wellRED podcast - Part 2. Best shows of 21st Century. From CoreyWritesForYou.com

Episode Date: October 10, 2026

CoreyWritesForyou.comInching closer to the finale (part 3)! In this episode, I read some of your comments and discuss them, as well as comparing and contrasting my list to that of the NYT and pointing out some of their GLARING OMISSIONS!  Love yall.  More later Corey.  PS. Another entry in the Here We Rest saga will drop tomorrow! (It’s already there!)    subscribe to 

All right. It is part two of Corey's top 10 greatest shows of the 21st century. Obviously, I'm piggybacking off of the New York Times top 100 shows of the 21st century. I'm aware that I'm coming at this late. And for algorithmic purposes, it's probably moot at this point. But I don't care. I like talking about TV shows. And so we're going to do it. If you listen to Part 1, you heard me blab on about just off the top of my head. here's the shows that I probably will be picking from. It was impossible for me at the time to lock it down to 10. So I just blabbed out all the ones that could potentially be in my 10, and we were going to go from there, and it ended up being 60. So obviously, I was going to have to

knock some off. Now, I went back and I did some research, and it turns out that of the 60 that I listed, me and the New York Times agreed on 39 of those. So I'm going to start this. episode out. And again, if you haven't listened to Part 1, go listen to Part 1, Corey writes for you.com. And thank you all so much for being here, whether you're a paid subscriber or not. I say it doesn't matter to me. It doesn't in terms of how I feel about you as a person. But obviously it matters to me in terms of the light bill and all that stuff. So if I entertain you, if I bring joy to your life in any way, if I've brought value to your life completely for free. Consider bumping up to a $5 membership. Or if you don't like recurring payments,

you can do it PBS style by sending me money on PayPal at buttercream Corey at gmail.com. On Venmo, it's the same. It's buttercream Corey. And also, as I've mentioned in a couple videos, but I'll put it out there now, I want to start doing a, like a weekly mailbag with all of my listeners because we have sort of formed a community here. And I really love all of you. And I love hearing your stories and people have told me like, hey, you know, you do this on putting on airs, you read people's mail, they send you stories, why not do it here? You can do that at Buttercream Corey at gmail.com. Send me a message for something, a story that you want to read on air, a question that you might have for me that you want me to answer in when we do the weekly

mailbag or just whatever, even if you don't want it on the air, if you just want to correspond, you can do it that way. And I would really, really enjoy that. That would bring joy to my life. Also, same email address, Buttercream Corey at gmail.com is where you'll know that I do cameos. And obviously on the cameo app, I do charge for personalized videos and shoutouts and birthday gifts and stuff. And obviously I charge for those. And I make part of my living that way. but I've always said, especially people who are on substack, if you can't afford that, but you would still like to give one of those as a gift,

or if you just want one for yourself as like a pick-me-up or something, I'm happy to do it for you for free. All you got to do is email me at buttercream Corey at gmail.com, maybe put in the subject line cameo. That way I'll see it immediately and be like, oh, you know, got to do this. So that's all the business taken care of. If you've listened to Part 1, you knew the shows that I splurted, out. But right now what I'm going to do is read back through the list and I've got asterisks here.

God, I can't say that word. I suck so much at saying that word on the ones that me and the New York Times agreed with. And I'll point out to you the ones in where we didn't. So here we go. Breaking Bad. We obviously agreed, as did The Wire, Mad Men. They didn't have succession on there, I'm seeing, which is crazy. That's got to be, I had to have read that wrong. that they don't have succession on there. Fleabag we agreed on, Game of Thrones, Veepe, 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm. They, oh, you know what it is?

No, no, no, no, no, no. I think what it is is I didn't have succession on mine, and they are putting it on there. I don't know. I did this like three days ago when I compiled this list. I should have done the podcast then, but we had some things come up and there was a sick kid. We had the office in common, arrested development in common, six feet under, in common, the crown, deadwood, black mirror, severance, and door, true detective season one, the pit, homeland, louie, peekie blinders, bojack horseman, house of cards, parks and wreck, the good place, down in abbey, I think you should leave, Chappelle's show, slow horses,

the thick of it, Barry, the Queen's Gambit, justified the Great British baking show, Dexter, eastbound and down, catastrophe. I was actually surprised

to see that catastrophe made their list. I thought I was throwing out a pretty, you know, what's the word here, under the radar type show? Here are some that the New York Times miss,

and I had to, for one of these specifically, I had to go back and make sure like, okay, did that show premiere in 1999, and that's why it's not on here? But turns out that wasn't the case. Here's some that they missed, which kind of blow my mind. Well, Loudermilk doesn't blow my mind. I had Loudermilk. It doesn't blow my mind that they don't.

