The BEST shows of 2009
Every show that aired an episode in 2009, ranked
We've compiled the average episode rating for every TV show episode aired in 2009 to compile this list of best shows!
#1 - Dragon Ball Kai
Rejoin Goku and his friends in a series of cosmic battles! Toei has redubbed, recut, and cleaned up the animation of the original 1989 animated series. The show's story arc has been refined to better follow the comic book series on which it is based. The show also features a new opening and ending. In the series, martial artist Goku, and his various friends, battle increasingly powerful enemies to defend the world against evil. Can Earth's defender defeat demons, aliens, and other villains?
View Episode Rankings#2 - Gintama
Gintama is a story of a handyman named Gintoki, a samurai with no respect for rules set by the invaders, who's ready to take any job to survive. He and his gang, however, are also among the very few who have not forgotten the morale of a swordsman. Wherever they go, all they do is to create troubles.
View Episode Rankings#3 - Good Eats
Pop culture, comedy, and plain good eating: Host Alton Brown explores the origins of ingredients, decodes culinary customs and presents food and equipment trends. Punctuated by unusual interludes, simple preparations and unconventional discussions, he'll bring you food in its finest and funniest form.
View Episode Rankings#4 - Fairy Tail
Lucy, an aspiring Celestial Wizard, becomes a friend and ally to powerful wizards Natsu, Gray, and Erza, who are part of the (in)famous wizard guild, Fairy Tail.
View Episode Rankings#5 - Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Edward and Alphonse Elric's reckless disregard for alchemy's fundamental laws ripped half of Ed's limbs from his body and left Al's soul clinging to a cold suit of armor. To restore what was lost, the brothers scour a war-torn land for the Philosopher's Stone, a fabled relic which grants the ability to perform alchemy in impossible ways. The Elrics are not alone in their search; the corrupt State Military is also eager to harness the artifact's power. So too are the strange Homunculi and their shadowy creator. The mythical gem lures exotic alchemists from distant kingdoms, scarring some deeply enough to inspire murder. As the Elrics find their course altered by these enemies and allies, their purpose remains unchanged – and their bond unbreakable.
View Episode Rankings#6 - The Venture Bros.
Hank and Dean Venture, with their father Doctor Venture and faithful bodyguard Brock Samson, go on wild adventures facing megalomaniacs, zombies, and suspicious ninjas, all for the glory of adventure. Or something like that.
View Episode Rankings#7 - Naruto Shippuden
Naruto Uzumaki, is a loud, hyperactive, adolescent ninja who constantly searches for approval and recognition, as well as to become Hokage, who is acknowledged as the leader and strongest of all ninja in the village.
View Episode Rankings#8 - Celebrity Juice
Tabloid focused quiz show based on the nation's obsession with all things celebrity.
View Episode Rankings#9 - Breaking Bad
When Walter White, a chemistry teacher, is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given a prognosis of two years left to live, he chooses to enter a dangerous world of drugs and crime with the intent to secure his family's financial security.
View Episode Rankings#10 - Flashpoint
Flashpoint is an emotional journey following the lives of members of the Strategic Response Unit as they solve hostage situations, bust gangs, and defuse bombs. They work by utilizing their training to get inside the heads of these people in order to make them reach their breaking point (aka their flashpoint).
View Episode Rankings#11 - Heartland (2007) (CA)
Life is hard on the Flemings' ranch in the Alberta foothills where abused or neglected horses find refuge with a kind, hard-working family. Debts abound and the bank is about to foreclose. Can they keep the ranch running?
View Episode Rankings#12 - Dexter
Dexter Morgan is a Miami-based blood spatter expert who doesn’t just solve murders; he commits them too. In fact, he’s a serial killer — but he only murders the guilty, so he feels justified with his lifestyle choices. His policewoman sister and his cop co-workers have no idea Dexter lives a double life; however, adoptive father Harry knows his secret, and does, in fact, help Dexter hone his “skills.” It’s a unique brand of justice for which charming Dexter feels a psychological hunger.
View Episode Rankings#13 - Parks and Recreation
The series follows Leslie Knope, the deputy head of the Parks and Recreation department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana. Knope takes on a project with a nurse named Ann to turn a construction pit into a park, while trying to mentor a bored college-aged intern. However, Leslie must fight through the bureaucrats, problem neighbors, and developers in order to make her dream a reality, all with a camera crew recording her every gaff and mishap.
