friends... it just doesn't sit well with me for marathon viewings.

I loved The Dukes of Hazzard when I was a kid, but when I saw the reunion show on TV, I thought it was cheesy as hell. I am glad I didn't pick up the first two season box sets.

Here's my 2 Cents:

Benny Hill... Used to love it as a kid, but can't sit through a full episode now.

Jonny Quest... Don't shoot me because I still haven't figured out why I didn't like this when I rented the first disc on DVD. I couldn't wait for the release date and then when I watched it I was like, "Yawn!". Someone fill me in if it gets better on the remaining discs and perhaps I'll give it another shot.

Thunderbirds (Original TV Series)... I don't hate it, but I find it soooo slow in parts. I wish someone would edit each episode down to 25 minutes. Then it would ROCK!

Stingray... Another of those "SuperMarionation" shows like the Thunderbirds, but for some reason this one just seems to move faster for me. I was surprised to find it more entertaining than Thunderbirds.

Kids In The Hall... Still funny after all these years!

Freaks N Geeks... Most enjoyable TV DVD I've ever watched!

Same for me! Also, the Partridge Family (not on DVD yet) and Gilligan's Island.

The reunion show was cheesy as hell. The original TV show is as well (yet more nostalgic), but I'd still recommend getting it.

Good call on Benny Hill. I always watched this as a young kid. I saw a few episodes recently and was not impressed. Perhaps I just watched 3 sub-par episodes.

The thing that immediately leapt to mind was covered in the very first post -- Knight Rider.

I had fond memories of that one, so I jumped at the chance to grab the Season 1 set. Big mistake. The pilot is a solid episode, but beyond that it is just predictable, boring, silly (not in a good way) TV. I skipped around and watched parts of about 5 episodes... painful stuff.

I wish they'd just release the physical comedy parts of the show with him running around and that classic music playing. The other skits were generally boring and not all that funny.

You guys don't realize how you're stroking my ego with all of the Knight Rider bashing. When I was a teenager I used to hang out at my best friend's house a lot (good food, big TV, hot looking older sister). They absolutely loved Knight Rider. But whenever it came on, I'd head for home. I couldn't stand how utterly boring and juvenile it was. Same for the A-Team. And The Dukes of Hazzard. And Magnum P.I. And any of the Dallas/Falcon Crest/Dynasty/Knots Landing clones. And the Charlie's Angels/Hart to Hart/Simon & Simon/Cagney & Lacey clones.

I grew up with this and many other shows that I've bought on dvd....but I bought them because I still felt the passion for the show and I knew what I'd be getting into. I had a blast re-watching all those LIS episodes....the same ones I had seen over and over again. I really can't think of much that lost it's appeal for me with the exception of maybe a few episodes of Land of the Lost. I never could stand that damn monkeyboy.

I also know that although I loved Shazam! as a kid....I'll pass on the complete seasons!

Now, which one improved a little? Soap was hilarious then....but I'm finding most of it even funnier now.

I'm with you on Dukes of Hazzard. There is no way I'd miss that when I was a kid, but it's pretty lame now I think.

Same with Alf...what was I thinking?

I'll agree with everything except "Magnum P.I." I watched reruns of this on TV like 2-3 years ago and i really liked the show (more than i did in the 1980's)

But "Knight Rider"...damn, i caught an episode of that some months ago and boy did that stink to high hell.

The car is cool, the rest isnt.

I notice a trend. Seems like people dont have the warm and fuzzy for the action oriented formulaic stuff we loved growing up. Knight rider, a-team, wonder woman, dukes of hazzard, greatest american hero. Deep down you knew they were cheesy in the day. So as an adult your tolerance of this stuff is gone. How many shows your kids watch do you turn your nose up at now because its "stupid" or the same every week. That will be their future nostalgia disappointments.

I think the TV shows that can hold their own are smart well written comedies like mash, or cheers. I also thing good dramas can hold thier own, hill st blues, etc. Then there is my personal fav, Twilight zone. I was a afternoon TZ rerun junkie growing up, and i still love em today. Id love to get ahold of the series that came out in the 80's along with amazing stories. Not all were winners, but some really kicked butt.

I'm the opposite... hated GA as a kid but absolutely love it now. And I have no idea what I saw in Lost in Space. How could I have missed the glaring ****-erotic subtext, even as a kid. Danger Will Robinson!

I admit I have alot more "give me break" moments watching them now but they are still worth it too me. They take me back to other place, simpler place. Which is godsent since all the new dvds I watched in last year are about how pitiful of an exsistence we have.

Dang dude your my exact opposite. Maybe they will make Mystic River into TV series for you! Haha, you get all the arty bleakness you need every thursday night!

I may have been a little harsh on Mr. Magnum. It was no Hawaii 5-0, but it had its moments, and some decent, not so bash you over the head humor. Of this brand of show it was probably the least offensive of it's day. Sort of like The Rockford Files. I left Starsky and Hutch off for the same reason, even though 1 hour dramas were and are obviously not my cup of tea.

As an adult our tolerance may be gone, but what about the people who were adults at the time? How the hell did they stomach this stuff? The shows I listed were all in the top 20 during their runs, and it wasn't only kids putting them there!

And I totally agree about the shows that hold up. TZ is twice as old as some of the shows I mentioned as crap above, and it is still as good as most anything on to this day, given production values and some expectedly dated references and lingo.

As you touched on, an interesting question would be, which popular (by audience numbers) shows on now are the present day Knight Riders? Shows our kids will look back on and say "How could so many adults have watched that and thought it was good?" I don't mean how did my now teeneager watch Power Rangers or Barnie, he was a toddler at the time. I mean check this week's TV Guide prime time listings. And a reality show would be too easy, since they are a separate kind of show, and unlikely to ever be re-run or re-released ten or twenty years from now. I'm thinking shows like Medium or Cold Case, both shows recently in the top 10.

