Rolling Stone ranks The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time

"I Love Lucy" is only 36.

I don't mean to sound like a typical DLer but MARY!!!!!!!

Ridiculous.

I hate that list so much that if it were a person I would stab it.

Who gives a shit about these Rolling Stone lists, they haven't been credible since teen pop took over.

Sopranos at #1 and Simpsons at #2 seems legit, but it looks they wrote rest of the list to troll everyone.

I get why The Simpsons is always ranked so high on these lists but the fact that it's been shit since about 1997 or so should really count against it. South Park has been on the air for just a few years less but it's recent seasons are FAR better than any of the recent Simpsons episodes.

ranking entire series is stupid

just give us the best episodes

Sopranos is overrated. It’s like Bob Dylan, a few bohemian types pick up on it and the entire bourgeois decides it’s the pinnacle of artistic expression.

I May Destroy You in the Top 20?!?! Hahahahaga

Fleabag before I Love Lucy. Get fucked, idiots.

Don’t give the cunts at RS any clicks, here is the list without having to scroll.

When did RS just go full listicle?

R10 is doing G-d’s work.

It is down right criminal that Stranger Things isn't in the top ten. As great as Atlanta is its legacy does not warrant top 10 status, not yet, not with all the shows have ever existed in television history. SNL in top twenty is laughable, it hasn't been good in nearly 20 years. And if Pill Cosby had never happened Cosby Show would be in top 15.

OZ at 99....

Mad Men is higher than Twilight Zone. Yeah, right. Shit list.

The Comeback deserved to be on there.

I was happy to see Girls (FUCK ALL OF YOU HERE- YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!! -basically all of you :)

Atlanta- Well deserved-

Fleabag- Agreed with its high ranking- A masterpiece.

I would have put Mad Men at #1 and The Sopranos at #2.

LOVED seeing I May Destroy You up there.. as well as Better Things on the list.

I thought that Insecure was supremely overrated as is Issa Rae. I absolutely hated the final season.

I have not seen a lot of the modern shows on there- Better Call Saul, The Leftovers, and The Americans- Those 3 shows I want to check out.

Loved the shows they included but not the rankings.

R16, the first few seasons of Insecure were great… the remainder were good, but you’re right about the last season. I hate how they tied up everything in a bow.

Sopranos deserves its #1 spot for its overall excellence and cultural influence. It's also one of the few dramas where peripheral characters are fully fleshed and realized. Nothing happens just to move the plot along, the characters motivations are genuine with cause and effect, not just to eat up story time. I feel like some are put off by its subject matter.

Where is Homicide: Life on the Street, my favorite network program of all time?

Agreed R18-

I loved the first 3 seasons, starting not liking the show much by the 4th, and I absolutely hated that last season. It made me sad because I found it unwatchable and utterly boring.

And yes, I never expected it to have such a pat ending either.

Rolling Stone presents The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time, as ranked by BIPOC Yasssss Kweens

Lists are so lazy.

Uhh, where the fuck is Golden Girls?

Nevermind…it’s at #64

Friday Night Lights > Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Yeah, right

Did Knots Landing make the list?

R2 You hoped to be funny

What number is Fox & Friends?

Stacy G at R27- You were the most charismatic and well regarded television actress of all time. When THAT list is compiled, you will surely be number 1.

You are one of the greats!

Thanks, Char. I strove to be as good as Kathleen Beller.

#17). The Leftovers. That’s a surprise.

No Knots Landing.

Kathleen Beller- The Shakepearean goddess.

Did you know they named the vacuum after her massively popular and timeless character "Kirby"?

Rumor has it that Kathleen has signed a 6 year contract to head an ensemble cast for the aptly named "Kirby-Revisited"

Pia Zadora and Stacy Galina are rumored to be cast, as well as Susan Anton.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Fleabag at #5. I have watched both seasons 3 times. It’s brilliant.

I would also have put Mad Men at #1.

Glad to see some of my other favorites like The Americans, Girls, Insecure, Buffy, X-Files, MTM, What We Do In The Shadows, Twin Peaks, 30 Rock.

