Favourite TV Shows - Old & New

I like most of the Law & Order shows but Special Victims is my favourite. A brilliant cast (Ice T & Richard Belzer are especially good supporting actors), really good acting and strong stories make this a must watch show. The series has been going for a while now but it is as strong as ever, something not many shows can say.

This is the first grown up TV series I really got into, strong characters and gripping story lines were its trademark. I was sad to see it end. Try and catch the repeats or on DVD, it is well worth the effort.

Hmm, theres a theme running through my choices - cop shows. This British TV classic is just brilliant, it knocks the socks off the American re-boot which tells you all you need to know as even the great Harvey Keitel couldnt save it (playing Gene Hunt).

This still makes me laugh - 'Today I will mostly be eating yoghurt!' - Jessies Diets. Classic!

A blast from the past and one that I can still watch today (cheesey I know, but true!).

Apart from the final series (should have quit while you were ahead, lads!), this is a funny, at times touching series. Zach Braff & Sarah Chalke are brilliant, supported by a very strong cast with some brilliant cameos by the likes of Michael J Fox and Heather Locklear. Despite what I said about the final series, the last episode is full of pathos with just enough humour to take the edge off. A great show.

This black & white classic made in the mid sixties, seemingly aired every summer holiday in the seventies takes me back to my childhood. Unlike its companion show that was also dragged out every summer (The Flashing Blade), it actually had a conclusion.

This isnt usually my kind of show but my youngster got me into it - funny, quirky characters and most of 'em love Star Wars & Star Trek so it can't be bad.

What a change of character for John Thaw who, before this brilliant series came out, was better known as Regan from The Sweeney. Based on the character and books written by Colin Dexter, each 2 hour episode is a joy. Thaw was well supported by Kevin Wheatley as his long suffering Sgt Lewis and each case they faced required the intellect of Morse and the determination of Lewis to solve.

I pity the fool who locked this bunch of ex Special Forces soldiers - on the run for a crime they didn't commit - in a room full of unlikely looking odds & ends, & who expected them to remain there until the baddies came back to finish them off.

Even as a youngster I knew this series was more than just (excuse the pun) good. As the years passed it only got better, although it must be said that Tom & Barbara would never have made it without the help of their long suffering neighbour Margo and her more laid back husband Jerry.

I dont know what to say about this classic - funny, raucous, irreverent, loud. Its all of those things but it is also brilliant. Even Alexi Sayle couldn't ruin it with his not very funny characters.

The first of the Law & Order series, you can still catch them on Sky & Channel 5. The episodes starring Jerry Orbach & Chris Noth as Detectives Briscoe & Logan are the best ones but they are all good.

Rik Mayall & Ade Edmondson play two of lifes drifters in a show full of slapstick violence and raucous (theres that word again!) situations. It doesnt get better than this.

I was going to chose The Simpsons for this list but that show is getting a bit long in the tooth now and Homer gets on my nerves after a while.
The adventures of Fry the pizza delivery boy, locked in a cryo tank and thawed out in the 31st century are well scripted, the voices provided by the actors are spot on and the episodes deliver plenty of laughs. Well worth a watch even if animation isnt usually your thing.

The episodes set in pre war Britain are the best of the bunch but even the later ones are good. Christoper Timothy stars as James Herriot, more than ably supported by Robert Hardy as his boss, Siegfried Farnon and Peter Davison as Tristan Farnon.

Made in the late sixties and still aired today, Kenneth Cope playing the ghostly partner to Mike Pratt's private eye - being dead doesnt mean they cant still be partners. I seem to be using the word 'classic' a lot in this list but it really is.

From the creative mind of Gerry Anderson (more famous for his work with puppets in the likes of Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet), some people say the acting in this show was nearly as wooden! Ok, its aged a bit and some of the situations are a little sexist with the way they deal with some of the female characters, but this was one of my favourite TV programmes and I'll still watch it if it pops up in repeats.

An early version featuring the adventures of Captain Horatio Pugwash was aired in 1957 but the series I remember was put out on BBC1 in the seventies and used to pop ug on a reguilar basis before the characters were ruined by a politically correct version of the show in the 90's.
Pugwash fancied himself as a brave and resourceful pirate but in reality it was his cabin boy, Tom, who was the brains of the crew and if it wasnt for him they would have all have been walking the plank or captured early on in their buccaneering career.

Ok, so the effects are a bit ropey (as was traditional for the BBC at the time), but this came the closest to the brilliance of the BBC's own radio version of Douglas Adams' great work and its certainly better than the film of the same name made in 2005. Life? Dont talk to me about life.....