Top 10 list in which Good Eats made #10: http://www.teevee.org/archive/2000/12/22

Ten for 2000
TeeVee: December 22, 2000

by Jason Snell

Back in the early days of TeeVee -- when this Web site was just an informal mailing list among a small group of friends, and not the massive corporate entity it is today -- I used to mail out an annual Top 10 TV Shows list. What prompted me to do it, I can't rightly say, except to suggest that I was writing a book at the time and was desperately looking for anything to distract me, especially if it came in the way of an argument from the group of people who would end up being known as The Vidiots.

    Now, as the year 2000 draws to a close, I figure it's time to revive the tradition. And looking back on my lists from 1995 and 1996, I can say with certainty that The X-Files, my favorite show of both those years, is on this list at all. Neither are other list-makers from the mid-'90s like Frasier, ER, and Friends. Times have changed.

    Will this article be the beginning of an avalanche of end-of-year favorites lists? I don't know. But in any event, I figure it's a good way to see the year 2000 to a close and fill some valuable everyone's-gone-for-the-holidays space on the web site. Onward!

10. Good Eats, Food Network. Never in a million years would I expect that there would be a show on the Food Network that would eclipse Iron Chef as my favorite. And yet, here we are. Alton Brown's funny, pop-culture-literate, and (most importantly of all) accessible cooking show is the best example of how-to information on the air today. Brown manages to do what all the other hosts can't: check his ego at the door and inspire his audience to get out of their La-Z-Boys and cook the same good food he's cooking.

    I have recommended Good Eats to numerous friends and family members, just as it was recommended to me by our own Chris Rywalt. Many of them have been skeptical at first; but after watching a few episodes, not one of them has been disappointed.

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