Also glad Better Things and Underground Railroad were included, but they both should have been higher, especially Better Things. It was a work of art.

Leftovers really is a surprise. I just finished binge-watching it. The acting is pretty good but the story makes even LESS sense that Lost did, and imploded on itself in about 1/3 time it took Lost to do it. Nevertheless I won't lie... seeing Justin Theroux's naked ass and glorious shots of Chris Zylka's peen made the slog bearable. Great cast, nice scripts, shit plotting.

Where the fuck is Fawlty Towers? Moonlighting? Cagney and Lacey? Wonder years?

Mad men and. VEEP are so overrated.

And that Lena Dunham shit over Golden Girls?

From Rolling Stone's list I counted 28 where I would agree with their inclusion or as in the running. That's more overlap than I expected.

There's always going to be a problem defining how to.measire what's best: one series I might be.tpted to include for it's importance and influence, another for the magnificence of it's writing and acting. RS included What They Do in the Shadows, I would be tempted to include Flight of the Conchords instead. My list would have a lot of non-U.S. titles, etc.

Frasier and the Golden Girls should be higher.

r36, Wonder Years is on the list

You may hate Roseanne the actor, but how is Roseanne the show not on that list at all?

Alfred Hitchcock Presents should be on the list

Ridiculous list that is weighted far too heavily after 2000.

There are dozens of shows that may not reflect modern sensibilities, but were both influential and wildly popular. If nothing else, Gunsmoke was on for 20 years which should have earned it a spot on the list. It was the longest running tv show for decades.

No Murphy Brown, Married with Children, LA Law.

R16, I agree with all your takes - I loved The Americans and hated The Leftovers (pompous, depressing garbage), FWIW.

Alan Sepinwall, the author, made his career from his Sopranos writing, so it was always going to be #1. (And I generally like his writing very much, not calling him a hack or anything.) He was also a big champion of Mad Men (my #1) from the start.

Yep, The Golden Girls was all I was interested in seeing on there, so I was satisfied when it turned up.

Then I saw some of the shows ranked higher than it. Oof.

I would have thought that "Dallas" would be in there somewhere.

Let me take off my assistant's skirt and put on my Barbra-Streisand-in-The-Prince-of-Tides ass-masking therapist pantsuit and admire the list for putting Arrested Development inside top 40.

R35 Fawlty Towers was on there.

I liked Fleabag, but in the top 10 shows of all time? No.

I also think Curb should be much higher. And no BBC Pride & Prejudice?

AnFab?

They ignored "Upstairs, Downstairs" while including other British shows.

R46 I agree…Dallas should be there.

Sorry AbFab. Ducking autocorrect.

r6, @rescue-chick, "I hate that list so much that if it were a person I would stab it" is definitely among the Top 10 lines I've seen on the DL since I've been here since c1998. I'm going to try to force myself to use it at work at least five times this week in front of my staff until they start using it themselves (they will do so in the context of mocking me, but I won't care).

R27 No. I didn't see any primetime (or daytime) soap operas on the list.

No Keeping Up Appearances or Are You Being Served??

Soap, Dallas, AbFab? Alfred Hitchcock Presents? Combat? Roots was a miniseries. This heavily favors shows that can still be streamed, not surprisingly.

Is Hill Street Blues on there?

haha r53, you do that!

^Yes

How could they neglect Mr Robot? That is regularly compared to Breaking Bad.

Sorry…yes, to Hill Street Blues.

I would have included Inspector Morse too.

Don’t remember seeing ENLIGHTENED.

Atlanta at -9- is ridiculous. First of all, the show’s only started airing its 4th and final season (I don’t think critics have seen the entire season in advance), so 25% of it remains unseen. And if season 3 is any indication, it’s not great. I’d definitely put the show on my own Top 100 list, but ranking it among true giants like sopranos and mad men and the simpsons is just stupid.

1. Absolutely Fabulous 2. Fawlty Towers 3. The Mary Tyler Moore Show 4. The Larry Sanders Show 5. The Simpsons

Its a very American-centric list. So many important British shows missing.

