Gallery: Must-See Cult TV, From Danger Man to Firefly
01prisoner-mcgoohan
It's pure coincidence that Patrick McGoohan's spy-fi series Danger Man, which evolved into the sci-fi classic The Prisoner, premiered 50 years ago on the now-momentous date of Sept. 11. McGoohan's paranoid television shows ruled the '60s and still lords it over our list of continually relevant cult-TV classics. The shows on Wired.com's short list function on multiple levels in our post-millennial cultural and political discourse dominated by ascendant freaks and geeks. Despite the fact that some of them sadly remain beneath the radar, the shows have either influenced the entertainment universe that evolved after their unfortunate passing or doubtless will as time hyperspeeds onward. Our picks represent merely a fraction of the rewarding cult television available for watching and re-watching in an era of rampant DVD reissues and unstoppable torrents. Let us know your own favorite cult TV classics in the comments section below. We'll make sure to collate them in a future gallery, which can then inspire its own unstoppable arguments. __Above:__ Danger Man/The Prisoner ----------------------- Stuffed with surveillance, gadgetry and resource wars, [Danger Man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Man)'s Cold War technophilia is practically a template for the recession-proof militarism that went supernova after the 9/11 attacks shocked and awed us all. As John Drake, the spook fixer with mysterious origins and affiliations, [the late, great Patrick McGoohan](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2009/01/rip-patrick-mcg) knit banana republics and other geopolitical pawns together with cut-throat power players like NATO and the International Monetary Fund -- usually using nothing but his wits and spy devices, which ranged from miniature cameras, recorders and other surveillance standbys. Along with Danger Man's timelessly surreal sequel [The Prisoner](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2009/11/the-prisoner-an-all-star-appreciation), McGoohan's spy-fi hydra anticipated the mediated, metafictional madness we now find ourselves in, where we're not humans but numbers in a suspiciously engineered society and economy. “Patrick McGoohan was one of the great heroes of my childhood and adolescence, as well as a continuing influence, via The Prisoner, on all of my thinking,” [comics brainiac Grant Morrison](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2009/03/mid-life-crisis) told Wired.com after sci-fi visionary McGoohan passed in 2009. “I only knew him from the TV screen, where Number Six can never die.” *Images courtesy AMC/ITV*
02twin-peaks
Twin Peaks ---------- David Lynch and Mark Frost's indispensably surreal soap opera ripped apart television tradition as it riveted viewers with a ceaseless mix of dream-noir intrigue and persistent humor. Led by zen detective Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan, above right) and the amiable Sheriff Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean), [Twin Peaks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks) was an overnight sensation that has since been aped by shows like The X-Files, House, Warehouse 13, Eureka and way too many more to count. But that wasn't enough to keep it alive as fickle, often lame, expectations doomed its underrated second season in the early '90s, shutting down Twin Peaks' daring exploration of traditional television's restrictive limits. Decades later, it remains better than anything on ABC's roster.  *Images courtesy Paula K. Shimatsu-u/ABC*
03freaksngeeks
Freaks and Geeks ---------------- Paul Feig and Judd Apatow's accessible but doomed 1999 nerd dramedy lasted only 18 episodes spread across a single season. But it served as a foundation for geek culture's mainstream crossover, and provided current movie hot shots like James Franco and Seth Rogen a launch pad to stardom. It also served as a convenient delivery system for extracurricular activity from other geeks, like Mystery Science Theater 3000's Joel Hodgson, Rushmore's Jason Schwartzman and others who made clever cameos. (Not all guests were golden: Apatow and Feig nixed a studio-suggested cameo by Britney Spears, a fact that probably says more about why the series died early than why it didn't live longer.) Thanks to its early '80s setting and music, and its goofy but melodramatic meditation on insiders and outsiders, [Freaks and Geeks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaks_and_Geeks) remains a cult classic. The show's stature and credibility, with geeks and others, has grown by the year. We're not usually down with teen soaps, but Freaks and Geeks -- like similarly minded cult classic The Middleman, which is also included in this list -- is a worthy exception. *Image courtesy NBC*
04samurai-jack
