Get ready to feel old...

2000 was a seminal year for television with many classic TV shows launching, some of which are still on our screens today, such as The Weakest Link and Big Brother which will be celebrating its 25th anniversary when it returns to ITV2 later this year.

2000 was also the year that Peter Kay, Ricky Gervais and Sacha Baron Cohen launched their first major television series, That Peter Kay Thing, Meet Ricky Gervais and Da Ali G Show, all on Channel 4.

And if you were one of the 12.3m who enjoyed Gavin & Stacey's finale on Christmas Day, then you've got ITV drama Fat Friends to thank as it's where Ruth Jones and James Corden met, working alongside Alison Steadman.

Other notable launches in 2000 include one of Sarah Lancashire's earliest performances in Clocking Off, popular daytime soap Doctors which sadly came to an end in December 2024 and Curb Your Enthusiasm which ended after 12 seasons in April 2024.

Here's the full list of 25 television shows which in 2025 will be celebrating their 25th anniversary...

Shipwrecked

12 January 2000, Channel 4

Months before Big Brother graced our screens, there was Shipwrecked, the Channel 4 reality series in which a group of young British contestants were stranded on Moturakau in the Cook Islands for 68 days and 67 nights, when they were eventually picked up by a sailing boat.

Shipwrecked ran for two further series, both in 2001, introducing us to now household names Jeff Brazier, Chloe Everton and Sarah-Jane Crawford. After a five-year break, the series returned in 2006 as Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands until 2009.

Two years later in 2011, it returned as Shipwrecked: The Island before its final (to date) outing in 2019 where it returned to the Battle of the Islands.

That Peter Kay Thing

12 January 2000, Channel 4

Before Phoenix Nights, Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere and Car Share, Peter Kay brought us the mockumentary that started it all, That Peter Kay Thing, written by Kay, Dave Spikey, Neil Fitzmaurice and Gareth Hughes.

Set in and around Bolton, it was narrated by Andrew Sachs, with each episode functioning as a self-contained documentary following a different set of characters, many of them played by Kay and many of them featuring in the later spin-off Phoenix Nights such as Brian Potter, Max and Paddy and Jerry St. Clair.

Trigger Happy TV

14 January 2000, Channel 4

In the year 2000, comedian Dom Joly launched his Channel 4 hidden camera show Trigger Happy TV in which he unleashed his twisted humour on an unsuspecting British public.

Arguably, the show's most famous sketch was the giant mobile phone, which would ring in usually quiet spaces such as libraries, restaurants or art galleries and Dom would answer by shouting "HELLO?!" before continuing the conversation at an equally socially unacceptable level.

Another well-loved sketch saw Dom ask passers by to aide him in some apparently criminal endeavour whilst dressed in a typical burglar costume, another saw him dressed as a giant snail crossing a zebra crossing... slowly and he would often dress up as a traffic warden to accuse motorists stopped in traffic or at traffic lights of being illegally parked and ticket them.

Trigger Happy TV ran for three series before returning briefly in 2016 for two new digital series and a Christmas special, all available on Channel 4's streaming platform.

Castaway 2000

18 January 2000, BBC One

Ben Fogle is a household name today, but back in 2000, he was just one of 36 men, women, and children who were tasked with building a community on Taransay, a Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides for a new BBC One reality show, Castaway 2000 and they had a year to do so.

Unlike other reality shows, the castaways filmed themselves, there would be no eventual winner and rather than one complete series, it was split out over a number of shorter series throughout the year with the first four episodes attracting audiences of 7-8m viewers.

The series came to an end in the final week of 2000 with Julia Bradbury hosting a number of short live 10-minute broadcasts from Taransay and was followed by L&K Castaway, a spin-off on Live & Kicking in which each week, six children would spend four days on a remote Scottish island, learning how to survive, among other skills.

Castaway eventually returned in 2007, only this time 15 men and women from the British public were moved to a New Zealand island for three months to live as a community. Another change was that one-by-one, the castaways were voted off until there was an eventual winner, who won a trip around New Zealand.

