Culture

Welcome to The Wire's TV Anniversary Week

This week marks major milestone anniversaries for some of the most important television shows of the past 20 years. Friends, E.R., Lost, Veronica Mars, Freaks and Geeks, and more. We're recognizing them all.

By Joe Reid
This article is from the archive of our partner .

Maybe there's a rule about every five years on television being another great leap forward. Whatever it is, this week marks major milestone anniversaries for some of the most important television shows of the past 20 years. Friends, E.R., The West Wing, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Veronica Mars, Freaks and Geeks​. These aren't just great and fondly remembered TV shows. These are shows that, in their own ways, marked various turning points for TV.

  • E.R. turned the network drama into a cinematically directed, prestige event, and in its own way it helped pave the way for the cable drama revolution of the subsequent decade.
  • Lost was the next great step forward for network dramas, particularly when it came to serialization and having multiple seasons lead up to one (disappointing, or not) payoff.
  • Freaks and Geeks wasn't appreciated for it at the time, but it was a major step forward in taking teen characters seriously, which led to ...
  • Veronica Mars, in tandem with Buffy in demanding respect for the netlets. Pushed the boundaries of how dark we'd allow high-school series to get.

The list goes on. And ON. The fall premiere classes of 1994, 1999, and 2004 are unusually stacked full of resonant network shows, and given the spectacular failure rate of network fall premieres, that's really saying something.

1994: Celebrating Their Emerald Anniversary

1999: Celebrating Their Crystal Anniversary

2004: Celebrating Their Tin Anniversary

As you can see, we've already gotten a head start on some of these posts. Keep checking back here as we update with more and more posts as we remember the milestone TV happening this week.

Other Anniversary Week posts:

We'd also be remiss if we didn't tip our cap to the bang-up job our friends at Vulture have done with remembering strictly the 1994-95 TV season and making a case for it as the greatest we've ever seen.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.