There were 10 new sitcoms that debuted this season. What about the old ones, the returning favorites or in some cases the: what is that still doing on the air shows? There are 32 of these in total, if you count Jake in Progress and Scrubs, which are waiting in the wings to get a little TV screen time.
- Arrested Development
- Scrubs
- The Office
- Two and a Half Men
- Joey
- Jake In Progress
- The Simpsons
- Will & Grace
- King of Queens
- Reba
- George Lopez
- That ’70s Show
- Stacked
- Yes, Dear
- Blue Collar TV
- What I Like About You
- Living With Fran
- Still Standing
- Family Guy
- According To Jim
- The Bernie Mac Show
- Rodney
- King of the Hill
- American Dad
- Malcolm in the Middle
- Hope & Faith
- Eve
- One On One
- All Of Us
- Girlfriends
- Half & Half
- Cuts
TVaholic Ranking Methodology
I started by putting the list into two groups, shows I watch each week and shows I don’t. I took the second group of shows and split them into shows I watch on occasion and ones I pretty much never watch. Then I put each of these groups into best to worst order.
This was not a fair ranking though as some shows are pretty good but they do not get watched do to the competition on a given night. So I merged the lists based on the quality of the shows. Then I started at the top and played: would I watch Arrested Development over Scrubs and so on down the list. If the answer was no, then I would switch the shows on the list. Each time at least one switch happened, I would repeat this process from the top until no switches took place. This incidentally is how Joey ended up at #5 and Family Guy ended up at #19. It took four passes before nothing moved. Thus giving you the TVaholic ranking of the returning half hour comedy shows for the 2005 TV season.
This list does not contain just your standard sitcoms. It includes all half hour comedy shows, whether sketch comedy, animated or whatever presently on the air or the January back burner, which aired at some point last season.
A final note about the last five on the list, I don’t think the TVaholic has ever watched a complete episode of any of them. If he did he sure doesn’t remember anything about them, thus landing them in no particular order at the bottom of this list.
How would you rank the returning comedy shows? Where have I gone wrong? Let me know what you think but please be gentle.