Britain's Best Sitcom – Your thoughts?

On: April 21, 2010,  By: Bill Young

images.jpgSeveral years ago, the BBC embarked on the daunting task of determining Britain’s Best Sitcom through a poll where people could argue their case and then identify and vote for their favorite British situation comedy of all-time. To no one’s surprise, Only Fools and Horses emerged at the overall winner with almost 350,000 votes. You can find the list of the final “Top-10” here.

Personally, I think this would be an impossible task from a voting standpoint. How can you rank Blackadder over Fawlty Towers as both are as close to perfection as you can get. How can Black Books be 58th and As Time Goes By end up 29th? Again, an impossible task. Unfortunately, I would vote for 26, #1 entries and label them 1A, 1B, 1C and so on through to 1Z. Then you can go with #27 on through #100.

If you’re playing along at home, two things jumped out as interesting to note. One, KERA/Dallas has run 48 of the top-100 series as voted on by the UK British comedy fan base and two, Monty Python’s Flying Circus did not make the top-100 list. Can’t tell you that this was solely due to that these are “sitcoms” and not  sketch shows, but I’m guessing that’s why.

Given the attached link of top-100, what series do you think would be #1 and why?

In: Comedy

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  • I was surprised at the ratings for “Last of the Summer Wine,” “Keeping Up Appearances,” “To The Manor Born,” “As Time Goes By,” and “Are You Being Served?”–I’d put all of them in the top ten, along with “The Good Life,” “Fawlty Towers,” “Yes Minister,” “Blackadder,” and . . . I’m not sure what the tenth would be . . . “Yes Prime Minister,” perhaps . . . but “The Good Life” would be first.

  • Diane

    I’ve only seen about a quarter of these top 100 and too thought that some of the one’s I have seen would have been higher. “Black Books”, and “Waiting for God” are probably two of my most favorite in the 11-100 list.
    It seems as though most of these programs are “classic” comedies vs. any thing in the past 5-10 years, maybe with the exception of “The Office”. Wonder if that has anything to do with who made the cut?

  • Liz

    My top ten would go something like this As Time Goes By, Keeping Up Appearances, Last of the Summer Wine, Vicar of Dibley, Red Dwarf, Are You Being Served?, Faulty Towers, My Hero, Good Neighbors and last To the Manner Born.