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Today has been a good, mostly lazy day to do laundry, read books, talk to people, and think. Among the things I have thought about are new projects and favorite television shows. And when presented with the question of what to post to my blog today, it was the television shows that shouted the loudest. Below, without much adornment, I present my 15 favorite television shows, as they occurred to me about an hour ago. I have left Japanese animated shows off this list, because for good or ill, they occupy a slightly different place in my mind.

1. The Sopranos. David Chase and his team of writers are cynical, cynical people with a cynical, cynical vision, and some of the greatest acting powerhouses in America. The American family, the media’s mob, the meaning of life–it’s all taken down with an impeccably entertaining touch.
2. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. This list is sadly lacking in television shows pre-1989, mostly because any shows I really liked from before then (Bewitched and I Love Lucy, for starters) were shows I pretty much haven’t watched since I was a teenager, and thus don’t really seem to count. But this show is practically nirvana. Its narrative tempo and proclivity for puns is, as far as I’m concerned, unrivaled.
3. Home Movies. The best American animated show since Rocky & Bullwinkle. Probably the best work anyone involved with it will ever do.
4. The Office (UK). Devastatingly funny. And just devastating.
5. The Wire. Season 4 may well be the height of series dramatic television. Season 5 isn’t.
6. Curb Your Enthusiasm. Has anyone ever successfully pulled off a non-anthology horror television series? (Genuine question–I don’t think I’ve seen it, though.) Because Larry David has, except he gives it to us dressed as a situation comedy.
7. NewsRadio. The middle three seasons of this show are probably the best, sharpest arguments for the medium of three-camera situation comedies that have ever been presented.
8. Freaks & Geeks. Show producer Judd Apatow has said that the good thing about so-called dramedies is that if the comedy falls flat, you can say it was supposed to be dramatic. Good thing this show excelled at both.
9. The Kids in the Hall. My favorite sketch comedy.
10. Seinfeld. Would probably be higher on the list, if I didn’t think Curb Your Enthusiasm improved upon what Seinfeld started.
11. Mad About You. That seasons 4 through 7 of this show aren’t on DVD is a sin. Few sitcoms could pull off capital-D Drama like this show could. That I’ve had a longstanding mancrush on Paul Reiser doesn’t hurt. The show spun its wheels and got a tad too maudlin near the end of its run, but redeemed its worst moments with one of the best bow-outs that’s ever graced television in its series finale. Really, my biggest beef with the show is that Anne Ramsay and Richard Kind both had their roles diminished as the show went on.
12. Arrested Development. The first season is pretty much perfect. Seasons 2 and 3 aren’t, but they’re still pretty great, for the most part.
13. The Simpsons. On the strength of its mid-nineties stuff, this might be higher. But then there’s all the episodes I’ve seen from this decade.
14. Good Neighbors/The Good Life. Mid-seventies British sitcom goodness.
15. Darkwing Duck. I’ll probably never be able to make a version of this list without Darkwing Duck.

September 12th EDIT: Slings & Arrows is conspicuously missing from this list. It belongs in the top 5-ish.

No disrespect intended, because 30 Rock‘s a good, well-written show and Alec Baldwin’s presence and excellent performance are essential ingredients to the show’s quality, but…

The characters’ similarities are pretty striking.

The landscape of late night television does not shift very often. But starting two weeks ago, the trigger for a massive upheaval was pulled. Conan O’Brien has left Late Night after a week of incredible farewell shows in order to take over Jay Leno’s iconic The Tonight Show in three months, at which point Leno will transition to primetime. It’s been long coming, as the shift was originally announced in 2004. And while Lorne Michaels had been talking about Jimmy Fallon assuming Conan’s desk since around that time, Fallon was officially announced as the heir to the 12:37 throne in May 2008. This new Late Night with Jimmy Fallon premiered last night.

And for something that had apparently been in the works for so long, it’s a shame that its first broadcast was really quite lame. There’s been much ado about the weeks of preparations leading up to this debut, but it would seem that Fallon and his producers forgot to develop much of anything.

Fallon was just as nervous and jittery as he was during his most recent appearance on Conan. If he gets over this or figures out how to work it to his advantage, though, he has the potential to succeed on solely the strengths of his own attractiveness and self-effacing charisma.

His biggest problem is that the show has nothing to say about him and he has nothing to say about his show. Despite the presence of The Roots as house band, everything else feels like a cookie cutter late night show template. Fallon serviceably delivered a monologue with ripped-from-the-headlines jokes that were flatly generic and impersonal, and delivered against a garish blue curtain. The Roots accompanied him in an extended joke about the current stimulus package in a segment they called “Slow Jam the News,” which was cute but overstayed its welcome halfway through its short length. After commercial, Fallon called some members out of the audience to play “Lick It for Ten,” in which three young people licked things like fax machines and lawn mowers to receive ten American dollars.

David Letterman has been doing his job for over 25 years, starting in this very same time slot. He gets to do tired, self-aware shtick like this and his demeanor is ultimately what sells it. Seeing a fresh, eager face like Fallon attempting it just doesn’t work.

After “Lick It for Ten,” Robert de Niro gave an off-puttingly distant two-segment interview (opening with someone as guarded as de Niro was a poor choice; better to pair your new talent up with a talk show guest who always brings the goods like William Shatner), followed by a refreshingly lively interview with Justin Timberlake, whose instant injection of charisma and comfort suggested he might belong on a show like this some day.

There are some potentially good ideas here, though. Despite the dull thud that was “Lick it for Ten,” Fallon seems genuinely interested in interaction with his studio audience. When Timberlake arrived for his interview, he improved some music to The Roots’s music. Strong integration of both band and audience into the show may very well be something that the program could benefit from, but if it does, it needs to break free from the shackles of late night talk show, audience-facing-couch-and-chairs conventions.

This is not to write Fallon off just yet. As Time’s James Poniewozik says in his write-up, “A late-night show is, in a way, one evolving performance; grading it after one day, or even a few, is like reviewing a movie after the first opening title.” If Fallon and his crew figure out how to reinvent the talk show format to play to their own strengths and to deliver something that the other hosts don’t give them, it could become something special. It may take a while to get there, though. And until then, I’ll be sticking with CBS’s Craig Ferguson, who did just that.

I’ll check back in with Fallon next time Craig’s in rerurns.