This will be my last post of the year as I have to yield Tuesday to a different blog instead. I like to rank different network’s shows at times each year. This is happening later so I could include a show that did not premiere until November. Also note that this will be a possibly shortened and simplified version since I am not giving myself enough time to do this post. I am also unsure if I have every ABC show mentioned since not all of them might have shown up on where I did the search for them. I also might have forgotten which shows I’ve seen and they aren’t even included on the unranked shows.
Every ABC show that I’ve seen: American Idol, 8 Simple Rules, Agent Carter, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Full House, The Goldbergs, Grey’s Anatomy, Home Improvement, How to Get Away with Murder, Nashville, The Neighbors, Pushing Daisies, Quantico, Roseanne, Matlock, The Middle, Modern Family, What Would You Do?, Shark Tank, Scandal, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, Black-ish, Body of Proof, Castle, The Conners, Dancing with the Stars, Designated Survivor, Family Matters, 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show, According to Jim, 20/20, The Alec Baldwin Show, Batman, Battle of the Network Stars, BattleBots, American Housewife, Better Off Ted, Big Fan, Big Sky, Cougar Town, The Crossing, Celebrity Family Feud, Card Sharks, Fresh off the Boat, Don’t, Dr. Ken, The Drew Carey Show, The Gong Show, The Good Doctor, Station 19, For Life, The Forgotten, The Flintstones, How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life), Happy Endings, Imaginary Mary, Inhumans, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, Last Man Standing, Last Resort, Malibu Country, The Lawrence Welk Show, Laverne & Shirley, The Muppets, Missing, Press Your Luck, Notorious, Notes from the Underbelly, Pyramid, The Quest (a 2014 show), The Real O’Neals, Reef Break, The Odd Couple (original), Of Kings and Prophets, Off the Map, Once Upon a Time, Steve Harvey’s Funderdome, Stumptown, Suburgatory, Revenge, The Rookie, Rookie Blue, Single Parents, Take the Money and Run, Schooled, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Whodunnit?, The Whole Truth, Whose Line is it Anyways?, Wipeout, Ten Days in the Valley, Crumbs, The Astronaut Wives Club, Better With You, To Tell the Truth, Time after Time, The Toy Box, and Trophy Wife.
What isn’t ranked and why: American Idol (since I have not and probably never will see the ABC version of this show, I can only give you the FOX rating of it which I have seen which ranked as 80 out of 85 shows in terms of that network), Roseanne (I never saw what wound up becoming the final season of this show and the one episode that I saw of it seems too random so I don’t think that I can rank it fairly as a result), Family Matters (I don’t remember this show that well so I won’t rank it as a result), Designated Survivor (while the show jumped from place to place at times, the fact that I don’t know how this ended by seeing any of the final season that aired on Netflix means that I won’t know which ranking would be fairest)
Continued: According to Jim (since I never saw how this ended, then I don’t know how to rank it as a result), The Alec Baldwin Show (I’ve seen too little of this so a ranking would be unfair as a result), American Housewife (I stopped watching this after a role was recast so I decided that the quality of this wasn’t effected and it wouldn’t be ranked as a result), Better off Ted (I don’t remember this that well and don’t feel that it is fair to rank it as a result)
Continued: The Drew Carey Show (it has been too long since I have seen this and it doesn’t make that much sense to me), Laverne & Shirley (I can’t remember much about this other than the fact that I saw this), Of Kings and Prophets (too little of this aired for me to see any of it), The Flintstones (it has also been too long since I’ve seen this for me to rank it fairly or at all), Revenge (while I know that I sort of saw an episode, I wasn’t really paying attention to it and should not even count this as a show that I watched), Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (There have been enough versions of this that I can’t rank this fairly against itself, much less other shows), The Forgotten (I haven’t really seen the end of this yet and am unsure how or if I could, so I can’t rank it as a result)
The bad shows
Dishonorable mention: Work It- Despite having never seen this show, I feel like ranking it worse than all of the other shows as I would be doing a disservice to all of the ABC shows that I have seen not to rank this as worse than them. I’m honestly surprised to this day that it aired more than one episode. Its problem wasn’t so much the cross dressing as it was the outright sexism of the show. It remains a highly controversial show and never should have been made or seen the light of day if it was.