I don't even know why I said that. It's not one of the greatest shows. It's just one of my favorite. Pluribus, which I understand, it's only in one season. Rick and Morty surprised me that they don't have it on there. Like, whether you like Rick and Morty or not, eight seasons, sort of a groundbreaking, Rick and Cartoon. Like, it is polarizing, but like, I don't know, man.

Like, Rick and Morty's very, very popular, and I know that all that stuff with Justin Royland happened, but they fired him. And in my opinion, the show didn't really miss that much of a beat. Daredevil wasn't on there, which I thought was crazy. Dairy Girls not being on there is a crime. Rectify not being on there is a crime. Reacher, okay, it's probably some, like, whatever the opposite of recency bias is.

They're like, oh, well, it's still on. and so we just can't know. And I know that show's not like, you know, it's not, how can I say this? It's not high brow. It's not like whatever the TV equivalent of like a Pulitzer show is. I understand that, but it's a great show. It's a fun watch.

I think it should be on there. Fargo wasn't on there, which is crazy to me. And I know that in their brain they're going, well, that's because it's an anthology show. But I must remind you that they did that, with True Detective. They put True Detective Season 1 on there. Well, every season of Fargo has been good.

Most of them great, if not just good. The Doctor Who reboot wasn't on there, and maybe that's because they're counting that as a continuation of the 60s, which, like, that totally fair. Billions wasn't on there. I had sugar on there, but I get why they didn't.

For all mankind, I had on there. They didn't. I don't know, man. I think that shows pretty great. The Durals of Krafu, okay, maybe me and my mom have only heard about this show and like it, so that's fine. The expanse, absolute malarkey that it's not on the list. That is a tremendous sci-fi show. None of the, aside from the office, none of the Ricky Jervais shows made it that I had on there,

extras, Derek, and Afterlife. Now, here are the two that I think is the absolute, the absolute craziest, the most glaring omissions that the New York Times left off. These, these to me cannot be, there's no excuse for this. Okay, in Mind Hunter, the only excuse I can see is that it was only two seasons. But they were two perfect seasons. And Netflix canceled it because Netflix are assholes. It's not because it wasn't good. And yeah, it left on sort of a open-ended thing.

Sure. But like, Lost is on this list. And yeah, they finished the show, but it sucked. Mind Hunter is like one of the greatest, what a cult following. that show has, like there have been so many petitions for David Fincher to do a Mind Hunter movie or for them to let him do season three. It's one of the greatest shows of all time. It's one of my most rewatch shows of all time. And here, now this one, there is no argument. With Mind Hunter, I'll at least give you, they only did two seasons. The fact that Scrubs is not on the top 100

list is absolutely insane. There is no excuse for that. And I don't even care. if you're going to say, well, okay, when JD left and they went to where, you know, Dr. Cox was a professor or whatever, and they had a whole cast, it wasn't that great. Okay, but you have so many shows on this top 100 list that you could say the same thing about that they sort of fell off towards the end. But we're talking about it took Scrubs nine seasons to get to that point. So you give no credit to the seven to eight beautiful. perfect seasons with some of the greatest episodes in television history. I mean, my God, the episode

where they do the sort of parody satire of Wizard of Oz alone, if that was the only thing that this show ever did, it deserves to be on the top 100. Scrubs is one of my most rewatch shows of all time. It's so many people's most rewatch shows of all time. Dude, the storyline with Dr. Cox and Ben, Brennan Fraser, who plays his brother-in-law, the episode My Lunch, where Dr. Cox has to grapple with the fact that he made this really quick call and turns out all of the organs that he donated to save all these people's lives were infected with rabies and he has to deal with it and he shows up to work drunk. That arc alone is television history.