View Episode Rankings#14 - Prison Break
Due to a political conspiracy, an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother, who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison in order to break the both of them out, from the inside.
View Episode Rankings#15 - Sons of Anarchy
Single father Jax Teller finds his loyalty to his outlaw motorcycle club tested by his growing unease concerning the group's lawlessness. While the club protects and patrols the town of Charming, Calif., keeping drug dealers away, its activities also include a thriving -- and lucrative -- illegal arms business.
View Episode Rankings#16 - White Collar
A white collar criminal agrees to help the FBI catch other white collar criminals using his expertise as an art and securities thief, counterfeiter, and conman.
View Episode Rankings#17 - Fighting Spirit
Makunouchi Ippo is an ordinary high school student in Japan. Since he spends most of his time away from school helping his mother run the family business, he doesn't get to enjoy his younger years like most teenagers. Always a target for bullying at school (the family fishing business grants him a distinct odor), Ippo's life is one of hardship. One of these after-school bullying sessions turns Ippo's life around for the better, as he is saved by a boxer named Takamura. He decides to follow in Takamura's footsteps and train to become a boxer, giving his life direction and purpose. Ippo's path to perfecting his pugilistic prowess is just beginning...
View Episode Rankings#18 - New Tricks
Drama about a police unit, made up of retired detectives and a long-suffering boss, looking at unsolved crimes.
View Episode Rankings#19 - Dancing with the Stars
The American version of the British “Strictly Come Dancing” sees celebrities perform choreographed dance routines which are judged by a panel of renowned ballroom experts and voted on by viewers. Enjoy sizzling salsas, sambas and spray-tans as they vie for the coveted Mirrorball Trophy!
View Episode Rankings#20 - Doc Martin
Make an appointment with the brilliant but socially awkward and neurotic Doc Martin. When Martin develops an aversion to blood, he abandons his career as a celebrated London surgeon and becomes the only doctor in a sleepy small town where his tactless manner soon has the whole town in an uproar.
View Episode Rankings#21 - American Ninja Warrior
The heart-racing obstacle-course competition of ultra-athletes questing for a shot at the fabled Mt. Midoriyama. This American version of the Japanese show Sasuke (aka Ninja Warrior) televises a series of qualification courses across the nation, with the top contenders going to Las Vegas for the finals on the 4-stage "Mt. Midoriyama" obstacle course. In earlier seasons the show was a proving ground to find (and train) American athletes to send to Japan to compete in the original Sasuke tournaments.
View Episode Rankings#22 - The Killing
Police detective Sarah Lund investigates difficult cases with personal and political consequences.
View Episode Rankings#23 - Red Dwarf
Three million years after the demise of humanity, third technician Dave Lister awakes aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf. Sentenced to a period of suspended animation for smuggling his pet cat on board, he is joined by just four fellow survivors: second technician Arnold J Rimmer, a sneering-yet-inept hologram based on his one-time superior; Holly, a ship's computer reduced to near-senility by eons adrift in space; a humanoid descendant of the cat obsessed with fashion and fish; and Kryten, a salvaged android programmed to serve his useless companions. Together, this bickering band must come to terms with an existence which, in terms of productivity and purpose, isn't that far removed from its old one.
View Episode Rankings#24 - Prison Break
Due to a political conspiracy, an innocent man is sent to death row and his only hope is his brother, who makes it his mission to deliberately get himself sent to the same prison to break them both out from the inside.
View Episode Rankings#25 - Eastbound & Down
Relief Pitcher Kenny Powers was poised to rule the Big Leagues, but two things got in his way: his fading fastball and his insufferable personality. After a spectacular career flame-out, Kenny came home to Shelby, NC and picked up a job as a substitute gym teacher (mostly so his brother Dustin would stop threatening to kick him out). He's spent every moment since then cashing in the last of his dying fame while plotting his inevitable comeback...one beer at a time.
