Vents MagaZine Music and Entertainment Magazine
Related Articles
The year 2010 got us back to a time in television strikingly different from modern times, but 2005 is still a bigger step back. This is completely pre-streaming. TV shows were on DVD and such, but people largely watched them as they aired. Plus, the cable channels making notable original programming had yet to really take off. HBO was an Emmy player, but that was nearly it. So what was going on in television two decades ago? Let’s see.
Craig Ferguson took over for Craig Kilborn as the host of The Late, Late Show and he was a really good host so I wanted to shout him out. I don’t know if Ferguson is my favorite late-night host in history, but he’s up there, and that makes him underrated. Also, Tom Cruise jumped on Oprah’s couch.
There are plenty of shows that could be discussed that debuted in 2005, The Colbert Report for one, but there are three to be focused on. One is Grey’s Anatomy, mostly because that show would proceed to run for decades and become one of the most-successful medical dramas of all time. On the sitcom front, The Office debuted. The story is well-known. It wasn’t a big hit at first. People started to get episodes off iTunes (iTunes!) and then it took off.
Lastly, there’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. That’s another show that started slow, but its story is notable. FX wasn’t well-known for original shows, and the Always Sunny guys were struggling actors. They made their own pilot and got it seen by FX. Now, they are all known names. They’ve had network shows. One co-owns a soccer club. What a rise.
The notable shows that ended include Everybody Loves Raymond, which was a huge hit even if it hasn’t really stayed in the zeitgeist like The Office, and Six Feet Under, because it’s considered to have one of the best series finales in history. One show that had left TV returned as well. American Dad debuted on FOX, but it was joined by the return of Family Guy, which FOX had canceled. Nowadays, shows return all the time and Family Guy is still on FOX. Maybe 2005 was presaging something.