The Real O’Neals: The worst ABC show that I’ve seen, it forever ruined a random sports song that was also used in the promos for it. I hated this show before I ever saw it and when it finally worked out for me to when everything else that I wanted to see wasn’t on (and it was paired with a comedy that I did like and watch), it did nothing to change my opinion of this horrible show. I can understand why the gay community does not want the Christian community to attack them. But if Christians can’t attack gays, then gays can’t attack Christians. It is only fair. This is one of the many ways that this show failed to do well in terms of entertaining me and I’ll forever be baffled that this got a second season.
Dr. Ken (every actor except the lead sucked on this show with writing so horrible, you’d have to wonder how they found jobs in Hollywood), The Gong Show (what makes this show displaying bad people’s talents even more dumb by the fact that it is supposed to be bad), Battle of the Network Stars (this was a very dumb and pointless show), Last Man Standing (your party sucks! Ha ha ha ha ha. No, your party sucks! Ha ha ha ha ha. This might have been a good show at one point, but it got politically stupid with no humor anymore), America’s Funniest Home Videos (why does getting hurt equal comedy for so many people?), Wipeout (this is only better than the last show for being competitive and not being about the hurt people so much as the things people will do for money), Downfall (this game show did not work, even with them doing replicas of prizes)
Continued: Trophy Wife (why do people like this show? I want to be part of the cool mom’s club and not be subject to these women’s rumors. Seriously? This is a good show?), Single Parents (they were unlikely to make this premise work, even though they easily could have)
Continued: Cougar Town (this also aired elsewhere, but never left that big an impression with me), Black-ish (this is such an overrated show based on the one episode I saw of it as no one should care whether or not someone is black enough), The Neighbors (they gave up on this show and didn’t care about it as much, making the worseness of the other shows its only saving grace), The Crossing (all you had to do was have an ending, but you failed)
Continued: Notorious (they could have done more with this than they did, which was a problem), The Odd Couple (original) (it didn’t have much to it based on what I saw of it), Off the Map (it was good in some places, but its lack of an ending is why it ranks low for me), The Conners (unless I saw the wrong episode, it wasn’t that great or that funny)
Continued: Last Resort (this was far too slow moving and boring), Missing (there was enough wrong with this outside of the sudden lack of ending that THEY COULD HAVE EDITED OUT!), Reef Break (only watching the series finale makes this not as much a waste of time as it otherwise could have been), Stumptown (this was too random and did not leave a lasting impact me), Time after Time (it was very good before its finale, which is why it isn’t much lower, but its finale puts it on the bad shows list)
The average shows
How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life) (it was too random and didn’t make that much sense), Big Fan (this Jimmy Kimmel game show didn’t have much to it or even last that long), Malibu Country (pretty much a wanna-be Reba, it didn’t last that long as a result), Take the Money and Run (this largely didn’t work, but at least had a point not to commit crimes), How to Get Away with Murder (I never really understood this show ever), Sabrina: The Teenage Witch (this show also aired on the WB and is lower on this list for abandoning plots a lot and screwing over the ending recurring plot by putting her with someone else), Beyond the Tank (this component to Shark Tank doesn’t have that much to it which puts it as low as it is)
Continued: 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show (there wasn’t much they could do to make this adaptation work in this country and we never saw all the ways), BattleBots (this has aired on other networks too and if they could fix the competition rules, it would rank higher), Steve Harvey’s Funderdome (it had some good ideas in some places, but wasn’t that well in others), The Whole Truth (if only the cases were more sided for both sides, then we could get more out of this that we couldn’t from other shows), The Toy Box (this is a whole lot of work for just one toy each season)
Continued: To Tell the Truth (if this went back to its older roots, this current version which is ranked would be much higher), Suburgatory (this comedy had some good ideas, but just wasn’t that great or worth watching most of the time), Pyramid (this is as middle of the road as you can get), Whodunnit? (It was hard to make sense of some of it, but it worked for the most part based on what I saw of it), Better With You (it went with a now overused premise which explains why it didn’t do so well)
Continued: Crumbs (sadly, it never got much time to grow and I nearly forgot about this show entirely), Card Sharks (one of the newer shows that I’ve seen, it doesn’t have much to it, but it works well enough), Notes from the Underbelly (this comedy didn’t even air all of its episodes in the US, but did elsewhere, and I liked it in many ways, just not enough to rank it any higher)
Continued: The Quest (a 2014 show) (this reality show was a nice competition, even if parts of it were over dramatized in some ways), Quantico (this drama worked better in some seasons than it did in others, which is why it ranks lower than it does, even though it could have ranked higher), Dancing with the Stars (I am liking this show more since there was not much else to watch this year when it aired, but can’t rank it higher as there is not much to it)
