Worst Decade For Television

[RichDante]

What in your opinion was the worst decade for television?

Cartoons were really lousy Scooby Doo ripoffs with cheap limited animation. Live action wasn't much better, they were really corny cookie cutter sitcom drek, seriously watch The Love Boat and tell me that it isn't the most corniest **** you've ever seen. There were a handful of good anime being made during that time but a majority of them have not held up and are really dated by today's standards.

[AndrewCrossett]

The 1870's was a pretty terrible year for TV.

Seriously, maybe the 2000's. Specifically that zone between the end of cool syndicated genre shows and the beginning of "peak TV." There was a time there when TV was just dominated by reality shows, paint-by-number procedurals and derivative suburban-family sitcoms. There were some good shows in there, but good luck finding them.

Nowadays we still have dumb reality shows, procedurals and sitcoms, but now there are plenty of much better options with streaming and cable.

[Jokerz79]

00's and reality TV.

[Immortal Weapon]

Echoing the noughts being dominated by reality shows and sitcoms. That era of TV lead me to consuming my media on the internet and never looked back.

[Scott Taylor]

1980s

It was a sea of sameness, greed, shallow morality and colorful jackets. The only good thing about the entire decade in TV was Winnie Cooper.

The 1990s took all of that crap and basically nullified the entire era on the strength of just the Carlton Dance.

[Jim Kelly]

Gee, other than now where, with streaming and specialty services, you get a lot of quality shows, I would have thought the 1970s was the most obvious for quality TV shows from the three networks.

I remember on NEWHART, Peter Scolari's character was depressed because the commerrcial TV shows he loved from the 1980s, like MANIMAL and THE A-TEAM, had been replaced by quality programming and Bob consoles him by saying these things come around and soon all this quality programming willl go away and the crass commercial shows will make a come-back.

[RichDante]

Just like the 00's and the 70's rocked and I say that as some not alive than.

Can you explain why you think this way?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

In my opinion, the 00's which helped to usher in so-called "reality TV" (TLC is rife with all sorts of this trash) makes that the worst decade for me.

[GozertheGozarian]

Add me to the 00 reality era.

[RichDante]

In my opinion, the 00's which helped to usher in so-called "reality TV" (TLC is rife with all sorts of this trash) makes that the worst decade for me.

You do realise reallity Tv isnt the only peice of televisiion right? theres still a bunch of scripted shows on the air

[Jim Kelly]

It's the old apples and oranges.

Television in the 1970s, in the USA, was limited to three major networks and otherwise lots of local programming and public televsion. The amount of money available for production wasn't a lot. Out of that pool of programming, which was largely cheap, there were some truly great things being produced and the quality of those programs influenced a whole generation to go on to create more good things.

Today, the amount of programming is exponentially larger and the production budgets for some programs are huge. If you took everything into account, the amount of pure garbage now being generated every day is so much more than it has ever been in history--but there's also a lot of good stuff being produced.

Does the good outweigh the bad?

[Jokerz79]

Can you explain why you think this way?

Simple the decade that gave us All in the Family, Mash, Maude, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, Kojack, Rockford, Good Times, The Jeffersons, What's Happening, Sanford and Son, Streets of San Francisco, Dallas, Incredible Hulk, or even Quincy which yes comes off as cheesy today but did tackle tough issues for it's time doesn't lose to the Decade that gave us Survivor, the Osbournes, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Keep up with the Kardashians, Big Brother, and other crap like that.

[numberthirty]

Simple the decade that gave us All in the Family, Mash, Maude, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, Kojack, Rockford, Good Times, The Jeffersons, What's Happening, Sanford and Son, Streets of San Francisco, Dallas, Incredible Hulk, or even Quincy which yes comes off as cheesy today but did tackle tough issues for it's time doesn't lose to the Decade that gave us Survivor, the Osbournes, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Keep up with the Kardashians, Big Brother, and other crap like that.

Columbo/"Swan Song"

Don't even get me started on Good Times. It's the only card that decade needs to have the winning hand.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Simple the decade that gave us All in the Family, Mash, Maude, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, Kojack, Rockford, Good Times, The Jeffersons, What's Happening, Sanford and Son, Streets of San Francisco, Dallas, Incredible Hulk, or even Quincy which yes comes off as cheesy today but did tackle tough issues for it's time doesn't lose to the Decade that gave us Survivor, the Osbournes, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Keep up with the Kardashians, Big Brother, and other crap like that.

It's very easy to list the best things of one era and then the worst of another. But it's not a remotely fair comparison. The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Dexter, Breaking Bad all ran in the 2000's. Quality wise they are way ahead of any show you mentioned. If all you care about are sitcoms okay I guess another decade might have that beat.... but then a huge chunk of Friends aired in the 2000's which is arguably the biggest sitcom ever.

[RichDante]

Simple the decade that gave us All in the Family, Mash, Maude, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, Kojack, Rockford, Good Times, The Jeffersons, What's Happening, Sanford and Son, Streets of San Francisco, Dallas, Incredible Hulk, or even Quincy which yes comes off as cheesy today but did tackle tough issues for it's time doesn't lose to the Decade that gave us Survivor, the Osbournes, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Keep up with the Kardashians, Big Brother, and other crap like that.

Survivor and Big Brother are actually considered as being one of the better reality shows out there, plus that's the decade that gave us LOST, The Sopranos, 24, Deadwood, Jericho, Burn Notice, The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, Mad Men, Breaking Bad and so much more