My favourite TV shows from the 2000s

24

What a great concept. A show in real time. How the hell does Jack Bauer manage to go through an entire 24 hours of life threatening situations and physical trauma and not lose his mind? Ok, he did suffer psychologically because of it after a few seasons, but still, he was amazing. I just loved the twists and turns on this show and trying to guess who’s gonna turn bad and which bad guys are gonna turn out to be good.

By the way, Jack turns up to help out in one of my novelettes "The second great prison break"

Deadwood 

Possibly the greatest TV Western ever. Gives a lot of gritty realism to the wild west, unlike prevous Westerns. The only negative for me was it was sometimes hard to understand what the characters were saying due to use of a lot of old fashioned English. A little like listening to Shakespeare. Some great characters many of which were based on real people.

McShane was brilliant as the foul mouthed Al Swearengin. They updated the swearing to modern expletives because using "God Damn" just doesn't have the impact it once did.

Harper's Island 

This one got better and better as it went. Twists and turns at every step, red herrings and a shocking conclusion. It gave you plenty of characters to love and then killed most of them off one by one.

Best description I can make of this is "Friday the 13th" meets "The Hangover".

Kyle XY

A work colleague recommended this to me, telling me it was about a guy with no belly button, and it sounded rather odd to me, but after he gave me the DVDs of the show and I watched a few episodes, I was hooked. What a brilliant show! Just a pity it didn’t last

Lost

I got it. Why did so many people not get it? The ending made total sense to me. One of these days I will watch it all again on DVD just to appreciate what I missed the first time around.

Outrageous Fortune

This is Without a doubt the best New Zealand made comedy/drama ever. Great characters, great story lines. About a family of criminals whose matriarch is trying to straighten them all out. 

Prison Break

This is now my favourite show of all times. Great characters, excellent scenarios. It was just a pity it was one of those shows that you couldn’t just keep creating new seasons for. 

The Sopranos

A superb drama involving mob boss Tony Soprano and his family. Plenty of shocks and surprises. Great cast of characters.

Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles

A high budget TV series, which was the result of its downfall in the end. I thought it was a great continuation of the Terminator series of movies. I wish they'd kept making it.