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).

37: Flight of the Conchords

Finally, we again get to a show that I genuinely love. A cult show it certainly is - there's no chance more people watch it than Dancing with the Stars - but it would be silly to underestimate it's popularity - from firsthand experience I can tell how hard it is to get tickets to a Flight on the Conchords show - I got completely shut out the first time they came around New York before being able to land some while constantly hitting "refresh" on ticketmaster the next time a year later.

Flight of the Conchords is, of course, about two New Zealanders just come to America, New York in particular (I admit I have a bias towards shows that take place in New York) to succeed as a novelty folk duo. The show stars the duo - Brett and Jemaine as well as their manager Murray, who also works at the New Zealand consulate and their one fan, Mel who is creepily obsessed with them.

Flight achieves something very difficult with its songs - the rare ability to make songs that are both funny and that you actually want to listen to them over and over again. Songs like "If You're Into It" and "Business Time" actually make me laugh out loud multiple times, even when I hear the song again, but I want to listen to them because they're actually good songs, not just because they're humorous. (The funniest song might be one of the few in their repertoire not actually in the show, "Jenny." I can grant I suppose that the overall total quality of the songs maybe slipped a slight, slight bit from first to second season – but there remained some absolute classics - “Hurt Feelings” and “Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor” included.

Brett and Jemaine play a very strange role of not being truly stupid characters but rather being absurdly naive, which makes the whole show in some kind of surreal universe. In Flight of the Conchords – there is no straight man – all five main characters who appear in just about every episode, and all of them are suitably wacky – Murray, the manager is not entirely unreasonably compared to Ricky Gervais's David Brent from the Office – truly incompetent – though with his own mannerisms – the best may be the chart he made to show the progress of his friendship with Brett and Jemaine. Mel, Flight's one fan, makes bizarre comments about wanting to sleep with the two of them, although she is married to former professor Doug, who apparently she seduced as a student (fun fact: Doug's bizarre series of credits in addition to Doug include a recurring role on Damages and a fairly important role in the journalism plot of the fifth season of the Wire along with several commercials). The duo make a show of always both trying to be nice to her and carefully avoiding her - one major plot line involves her being jealous when two new people joint the fan club. Dave, the pair's best friend and a pawn shop owner, is a bit off himself and often has trouble comprehending where they are from – on Brett's budding romance with an Australian woman – he remarks “You're from Austria and you're from somewhere no one's ever heard of.”

Of course, making fun of New Zealand and the rivalry between New Zealand and Australia are ongoing themes throughout episodes. Ultimately it's bone dry humor that gains steam upon repeated viewings - many of the laugh lines almost take a second or two of silence to really pick up on.

Flight of the Conchords is one of my favorite comedies of the decade, and that alone should earn it its spot.