And now it’s time to get to the Top 100 TV shows. Starting with 100-91 in this batch I’ve got 6 sitcoms, 3 reality shows, 1 drama in the mix of which 2 are British. LETS SEE WHAT THEY COULD BE
The Top 100 TV Shows: 100-91
100) "The Great Food Truck Race" Food Network
One of my favorite summer shows. Hosted once again my Tyler Florence, this season we got a twist on the show. None of the contestants own their own truck and the winner gets to keep their truck. In years past, each team already had their own truck. This twist was refreshing because it was fun to see how each team had to deal with learning how the truck works and how to handle the things that go wrong on the Food Truck. The sob story team went out first this year which surprised me! And the team I called to win it, won in the end!
This season we were also blessed with a team that backed their truck into another car and another team that opened their window too close to a light pole and proceeded to fall and shatter on the sidewalk! The “speed bumps” this season made me laugh at their absurdity to throw a wrench into each team’s plans, my favorite being each Food Truck getting a boot on their tire. Simple summer fun, I can’t wait until next summer for the show to return.
99) "Don’t Trust The B---- In Apartment 23" ABC
As a huge Veronica Mars fan, I follow anyone who was on the cast no matter where they go (unless the show is crap). This time Krysten Ritter got to headline her own sitcom. A turn on the last role I saw in which she played a druggie with good intentions on Breaking Bad, in this sitcom, she plays an over the top alcoholic socialite. Her character is the B---- who gets a new roommate that is a well intentioned college graduate trying to make it in the big city.
The show also stars James Van Der Beek as James Van Der Beek, albeit an over the top version of himself who is a contestant on Dancing With The Stars. Each episode Krysten Ritter’s character gets them in some situation which is absurd but always makes me laugh. The second season is airing now (mixed with leftover episodes from season one that never aired)
98) "Anger Management" FX
I was never a fan of Two and a Half Men but after the hoopla that surrounded Charlie Sheen I decided to check out his new show. It debuted as the most watched sitcom premiere on cable ever. I wasn’t expecting much from it but it had a lot of laughs. Charlie is the head of an Anger Management therapy group and the characters he has to deal with are hilarious. They’re interactions never fail to make me laugh. The absurdity of the show works in its favor. To me the best character is Lacey, played by Noureen DeWulf, the ditzy rich girl who was sentenced to therapy after she shot her cheating boyfriend in the balls. Yep! She’s the best
After a 10 episode summer first season, it was given a second season order, which consists of 90 episodes to get it to the point where they can sell the show to syndication quickly. These 90 episodes will also see the addition of Charlie’s real life father, Martin Sheen, to the show as Charlie’s father. The second season will premiere in January
97) "Episodes" Showtime
Here’s another show featuring an actor playing an over exaggerated version of themselves, everyone’s favorite “Friend”, Joey aka Matt LeBlanc. In this show Matt, playing himself, is cast in a critically loved British Show called “Pucks” that is being adapted for a US Cable network. The original creators and writers of “Pucks” have to deal with Matt, even though they didn’t want him on the show in the first place. In it’s second season, we see the fall out of the tension put into all of the relationships and the ever sinking numbers the show is getting in the ratings and reviews.
The stand out performer for me was Kathleen Rose Perkins playing the network assistant Carol. She goes through a lot of growth and development and plays ditzy yet smart perfectly. She grows closer with people involved in Pucks and in the end, she has a very happy ending to the season. The show is great, although sometimes it can be a little slow. The show is a BBC/Showtime cooperation and was renewed for a third season to air sometime in 2013
96) "The Soul Man" TV Land
I’m a huge sucker for every TV Land original sitcom they have created and The Soul Man was no exception. Starring Cedric the Entertainer as a singer turner minister, the show was spun off of TV Land’s first hit, Hot in Cleveland. The show also stars Niecy Nash as his wife who works in the hair salon in town. At first I thought the show might be a little too religious for my likings but soon learned that the show is anything BUT religious, even upsetting some religious groups to the point where they called for the boycott of the show!
Every week the minister is put in an absurd situation and turns to the guidance of his father, the former minister of the church, his wife, his daughter who wants to go back to the life they had while her dad was a superstar, and his recluse womanizing younger brother. The show will return next year for a second season.
