Time for a list

Because I have such a big audience and because I know you all care so much, here's a list of my favorite 10 television shows:

10. King of the Hill

Ever since The Simpsons, television has given us more and more cartoon shows geared more toward adults than children. But none of these match the heart and soul of King of the Hill. Hank Hill does his best to be the model for upstanding Americans, Christians, and most importantly, Texans. He's an old fashioned, very conservative family man just trying to survive in a crazy, messed up world.

9. Family Guy

A lot of Christians hate Family Guy. I don't care. It's hilarious. Each episode is filled with an abundance of winks and nods toward modern pop culture. You will never get all the jokes Family Guy throws out there, but somewhere else, someone is keeling over laughing. This show has absolutely everything for everyone...except people who hate Family Guy.

8. ER

This show has been on for many, many years. I believe this fall starts their 13th season. There are different storylines now, and the entire cast has changed since it began in 1994. But this show is as good as ever. And even though it is a medical show and can get a bit soap opera-like, ultimately, it is a show about people and the struggles they face. No, not the patients...the doctors.

7. The Office

I love both versions of this show, American and British. And although the American version will never get away with what it's UK counterpart can (FCC violations would shut it down), it always finds some way to rip down the barriers of office political correctness. For ever real life office character, there is an enormous caricature in this show. The slacker, the suck up, the annoying boss, they're all there. They all deliver their lines with such bland, serious faces that for a split second, you'd actually think you were watching a documentary on a paper company.

6. Firefly

Here's to canceled television shows. Fox canned this show after airing only eleven episodes. But this sci fi show about a rag-tag crew of fugitives, priests, and thieves developed a huge cult following. Enough to give the crew of the Firefly-class ship Serenity one last hurrah in a feature film. The show was an interesting mix of interstellar travel and the old west. And not only did it seem to work, but it brought science fiction to a level where you could actually understand and relate to the characters and situations. Above all, every member of the crew was completely different from one another. Yet they were a family to the end. Watch the whole series (14 episodes) and then top it off with the movie, Serenity.

5. The Colbert Report

I don't like the Daily Show. I think it's more politics than comedy, and I don't find Jon Stewart particularly funny. Steven Colbert, on the other hand, is a riot. His show is modeled after Fox news shows, most notably, The O'Reilly Factor. Colbert's all-American, vain persona is so believable, and so consistent, that he is impossible not to enjoy. Conservatives love him because it feels as if they finally have someone on their side. Liberals love him because they know all his jokes are tongue in cheek. And if you haven't heard the terms "truithiness" and "wikiality" yet, look them up on wikipedia.

4. Seinfeld

The best sit-com ever. Hands down. This show revolutionized the way we look at the world. It brought a new vocabulary to the english language and revealed the things we didn't want to admit. Things like "shrinkage" and "master of our domain" are every day jokes now. For a show about nothing, it sure was something. TV comedy died a little the day Seinfeld went off the air.

3. 24

The very concept of this show had me excited before it ever aired. There are 24 episodes in a season, each one an hour long. Each episode occurs in real time, so by the end of the season, you've watched one full day unfold. Jack Bauer is an FBI agent working at the Los Angeles Counter Terrorism Unit. You watch as Jack comes against terrorists from all over the globe and his life slowly falls apart. It is an incredible action show with so many twists and turns, that your head will spin.

2. Battlestar Galactica

I'm a sci fi lover. I've watched more than my share of Star Trek and even understood much of what they were talking about. But in 2003, Ronald D. Moore resurrected an old classic and broke the sci fi mold. This is not the campy, nerdy 1978 series that had men walking around in tin foil costumes. This a dark, gritty, military show about a race that had just been through a devastating holocaust. The robotic Cylons have rebelled against humans and turn the Twelve Colonies, humanity's homeworlds, into nuclear wastelands. Just a small fleet of 50,000 souls survive, and are protected by just one military vessel, the Battlestar Galactica. They are constantly pursued by the Cylons as they search for their one last hope: the mythical thirteenth colony - Earth. To make matters worse, there are Cylons within the fleet that look and feel human. Anybody could be an enemy, Cylon or not.

Every character in this show is flawed. There is no noble Captain and devoted crew. Every character is a hero, and every character is a villain. The show brings sci fi to a whole new level of realism. There are no aliens, there are no strange foods or fashion styles. In fact, everything about the Colonists invokes a feeling of earth even down to the military on many different levels. It is space opera at it's best (Second only to The Empire Strikes Back). It's not just about Cylons attacking, but also the threat of each other. It constantly asks the question: does humanity deserve to survive?

Time magazine called Battlestar Galactica the best show of 2005. Read the article here.

1. Lost

This is the best television drama. Ever.

Again, here is a show with a premise that I was excited about before it came out. A plane crashes on a tropical island and the survivors have to...well, survive. But the show is much, much deeper than that. For starters, there is a monster on this island that nobody has seen, a looping transmission from a radio tower in which a french woman says, "it killed them all", and attacking polar bears. Confused yet? Good.

There is nothing out there like Lost. It's an incredible mix of just about every genre - drama, sci fi, thriller, romance, and a bit of comedy - it's got it all. The survivors have to find a way to settle on this island while discovering the secrets that the island holds. They eventually find the french woman and discover that there are "others" on the island as well. Specific numbers keep showing up, their meaning unknown. A hatch is found, buried in the ground, what's inside is a mystery. And every time a question is answered, a dozen more pop up. A formula to keep viewers watching more, and wanting more.

But what makes this show really stand out is it's outstanding thematic element. Lost is, essentially, a character study. Every character has a past, some dark, some bizarre, some heartbreaking. Each episode focuses on one character's story both on the island, and in flashbacks to their past, usually with a theme that connects the two. What results is a sometimes breathtaking, sometimes scary, and sometimes edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. But Lost always is an inspiring television masterpiece.