1985 Edge Of Darkness, which revolutionised television drama.

1995 Pride and Prejudice, a timeless classic.

2007 Cranford, ditto.

And so many extraordinary comedy shows:

Brass

Steptoe And Son

Till Death Do Us Part

The Young Ones

The Royle Family

etc. etc.

The IT Crowd

No Blackadder!!!!

Little Britain

My top ten based on overall writing, prestige, cultural influence, and personal taste:

10.) A Different World

9.) The Twilight Zone

8.) Game of Thrones

7.) The Americans

6.) All in the Family

5.) Curb Your Enthusiasm

4.) I Love Lucy

3.) Stranger Things

2.) The Simpsons

1.) The Sopranos

And an Honorable Mention or #11 for the original Law & Order

I would put "The Fugitive" in there as well.

I love Lucy isn't even top 10?

It’s a shame that the list is so American. I agree that the US has made 80%+ of all the best stuff and certainly deserves to dominate, but there has been some really fantastic stuff from elsewhere.

The UK shows already mentioned….but how about The Killing from Denmark, The Bridge from Sweden and The Bureau from France?

2 HUGE omissions. The Judy Garland Show. And Kath & Kim. Very very bad list.

Can’t believe THE COMEBACK isn’t there.

Moonlighting was so innovative & a breath of fresh air, made Bruce Willis a huge star, & cemented Cybill as the icon she is. Not on the list? Boo!

Michael Patrick King ruined his legacy with sex and the city 2 and che diaz. So the Comeback suffers.

Edgy opinion:

Neither Atlanta nor Breaking Bad deserve to be in the Top 10. Fleabag and The Leftovers also ranked too highly.

I agree with others that "Dallas" should be on the list if only because of the lasting impact it had on television: it created the "season finale," or the season cliffhanger if you will, which every show in the world starting doing immediately after the famous "Who Shot J.R.?" episode that captivated the nation (in May of 1981 if I remember correctly). Before that, TV shows would end their seasons with just a regular, run-of-the-mill episode but "Dallas" completely changed the game and now no series, not even sitcoms, end their seasons without leaving its characters in some kind of quandary designed to bring viewers back the next season. For that alone, "Dallas" deserves to be on the list.

A few observations:

* I'm surprised "Modern Family" did not make the list;

* If you're going to include "Good Times" and "The Jeffersons," then you should also include "Sanford & Son" as Fred Sanford was every bit as popular a character as J.J. Evans and George Jefferson;

* I was surprised to not see "thirtysomething" on the list, though "My So-Called Life" made it;

* I agree with the poster above who said that "Gunsmoke" not making the list was pretty ridiculous;

* No "Perry Mason"? Really?

To not include The Andy Griffith Show is criminal. That show has never been off the air.

I’ve never watched The Sopranos. Just not interested regardless if it’s #1. I watch what I want to watch

R79 I thought of Perry Mason as well. While the show was before my time, I've been catching a rerun now and again on MeTV, and they've been excellent.

Fleabag ranked higher than Seinfeld?! What a joke

I agree with above posters that the omission of Dallas is ridiculous. R78 makes one good point for its inclusion. Others include Larry Hagman as J.R. Ewing, a villain the audience loved to hate. Hagman created an iconic character who will be remembered. The show also had a great cast and great storylines. Who Shot J.R? had a cultural impact that went beyond the U.S.

It was a quality show for about 8 or 9 seasons. After Bobby "died" the show wasn't the same. Pam and Bobby were the heart of the show. Bobby came back (it was all a dream was stupid), but then after one return season Pam left. The heart went out of the show yet again. But for the longest time it captivated the audience and ushered in the age of primetime soaps. Its influence can't be ignored. Well, except by Rolling Stone.

What number is Mary Tyler Moore Show?

R85 It's ranked 10.

I like Freaks and Geeks, but it shouldn't be ranked in the 20s.

I remember, as a tiny gayling, watching the news when the tape for the “Who Shot JR” reveal episode was brought into the UK handcuffed to a security guard.

Absurd that it’s not included.

Oz should have much, much higher.

Wow!! I was just writing this, R87…

I’ll bet Freaks and Geeks didn’t make it. Maybe it’s not in the top 100 but so help me god it’s far and away superior to that shitass 70s Show. Fucking lazy title for a fucking lazy show.