At Home with the Braithwaites

20 January 2000, ITV

Now, Sally Wainwright is loved by millions for creating a number of hit dramas over the years, including Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack, Scott & Bailey and Last Tango in Halifax, but it was her first original drama, At Home with the Braithwaites that paved the way.

Airing on ITV, At Home with the Braithwaites ran for four series and at its peak was watched by 9.45m viewers. It followed a suburban family in Leeds, whose life is turned upside down when the mother of the family wins £38m on the lottery.

The family were played by Amanda Redman as Alison, Peter Davison as David, Sarah Smart as Virginia, Sarah Churm as Sarah and Keeley Fawcett as Charlotte. The series also starred Julie Graham, Kevin Doyle and Lynda Bellingham amongst others.

Clocking Off

23 January 2000, BBC One

By the year 2000, Paul Abbott was already well established as a writer, having written for Children's Ward, Coronation Street, Cracker and others, and would go on to create Linda Green, State of Play, Shameless, No Offence and more recently, Wolfe for Sky.

In 2000, his latest drama Clocking Off, ran for four series and followed the lives of a group of workers at a Manchester textile factory, with each episode focusing on the home life of a different character.

The cast list throughout the years reads like a who's who of British acting talent, including Sarah Lancashire and her eventual Happy Valley co-star Siobhan Finneran, Corrie faves Jack P. Shepherd and Tina O'Brien and Ashley Jensen, Ben Crompton, Christopher Eccleston, Claire Sweeney, Crissy Rock, David Morrissey, Diane Parish, Emma Cunniffe, Jack Deam, Jason Merrells, John Simm, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Lesley Sharp, Lindsey Coulson, Marc Warren, Mark Benton, Marshall Lancaster, Maxine Peake, Pam Ferris, Paul Copley, Philip Glenister, Ricky Tomlinson, Sophie Okonedo, Susan Cookson, Wil Johnson and William Ash.

After the first series, Paul brought in other writers including Danny Brocklehurst, Jan McVerry, John Fay, Matt Greenhalgh and Peter Bowker and after a fourth series with no episodes written by Paul Abbott, Clocking Off was axed with Paul telling The Guardian "I felt there was a real shortage of writers who have something to say in the single drama format. You give them 60-minutes to tell a single story and a lot of the things we rejected felt like sub plots from Playing the Field. I was shocked by how unambitious writers were."

My Hero

4 February 2000, BBC One

My Hero, a BBC One sitcom from Paul Mayhew-Archer became somewhat of an unlikely hit in 2000, about a superhero living a double life in Northolt.

It followed George Sunday, played by Ardal O'Hanlon, who is secretly a superhero called Thermoman from the planet Ultron and serves to safeguard humanity and the Earth, and Janet Dawkins, a British nurse he fell in love with after saving her life.

It also starred Emily Joyce, Lill Roughley, Tim Wylton, Lou Hirsch, Geraldine McNulty, Philip Whitchurch and Hugh Dennis and ran for six series, with James Dreyfus taking over the lead role for its final series.

Doctors

26 March 2000, BBC One

BBC One's daytime soap Doctors, launched in 2000 and ran for 4552 episodes before coming to an end in November 2024. Originally ordered for 41 episodes, its success meant that Doctors remained on the BBC as a daytime staple becoming a continuing soap opera.

Set in the fictional Midlands town of Letherbridge, it followed the lives of the staff of both a Doctor's surgery and University Campus Surgery as well as their families and friends.

Some household names who had early roles in Doctors include Claire Foy, Claudia Jessie, Eddie Redmayne, Emilia Clarke, Jodie Comer, Nicholas Hoult, Sam Heughan, Sheridan Smith and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in her first ever television role.

Da Ali G Show

30 March 2000, Channel 4

After playing Ali G in The 11 O'Clock Show on Channel 4, Sacha Baron Cohen was handed a full series, Da Ali G Show, in which he played three unorthodox journalists: faux-streetwise poseur Ali G, Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev, and gay Austrian fashion enthusiast Brüno Gehard.

Each character conducted real interviews with unsuspecting people, many of whom are celebrities, high-ranking government officials, and other well-known figures, during which they are asked absurd and ridiculous questions.

