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).

12: Everybody Loves Raymond

Yes, I know, this one seems like it's from forever ago, as it ended in 2005, but it didn't really peak, popularity wise, until 2000, and I still submit it's the biggest mainstream comedy of the 2000s (Two and a Half Men may be surpassing it, but give me some leeway).

This is one show I was actually there for the beginning for, and I really mean before the beginning (pre-beginning?). When I went to Las Vegas in, well, I guess it must have been 1996, in August, we, at MGM Grand (I think?) went to a couple of free screenings of upcoming CBS television shows, where we would share our opinions. One of them, as I've implied was Everybody Loves Raymond, and the other was the short-lived Moloney, starring Peter Strauss as a Los Angeles cop/psychiatrist (we were on the vacation with family friends, and my friend was so taken with Moloney that he watched every episode - I wouldn't be surprised if he was the only person in the US to do so). It took place on Long Island, where I grew up, so we immediately took to representing the show and it is the kind of show we all liked enough for us to watch it as family for its first couple of seasons. I've basically seen every episode of the show for the first few seasons, and not a single episode from the last one where I'm sure some weird stuff happens (like did at the weird last few seasons of Home Improvement) and the kids get older (Madylin Sweeten, who played daughter Ally, is weirdly 19 now, her brothers who played her brothers in the show are now 15).

The formula's pretty simple. Professionally successful, but common sense stupid, Raymond is always pissing off his smart housewife who is always doing everything around the house and for the kids (she's the deuteragonist - so says wikipedia - second character to the protagonist - I didn't even know this word existed). Oh, and of course, his overbearing parents, along with is older brother resentful of all the attention he gets (prompting the distinct Brad Garrett low-voice grown "Eeeeverybody loves Raymond" (Why I can't just find a youtube of him saying this, like that, is beyond me)), live across the street.

These weren't the salad days for CBS like they are now. CBS was struggling and NBC ruled the roost (really really hard to believe, I know). Raymond was one of the most important shows (along with Survivor and all the procedurals led by CSI) in changing that. The show was Emmy gold as well, winning the best comedy award twice, and all of its main cast members winning acting Emmys, except for Peter Boyle, who was nominated seven times.

To a lot of people I think, it was the last in a great line of classic old-school family sitcoms. It was generally well-received, and I think whatever critical value it had has been all but lost to its CBS successors, instead moving off to the new generation of sitcoms, without laugh tracks and over-sentimentality, like the NBC Thursday night shows (well, not Outsourced, but the rest) and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (the one particularly notable exception to this is How I Met Your Mother, which is very much in an old school format, yet has a critical following). But for the most part, there really isn't another Everybody Loves Raymond.