Top Ten TV Shows of the Decade

1. The Wire
2. The Daily Show
3. The West Wing
4. Curb Your Enthusiasm
5. 30 Rock
6. The Office (UK)
7. Project Runway
8. Top Chef
9. The Sopranos
10. Mad Men

The Wire is the best thing I've ever seen on TV — a fully-formed world, novelistically dense, compellingly populated. The Daily Show kept me sane. The writing on the West Wing made intelligence seem intoxicating. 30 Rock gave us a second round with Alec Baldwin, for which we should all be grateful. The Office was brilliant in a bullying kind of way. Curb Your Enthusiasm grew on me. Project Runway and Top Chef are reality TV shows starring actual humans. Mad Men has genuine flair, even as it rattles around aimlessly. And The Sopranos was a little too superior for my tastes but compulsory nonetheless.