It ran for three series, with only the first airing on Channel 4 and the other two airing on HBO from 2003 and spawned four feature films, Ali G Indahouse, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Brüno and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

L.A. 7

6 April 2000, CBBC

Following the success of Miami 7 the year before, Tina Barrett, Paul Cattermole, Jon Lee, Bradley McIntosh, Hannah Spearitt, Rachel Stevens and Jo O'Meara, aka pop group S Club 7 returned to CBBC to play fictionalised versions of themselves in L.A. 7 as the group head to L.A. hoping to make it big.

After leaving Howard and Marvin in Miami, the group bump into Joni, played by The Exorcist star Linda Blair, who offers to rent them an apartment after she accidentally runs over Bradley on her rollerblades.

Once in Los Angeles, the group have to quickly deal with some of the realities of trying to seek an existence in order to become a pop band. They also start to become more Americanised. In the final episode, they decide to pack up and hit the road after their manager apparently fails to get them a record deal.

L.A. 7 was followed by Hollywood 7, Viva S Club and feature film, Seeing Double.

Jackass

12 April 2000, MTV

Created by Jeff Tremaine, Spike Jonze, and Johnny Knoxville, Jackass ran for three short seasons and featured a compilation of pain and embarrassment inducing stunt performances and pranks on each other and the public.

The regular cast was made up of Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Chris Pontius, Ryan Dunn, Steve-O, Dave England, Ehren McGhehey, Jason "Wee Man" Acuña, and Preston Lacy.

After the TV series ended, Jackass grew into a media franchise, including spin-offs Wildboyz and Viva La Bam, five feature films, a video game, a mobile game and much more!

The show did come under some criticism though due to its perceived indecency and potential encouragement of dangerous behavior.

Coupling

12 May 2000, BBC Two

Following success with Press Gang, Joking Apart and Chalk, Steven Moffat created Coupling, a BBC Two sitcom which centres on the dating, sexual adventures, and mishaps of six friends in their early 30s and was heavily compared to Friends which was popilar at the time.

Whilst Joking Apart was inspired by the breakdown of Moffat's first marriage, Coupling was based on him meeting his wife and the issues that arise in new relationships.

Coupling starred Jack Davenport, Gina Bellman, Sarah Alexander, Kate Isitt, Ben Miles

and Richard Coyle and often depictied the three women and the three men each talking among themselves about the same events, but in entirely different terms.

Big Brother

18 July 2000, Channel 4

Arguably the greatest reality TV format of all time, and one of the most groundbreaking, Big Brother launched in the summer of 2000 and paved the way for a plethora of similar shows for years to come.

The format was simple, a social experiment in which a group of strangers isolated from the outside world, share a house together and week by week, housemates would be evicted via a public vote.

Series one was eventually won by a 28-year-old builder from Liverpool called Craig and the infamous "Nasty Nick" incident has gone down in television history. And many housemates have gone on to become household names, including Adele Roberts, Alison Hammond, Brian Dowling, Josie Gibson and the late Jade Goody and Nikki Grahame.

To date, there have been 21 series of Big Brother in the UK, as well as 23 series of Celebrity Big Brother, and one series of Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, Teen Big Brother, Big Brother Panto and Ultimate Big Brother.

With a civilian series later this year and a celebrity series in the coming months, I can't wait to see how Big Brother celebrate in its 25th year!

The Weakest Link

14 August 2000, BBC Two

"You are the weakest link. Goodbye *winks*" Originally presented by Anne Robinson, The Weakest Link launched in 2000 on BBC Two and saw nine contestants take turns answering general knowledge questions within a time limit to create chains of nine correct answers in a row.

At the end of each round, the players then vote one contestant, "the weakest link", out of the game. After two players are left, they play in a head-to-head penalty shootout format, with five questions asked to each contestant in turn, to determine the winner.

In 2011, Anne Robinson announced that she'd be leaving and the show came to an end in 2012. She returned briefly in 2017 to host a Children in Need special. Then in 2021, Romesh Ranganathan took over as host when the series returned with celebrity contestants.