Continued: Big Sky (I almost didn’t include this show in the ranking as it is too new, but I waited this long until I could see it. I think that if it can have enough material, this would be much higher in future rankings), 20/20 (this only ranks low for largely focusing on stories that I don’t care about as it is much better when it airs actually interesting content instead of murder mysteries)
The good shows
Happy Endings (there could have been more to this and the fact that it was unfocused by abandoning its original premise is what made it much lower than it could otherwise be), Press Your Luck (while I do still believe that this looks easier than it actually is, I would more than love to be on this show and only have it ranked here due to how much better other shows are), Agent Carter (it may have been old fashioned and might not be on here if a different show hadn’t resolved its cliffhanger, I still like what we got out of this show and what it added to the MCU)
Continued: Imaginary Mary (honestly, while the gimmick of an adult having an imaginary friend was what got me into this show, it would have worked much better without it in the end and was a decent show either way), The Lawrence Welk Show (largely known for its reruns on PBS, it is the reason that they should do more variety shows today)
Continued: The Jeff Foxworthy Show (while I have not seen that much of the show yet, if ever, I do think that it is pretty good), The Muppets (with this being a more updated version of the show, featuring the characters in a mockumentary, it never seemed to gain the audience that some would have liked for it and many weren’t fans, but I liked it), Scandal (while I only saw parts of the final season of this, I felt that it was pretty good in the end), Body of Proof (they need to focus on MEs more and this show was proof that it could work pretty well)
Continued: Inhumans (this might be more of a controversial pick on my part to have it this high on my list, but I loved this show and enjoyed seeing what I could of it), Shark Tank (quite a simple show, this has plenty of interesting things going on in every episode), Station 19 (while there is a lot of wrong that they do with this show, there’s enough good about it that works and will always be worth seeing), The Rookie (this is still new enough and we won’t know for sure what might happen with it, but I will enjoy seeing this for a while since it works well enough)
Continued: Schooled (I don’t like that this didn’t last that long and never even got to film the rest of its second season, but I do like what I saw of it and can only hope that this isn’t ruined by the parent show it span off of), Batman (this Adam West classic may be campy, but that was the point and it made him a household name to this very day, may he rest in peace), The Kids are Alright (its biggest problem might have been the fact that it was too similar a premise to what one could see from other shows on the air were like, but it was still good)
Continued: Castle (if only this had a better ending, then it might be much higher on the list, but it did well enough and I still like and watch this show despite what happened with it in the end of this show), The Astronaut Wives Club (while it was only meant to last one season, we learned a lot about the history of the space race from the wives of those who were in it), Rookie Blue (while it was a Canadian show that aired here due to the writer’s strike, it still left a lasting impression and did quite well for its time here on American airwaves)
Continued: Home Improvement (while it is hard to remember this show that well, it is a good show still in my mind that lasts quite well in the American lexicon), For Life (this is such a good drama that we need more and more today considering the fact that we may never win the war on racial justice but can only hope that we as a society gets better), Don’t (this game show is quite awesome and something that most of us all want to see)
Continued: Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (while this never gained much of an audience among people and it only lasted one season as a result, I love the fact that it did what it did and showed quite a nice story, expanding on the universe of this show), Trust Us with Your Lives (while this might only seem like a poor man’s version of Whose Line and could never rank higher than it, it was still a nice show to watch even with its short time on the airwaves)
Continued: Fresh off the Boat (I was quite glad that I got into this show in the end as I might not have if it didn’t air with something that I liked and can only hope that it can improve the perspective that we have of Asian Americans), Full House (quite a good show, we see a cast ensemble that is often missing in the hits of today), Pushing Daisies (despite only lasting two seasons, the latter of which was kind of screwed with its airing, I believe that this remains one of my favorite shows since we often don’t get to see a man talk to the dead for a minute to see who killed them)
Continued: Nashville (this show also aired on CMT and proved to be quite wonderful in many ways and in how it proved that a fan campaign can actually save a show every now and then), The Goldbergs (perhaps the modern day sitcom that I’ve missed the most of that I want to see at some point, I can only hope that over time, I will see more as it is great, even if it constantly focuses on a era before my time), Whose Line is it Anyways? (This is now airing a newer version on the CW with a different host and it will always be a better show to me than a lot of others), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (This was a great tie-in to the rest of the Marvel world, even if it didn’t link up to it much during the last two seasons, that it ranks the highest of the Marvel shows on ABC and just short of the top ten)
The top ten
Modern Family: Despite constant plot holes with the way it was filmed versus how it was written and set up, this show was otherwise pretty good and worth keeping up with in many ways all the way until the end of the show. I plan to keep up with this show for quite a while as long as it lasts in reruns, even though it is over now.
