Wire is very realistic … if you’re a lower-middle-class (or lower) person from a big city. The Sopranos is realistic … if you’re from northeastern New Jersey. They all depict something true, but none of them can be said to be definitive, because the subject matter is too vast.
So, my answer to the OP is “All of the above,” and “None of the above.”