Samurai Jack ------------ This dizzying animated series for all ages is far from obscure, having won a handful of Emmy awards and served as another impressive feather in [Genndy Tartakovsky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genndy_Tartakovsky)'s cap. But [Samurai Jack](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_jack) is mandatory viewing for all ages, and it's currently shelved while work that is infinitely more cynical and less ambitious is allowed to live. (Whether that includes Tartakovksy's upcoming cartoon, [Sym-Bionic Titan](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2009/03/chung-tartakovk), due Sept. 17 on Cartoon Network, has yet to be determined.) Samurai Jack -- launched in 2001 and equally inspired by spaghetti Westerns and Frank Miller's comics -- has given as good as it has gotten. Tartakovksy's mostly silent cartoon about a journeying samurai nicknamed Jack seeking revenge against evil incarnate Aku landed him work on Lucasfilm's standout 2003 miniseries, [Star Wars: The Clone Wars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Clone_Wars_%282003_TV_series%29). A reportedly forthcoming [Samurai Jack feature film](http://www.kungfucinema.com/j-j-abrams-to-produce-samurai-jack-film-11829), shepherded by geek king J.J. Abrams' production company Bad Robot, could go a long way toward soothing the burn of the TV show's absence. But any movie will have a hard time matching the priceless heart, humor and action of the original, which remains a crossover model for animators worldwide. *Image courtesy Cartoon Network*
05firefly
Firefly ------- Now that [Joss Whedon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_Whedon) is directing Marvel's star-studded superhero epic [The Avengers](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2010/07/marvel-avenger), a whole new generation of noobs is likely to be turned on to his brilliant but short-lived sci-fi western, which had its sparkling life cut short by ... whatever. Sorry, but we simply can't think of a good reason that [Firefly](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_%28TV_series%29) isn't still on television. There aren't words in any language to turn that [illogical reality](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2010/04/april-fools-headlines) into a logical argument. Descended from a line of other cult television classics -- Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek and the [Bruce Campbell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Campbell)-led sci-fi western [The Adventures of Brisco Country Jr.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Brisco_County,_Jr.) among them -- Firefly stunned from its serious-minded September 2002 premiere to its more hilarious and harrowing later episodes. But it crashed after only 11 episodes aired, although 14 were produced. Envisioning a 25th-century band of bounty hunters one step away from doom at the hands of corporatist overlords or galactic cannibals, it was a post-9/11 blast that should have resonated as widely as other Whedonite series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel -- mostly because it was better. Whedon's truncated cult sci-fi classic has created its own dedicated band of loyalists called Browncoats, who are currently making their own feature-length homage called [Browncoats: Redemption](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/underwire/2010/05/firefly-takes-flight-again-with-browncoats-redemption). Who else on this list can boast the same? "Whedon is one of those artists that, no matter what medium he pursues, people will follow him to see his take,” Browncoats: Redemption director Mike Dougherty told Wired.com in May. Too bad not enough people followed Firefly too keep its pioneering sci-fi fire alive. *Image courtesy Fox*
06harvey-birdman
Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law ------------------------------- Cartoon Network's late-night animation block Adult Swim was a strictly geeks-only affair before the hyperspeeding satire of [Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Birdman,_Attorney_at_Law) arrived. Unlike its less-subversive predecessor [Space Ghost Coast to Coast](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Ghost_Coast_to_Coast), Erik Richter and Michael Ouweleen's show repurposed animated television's spent first-teamers and bench-warmers and turned them into postmodern powerhouses. "It's weird how lightning-quick you see something on TV and have an immediate understanding of where it is going to go," Richter told me in 2003, when the [subversive cartoon](http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/tv/feature/2003/05/29/harvey_birdman/index.html) was stealthily beginning to change television. "You know what's going to happen. People who are watching immediately can fill in the blanks, and you don't have to take the time to actually show what happens. That formula allows us to take an off-ramp. Is that postmodernism? Probably." Whatever you want to call it, Harvey Birdman's mash of resuscitated superheroes and procedural legal drama was a winning formula that packed plenty of hilarious stabs at pop culture, lampooning everything from '60s films like Alfie to new-millennium mobster soaps like The Sopranos (with Fred Flintstone in the hot seat below). Secondary heroes like Black Lightning, Apache Chief and Birdman himself had their cultural cachet upgraded for good. After four riotous seasons, the show was history. Although it has since been replaced by a steady stream of lessers -- save Aaron McGruder's criminally underrated American anime satire The Boondocks, also included on this list -- it remains the king of Adult Swim until a better toon comes along to take the case.  *Images courtesy Adult Swim*
