Television shows

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I was going to add just a couple of GIFs but for some reason they wouldn't upload properly.  That's why I'm going to display GIFs of all of the television shows that I've watched every episode of.  Beginning with the first series I watched every episode of.  In this case, I watched them all in their original prime-time airing.

My father and I were big fans of this show and watched every episode together.  This was long before one could tape or DVR episodes.

Here are other shows I've seen every episode of.

I've always been a fan of M*A*S*H, first the film and then the television show.  The writing was brilliant throughout, and it mixed drama and humor in a very enjoyable way.  I still watch the reruns.

The first of several police procedural shows I've seen every episode of.  The mere fact that Law & Order managed to endure 20 seasons is a strong endorsement of the show in and of itself.

Hill Street Blues ran for six seasons on NBC, starting in 1981.  From January of 1982 through April of 1984, I was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi.  Whenever I was working a shift as a law enforcement specialist, our shift supervisor would almost always end the pre-shift briefing (known as "guard mount") with "Let's be careful out there."

Steven Bochco gave us Hill Street Blues and in 1986 he teamed up with attorney turned TV writer Terry Louise Fisher to create L.A. Law.  I chose this .gif of actress Diana Muldaur taking a wrong step into the elevator shaft because it was one of the most shocking TV deaths of all time.  It came as a surprise to her as well as she joked, "I thought I'd asked for too much money."

Michael Crichton created the television series ER which launched in 1994.  I'd been a fan of his since I read his novel The Andromeda Strain when it came out in 1969.  What many don't know about him is that he graduated from medical school and earned his MD.  His non-fiction book Five Patients, published in 1970 was fascinating.  ER ran on NBC for 15 seasons.  I came close to using the .gif of actor Paul McCrane's character "Dr. Robert 'Rocket' Romano" suffering the traumatic amputation of his arm at the shoulder when he walked into a helicopter blade; but decided it was too gory.  The fact they did that shot at all was pretty wild.

Third Watch was an NBC police procedural of sorts.  It brought together the stories of the police officers, firefighters and paramedics who worked the 3 pm to 11 pm shift in a fictional New York City police precinct.  It took the raw perspective of life on the streets portrayed by Hill Street Blues to another level.  And it had a crossover with ER where one of the ER doctors in Chicago traveled to NYC to look for her missing sister and niece.

Speaking of missing relatives, the major subplot of the first few seasons of JAG was the search for the main character's father.  Harmon Rabb, Jr. was a former F-14 pilot who became a lawyer after being diagnosed with night blindness.  His father had been shot down during the Vietnam War and was still listed as Missing in action.  NBC canceled the show after one season, but CBS picked it up.  They tweaked the casting and the show ran for nine more seasons.

Southland is another series that NBC gave up on after just one season.  But it found four more seasons of life on the TNT cable network.  Set in Los Angeles, it raised the bar on raw, real police action to an all-time high.  The show's producers used actual gang members on the show.  Anthony Ruivivar portrayed a paramedic on Third Watch and a different character as a cop on Southland.