It is an absolute, I mean, this list to me absolutely has no value to it. if Scrubs is going to be left off of it. And another one, and I may get a little shit for this because I understand that this is a polarizing show. I understand to a lot of people, yeah, there at the end, it got a little on the nose. But I would say that every time it got accused of being on the nose, something would then happen in society that was like, oh, my God,

it wasn't, like they've just predicted it. And that's the boys. The Boys is such a good show, whether you like it or not. the boys was able to succeed in an era where we were all sick of superhero shit. Like the MCU had beaten us over the head year after year after year. The end game phase was already over and we were all kind of like, oh my God, this again. Everybody had comic book movie fatigue and me included and I'm a huge comic book movie fan. And the boys comes out and it flips that whole thing.

on its head. And you've got Homelander who is arguably one of the top three villains in all of television history. Yes, I put him up there with Walter White. Yes, I put him up there with Tony

Soprano. I'm not saying that he's better than them. I'm saying that he's in the conversation. What Anthony Star was able to do with that character is nothing short of miraculous. I was terrified. I was terrified of that son of a bitch.

And then, well, we're not, not everybody has seen the end of it, so I'm going to try to stay away from spoilers for shows that have just recently ended their run. But the boys not being on there is absolutely insane. Now, speaking of mailbag, this is not emails, but these are, I told y'all that the way that we were going to

get my top 10 down was that I wanted y'all to comment and tell me some stuff that you think I missed or possibly tell me some stuff that you think I should have added. Robert Norton, Robin Norton, excuse me, said, what about Handmaid's Tale? I hear you. Now, the main reason I didn't put Handmaid's Tale on there is because I have to be honest, I've never watched it.

I've seen some episodes, it's not true that I've never watched it, I've seen some episodes with my wife because my wife was a big fan. But I saw enough to make me realize, hey, this isn't for me, but that does not mean that I didn't think it was great. Matter of fact, I would say that probably the reason I didn't watch Handmaid's Tale is because it was too good and that it's a very important show. Like, it's, you know, especially looking back on it. When that show first came out, it was clearly a response to the Trump presidency and how people with the ideology of Trump and people like him wanted us to go back to a time where women were less than equal and were completely subservient. And maybe at the time that came out, people thought, oh, this is a fantasy land.

You're exaggerating. But now, man, Jesus Christ. And that's one of the reasons I can't watch it is because it hits too close to home. And I kind of think that makes me a coward. So I'll admit that. Like, the reason I don't have any interest in watching that show is because I don't need to feel any worse about my gender than I already do. Does that make sense? But I agree with you.

and it's not going to be on my top 10, but I definitely agree that it deserves to be in the top 100, whether it was or not. Vanessa Pacheco, I hope I'm saying that right, says it was short-lived, but I would add Firefly to that list. Yeah, Firefly is tremendous, and I think it's definitely the most famous example

of a show that was either ahead of its time or the network, they were just idiots and they pulled the plug and they didn't allow something to breathe. They didn't allow it to find its audience. I mean, famously, if you know anything about Firefly, they actually, the network ran the show out of order.

Like, they showed episodes in the order that they were not intended to be shown in, and that confused the audience, which that's not on the fault of the creators, the actors, the writers, or anybody. They really, I can't remember what network that was on. I want to say, it seems like it would have been Fox. and that was a Joss Whedon thing

and Joss Whedon has obviously gone on to have allegations against him and it seems like he might not be the greatest person but we're talking about a space opera Western could not be more up my alley it is a great show it's difficult to watch because you watch it and you just want more

and you know that it will never happen and it's one of those where like we pined for years for them to continue it but I feel like if they tried to now something would happen and it wouldn't work But yeah, I think Firefly deserves to be on there, at least as an honorary mention, because it was so great and it just got screwed over by network executives. Jen Wallace said, not an exhaustive list, but some of the shows that first came to mind for consideration, Veronica Mars, Colin in accounts, blunt talk, narcos, and pushing daisies. Okay, Jen, I love you.

The only episode of Veronica Mars I've ever seen is the one my buddy Trey Crowder was in where he plays Chattanooga, Charlie, a bartender, but I am very aware that that show was phenomenal. Colin in Accounts, I actually have never even heard of until I read your comment. So, and I hope, I truly hope that that's not some sort of like, I hope calling in accounts isn't considered like one of the greatest masterpieces of all time and I'm truly showing my ignorance here, but it really makes me excited when someone tells me something is their favorite thing and I've never heard of it because that means I get to go experience a thing. for the first time.

So I'm going to check that out. Blunt Talk is also one I may have heard of, but I'm not quite sure. Narcos is fantastic, the first season at least with Pedro Pascal. And this sort of started, I think, the Pedro Pascal being in everything. This was the start of that. And like, I just don't understand the hate, man. I think the guy's charming. He's a great actor.