View Episode Rankings#26 - Degrassi
Degrassi is a Canadian teen drama television series, set in the Degrassi fictional universe created by Linda Schuyler and Kit Hood in 1980. Degrassi is the fourth fictional series in the Degrassi franchise, following The Kids of Degrassi Street, Degrassi Junior High, and Degrassi High. Like its predecessors, Degrassi follows a group of students attending Degrassi Community School who face challenges common to teen life, such as self image, peer pressure, child abuse, sexual identity, gang violence, self-injury, school shootings, teenage pregnancy and drug abuse.
View Episode Rankings#27 - Spooks
A tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.
View Episode Rankings#28 - Misfits
A group of teenagers are sentenced to community service for past mistakes only to find their lives changed after a storm gives them strange new powers and new problems to overcome.
View Episode Rankings#29 - Community
The student body at Greendale Community College is made up of high-school losers, newly divorced housewives, and old people who want to keep their minds active. Within these not-so-hallowed halls, Community focuses on a band of misfits, at the center of which is a fast-talking lawyer whose degree was found to be fake, who form a study group and end up learning a lot more about themselves than they do about their course work.
View Episode Rankings#30 - Metalocalypse
Metalocalypse is an eleven-minute flash animated comedy airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha. The series follows the exploits of a fictitious half American/half Scandinavian death metal band known as Dethklok. The band and its members are huge the world over, but incredibly stupid - a death metal version of Spinal Tap. Watch as they leave a trail of destruction and mayhem in their wake with their ear-melting onslaught of metal!
View Episode Rankings#31 - SouthLAnd
Rookies learn the ropes. Veterans burn out. Detectives take their work personally. Partners take their addictions too far. Relationships fall apart. Blood spatter patterns provide clues. With fast-moving action filmed on gangland streets and in pricey cul-de-sacs, the series tells personal stories of men and women on both sides of the badge as they struggle to make a difference or simply survive.
View Episode Rankings#32 - Have I Got News for You
Based on the week's news, Have I Got News For You is fronted by guest hosts and features two regular team captains, Paul Merton and Ian Hislop. Each week the show invites two guests to cast a jaundiced eye over the week's news, resulting in a fast flow of anarchic, spontaneous and hugely entertaining wit and humour. Guests typically represent the world of politics, comedy, show-business and journalism, and are often themselves particularly newsworthy participants. The final touches of Have I Got News For You are put together only hours before recording, allowing guests to comment on the late-breaking news stories of the day.
View Episode Rankings#33 - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Four egocentric friends who run a neighborhood Irish pub in Philadelphia try to find their way through the adult world of work and relationships. Unfortunately, their warped views and precarious judgments often lead them to trouble, creating a myriad of uncomfortable situations that usually only get worse before they get better.
View Episode Rankings#34 - Deadliest Catch
Forty-foot waves, 700 pound crab pots, freezing temperatures and your mortality staring you in the face…it's all in a day's work for these modern day prospectors. During each episode we will watch crews race to meet their quota and make it home safely.
View Episode Rankings#35 - Supernatural
Two brothers follow their father's footsteps as hunters, fighting evil supernatural beings of many kinds, including monsters, demons and gods that roam the earth.
View Episode Rankings#36 - Castle (2009)
Rick Castle is one of the world's most successful crime authors. But when his rock star lifestyle isn't enough, this bad boy goes looking for new trouble and finds it working with smart, beautiful Detective Kate Beckett. Inspired by her professional record and intrigued by her buttoned-up personality, Castle's found the model for his bold new character whether she likes it or not. Now with the mayor's permission, Castle is helping solve crime with his own twist.
View Episode Rankings#37 - Party Down
"Party Down" follows a Los Angeles catering team - a sextet of Hollywood wannabes stuck working for tips while hoping for their "big break." Each episode of this half-hour comedy finds the hapless catering team working a new event - and inevitably getting tangled up with the colorful guests and their absurd lives.
View Episode Rankings#38 - iCarly
Carly hosts her own home-grown web show, iCarly. She lives with her twenty-something brother/guardian Spencer and produces her Web casts from a makeshift third-floor loft studio. Grappling with adolescence, she never aimed to gain fame as a rising star/underground celebrity to kids. As events unfold in the pilot, it all happens by accident when a teacher puts her in charge of the school talent show. She and her sassy best bud Sam turn the audition process into a show, which Carly's tech savvy smitten friend Freddy tapes -- including their hilarious banter and great chemistry -- and posts on the Web without telling the girls. The on-line audience clamors for more, and a pop phenomenon blooms, with Carly and sidekick Sam's regular Web casts ultimately featuring everything from comedy sketches and talent contests to interviews, recipes, and problem-solving.
