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).

11: Sex and the City

I really shouldn't be the one writing about Sex and the City. I've seen a few episodes, and a decent chunk of the first movie. It's a big show for a certain demographic over the last ten years (women) and was a giant success for HBO, pretty much the co-biggest the commercial success of the decade along with The Sopranos and I would be remiss not to mention it for its combination of commercial appeal, critical success and cultural phenomenal-ness.

The show was big enough to inspire products like Manolo Blahnik shoes and places like Magnolia bakery to become household terms, just from the show itself. It was a big platform for women in the mid-to-late thirties to be, I don't know, real, and party and be professionals and meet guys and have sex and talk about it and not just get married and have kids and just deal with their mother-in-law.

Of course, my friend who was a fan has always said, rather than about the girls, as one would think, for her it was about the dudes. It's a rich collection of actors who have portrayed the guys of Sex and the City, the diverse (well diverse between white guys) likes of Chris Noth as Mr. Big (who as a die-hard Law & Order fan I always have had serious trouble taking seriously as a romantic lead), Ron Livingston, John Corbett, Mikhail Barishnikov (I remember thinking "what the fuck?" when I read that casting call somewhere), James Remar, Kyle McLachlin and the always great Evan Handler.

I don't have any strong feelings about the show (I don't want it much, the ones I've watched are okay, not great but watchable, but more or less, it's not written for me, for what that's worth).

I wish I had more to say, particularly because I'm sure there is a lot to say about this show, it broke all sorts of ground in a way, and a lot of people love it the way I love other show. I don't have any easy way to make fun of it or deliver some random trivia the way I would about some of the other shows on the list. I'm just going to move on and resolve to write more about the new few on the list. Apologies to all. At least I know far more about the plot of the show than I did before writing this.

(I do realize I want to make a quick note - the wikipedia season summaries are clearly written by a fan in an non-objective style of writing - referring to "our resident bad girl samantha," having us all watch with him as "we start the season," and writing on sentence "Life after Big." (also I realize I did want to mention Big as one of the great partially named characters in TV, up there with the Columbos and the McGuyvers and the Kramers - someone should make a list sometime))