SOPRANOS IS TOP GEAR

ABOVE: The cast of The Sopranos

TOP Gear was the greatest TV show of the Noughties, say C4. What a wonderful V-sign to the po-faced drips who run our networks.

Top Gear is laddish, opinionated, competitive and defiantly un-PC – everything modern telly isn’t supposed to be.

So it’s a shame C4 got it wrong, ’cos the decade’s greatest show was actually The Sopranos.

This sparkling Mafia drama, criminally scheduled after midnight, didn’t even make their Top 20.

But then neither did Lost, 24 or The Mighty Boosh – all more deserving of celebration than Grand Designs (No.14).

Here’s my Noughties Top Ten: 1. The Sopranos; 2. The Office; 3. The Shield; 4. Phoenix Nights; 5. Life On Mars; 6. Harry Hill’s TV Burp; 7. The Wire; 8. 24; 9. State Of Play; 10. Battlestar Galactica.

THE Noughties were a golden age for US drama: The West Wing, Lost, Rome, Band Of Brothers, Deadwood, Entourage, Mad Men – all brilliant, and most buried away as carelessly as Owen Turner’s corpse.

Talent shows were the decade’s runaway hit. Yet telly execs used to scoff at me for saying they’d catch on.

Viewers would love modern variety shows and blue-collar comedy shows too. But they’re too clueless to see it.

» MORE 'COLUMNISTS' HERE...

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