I agree that F&G is not worthy of top 20. But I’m glad it made the list. That episode where the kid who does the fantastic Kirk impression finds out his Dad is having an affair is a heartbreaker.

[quote] Neither Atlanta nor Breaking Bad deserve to be in the Top 10. Fleabag and The Leftovers also ranked too highly.

I agree, Fleabag and The Leftovers are ranked too highly. The Leftovers wasn't horrible, but it wasn't one of HBO's best shows.

This list is in no way realistic for most people.

SNL is ranked too high. At best, it should have been in the low 90s.

The first four seasons of Game of Thrones pushed the medium probably further than any tv show before or since.

It's too bad that the last couple of seasons ruined it because it would have easily topped The Sopranos as the greatest television series of all time.

Girls shouldn't be on that list at all.

I liked Fleabag, but should it be ranked in the top 10 of all time? Absolutely not. What we do in the Shadows is funny, but better and more impactful than Roseanne?

Me, the exclusion of Roseanne is the most egregious thing on that list. I mean, come on.

The Sopranos #1? Did a 14-year-old boy make this list?

Not nearly as bad as RSs usual shitty non sensical music lists, but where the fuck is Mystery Science Theatre 3000? And ILL as well as All in the Family needs to be way higher for how influential it was.

St. Elsewhere, WKRP, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Judy Garland Show, Homicide: Life on the Street, Moonlighting, Andy Griffith, Perry Mason, The Fugitive, Soap, Roseanne, Louie, The Cosby Show missing are all egregious errors. I understand they didn't want to include the last three because of the scandals, but pretending the shows weren't hugely influential and just ignoring them is stupid.

Mary Hartman was groundbreaking and surely deserved a place somewhere in there.

This is crap! Now we’re just throwing in streaming shows as if they are TV, they are not. Where are the soap operas that ran for decades five days a week? Why are there random miniseries and limited series, but it seems they picked and chose what to include, but others to ignore. It should have been limited to shows that have finished their run, measuring a finished show against one still running isn’t balanced. I hate this and want to stab it too. And no Orphan Black???

I love how my DL gays are standing up for nighttime soaps. Not my cup of tea, but let them know DL. They tryna erase a legacy.

I rarely if ever standup for any TV show.

No EastEnders.

I am totally on board with this list being post-2000 heavy.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show is #10, which is respectable, but it belongs at NUMBER ONE!

Goddammit!! Where the hell are:

Designing Women

Will & Grace

Dynasty

The Powers That Be

Filthy Rich

Hugh Society

Newhart

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

Put them on the goddamn list!!

^^High Society with Jean Smart and Mary McDonnell. Funny damn show.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show...the best television show ever.

Mary Hartman was groundbreaking.

NO ZOOM!?

NO ZOOM!?

WHY THE FUCK DID I LEARN BERNADETTES STUPID ASS ARM TRICK IF 40 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE THEY WEREN'T GOING TO PUT THAT SHOW ON SAME RANDO MAGAZINE LIST OF GREATEST TV SHOWS EVER!?!?!?!

HUH?!? HUH!?!

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM A ZOOM MY ASS!

Show after show no one has seen. Give me a break.

I skimmed the list, and what jumped out at me wasn't so much omissions as "That's too high"/"That's too low," inferior shows being higher than superior ones. But these lists are mostly for entertainment and perhaps to start arguments. No two are going to be exactly alike. At least with Sepinwall, you get well-written blurbs about why he's included something. Maybe you might be intrigued enough to try something you haven't seen yet.

One more thing. There's not, I think, a single episode of Dallas that I didn't see. I agree it was a strong example of its genre through about the 1983-84 season. I still wouldn't have a hard time imagining 100 better shows in the history of television, including many of Sepinwall's choices. It hasn't held up as well as some. Knots Landing was never as popular or influential, but I consider it the best of the classic '80s prime-time soaps when the entire series run is considered.

Rolling Stone is still around? Who reads that crap anymore?

Someone should put together a list of the top magazines. Rolling Stone would not be on the list!

