Most Impactful TV Show of All Time?

[shadowkat]

Saw this on FB:

Most impactful TV shows of all time? Not just ones you liked, but ones that got you through stuff, made your heart ache, made you feel like the characters were your friends. Ones you couldn't wait to see the next episode of because you were so invested in what happens next. Ones you'd record on your VCR if you're old like me because you couldn't bear to miss them and waiting for a rerun or video release just wasn't an option.

My answer?

Gee, I don't know, guess?



Buffy the Vampire Slayer - no contest.

It's the only television series that I got obsessed enough over to write about.
And join a fandom. And a spoiler board to speculate on what would happen next.
And I kept the VCRs until the died, then shifted to DVDs, and read the comics.

Also Buffy in some ways saved me. I was in a horrible work situation, the less said about the better -- and the Buffy fan community helped me stay sane.


What are yours?

Comments

[wendelah1]

For me, it's thirtysomething. I was "thirtysomething" when it began airing. We had a new baby, just like Hope and Michael, and a money pit for a house just like Hope and Michael. Difficult parents. Crazy friends. We taped every episode, because I could never count on getting off work in time to see it in real time. I loved those characters so much, I suffered when they suffered, and worried about them constantly.

I do have the series on DVD but except for the year I watched a few episodes to write fic for Yuletide, I've never rewatched it. It was so intense the first time around, I don't know if my heart could take it. They killed off one of the main characters (unusual at the time) in what turned out to be the last season--and you would have thought a real person had died, I was that devastated.

Anyway.

[shadowkat]

I remember 30 something, and the big character death -- they were among the first to do it.

Oh my goodness

[jesse_the_k]

...yes, 30something really spoke to me. I was also running a small business with close friends, and so could relate to the business ups & downs of "the boys."

My mother died a few months before Gary did, and that really wrecked me.

I so miss Melanie Mayron!