It’s been an oddly bipolar decade in TV. The 2000s saw an explosion of reality TV, whether masquerading as games and talent quests, historical re-enactment and social role-swapping, makeovers and renovations, pranks and scares, observational professional procedurals, docusoaps or “celebreality” series. Many of these were self-consciously trashy, and Dynasty doyenne Joan Collins is among the critics who blame reality TV for degrading our culture. However, VH1 producer Michael Hirschorn and Time magazine’s James Poniewozik argue that reality TV offers a lightning rod for contemporary debates about race and class.

On the other hand, there are the hi-res series that tended to be consumed through DVDs and downloads rather than broadcasts. The Sopranos – which premiered in 1999 – is often cited as the definitive post-broadcast series, with its complex narrative arcs and cinema-quality production values. Likewise, Sex and the City, which premiered in 1998, is credited not only with reflecting the zeitgeist but also with actually changing the way single women think of themselves.

Now that we’re in the absolute dog days of the 2000s, certain series emerge as the televisual frontrunners – the ones it’s ‘important’ to have seen, downloaded, blogged about and owned on DVD. There are multi-layered dramas such as Lost, The West Wing, Six Feet Under, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and The Wire, cult series such as Battlestar Galactica, Freaks & Geeks and Firefly, and sardonic comedies including Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm and 30 Rock.

The reason these shows get talked about so often is that they’re really well-made and entertaining. Audiences also tend to view them in immersive, multi-episode binges, free from commercial breaks and capricious scheduling, which plucks them from their context as ‘television’ and turns them into long-form movies – with all the respect we tend to grant that medium.

But to paraphrase Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but think about the series that were my appointment TV during the Noughties. Some might have been avidly discussed when they first aired but are now falling into that gap between ‘current hit’ and ‘classic’. Others have always had small followings, and still others were more popular with audiences than critics. These are the shows that get quiet golf claps rather than standing ovations.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008-2009)

Also known as The Sarah Chronnor Conicles after that one time I’d had a few drinks before coming home to watch it, this Terminator spinoff judiciously ignores Terminator 3 and has Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) and her teenage son John (Thomas Dekker) fighting Skynet in 2007, with the help of female terminator Cameron (Summer Glau), who may or may not turn on them. Meanwhile, FBI agent Ellison (Richard T Jones) is this close to figuring the whole ‘robots-from-the-future’ thing out. It played for two seasons; in April this year, Fox declined to renew the Conicles for a third outing.

The leisurely pace of TV allowed flashforwards, flashbacks and dream sequences – immensely satisfying for Terminator tragics like me. I enjoyed the way the series was solidly enmeshed in the Terminator mythos, but built its own slowly-unfurling narrative. The sound design, in particular, is great – when you’re listening from another room, the ominous, metallic musical cues are unmistakably Terminator.

With her stick-thin arms Headey is no Linda Hamilton, but she does a good job with the evocatively scripted voiceovers that explore Sarah’s philosophies and fears. For me, the pleasant surprise of the series was Brian Austin Green as John’s battle-hardened paternal uncle Derek Reese.

Queer Eye For The Straight Guy (2003-2007)

That chirpy disco-diva theme alone really takes me back. God I loved this show, even though it is ideologically troubling for pigeonholing gay men as “fairy godfathers” – catty and extroverted aesthetes there to transform the love lives of hetero blokes. I enjoyed its homosociality: the way it treated the private sphere as a terrain for discussion among men. My favourite Queer Eye guy was always bespectacled foodie Ted Allen, because he seemed bemused to find himself in this show. However, I came to appreciate the bone-dry wit (and hotness!) of interior design guy Thom Filicia. Grooming guy Kyan Douglas was dumb, gorgeous but enthusiastic, like a golden retriever, and “culture vulture” Jai Rodriguez was always a bit of a lame duck.

With his more recent work on How To Look Good Naked – and his inevitable appearances during the Melbourne Cup racing carnival – fashion stylist Carson Kressley has possibly done the best of the Fab Five after the series ended (with an ill-advised branching-out into improving straight women’s love lives). Filicia’s upscale interiors get a lot of coverage in magazines, Allen hosts various cable-network food shows, Douglas hosts the US version of Ten Years Younger, and Rodriguez dabbles at the edges of the TV hosting and musical theatre industries.

