Dave on Demand: They just wouldn't leave
Piling on: The 10 worst TV series that still kept getting renewed.
I get the e-mails all the time: "Dave, you handsome devil, what do think are the best TV shows of all time?"
It's a good question, one I promise to tackle some week when I am in a more Pollyanna-ish mood. This, let me assure you, is not that week.
Instead here's a list of some of the worst series ever. I'm not talking about the stinkers that were put out of their misery after a couple of episodes or even a full season. That's too easy.
No, I mean the avoid-at-all-costs atrocities that still inexplicably got renewed year after year.
My bottom 10:
Green Acres. Patently, offensively stupid. The best character on the show was Arnold the pig. Worse than Petticoat Junction? Incredibly, yes.
The Love Boat. The perfect accompaniment to the disco era: shiny happy junk.
Mama's Family. Unrelenting insult humor. Crude and nasty. But it's the only reason Charles in Charge and Too Close for Comfort aren't on this list.
Touched by an Angel. A single smarmy plot premise repeated endlessly. If heaven is, indeed, stocked with the likes of Roma Downey, Della Reese, and John Dye, then, Lucifer, here I come.
According to Jim. This empty, imbecilic sitcom simply would not go away. Jim Belushi made Alan Thicke look like a comic genius.
Star Trek: Enterprise. To meekly go where four series had gone before. Only cheaper, with less imagination and a lousy cast.
America's Next Top Model. Two words that will live in TV infamy: Tyra Banks.
Sex and the City. Pretentious, unrealistic, materialistic twaddle, featuring one of the most annoying casts ever assembled.
Ghost Whisperer. You'd whisper, too, if your plots were this hackneyed and predictable. Jennifer Love Hewitt has a one-note acting range: deer caught in the headlights.
True Blood. A stupid overheated premise. Like Alan Ball's previous series, Six Feet Under, it's astoundingly self-important and smug. (I'm assuming this creepy Cajun cage-match will be with us for a while.)
All right, people, let's hear it: Which shows would you put in TV's Hall of Shame?
Remind you of anyone? I hope this Tonight Show gig works out for Conan O'Brien. Because as we've seen the last few weeks, he's a terrible impersonator.
His Jay Leno sounds like Mike Tyson and his Arnold Schwarzenegger resembles the Cookie Monster.
Now hear this. Did you catch USA vs. Brazil in the FIFA Confederations Cup final? Disappointing result. Headache-inducing telecast.
The entire match was drowned out by a deafening buzz. It sounded like it was being played inside an amplified hive of angry bees. (In the 33d minute, the cameras finally revealed that the piercing noise was created by rabid Brazilian fans with plastic horns.)
Not that the din made you miss much. Soccer announcers, more than most sportscasters, do little more than describe what you're looking at. Thank you for stating the obvious.
But doesn't ESPN have baffles for their microphones?
Welcome to the Titanic. The most desolate place on TV is Saturday nights during the summer. That's where Eli Stone is playing out its string. But because I consider it the most surprising and amusing legal series since Ally McBeal, I've been sticking with this dead-series-walking.
This week it had a remarkable roster of guest stars, including Jamey (Chicago Hope) Sheridan, Kerr (Dawson's Creek) Smith, and a bearded James (24) Morrison.
All in a losing cause.
Wait for the bobblehead. Fun moment on CBS's Early Show this week as Harry Smith interviewed unlikely box office king Shia LaBeouf.
Smith displayed all the robot toys from Transformers and then the Lilliputian likeness of Shia's character.
"How about that little guy?" riffed LaBeouf. "Like a Josh Groban. It's like Screech. It's like my Screech action hero. Thanks, Hasbro."
Well played, young man.