-
Best TV Dramas of the Decade
近十年美国最佳电视剧
This
decade seems destined to be remembered for its
great cable
dramas, which proved that
there is indeed an audience for
complicated fare that doesn’t
necessarily provide an answer at the
end of an hour (or even at the end of
the series itself, as The
Sopranos
showed). Narrowing the best dramas of the decade
down to
just a top ten, or even a
second ten, was a tough task, but it provided
a chance to reminisce on some of the
best shows of all time. Topping
my list
is H
BO’s least recognized
classic:
最近这十年似乎注定会因其出品的伟大电视
剧而被我们记住。
这说明确
实有一批观众喜欢复杂的电视剧，即
使一个小时之后（甚至是整部电视
剧结束之后，比如《黑道家族》）不给他们答案也无妨
。把近十年的最
佳电视剧的数量缩减到前十名，
甚至是前二十名
的范围都不是件容易的
事，但这使我们有机会对有史以来的最佳电视剧进行回味。登上我
的列
表榜首的是
HBO
（美国家庭影院
频道）最不认可的经典之作。
1. Deadwood:
No series has ever been such a pleasure to just
listen
to
—
assuming one is not offended by profanity in all
its splendor.
There’s a little bit of
real history in this story of the legendary
boomtown, but creator David Milch was
most concerned with
examining how this
collection of dreamers, whores, and losers, many
of whom were considered utterly beyond
the pale4 even in a much
wilder time,
could find common cause as America sought to bring
them to heel.
《朽木
》：没有哪部电视剧一听起来就能让人有如此愉悦的感觉
——
只
要你不厌恶其中的一些脏话，瑕不掩瑜。这部电视剧讲述的故事发生在
< br>一个充满传奇的新兴城市里，
具有一定的历史真实性，
而
创作者戴维
·
米
奇最想做的是，仔细审
视这么一群梦想家、妓女和失败者，看看他们在
美国试图使之屈从的时候如何找到共同的
事业，
他们中的许多即便是在
一个狂野得多的时代里，也完全不
为社会所容。
2. The
Sopranos: A mob drama with little of the glamour
we’ve come
to associate with the genre;
a deeply psychological study of a man
whose lack of self-knowledge was epic:
this was The Sopranos, a
series that
began with ducks in a pool, ended with a family
pizza
dinner, and in between changed
our very conception of what TV
drama
c
ould do. It’s safe to say none of the
other shows in my top five
would have
existed if Tony and his crew hadn’t come
first.
《黑道家族》：这部讲述黑社会的电视剧没有我
们所认为的同类作品所
特有的刺激性，
它对一个极度缺乏自知之
明的男人进行了深刻的心理分
析。《黑道家族》开篇是池中鸭子戏水的场景，结尾是一家
人吃比萨的
画面。它的播出改变了我们对电视剧能够做什么的传统认知。可以说，
要是没有托尼和他的剧组成员进行的这番开拓，我这个列表中除《黑道
家族》之外的前五名电视剧都不可能存在。
3. The
Wire: If Deadwood dealt with how society pulls
itself together,
but The Wire, set in
our own time, concerned itself with how a great
American city falls apart. The
bleakness of its core message
—
that
the
country is going to hell and that only small,
personal triumphs are
still possible
—
made the show a difficult
sell, but those who bought in
were
treated to the television equivalent of a great,
sprawling social
novel.
《火线》：如果说《朽木》展示的是整个社会如何齐心协力，那么《火
线
》，这部将背景设置在我们这个时代的电视剧讲述的却是一个伟大的
美国城市如何分崩离
析的故事。
它的核心寓意令人备感凄凉暗淡
——
国
家行将崩溃，
唯有个人的小小成功仍然还有可能
——
这种基调令这部电