Cold Feet (1998-2003)

This very British dramedy technically began before the 2000s, but for me, sitting down with my housemate to watch it on Tuesday nights was one of the great pleasures of the decade’s early years. Over five seasons, it follows the relationship of a Manchester couple, Adam and Rachel (James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale), as well as Adam’s mate Pete and his wife Jenny (John Thomson and Fay Ripley), and Rachel’s friend Karen and her husband David (Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst).

Cold Feet doesn’t have the stylised, cartoonish quality of many American-made comedic dramas – such as Ally McBeal, House MD, Scrubs and Glee. While there’s definitely a sentimental quality to the emotional moments, it doesn’t feel treacly because the characters developed in a naturalistic way over the five series, and their predicaments were mundane rather than kooky or melodramatic. The show’s class dimension was sometimes foregrounded but rarely overplayed, and the final episodes really pack a punch.

Dark Angel (2000-2002)

Originally known as James Cameron’s Dark Angel, this was Jessica Alba’s breakthrough role. Funnily enough, the series begins in the year 2009. Alba is Max Guevara, bred by the state to be a transgenic super-soldier. However, she and a bunch of her mates escaped as kids from the Manticore government facility, and shortly afterwards the United States’ communication systems are destroyed by terrorists in a massive EMP blast. Ten years later Max is 19, working as a bike courier, and trying to find inner peace by tracking down her childhood friends and sabotaging the government’s secret breeding program, aided by the wheelchair-bound renegade journalist Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly, now best known as NCIS’s Tony DiNozzo).

Government conspiracies make excellent television, although The X-Files should serve as a reminder never to let these plotlines drag on too long and get too silly. It’s perhaps a good thing that Dark Angel was canned after two seasons (in order to make room on the schedule for Firefly, which was itself canned after a single season), but I really enjoyed its dystopian feel – a little bit William Gibson, a little bit Philip K Dick – and the unresolved sexual tension between Max and Logan. Alba and Weatherly actually got together during filming and were briefly engaged.

Rome (2005-2007)

“The following episode of Rome is classified MA. It contains strong violence, nudity, strong sex scenes and adult themes.” Can I get a hell yeah? My little brother turned me on to this series, and I think he got into it after reading Suetonius’s Lives Of The Caesars for year 12 Latin. Set during Rome’s bloody transition from Republic to Empire in the mid-first century BC, this gorgeous-looking American, British and Italian co-production plays fast and loose with the historical events it portrays, but one of the pleasures of historical drama is imagining that things might well have been like this.

The heart of Rome is the friendship between two ordinary soldiers: punctilious family man Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) and earthy rogue Titus Pullo (Ray Stevenson). While the historical action often takes on a pantomime quality (and don’t get me wrong, I adored all the lurid patrician backstabbing, lesbianism and incest, especially the antics of the deliciously evil Julian matriarch Atia), it’s the small-scale interactions of Vorenus and Pullo, the Skywalker and Solo of ancient Rome, that kept me watching.

Spaced (1999-2001)

Damned Channel 4 doesn’t allow me to embed clips! This UK sitcom about Tim and Daisy, two Gen-X layabouts who pretend to be a couple to solve their housing crisis, was written by and starred Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, and was directed by Edgar Wright. Jammed full of pop-cultural references, sight gags and Family Guy-style cutaways, it’s a joy to watch for nerdy types, and it still feels contemporary – which is remarkable, considering that it was created before internet culture popularised these sorts of mash-ups, parodies and bricolages.

In the cast you can also see many other familiar Brit-com faces – Nick Frost as Tim’s best mate, Peter Serafinowicz as his mortal enemy, Bill Bailey as his comic-book-store boss and the hilarious Mark Heap (Brass Eye, Big Train) as Tim and Daisy’s downstairs neighbour Brian. But the standout performance has to be from Julia Deakin as their landlady Marsha, with her lascivious catchphrase “Hello, Brian…”

But wait, there’s more golf-clapping! Click here for part 2