This decade seems destined¹ 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 HBO’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 splendor². There’s a little bit of real history in this story of the legendary³ boomtown, but creator David Milch was most concerned with examining how this collection of dreamers, whores, and losers, many of whom were considered utterly⁴ 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 glamour⁵ we’ve come to associate with the genre⁶; a deeply psychological study of a man whose lack of self-knowledge was epic⁷: 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 could 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 bleakness⁸ 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, sprawling¹⁰ 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——这种基调令这部电视剧很难被接受，但是那些接受它的人却有幸欣赏到了一部犹如规模宏大的社会小说的电视剧。

4. Mad Men: The 1960s has been all too glorified¹¹, but nostalgia5 is hardly what Mad Men had in mind, even though its period touches are amazingly vivid. A country finds itself beginning to question the way things have always been, and an enigmatic6 advertising¹² man who has reinvented everything about himself tries to stay afloat. No series says more in so fewer words.

广告狂人》：20世纪60年代（对美国来说）是一个非常荣耀的时代，但《广告狂人》所要展示的并不是某种怀旧的情绪，尽管该剧中的时代元素的确出奇的生动。在剧中，国家开始质疑自身一直以来的运作方式，而一个神秘的广告人对自己的里里外外进行了彻底的改造，试图成功地生存下去。没有哪部电视剧能够如此简洁地表达出更丰富的思想。

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5. Lost: Something that would have been a rarity in any era and is almost unimaginable in our era: a series that aimed for greatness and quite often achieved it. An adventure story that turned into a remarkably¹³ weird¹⁴ and complex puzzle, Lost proved that a cult⁹ show can still be mass entertainment.

迷失》：这是一部在任何时代都堪称精品的电视剧，而在我们当下这个时代几乎是不可想象的。这部电视剧的目标是做到最棒，并且基本上成功了。这个探险故事最终变成了一个超级怪异而又复杂的迷局。《迷失》向世人证明，一部邪典剧也能成为大众的消遣。