Malcolm in the Middle

3 September 2000, Sky 1

Launching in the US in January, Malcolm in the Middle first aired in the UK 9 months later on Sky 1. It revolved around Frankie Muniz's character Malcolm, who's a genius with an IQ of 165, which places him in a class for gifted students.

Malcolm is the the third-born child in a comically dysfunctional family of four (later five) boys, of Lois and Hal, played by Jane Kaczmarek and Bryan Cranston.

As of the first season, their delinquent oldest child Francis has been sent away to military school; while his brothers Reese and Dewey remain at home with Malcolm and their parents. With Francis away, Malcolm becomes the middle child of the family.

Malcolm in the Middle ran for 7 seasons and it was recently announced that a four-episode revival is being produced for Disney+, expected to air in 2025.

Waking the Dead

4 September 2000, BBC One

In September 2020, over two consecutive nights, BBC One aired a two-part pilot for new drama Waking the Dead, which followed the work of a special police team that investigates cold cases, which usually concern murders that took place a number of years in the past, and were never solved.

The team, composed of head officer Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd, played by Trevor Eve, psychological profiler Grace Foley, played by Sue Johnston and Detective Inspector Spencer Jordan, played by Wil Johnson, as well as a number of other supporting characters, use evidence which has recently come to light, as well as contemporary technology to examine former evidence.

With an average of 7.3m viewers for each pilot episode it was a no-brainer that it should return for a full series, which it did in June 2001 and ran for 9 series, followed by a spin-off series The Body Farm in September 2011 and then in 2018, The Unforgiven, a five-part radio prequel aired on BBC Radio 4.

My Family

19 September 2000, BBC One

The UK has a long standing tradition with family sitcoms, with Only Fools & Horses and The Royle Family probably being the best examples and in September 2000, the BBC launched a new one set in Chiswick, West London.

My Family followed the lives of the Harpers, a fictional middle-class British family, with Robert Lindsay and Zoë Wanamaker as husband and wife Ben and Susan Harper and Kris Marshall, Daniela Denby-Ashe and Gabriel Thomson as their children Nick, Janey and Michael.

Dentist Ben and his wife Susan, a tour guide who later works for an art gallery, have three children who endanger their lives. Whilst Susan is a control freak, Ben prefers to leave the children to it and stay as uninvolved as possible.

With an average of 7.09m viewers for its first series, My Family ended up running for 11 series with series two in 2001 averaging a remarkable 10.45m viewers per episode.

Meet Ricky Gervais

22 September 2000, Channel 4

In 2000, the year before The Office would change the television comedy landscape, and off the back of the succes of The 11 O'Clock Show, Ricky Gervais was given his own Channel 4 talk show, Meet Ricky Gervais.

It only ran for one series and would see Gervais interview his guests whilst sat in Michael Aspel's Aspel & Co leather chair. His two guests meanwhile, would be sat in Grandad's chair from Only Fools & Horses and Ronnie Corbett's monologue chair.

Guests included Michael Winner, Tony Hart, Paul Daniels, Stefanie Powers and Midge Ure and following the interview, Ricky would host his own version of a classic TV game show, such as Family Fortunes, Play Your Cards Right. and The Krypton Factor. And Tony Green, who sadly passed away in 2024, would often feature as Ricky's gameshow assistant.

Marion and Geoff

26 September 2000, BBC Two

Before he was adored by millions as Uncle Bryn in Gavin & Stacey, Rob Brydon was known for playing Keith Barrett in the BBC comedy Marion and Geoff, which he created with Hugo Blick.

Filmed via a fixed camera in his car, each episode of Marion and Geoff is a monologue following minicab driver Keith who's going through a messy divorce from Marion, after she had a long-standing affair with her colleague, Geoff.

It ran for two series and spawned The Keith Barret Show in 2004, a spoof chat show on BBC Two hosted by the character Rob played in Marion and Geoff, Keith Barret, where he interviews celebrity couples in the hope of finding the secret to a successful marriage.

Black Books

19 September 2000, Channel 4

In September 2000, Channel 4 introduced us to the world of Black Books. Set in the eponymous London bookshop, the sitcom follows the lives of its owner, his assistand and their friend.