Not an arty bleakness guy, just not a formulaic, dated before it airs, and written by and for 8 year old minds guy. Most of those shows were on the mentality level of a Liddsville or Hong-Kong Phooey (both of which I enjoyed, when I was 8!). I want to see something that stacks up to Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.

I think part of it is nostalgia, and the other part is there are more shows with high quality scripts and character development being writing today.
It seems like in the 70's and most of the 80's since the 3 major networks had no competion from cable, they tried to out glitz each other. Let's have a show about a cool car, or lets make our soap opera more over the top, or add more explosions to our action show. There wasn't much emphasis on character development -- the glitz/action carried the show.
With the advent of cable, now there are 500 channels vying for viewer's attention -- explosions, talking cars, and overblown soap storylines aren't enough to keep viewers loyal. Many of today's viewers need a reason to tune back in every week---they need to care about the characters and their fictional lives.
Script writers have responded--take Joss Whedon and his writing crew-- Buffy wasn't about the vampires or monsters of the week, it was about Buffy growing up, from a high school kid to a young woman with adult responsibilities and relationships.
How about the X-Files -- again, not about the alien of the week, but about the relationship between two partners who respect each other and try to understand their different views of the world.
(I didn't state my opinion as eloquently as I'd hoped, but I hope the main point comes across somewhere in there!)
Loved it then don't love it now:
Caught some reruns of the 6 Million Dollar Man -- wanted to love it, but man it's tough to watch!
Old shows that still hold up:
Twilight Zone -- as mentioned many times here, the fantastic writing and universal themes hold up well.
Monty Python -- if you love their type of humor, the shows never seem outdated.
Modern shows that hold up to repeat viewings/quality:
Buffy, Angel, X-Files (first four seasons only), The Shield, The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Office
Just my 2 cents.

I mostly agree with that, except that I think on the whole, the writing has gotten worse. Fortunately, the sheer number of shows makes it possible for there to be a few good ones. In the "3 major network " days there were probably only about 25 different shows a week and they didn't used to replace them as fast when the ratings were down. Nowadays there are probably 125 shows a week and if the ratings slip on a given show, they yank it and put on something else. It's easier to find a few good shows out of 125 than it is with only 25. As you said, the competition helps too.

Good point. It also explains why TV is so resplendent with crapola like never before.

I categorize each show on whether or not it could be considered timeless. In other words, is there anything in them that can easily date them to say, '80s cheese, or whatnot. A lot of the shows mentioned here, such as A-Team, Knight Rider, Greatest American Hero, Family Ties, Cosby Show, etc...just don't hold up well to 21st Century eyes. And for different reasons. One is the obvious hair and clothing styles, another could be just the different political realities at the time. If the concerns of the day during these shows no longer have any relevance, then one could get easily bored watching them.

This is why I have limited my TV Shows on DVD buying to mainly sci-fi stuff. Stuff like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Stargate, Farscape, Andromeda, Dark Angel, Highlander, Hercules, Xena, Beastmaster, 24, Tour of Duty, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World. You know, shows that can't be dated, or if they're supposed to be dated as in Tour of Duty (the Vietnam series). Cop drama shows could possibly be added in there like CSI, Law & Order, NYPD Blue, etc.

But for the old sitcoms, especially the '80s ones, they just don't hold up well today.

Not sure where shows like Magnum P.I. and Miami Vice fit in there with my criteria. Probably passable. But with shows like Knight Rider, where one of their luxury, special gadgets is an '80s cellphone, then that's when the cheese starts oozin'. This is one reason why I will not get Star Trek TOS, because with the exception of the transporter, their level of technology has already been surpassed for the most part. eg. their communicators? A modern cellphone is more advanced than those.

Yeah, you can probably safely assume that all those Pokemon/Dragonball-Z/Yu-Gi-Oh clones will be one of those.

I dont think whether a show is dated or holds up well today is based on dress and hairstyles. It's based on writing. Certainly The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners are dated, but they stand up today because they were well-written. Shows like The Dukes of Hazzard, Gilligan's Island, Knight Rider, The A-Team don't stand up today, not because of dated hairstyles, but because the writing generally was not very good, even by the standards of the day.

Star Trek: TOS, while very '60s-ish in appearance, and certainly today's technology is many areas has far surpassed what was groundbreaking then, is both good and bad, not because of those factors, but simply because of the writing and the ideas they were trying to convey. "City On the Edge of Forever" -- great television in any era. "Spock's Brain" -- dismal, even in 1968. It all boils down to the writing. IMO, Magnum, P.I., like The Rockford Files before it, was a well-written show with well-rounded characters, which is why it is holding up much better in this debate than many of it's contemporaries.

What cell phone provider do you know that has equipment that would allow you to call 400,000 miles away to an object in orbit?

I thought I would be turned off by GREATEST AMERICAN HERO since the reason I loved it so much when I was a kid was because of the flying and special effects (which admittingly are pretty cheesy by today's standards) - but I found myself loving it for a whole different reason when I picked up the DVDs...the acting is pretty damn good for an 80's TV show! There's a playful banter between the characters and an occasional breaking of that "fourth wall" that MOONLIGHTING got credit for starting, but actually was in play in this earlier series.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, with the exception of a few episodes late in Season One, didn't hold up at all...it seems tremendously childish now that I'm an adult (and, of course, I'm talking about the 70's show...the update is FANTASTIC!)

I still like LOST IN SPACE...but that's probably because it was easy to find in syndication over the years, so I pretty much knew what I'd be getting with the DVDs.