Leave It To Beaver...should be on the list. It's a cultural and American icon that represents an entire generation and generations that followed throughout the country.

I've stopped reading such lists, and I didn't read this one, because I always find the choices so aggravating.

For context, Homeland didn't even make the list.

Were mini-series excluded? Because something like "RIch Man, Poor Man" was HUGE. .. Roots. Shogun. North and South. Lonesome Dove. Brideshead Revisted. Something from the genre should be represented.

I don't think so, R118, because Roots is there. And Watchmen. (Too high on the latter, IMO. It was good, but not that good.)

What? No mention of "My Mother The Car"?????

Typical Rolling Stones List: all for straight men.

"Best" is in such a list is always going to be weighted toward the present, toward series that last in the memory or in influence

not my personal favorite disregarding all other criteria

not longest running

not most popular

not Gunsmoke, not Dallas, FFS, not Bonanza, not The Wigs of Alexis Carrington

not most popular just before I stopped paying attention to the world around me and decided to live in the past

not most influential

not most popular among gays

not campiest

not series that could be mistaken for gay male sitcoms with an all female cast

not The Fucking Judy Garland Show (1963-64)...I'd argue Antiques Roadshow (UK and US) is a far better candidate

not most popular daytime soap operas

The Patty Duke Show!

I would’ve added St Elsewhere for sure and Southland. Three shows I didn’t recognize at all on the list.

How could the "Will & Grace" not be on the list? First of all, it was hilarious. Secondly, it broke down all the barriers and made being gay acceptable, funny and just normal. Plus, "Karen" was one of the best written characters ever.

Lastly, Wil & Grace was the first show to usher in the "reboot" of former television series. W&G was the first show rebooted. After a hugely successful nine-year run the first time 'round, the show came back in the reboot for three more seasons.

^^One more thing about Will & Grace: all four main characters won the Emmy Award in their respective acting categories. And the show itself won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2000.

Come on, Rolling Stone. You screwed up.

Designing Women, one of the great shows notably, the first five seasons with Delta Burke.

Where is Degrassi?

[Quote]Friday Night Lights > Monty Python’s Flying Circus

You've obviously never watched the show.

Why isn't thirtysomething on this list?

When there’s a UK version and an American version they should either cancel each other out or be combined as one show. Even added together the piece of crap that is the Office shouldn’t break into the top 100.

Is Frasier on the list?

I gather this list has an unspoken “scripted content” mandate, but Survivor should also probably have been included.

Sept wall is a hack.

"Fleabag"??? Number 5?? It had 12 episodes. Not even a full season of a regular show. Horseshit.

The whole list is crap. Fuck Rolling Stone!

Where's Mr. T and Tina?

Maude? It doesn’t look like it’s on the list, and it was pretty groundbreaking for its time.

Worst. List . Ever.

R125, Will and Grace wasn't the first show to be rebooted. The X-Files and Full(er) House came back in the spring of 2016 (and there were probably earlier ones). W&G did their election video that fall and came back as a series in the fall of 2017.

I’m not sure the point of the list. You can’t have a list like that and not acknowledge shows that had cultural impact or mega cult status, like Friends. Maybe not the most clever or intelligent show, or the most diverse, but its impact exists til today, and is shown in syndication worldwide. It’s also the first sitcom where you saw actors making a million per episode, and where all leads got paid the same. Maybe Fleabag is better quality, but arguably more people would put Friends in the top 10 of a list like that.

[quote]Maybe Fleabag is better quality, but arguably more people would put Friends in the top 10 of a list like that.

It's a critic's list of "best," not most popular. Popularity and cultural impact obviously shape some of his choices, but it's not a list of most important or most influential or even most important for its time. And it's not a chronological list designed to represent a remotely equal number of entries for each decade.

And is R125 even half serious? Will & Grace as one of the top 10 of all time?

Fleabag already had an extensive history of being an award winning theatrical piece before it was adapted for television. It’s accolades were justified prior to it even being on TV.

“Best” is also subjective, R139. A lot of people will argue Friends is better than Fleabag by virtue of the fact that they’ve never seen Fleabag. But I get what you’re saying - it’s a critic’s list. Even still, they should be factoring cultural relevance and impact. There are a lot of other shows they missed that were both highly popular, and critically acclaimed.

