The Top 10 TV Shows Of 2007

It's come to the time of the year where lists are made. Christmas lists, shopping lists, hell, even the sex offenders register probably gets busier in December. But mostly, it's lists that round up the year, albums, singles, movies, and TV show. We'll be covering the top 10 albums, and top 40 singles of the year, but first, with the writer's strike in full swing, and the second half of the 2007-2008 season seeming unlikely to happen, it's time to look back on the best television shows of 2007. In many ways, it's been a terrible year for TV: the strike, the end of Veronica Mars, Heroes getting crappy, the continuing success of the Friday Night Project... you get the picture? It's not all bad, however, and here are ten of the best things on TV in 2007.



The only show this year to cause a 'won'tsomebodythinkofthechildren' reaction from middle England (read: the Daily Mail kicked up a bit of a fuss), Skins isn't great because of the sex, drugs and yet more sex. It's great because it's funny, subversive, knows that a lot of the time teenagers are dickheads, but mostly it's great because of Sid and Cassie. If it's not the most believable teenage romance on TV, it's easily the sweetest. It's telling that the most affecting thing about the final episode isn't the guy from About A Boy getting mowed down by a bus, but two kids holding hands. Now let's see them fuck it all up during season two.



Oh, who cares that most of the songs have nothing to do with the plot. And most of the time, the plot doesn't even need to be there. The first season of Flight Of The Conchords is a joy from start to finish. A parody of French music videos of the 60s? Yep. A stop motion kid's TV show starring a racist dragon and a badly burnt Albanian boy? Aye. A David Bowie tribute? There. You'll be hard pushed to find a more surreal, inventive and outright hilarious half hour of comedy on television. And it's made by HBO, but doesn't have someone's face being punched in by a pimp or something equally 'gritty' and 'realistic'. Amazing.



Unsurprisingly for a show about, ahem, herbal relaxants, Weeds actually moves kinda slow. Three years on, Nancy's just a little more seasoned. It's the sharp writing and fantastic cast that keep viewers coming back, though. This year, Nancy's 'bought' by a crack dealer, one of the Olsen twins gets slaggy, and, in an incredibly coincidental storyline, Agrestic burns down. But the real reason to watch Weeds is the dialogue- witty, razor sharp and filthier than almost everything else on TV, lines like "they say arson is a sexual crime. Couldn't you have just rubbed one out?" are enough to make most other TV writers reach for their joints.




BBC Three might be famous for Little Britain and (shudder) Two Pints Of Lager, however, shows like the blacker than black Pulling and Gavin and Stacy are expanding it's appeal beyond people who've just got back from Chinawhites. With a plot that could have been breathtakingly schmaltzy (girl and guy fall in love over internet, but live hundreds of miles apart), or (judging by the channel's comedy output thus far) just a series of bad sex jokes, is sort of what i imagine Judd Apatow and Richard Curtis making a sitcom would be like. There's sex jokes, however, they're coupled with a huge heart, and great scripts. It might be polemic to every other British sitcom of recent times, but Gavin and Stacy is just what the BBC need- an old fashioned, sweet rom-com.



Going out with neither a bang or a whimper, the final episodes of Veronica Mars reminded us why we fell in love with Vera in the first place. It wasn't like The OC's finale, where we were reassured that everything was alright, and nothing bad ever happened to anybody ever (although didn't Ryan look like a paedophile in the last scene?). T's were left uncrossed, and, refreshingly, everything wasn't okay. It didn't end with a kiss on a street, once again, Veronica was left alone, with things looking bleak. It's a good thing tears never show in the pouring rain.



Anybody who was unsure as to why Green Wing never quite gained mainstream recognition just needs to watch it's final episode. Joanna and Alan kill themselves, in one of the most oddly beautiful shots of the year. Guy continued to be a total cunt, and not of the smart arse Dr. House variety. And even though Mac and Caroline got married, he was probably still dying (unless you consider the alternate ending to be canonical). It doesn't matter, Victoria Pile wrapped it up perfectly. We don't need to know what happens afterwards, Caroline blissfully floating away said it all.



The best comic ensemble on television, there's not a weak link in 30 Rock. Tina Fey shines as Liz Lemon, one of the only female comic characters since Elaine Benes to make jokes rather than just be them. Sharp, cynical, with a healthy dose of surrealism (My Name Is Earl can be great, but it never had Prince Gerhardt), and featuring one of the decade's most all round brilliant comic creations (Kenneth the page, surely one of the most beloved characters on TV), it's a crime that hardly anybody watches it. But Seinfeld didn't really pull in viewers until season four. Let's hope that NBC has the balls to stick with it for a little longer.



We can argue for hours of the relative merits of the British and American Offices, but one thing is undeniable- there's no way that Gervais and Merchant's version would have sustained four seasons and been as fantastic as the American Office is. Nor could it have made an episode as beautifully tender and funny as Money. And if you think we'd care that much for Tim and Dawn after they got together, you're sorely mistaken. Maybe making the characters more well rounded, and well, nicer means that it's not as dark as the original, but i'd take Dunder Mifflin over Wernham Hogg any day.



Surely shows aren't supposed to get better over time? Well maybe you can peak around third season, but actually improving over a whole decade seems impossible, no? Perhaps Matt and Trey weren't paying attention when they were told to get worse with age, whatever the reason was, in it's eleventh season, South Park is funnier, smarter and more subversive than ever. The first half of the season is the funniest, dealing with race relations, sexuality, and a nuclear weapon being implanted in Hilary Clinton's vagina, but the season's (and perhaps the show's) finest moment is Imaginationland, a trilogy of episodes filled with more brilliant moments than every episode of American Dad combined. Long may South Park remain in rude health.



Pushing Daises is amazing for more reasons than i can list on one blog. But the show's brilliance is perhaps exemplified by Lily and Vivian. On the surface, they're cartoon characters, kooky aunts, one's nasty, one's nice. BFD, right? But when Vivian picks up a postcard from Chuck, and both she and Lily realise that she's never coming home, it's a more affecting moment than the hundreds of identikit relatives on CSI being told their loved ones where put in a blender or something. Essentially a crime procedural by Roald Dahl, Pushing Daisies is tinged with loss, sadness and longing. It's also the sweetest love story on television, and funnier than most comedies to boot. It's strangely fitting that a show about death should be so joyfully life affirming.