95) "American Idol" FOX
Everyone’s watched even a little bit of this ratings juggernaut, though less and less watch every year (whoops lol). Last season I watched a little bit of the show, more towards the end of the show once they got to top 6 or so. The talent this year was one of the best bunch where there wasn’t anyone who obviously shouldn’t have made it to the final shows. I was rooting for Jessica and Phillip and was glad Phillip won in the end once I heard him sing “Home” over Jessica’s song which I can’t even remember the title of. They both will have big things coming for them in the future.
Hopefully this year with the change in judges again and expected drama between Mariah and Nicki they can keep up the same level of talent in the contestants and not make the show all about the judges. I’m also looking forward to seeing how Keith Urban does in the judging role. Idol returns this January.
94) "Skins" E4
The final season of Gen 3 I expected more from. The decision to kill off one of my favorite characters of the generation in the first episode set the tone for the rest of the series. Almost all of the characters changed from the first season and their characterizations from the series before were pretty much forgotten and became totally unbearable at some points. The series was my least favorite. That being said, it was still miles better than the MTV remake of the show.
The best episode of the sixth series was “Mini” and showed the life of Mini and her interaction with her divorced parents and the fallout from her pulling away from her close friends during a time when she could really use someone to talk to.
I expected the series to end at the conclusion of this series but it was announced that there would be a seventh series featuring three, two part episodes focusing on only three characters per double episode. Those are being Cassie from series 1-2, Effy from series 1-4, and Cook from series 2-4. The episodes will premiere sometime in 2013
93) "Ben and Kate" FOX
A new comedy on FOX, Ben and Kate is about siblings Ben and Kate who struggle though the roller coaster which is life. Ben is a grown man who acts like a kid most of the time while Kate is the one who had to grow up quick once she became a single mother. Every week they deal with situations at work and home along with their friends BJ and Tommy, who is in love with Kate.
The show received a back 6 episode order bringing the first, and most likely only season to 19 episodes. The show’s ratings started off soft and have continued to slip but the show is endearing and has a quirky sense of humor which isn’t always “laugh out loud” worthy per say but I get many chuckles out of it from 8:30-9:00 while I wait to watch Happy Endings/New Girl/Go On, depending what isn’t in repeats that night, at 9:00.
92) "The Valleys" MTV UK
The Valleys. Where do I start haha. The show is about a group of 9 strangers all from The Valleys who move to Cardiff to try and get their lives out of the valleys and make a name for themselves. Some of the housemates want to be models, others want to work in fashion and some want to work in music.
The show is pretty much a takeoff of Jersey Shore/Geordie Shore although it is even more insane.
These kids from the valley know how to party. The girls like to expose their breasts and pretty much every part of their body at any chance they get! The show makes out each person to be absurd and they pretty much all get with one another at some point. Except the gay guy, who is the oldest one and kind of awkward. He stands out like a sore thumb while everyone else is getting it on. Every character is annoying in one moment and the next does something absurdly hilarious you can’t believe it even happened. I don’t even know if this show will get a second series. If not I’ll stick with Geordie Shore which has a better cast and better storylines.
91) "Whitney" NBC
Everyone loves to hate on this show but its actually a really funny show once you get through the first half of the first season while the show was still trying to find itself. Once they began to use the rest of the characters other than Whitney and Alex more often, the show evolved into a funny sitcom. Whitney is a loud opinionated unemployed photographer who is living with Alex, her boyfriend of many years, who avoid the pink elephant in the room which is will they get married or just live the way things are at the moment. And their friends who like to give them crap about everything they do. Their friends make the show.
I don’t know if I can pick between Lily or Roxanne as my favorite characters. The two characters end up living together since Lily has things go wrong in her personal life. Roxanne is a drunk. And characters who are drunks are my favorite. Roxanne is divorced and always tells it how it is even when they don’t want to hear it.
The chemistry between the cast has come a long way and I actually look forward to watching the show now. If you didn’t give this show a chance based off of the horrible first few episodes (just like Cougar Town started off as crap and became amazing, and similarly they are all drunks too!), and can handle Whitney *******’s style of humor, check out the second season which is airing now. They kind of rebooted it a little bit by shaking up the cast and bringing the center location of the show to a bar. And how can you go wrong having most of the show take place in a bar?
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That wore me out and hopefully it makes some sense haha. The Top 100 TV Shows: 90-81 will be up next!