Yeah this list is douchey and instantly irrelevant.

[Quote]Even still, they should be factoring cultural relevance and impact.

Yes, Miami Vice should be on that list if you factor cultural relevance and impact. I mean a whole generation of men wearing outrageous outfits bc of a television series.

[quote] Frasier and the Golden Girls should be higher.

Don't worry, dollface, we were. We were.

100 Greatest Lists of All Time

R145 - 100 Greatest Click-Bait Lists of All Time!

Totally agree, R143. Glad you agree with me, too.

Fleabag and Atlanta should not be in the top 10

Once again Breaking Bad way too high.

[quote]You can’t have a list like that and not acknowledge shows that had cultural impact or mega cult status, like Friends.

Friends is on the list.

The inclusion of The Jeffersons is a head scratcher. After the first three seasons, it just became another stupid run of the mill sitcom. Same with Good Times to an extent. Maude, which was much better than those two shows, failed to make the list??? And where the hell are I'll Fly Away, The Paper Chase, Mary Hartman, Will & Grace, LA Law, The Waltons, Cagney & Lacey, or St. Elsewhere?

r92 Is “realistic” a euphemism? If so, for what?

I thought these were just Sepinwall's personal picks, but apparently it was a survey of "a panel of actors, showrunners, and critics." He just wrote the text, besides presumably being one vote of the latter group.

I think in an endeavor such as this one, recency bias can skew the results. Someone can look at a popular show from the '60s, '70s or '80s (or not look at it, just go by distant memories) and think, "That hasn't held up." But something like, say, BoJack Horseman or The Good Place (two shows I really like) are very fresh in mind. They just ended a couple years ago. They haven't had time to "not hold up well."

Conversely, when you see lists of the greatest rock albums ever made in publications like RS, it's going to be hard for an album from 2018 to muscle in on all the canonical classics, because most of us have a difference relationship with music versus TV. Someone is more likely to be playing Revolver or Blood on the Tracks over and over through the decades (and loving it more and more) than watching...oh, Bonanza over and over, unless they're a Bonanza fiend.

Where's Knots Landing and Little House on the Prairie?

Where’s Little House on the Landing and Knott’s Prairie?

Honestly Married with Children deserved a nod. It wasn't perfect but along with The Simpsons they completely changed how families in tv were portrayed.

Ally McBeal deserved a spot.

[quote]"Best" is in such a list is always going to be weighted toward the present, toward series that last in the memory or in influence

Except, of course, that is NOT what the stated criteria for selecting the list actually was and it did, in fact, purportedly include several of the criteria you've discounted.

Where is BEWITCHED?

Honeymooners and ILL should be much higher up the list.

Also, "That 70's show" continues to be incredibly underrated. A sitcom based mostly on a group of teens who acted like teens and weren't exactly well behaved and did objectively shitty things (as opposed to the dreary, fake moralistic teen dramas like 90210 or Dawson's creek where they all acted like 30 year olds) and whose episodes didnt all end in a psa or on a soapbox, was incredibly refreshing and much more groundbreaking than people admit.

I was happy to see The Odd Couple on the list, even if it's way down on the list. I feel like that has become almost a forgotten show except for Gen X and Boomers. Millennials I talk to mostly never heard of it, or say it's a show their parents watched when they were young. It's still a classic sitcom with great humor. I made my husband's kids watch a couple episodes with me and my niece, all of whom are Millennials. They laughed at a lot of the humor and were surprised how much they liked it.

One thing magazine editors understand is the buzz and clicks generated by Best Of lists. They roll this kind of thing out like clockwork, and they couldn't care less if people find their choices stupid. The only criticism likely to bother them would be if the list were called out for being discriminatory in some way.

Is there a way to look at a list of titles on one page?

Newhart should be on the list.

Minseries like Roots should have been excluded. It should have just focued on sitcoms and 1 hour dramas.

[quote]Is there a way to look at a list of titles on one page?

See R10.

Joanie Loves Chachi should be on that list.

