Keith Lard’s Diary

I watch a powerful amount of crap on the TV, it has to be said. I’m determined to raise the quality bar and reduce the number of shows I watch to only the very best, primo fino alla fine that the medium has to offer. After all, I have a lot else to occupy my time what with Go, reading a cube-shaped book about Dickens, and living the simple, ascetic, minimalist life of a Taoist monk, if it was a Taoist monk that eats a lot of crisps.

So here is my list of allowable shows. Some of them I have already seen but it would be better to watch them again, than to waste my golden autumn years watching lesser forms of entertainmint.

Quality drama

• Six Feet Under
• The Sopranos
• Breaking Bad
• The Wire
• Deadwood
• The Tudors
• Lost
• Sherlock
• Game of Thrones
• Jonathan Creek
• Hustle
• Generation Kill

Classic comedy

• The Simpsons
• King of the Hill
• Seinfeld
• Frasier
• Black Books
• Spaced
• Father Ted
• Blackadder
• Yes Minister

Also

• Quality documentaries, especially about massive engineering, or space. Or massive space engineering which would be the best.
• QI which is basically like an evening with me, only with less surprising facts and not as funny jokes.
• Lavish costume dramas (especially Dickens adaptations.)

I obviously had to eliminate a lot of quite good things in my pursuit of the greatest and most culturally significant TV shows of all time. Basically if we were sending a space probe out to contact alien civilisations, and we put a DVD on board, it is the type of thing that would go on that DVD.

You may disagree with the contents of this list - indeed, you certainly will - and of course you are entitled to your wrong views. Comment if you think I have missed out on something fantastic, because obviously I will never be watching any new shows again, as the list has closed and will remain as it is, for ever. [Updated April 2013]

• tv