Bubble Media

1. 24

Less than two months after 9/11 this debuted as America's favorite thriller series alongside Alias. Terrorists kill people's daughters while the CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) torture witnesses in true Tourette's Syndrome inability to control their behavior. The main character was supposed to die at one point in the series, but like Superman or Batwoman he came back.

2. American Idol: The Search for a Superstar

A Massively Multiplayer On-air W/CC, American Idol is a tour for the best singer in America aided by three judges and the nation's ability to decide who's good and who isn't. Season-by-season complaints are of good singers being booted off and of bad ones staying. Of the three judges one is generally positive, one is generally negative, and the other's disposition depends on whether he did his yoga that afternoon or sniffed a lit match over the sink.

3. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

The fetishes of the criminal mind strike a cord with viewer ratings. Witnesses are cocky during interrogation and forensics specialists wear sunglasses.

4. Desperate Housewives

Approximately four housewives - this number varies depending on whose mistress joins the team - manipulate as a hobby. One is divorced but uses her ex occasionally for sex, another is a widow whose misadventures involve men that killed her husband / men willing to help oppress her children, yet another goes from man to man when the thrill of cheating on him dies off, while the fourth is the only actual housewife who doesn't mind flirting with men in the office. Episode by episode, it reminds desperate housewives nationwide that there are people out there just like them.

5. Friends

A sizable group of friends reside in Manhattan. Sometimes they lean on each other during moments of trial, still others they antagonize one another. The group contains an even diversity of three white males and three white females. Friends' main recurring themes are sex, relationships, sexual relationships, and semantics.

6. Grey's Anatomy

Like any successful manga, an ambitious hopeful enters an industry with a group of fellow ambitious hopefuls. As a medical show its advantages are things like pregnant men and stomach bombs. As a sitcom its advantages are things like people sleeping around and attempting to fall in love.

7. Lost

A group of people who survive a plane crash are left on a tropical island to scrap for food. In addition to survival, the islanders spend their time fretting about who they like and don't like and trying to make sense of the supernatural after they've created the supernatural to make sense of the things they don't understand.

8. Seinfeld

Jerry Seinfeld opens every episode with a standup skit before a lengthy bass guitar performance (which lasts the duration of the show) picks up. Characters are accused of both things they did and didn't do, and by show's end are met in court by both people whose dissatisfaction they were and weren't responsible for. Statistics show that the number of television series about nothing skyrocketed as a result of Seinfeld's popularity.

9. Sex and the City

Four bachelorettes earn a living in the city setting in between conversation about sex, quests in the vein of finding sex, and having sex. Described in its promotion as "sexy", the series was an instant success.

10. The Simpsons

The Simpsons centers around the title family, the Simpsons, and the Springfield community they're apart of. Occasionally someone's wife will die or a nuclear giant will be shot and survive. The show's key draw? Yellow people.

11. Survivor

In order to prevent the taking of vacations, CBS made this show about what really happens beyond shores. People bicker and participate in competitions. Each season takes place on a different island or remote location, where a group of Americans prove through their actions that everywhere is the same.

12. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire

Regis Philbin hosts an alternate reality that amazingly impacts actual reality. With a formula as simple as answering questions one by one to win more and more money with only three lifelines, the guests are key to the anticipation. In other words, some have to win a lot of money and others have to win a little bit.