Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976)Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) 7.9/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jan 5, 1976Norman Lear's syndicated oddity took the soap opera's weeknight rhythm and played it almost straight, which is exactly what makes it so unsettling. Louise Lasser's Mary is a housewife in Fernwood, Ohio, who meets mass murder and the waxy yellow buildup on her kitchen floor with the same anxious…0
  2. 2Soap (1977)Soap (1977) 8.3/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 13, 1977Susan Harris moved the daytime soap into prime time and turned its machinery into the joke. Each episode opens with the announcer's summary of the convoluted story so far and closes by promising that the dangling questions will be answered next time, a device that gets funnier as the plots grow…0
  3. 3Police Squad! (1982)Police Squad! (1982) 8.3/10 on IMDbFirst aired Mar 4, 1982The Airplane! team pointed their sight gags at the police procedural, and every inch of the format gets mocked, from the opening titles onward. Each episode's announced title never matches the one on screen, and each week's special guest star is introduced and promptly killed. Leslie Nielsen's…0
  4. 4Sledge Hammer! (1986)Sledge Hammer! (1986) 8.1/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 23, 1986Where Police Squad! spoofs the whole procedural, this one takes aim at a single type: the cop on the edge, in the mold of Dirty Harry. David Rasche plays Inspector Hammer completely straight, a man who fixes every problem with far more force than it needs. His catchphrase, "Trust me, I know what…0
  5. 5The Day Today (1994)The Day Today (1994) 8.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jan 19, 1994Six half-hours on BBC2 that nailed the grammar of television news so precisely that real bulletins have looked slightly ridiculous ever since. Chris Morris anchors with thunderous self-importance, the graphics swoop and clang, and the correspondents inflate nothing into crisis. Armando Iannucci…0
  6. 6Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge (1994)Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge (1994) 8.2/10 on IMDbFirst aired Sep 16, 1994Before This Time, Alan Partridge had a chat show of his own, and it is the sharper spoof. Knowing Me Knowing You copies the celebrity chat show beat for beat, from the "Aha!" entrance to the sofa interviews, while Steve Coogan's Alan mishandles every guest with a fatal mix of vanity and panic.…0
  7. 7Brass Eye (1997)Brass Eye (1997) 8.6/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jan 29, 1997Chris Morris moved from the nightly bulletin to the hectoring current affairs documentary, and made it dangerous. The episodes copy the genre's moral panic, grim reconstructions and urgent campaigns, then put real celebrities and an MP in front of the camera to endorse them, most famously a warning…0
  8. 8Look Around You (2002)Look Around You (2002) 8.4/10 on IMDbFirst aired Oct 10, 2002If you remember the cart being wheeled into class for a schools program, this will feel like a memory going wrong. Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz recreated early 1980s educational films down to the droning synth, the sinister calm narration and the faded color, then filled them with nonsense…0
  9. 9Reno 911! (2003)Reno 911! (2003) 8.0/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jul 23, 2003A direct copy of Cops, with the ride-along camera and the deputies explaining themselves after another call has gone badly. Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant and Kerri Kenney-Silver let the cast find much of the dialogue as they went, which gives the incompetence an unpredictable, rambling energy…0
  10. 10Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004)Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004) 8.5/10 on IMDbFirst aired Jan 29, 2004The conceit is perfect: a lost 1980s horror series by a self-proclaimed visionary author, finally broadcast with smug commentary from its "original" cast. Matthew Holness and Richard Ayoade mock the stilted acting, shoddy effects and clumsy editing of low-budget genre television, and the vanity of…0