Favourite TV Shows by Decade
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Lou Plummer blogged his favourite TV shows from each decade in which he has lived.
I thought it was a fun idea, so here are mine.
1970s
The Brady Bunch
I only lived three years in the 1970s but I sure watched a lot of this show in the 1980s. I wanted a house with a giant staircase and a housemaid. I still don’t understand the economics of how that family afforded to care for 6 kids. Mike must have been an incredibly well paid architect.
1980s
The A-Team & Knight Rider
I can’t split these two. 80s TV was a boy’s dream. So much action. So much technology. So many shows that had entirely standalone episodes. Story arcs were not a thing. Both these shows had bad guys that could only ever shoot behind the hero’s feet.
1990s
Stargate SG-1
This TV show took a middling movie and made it fun for TV. Elements of it brought back memories of MacGyver. It was a juiced-up sci-fi show with militaristic scenes combined with Egyptology. I loved it.
2000s
The Wire
Things get a little darker in my taste from the 2000s onwards. Everybody loves The Wire. Subtitles help because the slang can be hard to understand. To this day%2C I still think about the times that Omar be strollin'. This show highlighted how basically everybody is in a gang/tribe/collective, and criminality can appear in any of them. Everybody is really playing the same game%2C just in different clothes.
2010s
Breaking Bad
What can be said about Breaking Bad, bitch? Incredible storytelling achieved by an incredible cast of actors. How a sunny State was made to be so dark and foreboding is very impressive.
2020s
Severance
I have invested so much time thinking about this show, that even though we’re now only halfway through its second season, it has to win the 2020s for me. An honourable mention to Ted Lasso.