Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday! This week, I’m continuing my rerun series celebrating the 25th anniversary of the 2000-2001 season, counting down my picks for its ten best sitcoms. Up for consideration is every comedy that I’ve ever covered from that particular TV year, both on Sitcom Tuesdays and Wildcard Wednesdays. In addition to directly comparing each show’s 2000-2001 output, my ranking is also factoring in how each season fares in the trajectory of their own individual series, along with how each show’s ultimate, overall (and average) quality measures up to the others. That is, I’m mostly looking at what was produced in 2000-2001, but I’m not ignoring the broader intra-series and inter-series implications of such a list.
With all that reiterated, here’s what I’ve featured so far:
#10. BECKER (Season Three)
#9. FRASIER (Season Eight)
#8. CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (Season One)
#7. THE KING OF QUEENS (Season Three)
#6. WILL & GRACE (Season Three)
#5. TITUS (Season Two)
#4. FRIENDS (Season Seven)
For this post — #3 on the list — I have selected Season Three of THAT ’70S SHOW, which I first wrote about here: https://jacksonupperco.com/2019/10/01/the-ten-best-that-70s-show-episodes-of-season-three/
There are five seasons where That ’70s Show is a shoe-in for an annual Top 10 list, and two of those where it’s a good candidate for a Top 5 slot. This happens to be one of those two, for the show is not only in top form according to its own standards, but it’s also a consistently good example of situation comedy that renders it competitive with, if not outright better than, most. Now, I say that with conviction, but honestly, I did have to stop and think about, specifically, the inter-series viability of this ranking. That is, I know that That ’70s Show is in peak form here — specifically, both Seasons Two and Three are great, with the last half of Two and the first half of Three being the series’ absolute finest stretch. So, on the show’s own terms, it makes sense for it to be so highly ranked. But there are a lot of sitcoms that I would say, overall, are better written and more successful in total. I’m thinking of Frasier, Curb, and Friends, and frankly, I think you could make an argument for both Will & Grace and King Of Queens as peers of a proximal quality. However, I think what helps That ’70s Show in these early years is that the novelty of its premise (its 1970s setting) meaningfully contributes to story and helps keep the proceedings from feeling as formulaic as some of its increasingly tiresome rom-com maneuvers would otherwise appear. What’s more, its characters are always well-defined, and comedically so. Indeed, like last week’s Friends, this sitcom — despite a major forthcoming decline — has a foundational quality as a result of its strengths. That strength, combined with the peak excellence represented in 2000-2001, is a persuasive argument for why the show deserves to stand as one of the five best sitcoms of this specific year. But why at #3, over both Titus and Friends? Well, Titus is more of a novelty, never lasting long enough to prove the same foundational richness as That ’70s Show. And Friends has, per its own standards, one of its weaker showings here in 2000-2001, so I just couldn’t reward that over a genuine success story that’s unique to this season. For that reason, That ’70s Show cracks this year’s Top 3 — a grand showing that, despite it all, still isn’t close to the two best sitcoms of the year, both of which exist on an even higher plane. Ready to find out which is first and which is second? Stay tuned!
Notable Episodes: “Reefer Madness,” “Red Sees Red,” “Eric’s Panties,” “Ice Shack,” “Dine And Dash,” and “Donna’s Panties”
Come back next week for #2 on my countdown! And stay tuned tomorrow for a new Wildcard!