Our picks for the best comedy series from the 2009-2010 TV season.

#15 Californication

Hank Moody became a teacher and increased his pool of female admirers by adding a student, a TA and the dean’s wife to his already full roster of women, leading to insanely complex and hilarious situations.

 

#14 Cougar Town

Initially, the show was deemed unwatchable because it was all about a random social fad. But once the show stopped being about chasing younger men and started being about a small group of wacky friends who enjoy drinking wine a little too much, it became incredibly clever and brilliant.

 

#13 Weeds

It’s amazing to think this show started with a widowed mother of two selling pot to support her family given the fact that, in the latest season, Nancy married a Mexican drug lord and gave birth to his baby, but such is the case for the twistiest comedy on TV.

 

#12 Better Off Ted

After a fairly surprising second season renewal, this tiny show came and went in the blink of an eye, but for those who watched, they saw some very smart and funny workplace comedy.

 

#11 Party Down

What happens if you take six very cool and very funny actors and put them in a show with a rather impressive array of guest stars? You get Party Down, the show about a catering company in Hollywood that not nearly enough people know about because it’s on Starz.

 

#10 How I Met Your Mother

This season we got closer than ever to finding out the mother, and even if we’re still far away, the complex narratives and callbacks to past seasons make it one of the must engaging shows on TV.

 

#9 The Big Bang Theory

In general, we’d like the traditional laugh track sitcom to die, but we’ll make an exception for this insanely funny show, if only for more episodes featuring Wil Wheaton playing himself as an evil nemesis for Sheldon.

 

#8 It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The longer this show runs, the more morally bankrupt the characters become and the funnier their horrible actions are.

 

#7 Curb Your Enthusiasm

If you ever wanted a Seinfeld reunion, the closest you’ll get is a fictional reunion on Curb, complete with the entire original cast working with Larry David once again.

 

#6 Chuck

After fans mounted a huge campaign, NBC brought Chuck back for a third season, and it’s clear the creators honored the fans’ wishes by delivering the best season yet with huge revelations (everyone finding out that Chuck’s a spy) and a great guest star/villain (Brandon Routh).

 

#5 30 Rock

It’s always a good sign when even the weakest episodes of a show are more well-written than most of what’s on TV, and such is the case with 30 Rock, a show that has become a reliable and comfortable bit of weekly hilarity.

 

#4 Glee

We understand that this show isn’t for everyone, and there are definitely some lulls in terms of plot and acting, but at its best, Glee is a revolutionary new series that wows us and causes fits of uncontrollable laughter.

 

#3 Community

At first, Community was just a very amusing show, but over the course of the first season it got better and better, adding new layers to appreciate and delivering one of the funniest TV episodes of the entire season with its paintball war.

 

#2 Parks and Recreation

When The Office first started, it had a subpar six-episode first season followed by an amazing sophomore year when everything clicked into place and the show became great. The exact same thing happened for this show, turning it into the best part of our Thursday nights.

 

#1 Modern Family

A killer cast and the funniest and smartest writing TV has seen in a long time helped make this freshman comedy not only the funniest show on TV, but also the best.

 

See More Best Comedy Lists

 

John Kubicek

Senior Writer, BuddyTV

John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.