Celebrity Family Feud: This will be the highest ranked of all of the game shows. It is hilarious and always fun to watch, if you feel that you want to spend your time with it. But why wouldn’t you? This is just as good as the regular version of the show where even the wrong answers are awesome.
Ten Days in the Valley: The shortest lasting of the shows to rank this high, it was fun to see a complex set of mysteries all going on at once with a great cast of characters mixing the whole thing together. I quite like this show and even think that it was made better by only lasting one season.
The Middle: Seeing such a great and simplistic set of characters all together proved that shows can have a nice setting and not have to deal too much with its own egos or something else like that. We need to see more shows like this in the end.
Once Upon a Time: Despite being a mixing all of Disney characters in the ultimate fan fiction (something that they admitted to doing), we got to see such a great, complex set of characters that we never had seen that much of before in other ways. The plot was always evolving, keeping people interested, and it never strayed from its main fairytales ways.
Grey’s Anatomy: Wonderfully written and greatly acted, it isn’t hard to see why this is ABC’s longest running drama to still be on the air (I have no idea if it is the longest of all time). It shows no signs of slowing down from what I know right now. And it has the help of a new spin-off to keep more and more plots coming in the years to come.
The Good Doctor: It is almost hard for me to rank much else as better than this, but I feel that this is a good place to put it as few shows can be this well done today like they should be. I will be disappointed if Freddie Highmore never gets an award for his performance on this show.
Matlock: This show that also aired on NBC is one of the greatest dramas of all times. Its simplicity is missed in today’s TV shows. It didn’t rely on recurring storylines or other gimmicks that are far too common in today’s shows. But it is still nice that it lasts in some way.
8 Simple Rules: One of my favorite comedies, it was due to a misfortune that happened and the way that they handled it that lead me to ranking it very high to this day. Never has a comedy that I’ve seen tackled such serious issues in a better way, making me glad that I saw this show in the end.
What Would You Do?: Not only is this my favorite ABC show, this remains my favorite show of all time. It is not afraid to have real people address serious issues that they come across, even if they are just the scenarios being played by actors. You want to see people step up and do the right thing while also being exposed to a whole variety of situations.
The complete ranking: The Real O’Neals, Dr. Ken, The Gong Show, Battle of the Network Stars, Last Man Standing, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Wipeout, Downfall, Trophy Wife, Single Parents, Cougar Town, Black-ish, The Neighbors, The Crossing, Notorious, The Odd Couple (original), Off the Map, The Conners, Last Resort, Missing, Reef Break, Stumptown, Time after Time, | How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life), Big Fan, Malibu Country, Take the Money and Run, How to Get Away with Murder, Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, Beyond the Tank, 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show, BattleBots, Steve Harvey’s Funderdome, The Whole Truth, The Toy Box, To Tell the Truth, Suburgatory, Pyramid, Whodunnit?, Better With You, Crumbs, Card Sharks, Notes from the Underbelly, The Quest (a 2014 show), Quantico, Dancing with the Stars, Big Sky, 20/20, | Happy Endings, Press Your Luck, Agent Carter, Imaginary Mary, The Lawrence Welk Show, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, The Muppets, Scandal, Body of Proof, Inhumans, Shark Tank, Station 19, The Rookie, Schooled, Batman, The Kids are Alright, Castle, The Astronaut Wives Club, Rookie Blue, Home Improvement, For Life, Don’t, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Trust us with Your Lives, Fresh off the Boat, Full House, Pushing Daisies, Nashville, The Goldbergs, Whose Line is it Anyways?, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Modern Family, Celebrity Family Feud, Ten Days in the Valley, The Middle, Once Upon a Time, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Doctor, Matlock, 8 Simple Rules, What Would You Do?
Well, sorry that this is posted so late in the day that this might not count as Tuesday anymore as it took me this long to write it all. Also sorry if I forget to mention any shows that I have seen that should be on this, but aren’t. I tend to count posts that should be on the previous day that the new blogger might not count anymore in some places as the right day even if it really wasn’t. But this shouldn’t matter too much in the end and I can only hope that this doesn’t become more of an issue in the end than it has already been for most of the time.
