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).

44: Smallville

I'll admit it. I really haven't seen very much Smallville, and I'm constantly surprised every year when I find out that, yes, it is still on - it's covered almost every year of the decade, starting in 2001, and entering its 9th season in 2009. And to be honest, the only way I usually find it is because I figure out that the reason some hot chick is famous is because she was on the show - Laura Vandervoort (currently of ABC's '80s sci-fi remake V "fame") was Supergirl on Smallville, apparently.

I'd also be lying if I didn't say I really wanted to cheat and use the Smallville entry to talk about a major 00's phenomena of which Smallville is a part (and really the only live action television entry) - the revivial of the comic book on film and screen.

This was such a big deal in the decade that I felt it has to be mentioned just for a couple words at least - starting with the first X-Men movie in 2000 and the first Spider-man movie in 2002, that basically spent film executives everywhere scurrying off to find comic movies to make - be they revival of huge classic heroes, Superman and Batman style, or nonclassic heroes at all in Sin City, or 300, or perhaps most ambitiously, with Watchman, the race was off. The sheer number of comic book films that have been produced is astounding, and with often decades of character biography, they're ready made for sequels if they do well, which most have - Daredevil, The Punisher and multiple Hulk movies are the exception (not a surprise - the Hulk sucks).

And unlike some of the other trends - this one's not ending any time soon - the existing successful franchises are likely continuing - more Spider-mans, Batmans, Ironmans - and more are on their way - Green Lantern and the Avengers seem on the horizon.

I suppose I should go back to the show for at least a brief moment, but I don't have much to say about it - it's always been kind of popular enough to keep it on for this long which is certainly an impressive achievement but it's really never rose to any mainstream or big time cult status, at least any that I've seen. I don't have any strong feelings about it - I find it minorly interesting - I might consider reading the wikipedia character pages in the future, but I highly doubt I will end up watching many episodes. But yeah, they picked no better time to come out with the show, and whether they were a cause or a symptom of the comic book revival, credit to them, it's a good thing.