The 3 best TV series -- Ever!

Among many, many other things I'm passionate about, TV series are near the top of my list. "Hill Street Blues" was an early favorite, along with "American Gothic;" the former was gritty and was full of Steven Bochco's signature linguistic fillips, the latter just plain spooky . . . not unlike the first season of "Twin Peaks."

I was a regular viewer of 2003's under-appreciated "Tru Calling," but that might have been because of the way Eliza Dushku bobbled beneath her red dress during the opening credits 8^).

There are others: 1961's "Way Out," hosted by Roald Dahl, which was a contemporaneous competitor of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" (and which, as far as I'm concerned, was a bit more cerebral!) as well as the TV adaptation of "Alien Nation."

As you can probably tell my tastes run fairly heavily toward science fiction and the quirky. However, only two of my top three fall into that category.

#3: "The West Wing (Seasons 1-4)" - This show had everything going for it: Aaron Sorkin's writing (He'd previously written the screen plays for "A Few Good Men" and "The American President",) Thomas Schlamme's directing, and some of the best ensemble acting short of "M.A.S.H." What engaged me the most, I think, about the writing was Sorkin's habit of teasing the audience by refusing to spoon feed them relevant information and context. The word "thing" was employed as a pronoun in almost every episode, and it was left to the audience to figure out its anticedent. It was a show that required you to think and be aware. Of "things." You notice I rank only seasons 1-4 as being in the top three; that's because in season five, Sorkin was replaced by John Wells, who produced "ER," and took the show in more of a personal vs. process direction. Where Sorkin's pontificating was laced with the allusion and poetry of shaved truffles, Wells's attempts had more the consistency of overcooked risotto. It was a great show gone bad -- which, I'm afraid paralleled the direction the country was taking.

#2: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" - This show has made too many "Best of . . . " lists to count, and for good reason. Not only was the ensemble cast as good as any in the history of TV. Even the minor characters, or ones introduced relatively late in the series' run (Anya, the vengeance demon; Tara, Willow's lesbian lover; Dawn, Buffy's heretofore unknown sister; Faith, the rogue slayer) added so much to the story's mythology that after a while they seemed nothing less than inevitable.

The quality of the show was completely due to its visionary creator and writer/director of most of its best episodes, Joss Whedon . . .