4. Dungeons and Dragons: the Animated Series - Before video entertainment really took off, I played pen and paper/tabletop RPGs. Although it was not favorite RPG, I got my start like most kids did, with Dungeons and Dragons. When the animated series launched in 1983, I became an immediate fan. Despite its targeting towards more youthful audiences, the series offered poignant perspectives on ethical choices, and taught lessons in perseverance and compassion. I picked up the boxed set earlier this year. The great mystery of the series is how and why it was cancelled, as several of the conclusory episodes never aired, and viewers were left with a hole as to whether the kids ever got home.

5. Firefly - Joss has a tendency to re-use actors who have done well for him in the past, and this show is almost fully cast with actors from guest installments of Buffy and Angel. Nathan Fillion had been the Caleb in Season 7 of Buffy, Gina Torres was Jasmine in Season 4 of Angel, Summer Glau was the ballerina in Season 3 of Angel, Adam Baldwin, most famous as Animal Mother in Full Metal Jacket, portrayed the last liaison to Angel and the Senior partners of Wolfram and Hart in Season 5. If you watch Buffy, Angel, and then Firefly, you can see the learning process in film-making and screenwriting between Whedon and his steady circle of staff. With Firefly being his third turn at a series, it is the best of the three, but unfortunately the most short-lived. The concept is much more what I think of when I've read about the original plan for the original Star Trek series (first titles Wagon-Train to the Stars), as this series much more evokes the sense of mankind as pioneers and frontiersmen in colonization of other systems. The unique mix of science-fiction and believable western settings is pulled off excellently, and the further combination of Whedon's unique method of storytelling makes this one of my favorite series of all time.

6. Seinfeld - in my head, there all sorts of people types, social occurrences, and human behavioral oddities that have labels and are recalled from memory by this schema. I have been allured to Seinfeld because these elements are so much a part of the show. The fact that the comedy is steeped in something that is so real for me allows my typical reluctance to become enamored with this genre something very easy to surmount. Probably the best script-writing in the history of this particular genre, Seinfeld holds a very tight grip on a spot in my top TV list that is not easy to come by for a comedy.