The 8 Most Fun Shows of the 2000s

This is the decade DVR showed up, so for the first time you could actually record a show and watch it whenever you wanted instead of planning your night around it. That freedom is probably part of why so many shows from this decade experimented with weird formats, mockumentaries, non-linear timelines, a guy who talks to dead people through pie. Every one of these got either cancelled too early or nearly cancelled at some point, and fans had to fight to keep half of them alive. That kind of scrappy, underdog energy runs through basically every show on this list, whether it's the network's fault or just bad timing. So, let’s get into some of the most fun shows of the 2000s. 8 'Chuck' (2007–2012) Image via NBC Chuck (Zachary Levi) works a dead-end tech support job at a Best Buy knockoff store, and then a government computer gets downloaded straight into his brain, giving him access to basically every secret the CIA and NSA have on file. Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski), his CIA handler, and John Casey (Adam Baldwin), his NSA handler, both end up babysitting him through increasingly ridiculous spy missions he's completely unqualified for. Fans actually saved this show from cancellation more than once, at one point flooding Subway locations with orders since the sandwich chain sponsored the show, and NBC noticed and renewed it because of it. The whole thing works because it never picks a lane, it's a real spy show and a real workplace comedy at the same time, and neither half feels like it's getting shortchanged. 7 'Psych' (2006–2014) Image via USA Network Shawn Spencer (James Roday) isn't actually psychic, he's just spent his entire childhood being trained by his cop father to notice tiny details everyone else misses, and pretending to have psychic powers turns out to be an easier sell to the police department than admitting he's just really observant. Gus (Dulé Hill), his best friend since childhood, gets dragged along on every case mostly against his own better judgment. Every single episode title is a reference to some eighties movie or show, and the whole series is packed with that kind of pop culture references. Detective Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) is always refusing to believe Shawn is actually psychic, which is funny because he's completely right and nobody ever properly proves it to him. 6 'The Office' (2005–2013) Image via NBC Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is a regional manager who desperately wants everyone at his branch to like him, and that need makes him say some of the most cringeworthy things ever put on network television, right before turning around and doing something genuinely kind for one of his employees. Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) treats every single task at this paper company like it's a matter of life and death, and that's exactly what makes him funny. Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam's (Jenna Fischer) relationship plays out slowly across years instead of getting rushed, and the show rewards every bit of patience it asks from you by the time they actually get together. It's a mockumentary format borrowed from the original British version, and the fake documentary crew filming everything is basically never explained until the very last episode. 5 'Pushing Daisies' (2007–2009) Image via Warner Bros. Television Ned (Lee Pace) can bring dead things back to life just by touching them, but there's a catch, if he touches them a second time they die again permanently, and if he doesn't touch them again within a minute, someone else nearby dies in their place instead. He uses this power to briefly revive murder victims, ask them who killed them, and then solve the case for reward money with a private investigator named Emerson Cod (Chi McBride). Chuck (Anna Friel), Ned's childhood love, gets brought back to life this way too, which means the two of them can never touch each other again for the rest of their lives without killing her for good. Everything about this show looks like a fairy tale, oversaturated colors, storybook narration, and it got cancelled way too early because of a writers' strike that killed its momentum right when it was building an audience. 4 'Scrubs' (2001–2010) Image via ABC J.D. (Zach Braff) narrates the whole show with these elaborate daydream sequences that interrupt normal hospital scenes to show you exactly what's going on in his head, usually something completely ridiculous. Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) spends years mentoring J.D. by mostly just yelling at him and refusing to ever learn his actual name, calling him a different woman's name in nearly every episode instead. Underneath all the slapstick, this show handles patient deaths and hospital burnout very seriously, and it never warns you which episode is about to hit you with one. Turk (Donald Faison) and J.D. friendship is the actual emotional backbone of the whole series, and their handshake routines became almost as well known as any of the actual jokes. 3 'How I Met Your Mother' (2005–2014) Image via CBS Ted (Josh Radnor) tells his kids the incredibly long story of how he met their mother, and the show jumps around in time so much that you spend most of the series not even knowing who the mother actually is. Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) steals basically every scene he's in with his own made-up rulebook for how to live, suits, catchphrases, elaborate scams just to win an argument with his friends. Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) are the stable married couple anchoring the group, while Robin (Cobie Smulders) keeps resisting the idea of settling down the way the rest of them eventually do. The finale split fans right down the middle depending how you feel about where they took the ending, but the seasons leading up to it are still some of the best structured comedy writing of the decade. 2 '30 Rock' (2006–2013) Image via NBC Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) runs the writers' room for a sketch comedy show that's basically a parody of Saturday Night Live, and Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), the network executive above her, treats mentoring her like his own personal hobby project. The joke density on this show is honestly insane, there's a background gag happening in nearly every single shot if you're paying attention. Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) plays an unpredictable movie star who barely seems to understand what show he's even on half the time, and that chaos always fits perfectly into whatever plot is happening around him. It's absurd in a way most network sitcoms never risked being, and it rewards rewatching more than almost anything else from this decade. 1 'Arrested Development' (2003–2019) Image via Fox Network Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is the only reasonably sane member of his own extremely wealthy, extremely dysfunctional family, and in the whole show he is just trying to hold everyone together right after his father gets arrested for fraud. Gob (Will Arnett), his brother, is a terrible magician with an ego way bigger than his actual talent, and Lucille (Jessica Walter), their mother, might be the most quietly savage character in any sitcom from this decade. This show rewards rewatching more than almost anything else on this list, jokes planted in season one quietly pay off two seasons later, and half the background details only make sense once you've already seen the whole thing once. It got cancelled after low ratings despite critics loving it, and then Netflix brought it back years later, which is a strange, fitting story for a show dedicated to running its own jokes into the ground on purpose. Arrested Development Release Date 2003 - 2019-00-00 Network FOX, Netflix Showrunner Mitchell Hurwitz