07middleman-stills-day-5-00005-60
The Middleman ------------- Equal parts sci-fi, teen soap and unrepentant satire, [Javier Grillo-Marxuach](http://web.mac.com/chaodai/Grillo_Marxuach_Design_Bureau/main.html)'s perversely underrated comic and television series [The Middleman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Middleman_%28TV_series%29) was all brains and heart. And its far-out speculative concepts and unrelenting nerdspeak deserved better than to disappear after a scant 12 episodes. "The Middleman was a show made by geeks for geeks," Grillo-Marxuach told Wired.com in an e-mail. "In every episode, we challenged ourselves not just to cram in as many references to science fiction, videogame and popular culture as possible, but to wrap our homages in rigorously plotted stories with real characters who just happened to live in an absurd world. The result was a heartfelt series, 12 individually hand-crafted outings in which the fun of reveling in our influences was balanced by maturing characters, plots of increasing complexity and earnestly described relationships with relatable emotional stakes."  Someday, some geek will craft a literary or digital companion to chart the mind-wiping cultural references packed into each hilarious but accessible Middleman episode. And they can start with standout actor [Matt Keeslar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Keeslar) who, as the show's eponymous sci-fi detective, played one of cult television's coolest characters since Twin Peaks' Dale Cooper and Firefly's Malcolm Reynolds. Neither the show nor Keeslar deserved to be buried beneath ABC Family's comparatively weak roster, and neither deserve the insult of only being available on DVD. But according to Grillo-Marxuach, the show was probably lucky to last as long as it did. "To this day, all of us who worked on The Middleman are not only proud of what we accomplished, but also a little confused that we were allowed to get away with it at all!" *Images courtesy Javier Grillo-Marxuach*
08boondocks
The Boondocks ------------- There may not be a more maligned cartoon on the air these days than [Aaron McGruder](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_McGruder)'s astoundingly scathing [The Boondocks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boondocks_%28TV_series%29). Its stunning third season just wrapped on Adult Swim, after taking the gin and juice out of everything from President Barack Obama and the swine flu epidemic to reality TV-addicted couch potatoes and thoroughly played-out bling-hop. But you would never know it, given the deafening silence. Which is a crime: The Boondocks is the roughest, toughest mature cartoon on television, miles ahead of anything trying to sniff its satirical fumes. From its knockout action to its political wits and take-no-prisoners critique of a pop culture that has seemingly lost its mind, McGruder's show has rarely failed to expertly dissect the new millennium's hyper-real obsessions and disturbing fantasies. It deserves much more than a fourth season, which at last report has not been confirmed. Losing The Boondocks would doom Adult Swim, and television in general, to fail-safe mediocrity. Who else is going to seamlessly mash Stephen Chow's [Shaolin Soccer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin_Soccer) with All the President's Men? Keep hope alive, loyalists and noobs. Keep hope alive. *Image courtesy Adult Swim*
09stephen-colbert
The Colbert Report ------------------ This might feel like a cheat, especially since comedian [Stephen Colbert](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert)'s deliriously hyper-real ego stream is a continuing Emmy-winning sensation that has yet to run out of cultural steam or air time. Also, he keeps getting stuff named after him, from treadmills on space stations to spiders. Indeed, there are plenty of purely logical reasons not to include [The Colbert Report](http://www.colbertnation.com/home) here amongst superb shows that died after mere handfuls of seasons or episodes. But other than Firefly, Colbert is the only pick on this list who has actually spawned a cult of worship, which has leaped into action whenever its leader -- whose name alone commands not one but two Wikipedia entries -- has asked for help supporting or haranguing his friends or enemies. The fact that Colbert's show openly encourages and reprimands such worship of a character who is simultaneously as dumb as a bag of Sarah Palins and [America's most potent cultural critic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_%28character%29) of the new millennium is irony icing on the postmodern cake. So attack us if you will, but we're standing firm on including The Colbert Report in this list of cult television classics. If only because, in spite of all its viral success, it still remains heinously undervalued and underrated. Colbert doesn't deserve his own show; he deserves his own network. And until he gets one, we're fine with putting him down as Earth's reigning cult superstar until a hardy patriot with way more balls comes along and captures his freak flag. *Images courtesy Comedy Central*