I think he makes everything he's in better. He's truly wonderful in Narcos. And I'm so happy that someone else watched Pushing Daisies aside from me. The lead in that show, his name is Lee Pace. And I love Lee Pace so much. And there's a very specific reason why I love Lee Pace. Lee Pace and hold on just a second. Let me look it up so that I'm not saying the actor's name wrong.

He's in the new season of Slow Horses. And him and Lee Pace are the only two people that do this very specific thing. Hold on. Edit. Okay, yeah. Lee Pace and Kyle Soler are the only two actors I know of off the top of my head, at least, that do this very specific thing where they are Americans that play British people a lot. And it doesn't go that way most of the time. Most of the time it goes the complete other way. They have British people playing Americans. But Lee Pace actually like, dude, I think it took me a while to realize that he's just a good old boy from Oklahoma. He's the lead in pushing Daisies. And if you don't know what pushing Daisy's, is this wonderful show where Lee Pace plays this guy who if someone dies and he touches him, he can communicate with them for like five minutes and find out how they died or at least get clues as to how they died and so he can help solve the crime. It didn't last that long. I think it was a little too high concept for America at the time because we're talking, this is like early aughts. I remember watching it with my parents and just being blown away by it. I remember

thinking like, wow, television can be this. And by this, I mean super high concept. You know, it was great. I think a show like that would absolutely crush it in today's market and in this streaming world. Fart doctor herself, Kim Casado said, I hate being a chick, but I love Emily in Paris. And she also said, have you seen ride or die? Who knew Ed Skierin was so funny? I love Octavia Spencer. And she also said, I hated lost, watched the whole fucking thing. And then that lame-ass ending. What a waste of my time. So I don't, I watched a couple episodes of Emily and Paris with my wife. Unfortunately, they weren't like the first two or I probably would have just continued with her. I came in towards the end. It definitely looked like a good show. Doesn't seem like it's up my alley.

I'll say this. J.D. Vance just said it was the greatest show of all time or something. So for that reason alone, I don't think I can watch it. Ride or die, I haven't seen, but I've seen the thumbnail on Prime a lot. does seem like something I'd be into because I also love Octavia Spencer, so I'll check it out. And with Lost, yeah, so I'm different than a lot of people. When it comes to Lost, I too think the ending sucked, but fortunately for me, I did not watch it when it was airing. I just binged it like all at once. And when you do that, it's not near as disappointing. You know what I I mean, that's why I think that, like, anyone, like, if you've never seen Game of Thrones, I think you could watch Game of Thrones right now and binge it and not think that the last two seasons

suck that bad. I think for all of us, though, that were there from the beginning and had to wait week to week and really just were able to see the fall off like it sucks. But I think if you bingeed it now, you wouldn't get that sense of disappointment because it wouldn't feel like such a waste of time, if that makes sense. Mamie Cole said, I'm not qualified to have a real opinion about this topic. first off, yes you are. She says, because I don't watch enough TV. Hey, if you watch any TV, you can have an opinion. I've only seen four of the shows on your list, Deadwood, Ted Lasso,

six feet under, and the good place. By the way, maybe. Those are four really good shows that you've chosen, so I respect your taste. So I'm going to trust your opinion, but I do think you could still put the Sopranos on here via loophole. It ran into the 21st century. To which I responded, well, if that's the case, then the Sopranos wins and we can all end this facade, because that would be true. Like, if that was the case, then the Sopranos just 100%. Wins, it's the greatest show of all time. I don't think it's even, again, it's close with like the wire, but I've said a million times, like, because of how funny the Sopranos is, I think it edges it out. Mike Joseph, my main man said, man, this is interesting. I don't

think I realize till now how much of a non-dramatic show guy I am. I've watched almost every comedy on your list religiously, but six feet under, which I love, is the only drama that would make my list. I would also like to add in there that I think six feet under is tremendously funny. I tried multiple times with Game of Thrones, and it just didn't grab me. Scrubs, Ted Lasso, Chappelle's show, Louis, the unjustly departed happy endings, all would make my list. I think I pretty much want Bill Lawrence and David Caspby to write my life, to which I responded, Bill Lawrence being my day-to-day showrunner would be awesome. I'm super jealous of you.

