What is the quintessential 1980s TV show?

I think you have the winner, OP. Other contenders if you’re talking about dramas could be Hill Street Blues, Magnum, PI, Knight Rider and Miami Vice. I don’t think any of those could be mistaken for any other decade.

Murder, She Wrote

Dynasty, Dallas.

Everyone in that pic is wearing shoulder pads.

thirtysomething

Hill Street Blues, bar none.

Cagney and Lacey Golden Girls Never really cared for Miami Vice, but it certainly captures a once-in-history zeitgeist that was the 80's.

You can't choose ONE show to cover the whole decade.

If you’re my age, this is the real 80s.

Square Pegs

Anyone remember Degrassi Junior High?

Cheers.

dah-dah-DAAHH. dah-dah-dah-DAAHH.

Good one, r13.

I also remember this intro very well (my mom watched both)

I loved Cell Block H (Prisoner), Silver Spoons, Fact of Life, Magnum, The A Team, Hunter, Night Court, Cheers and V: The Final Battle.

All through the eighties there was a boring obsesion with realistic drama and Hill Street Blues epitomised it. I found it boring and didn't watch but I watched a police show called The Bill because it was supposed to be even more realistic than Hill Street Blues. I think L.A. Law was superceded by Thirtysomething in a similar way.

[quote]I watched a police show called The Bill

Was that a British show?

Yes, The Bill was set in East London.

Another vote for Degrassi - such a great show!

Diff'rent Stokes last season when they redid the penthouse in Shelby's colors of blush and bashful.

The Facts of Life - Over Our Heads season

Kids Incorporated

Dynasty

Silver Spoons, Moonlighting, Miami Vice and Dynasty would be my top picks.

Early 90s so not a contender but we were watching a Murphy Brown episode and one of the male characters was wearing a suit jacket with HUGE shoulder pads

Knots Landing

Silver Spoons

Dynsasty and Dallas for the over the topness, but The Thornbirds for the whole mini series drama thing. Watching that was an event every week to my little teenage (apparently zero gaydar) heart.

Thirty Something: It was a switching point (along with that movie with dead Don Johnson) where I finally understood that society was geared to accommodate the baby boomer population explosion and not much else. It was a show of predominately white, neurotic North siders with rich people problems I didn't want to share or care about.

Murphy Brown made her debut in the 80s

I would also add Growing Pains and Punky Brewster

DESIGNING WOMEN

Jem

Hart to Hart

I think television programming in the 1980's was the worst. That said, I agree with you OP, L.A. law was such an '80's show, as was Miami Vice.

Family Ties (1982-1989) and of course, Golden Girls. GG is chockful of references to the 80s

"North siders," r25?

The Chiller autograph show in Jersey is having a mini L.A. Law reunion in October, there might be more added before the show.

Bangkok Hilton

Cheers.

I think the eighties split... Dynasty symbolizes the start of the decade... the glitz and excess... LA Law the back half, when the excess pulled back and got more streamlined

Max Headroom

This is a weird suggestion, "The Days And Nights Of Molly Dodd". It was the only thing on TV that resembled me and my friends.

Definitely Thirtysomething and LA Law. My 80s Boomer parents who were the quintessential 80s Boomers lived for those two shows.

Thirtysomething didn't come out until the end of the 80s and was not in any way part of 80s culture. It was a bastard child of the 90s.

Qunitessential 80s: Dallas, Dynasty, Miami Vice, Cosby Show.

Small Wonder

Manimal

Shows could be aligned by the unique regions they represented:

PacWest - ??? SoCal - LA Law/Knots Landing NorCal - Full House NorthEast - Cheers NYC - Hill Street Blues South - Designing Women SouthEast - Miami Vice/Golden Girls Central Midwest - St. Elsewhere Flyover - Dukes of Hazzard Texas - Dynasty

Beauty and the Beast. Meow.

[quote]Thirtysomething didn't come out until the end of the 80s and was not in any way part of 80s culture. It was a bastard child of the 90s.

Thirtysomething came out in 1987 and SCREAMED "late 80s self-absorbed Boomer twats." It had so many tics from that era/demographic. If you mention "Thirtysomething," nobody will think "1990s!" I was off the air in May of '91.

R46 said what I was going to say. Now I don't have to.

But seriously: thirtysomething not '80s? HAHAHAHAHAHA.

[quote]Texas - Dynasty

Oh dear!

[quote]Central Midwest - St. Elsewhere

St. Elsewhere was set in Boston.

Falcon Crest

Good catch, r49.

I always felt like I was in a time warp while watching family ties back in the 80s

The only things that felt 80s were the politics of Alex and the fashion/music sense of Mallory

Hey, hey, hey! WHAT is going on here?! STBT debuted in '89. It is always associated with 90s pop culture.

We know what Rose watched

That loud fella who chainsmoked and screeched about politics