Played by Dylan Moran, Bernard Ludwig Black is a grouchy and misanthropic shopkeeper who hates the outside world and all the people who inhabit it apart from best Fran, played by Tamsin Greig, who initially runs a trendy bric-a-brac shop, Nifty Gifty, next door to the bookshop.

Bernard displays little interest or knowledge in retail (or, indeed, anything outside drinking, smoking and reading) and actively avoids having to interact with anyone, even inside his shop. He would often rather pass up on a sale than have to engage in human interaction to make one.

Bill Bailey plays Manny who starts out as an angst-ridden accountant who enters looking for The Little Book of Calm, but during a drunken night out, Bernard offers him a job as a shop assistant and a room above the shop if he will do Bernard's accounts for him.

Sobering up, Bernard realises Manny's optimistic nature is not suited to this "kind of operation". Fran, however, seeing that Manny is good for Bernard, forces him to let him stay.

BBC Breakfast

2 October 2000, BBC One

Since 1989, BBC One's breakfast programme was known as Breakfast News from 1989 until October 2000 where it merged with the breakfast programme on BBC News 24 to become the BBC Breakfast we all know and love today.

The first show was hosted by Sophie Raworth and Jeremy Bowen and over the years has been presented by the likes of Sian Williams, Natasha Kaplinsky, Dermot Murnaghan, Mishal Husain, Louise Minchin, Dan Walker, Susanna Reid and the late Bill Turnbull.

Its current presenting roster includes Charlie Stayt, Jon Kay, Naga Munchetty and Sally Nugent and the programme airs daily from 6am on BBC One.

Gilmore Girls

5 October 2000, The WB

Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, Gilmore Girls launched in the US in October 2000 and ran for seven seasons.

It followed the lives of 32-year-old single mother, Lorelai Gilmore, played by Lauren Graham and her intellectual teenage daughter Rory Gilmore, played by Alexis Bledel, whom she had at the age of 16.

While living in the small town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut, they both have big ambitions which they desperately try to achieve: Lorelai wants to own her own inn, while Rory wants to attend Harvard University. They also have to deal with Lorelai's appearance-obsessive upper class parents, Emily and Richard Gilmore, played by Kelly Bishop and Edward Herrmann.

Fat Friends

12 October 2000, ITV

If you were one of the 12.3m who enjoyed Gavin & Stacey's finale on Christmas Day, then you've got ITV drama Fat Friends to thank as it's where Ruth Jones and James Corden met, where they worked alongside Alison Steadman.

Written by Kay Mellor, Fat Friends centred around a slimming club in the Headingley district of Leeds, run by the formidable Carol, played by Janet Dibley, who fruitlessly tries to persuade the members of the group to follow the "Super Slimmers" diet.

Fat Friends ran for four series, with each episode focusing on one character and recently entered the Netflix Top 10 in the UK where the series is available to stream.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

15 October 2000, HBO

In April 2024, Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm came to an end after 12 seasons. Launching in October 2000 (developed from a 1999 one-hour special, Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm,), the series starred Larry David as a fictionalised version of himself.

The hit comedy followed Larry's life as a semi-retired television writer and producer in Los Angeles and also starred Cheryl Hines as his wife Cheryl, Jeff Garlin as his manager and best friend Jeff Greene, Susie Essman as Jeff's wife Susie, and J. B. Smoove as Larry's housemate Leon Black.

Curb Your Enthusiasm often featured celebrity guest stars, many of them playing fictionalised versions of themselves, including Ted Danson, Richard Lewis, Wanda Sykes, Rosie O'Donnell, and Jon Hamm.

Human Remains

13 November 2000, BBC Two

Before they were Uncle Bryn and Dawn Sutcliffe in Gavin & Stacey, Rob Brydon and Julia Davis teamed up to write and star in Human Remains, a dark comedy for BBC Two that only ran of one six-episode series in 2000.

In the style of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, each episode documented the relationship of a different unhappy coming from bleak topics such as domestic violence, chronic depression and death.

After Human Remains, Julia used some of these themes in Nighty Night, where she would work with another future Gavin & Stacey co-star, Ruth Jones.