It would behoove me and my career if I liked comedy TV as much as I like drama. Although, to be fair, I think I know the reason why, and it's because that used to be all I watched. From as far back as I remember to my early 20s, the only thing I consumed was comedy. The closest thing to drama I was willing to go was Batman, the animated series, to which OGs know is actually very damn dramatic, which is true. Then in my mid-20s, the arrival of breaking bad, now that I think of it, I did a complete flip.

I suppose after writing all of this out, my hypothesis is that since I was obsessed as a kid to the point that I started doing stand-up at 16 years old, I finally got burnt out and decided I was around comedy enough for my job and thus wanted escapism that I couldn't have while watching something too close to work. I hope that makes sense. I'm definitely going to use it as a talking point in part two of this podcast. So thank you for that, Brother Mike. Not only did I use it as a talking point, I just read it all out verbatim.

Dominic then said, I think it would be fun to, instead of naming your few locks, which is what I said I was going to do, like you did in this episode, name your locks for getting the boot. Maybe go through and eliminate 20 or so at a time until we, are at a point that eliminating five or ten at a time becomes easier. I'd love to watch that unfold. And Dominic, because you said that, you basically helped create what is going to be the crux of this episode.

And we are going to do that right now. And that's going to end part two and then part three. That's right, baby. I'm doing a part three. I think, I just think that y'all, I think people like digestible 30 to 40 minute episodes instead of long hour and a half ones for things like this. So I'm going to do a part three. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to run through my shows once again,

and we are going to start eliminating some right off the bat that are locks for like, yeah, there's no way they're making my top 10. Okay? And going through here, I see, let's see. Oh, this is hard. Obviously, okay, the Dorals are good of Kuf. They're not going to make my top 10. for all mankind's not going to make my top 10

sugar's not going to make my top 10 um shit billions isn't going to make my top 10 arrested development as much as I love it not going to make my top 10 the office isn't going to make my top 10 parks and wreck i doubt will make my top 10 i don't see a lot of comedies being in my top 10 except for eastbound and down i'm not ready to throw that out just yet um homeland not going to make my top 10 shoo-wee. God, this gets difficult. Bojack Horseman, not going to make my top ten. Casylvania, not going to make my top ten. Pluribus not going to make my top ten. The Queen's Gambit's

not going to make my top ten. Lauder milk's not going to make my top ten. The Great British Baking Show is not going to make my top ten. So that leaves us with this to ponder over, and I will have to then come back in part three and break them down and finally get to a top 10. That leaves us with the contenders. Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Scrubs, 30 Rock, True Detective Season 1, Mine Hunter, six feet under, slow horses, the wire. It's always sunny in Philadelphia. Veep, the thick of it's not going to make it. We'll knock that out.

Extras, it's not going to make it. Derek, that's not going to make it. Afterlife, that's not going to make it. Game of Thrones might make it. The expanse, that's probably not going to make it. Fleabag might, curb your enthusiasm. Let's see. Severance, Ted Lassow, Chappelle Show, The Good Place, Barry Louie, Peky Blinders,

Downton Abbey, the Crown Justified, Doctor Who, Fargo, Eastbound and Down, Black Mirror, Reacher, Dexter, Deadwood, Dairy Girls. House of Cards isn't going to make it. We can toss that out because as soon as all that bullshit happened with Spree, Spacey, he was gone. The boys might make it. Daredevil might make it. Rick and Morty might make it. Severance might make it. I think you should leave might make it. Who knows? The pit might make it. Who knows? Okay, those are the ones that we have to go by. And I will come back in part three, and I will narrow down Corey's top 10 of the 21st century. And between now and then, please comment.

Tell me something I might have missed because it's very possible because my brain doesn't work, that I'm missing what might be in my top 10. It just hasn't come to my head for some reason. So leave the comments down below in this section here. Email them to me at ButtercreamCorey at gmail.com. Also, remember to email your stories to ButtercreamCore at gmail.com so we can get a mailbag going. If you want a free cameo, email me at ButtercreamCore at gmail.com.

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So they charge you more and give me less. Literally nobody wins. So if you're ever going to book a cameo, do it on the website. Camio.com slash Corey Ryan Forrester. Also, listen to putting on airs with me and Craig Crowder, well-read, has been put to bed, which is why we're doing stuff like what I'm doing right now. And after I get through recording here, I'm working on my brand new solo podcast that I'm not

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So there you go. Look forward to part three coming out this week. I love you so very much. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.