View Episode Rankings#39 - Benidorm (2007)
Follow holidaymakers at the Solana Resort in Benidorm. Hilarity ensues as guests try to get value for their Euros.
View Episode Rankings#40 - The Vampire Diaries
The story of two vampire brothers obsessed with the same girl, who bears a striking resemblance to the beautiful but ruthless vampire they knew and loved in 1864.
View Episode Rankings#41 - Friday Night Lights
Friday Night Lights follows the intense world of high school football in the small town of Dillon, Texas, where the game is everything. As Coach Eric Taylor leads the Dillon Panthers through victories and defeats, players and families grapple with pressure, ambition, and personal struggles. In Dillon, football isn’t just a sport—it’s a way of life, and every Friday night feels like a battle.
View Episode Rankings#42 - Agatha Christie's Poirot
He’s the super sleuth with a sharp mind and a peculiar manner who doggedly deduces the truth behind the crimes.
View Episode Rankings#43 - According to Jim
Jim is an abrasive but lovable suburban father. Much like his real life counterpart, Jim's character is noted as a fan of Blues music, as well as the Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Bears, and the Chicago Cubs. He's married to a gorgeous woman, Cheryl, and raises his five children – Ruby, Gracie, Kyle, and twins, Gordan and Jonathan – in a big house. Everything is perfect for Jim, if it wasn't for the messy situations he gets himself into and his laziness, which often makes him search for alternative ways of doing things with less effort. Of course, having his wife's siblings hanging out at his house all the time is no help. While Andy might be one of his best friends, Dana often teams up with Cheryl against Jim.
View Episode Rankings#44 - Battlestar Galactica (2003)
In a distant part of the universe, a civilization of humans live on planets known as the Twelve Colonies. In the past, the Colonies have been at war with a cybernetic race known as the Cylons. 40 years after the first war the Cylons launch a devastating attack on the Colonies. The only military ship that survived the attack takes up the task of leading a small fugitive fleet of survivors into space in search of a fabled refuge known as Earth.
View Episode Rankings#45 - Chuck
A regular 26-year-old everyman has his life thrown into disarray after his friend, a CIA agent, sends him an e-mail that results in the world's secrets becoming embedded in his mind.
View Episode Rankings#46 - Midsomer Murders
A veteran DCI and his young Sergeant investigate murders around the regional community of Midsomer.
View Episode Rankings#47 - Leverage
Meet Nathan Ford, a former insurance investigator who spent his professional career dedicated to the company that refused a potentially life saving medical procedure for his son. Unemployed and teetering on the edge, Nate enlists the help of the best thieves and grifters in the business, and with their help, he steals from the rich and gives to the poor to help balance the crooks in high power positions. He and his team help provide... leverage.
View Episode Rankings#48 - Archer (2009)
At the International Secret Intelligence Service (ISIS), a fictional New York-based intelligence agency, eight dysfunctional secret agents attempt to solve global crises while simultaneously screwing each other over. The team is made up of the narcissistic Sterling Archer; his emotionally distant mother, ISIS director Malory Archer; the always-professional Lana Kane, Sterling's former flame; Ray Gillette, the agency's openly gay bomb specialist; HR head Pam Poovey; mild-mannered accountant-turned-agent Cyril Figgis; Cheryl Tunt, Malory's delusional, psychotic personal assistant; and Dr. Algernop Krieger, a bizarre, morally bankrupt scientist with little regard for the well-being of his subjects.
View Episode Rankings#49 - Curb Your Enthusiasm
An unscripted series that brings the off-kilter comic vision of Larry David, who plays himself in a parallel universe in which he can’t seem to do anything right, and, by his standards, neither can anyone else.
View Episode Rankings#50 - Fringe
An F.B.I. agent is forced to work with an institutionalized scientist and his son in order to rationalize a brewing storm of unexplained phenomena.
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