I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily show that would be on otherwise).

50: Weeds

So apparently, according to Wikipedia, anyway, the MILF phenomenon became popular due to American Pie, which came out in 1999. I'd say, though, that MILF has lasted long enough to mostly be a '00s thing. And no TV show is better representative of the trend than Mary Louise Parker in Weeds, both within the show and outside of it. In advertisements for this year's fifth season of Weeds, Parker was declared the "Hemptress" with photos of her seductively posed in front of a spiderweb, and on the show, the widowed Nancy Botwin (Parker's character) is all about sleeping with dudes, being far more sexualized than traditional (often married) "mom" characters on television, and obsessed over by her college age helper who is of course obviously gay (Maulik Pancholy - who it is absolutely worth nothing plays the EXACT same character on 30 Rock -a neurotic assistant eager to please and in love with his boss - did Tina Fey watch Weeds and determine that was exactly what she wanted? - please don't let this become a common role). Not to mention of course, that the marijuana she produced in the second season of the show was referred to as MILF weed.

MILF angle aside (or included, I suppose), Parker's character is a good one for the most part, and she's a good actress. Overall, however, my feelings on Weeds are quite mixed. I have self-selecting filter when I choose TV shows to watch by virtue of asking friends for recommendations and reading reviews, and thus normally most shows I watch I expect to be, and are, at the least, pretty good. If I had just randomly come across Weeds on TV, it wouldn't have been so bad, but based on the buzz I had heard about, I was rather disappointed in the show itself. It tries to be some sort of meaningful scathing commentary about modern suburbia which I don't think it succeeds it, and its entertainment value is questionable as well. It's not a bad show, it's just an okay show that I expected more from.

What additionally bothers me, is that approximately half the characters are useless. The
Also, I know I mentioned this before, but the satire doesn't really work - I don't need a show to be satire of course, but constantly trying and not working doesn't help. The children are completely annoying, and I never completely got Celia, Nancy's featured frienemy's role in the show.

I've only watched the first two seasons, and although since I'm a completionist, and it's a comedy and thus fast to watch, I will probably get around to watching the rest, but by the time I was getting into the second half of the second season, I really didn't feel like watching the rest, and had to kind of force myself, which is exactly the opposite reaction I expect myself to have towards a tv show that I really get into. And it wasn't a so-afraid-for-the-main-character's-sake fear of watching like in the second season of Dexter, or a funny-but-so-awkward-I'm-afraid-to-watch feeling like the second season of the British Office, but rather a simply, I am not particularly enjoying this show type of feeling, which was honestly very disappointing.

That said, a lot of people seem to like it - it's the most watched show ever on Showtime, and that's kind of an honor, anyway.