Lost? Fucking Lost at #35? It shouldn't have been anywhere near the list.

Avatar the Last Airbender should be on the list.

Angels in America too.

[quote]You may hate Roseanne the actor, but how is Roseanne the show not on that list at all?

Yeah, I dislike Roseanne Barr as a person. But, Roseanne is one of the sitcoms I watched as a kid that I still occasionally watch as an adult. My family had financial struggles for several years and I could relate to the characters on Roseanne.

Agreed, r167.

Friends should NOT be on that list

Buffy should have ranked higher. It was a hugely influential show.

[quote](in May of 1981 if I remember correctly)

March of 1980.

The Office should be in the top 10 easily

Where's "According to Jim"?

What about me?

What about "Family"? I'm surprised that did make the list. It was a beautifully executed series, way ahead of its time.

Excluding The Oprah Winfrey Show is egregious. That show was hugely influential and elevated the entire genre. It was so expensively produced the last few years and each day felt like an event. While Oprah loved her stunts, her sit down interviews were the real calling card. She got millions of people to buy and read literary fiction. If The Oprah Show wasn’t great, what the hell was?

Where was Davey and Goliath, a cornerstone of Christian broadcasting?

House of Cards was an excellent show. Where's that?

R181, Another glaring omission if it's not on the list at all. I only checked out the top 30. If it's not on the list, it's only because of PC culture and Spacey's behavior. PC culture sucks.

You guys think Squid Game belongs in the top 100?

It was entertaining but certainly not a top 100 show imo.

I can understand Game of Thrones. Who doesn't appreciate nonstop insane sadistic orgies of violence?

R182,it wasn't that good. You're just looking for an excuse to bitch about "PC culture"

R113, you care enough to post in this thread

People are spending a whole lot of time debating this list, while claiming not to care

The Simpsons should be #1

I never really understood the fuzz over the Mary Tyler Moore Show. It's a pleasant, amusing sitcom (and "comfy", as the zoomers would say), but putting it in the top 10 is baffling to me. I do think the "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode is brilliant, but it's a real outlier, no other episode rises to that level. Compared to later sitcoms like "30 Rock" or "Arrested Development", it's dull as dishwater.

(*fuss)

[quote]How could the "Will & Grace" not be on the list?

Because these lists are almost always useless and often seem deliberately designed to piss off people (thereby getting lots of people to talk about it). And they're usually heavily weighted to favor more recent shows.

R188, it's kind of like the Beatles. MTM was so much different, and better, than everything that came before, it seemed revolutionary. It's not as fair to compare it with what came later.

Speaking of The Beatles, I didn't see "The Ed Sullivan Show" on this list.

Ed's show was like appointment television for decades with him introducing great acts from a variety of genres. I see at the Wikipedia article on his show, it was rated No. 15 in TV Guide's "50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time" (2013).

When I think greatest, I think of shows that were cultural touchstones and/or revolutionary. That would be shows like All in the Family, MASH, General Hospital, Dallas, Julia, Star Trek, Arrested Development, I Love Lucy, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Will & Grace, Good Times, The Twilight Zone, Hill Street Blues, Married with Children, Sesame Street, Seinfeld, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Laugh In, etc.

I didn't necessarily like or even watched all those shows, but I'm also aware of the impact they had on society and/or how they changed the entertainment industry. Some of the inclusions are truly head-scratchers.

They should've included at least one daytime soap from which IMO are most iconic ones: GH, Y&R, ATWT, AMC, and DOOL. These five made the most inroads into pop culture.

I think this list was done by a bunch of 30 year olds. They missed so many good shows. They should have let people vote or use people from different age groups. In 5 years, the list will completely different.

As we cast our votes, we couldn’t help but wonder: Should we penalize the turn-of-the-century sensation for the sins of its movie spinoffs, and especially of its misguided sequel series …And Just Like That? But Sex and the City isn’t the only hit show in TV history — or even the only one on this list — to suffer from misconceived follow-up projects. (Netflix seasons of Arrested Development, we are looking at you.)

No Dallas? No Dynasty? Not even Flamingo Road?

They were junk but they were the junk of a time and place.

[R63], I wasn't sure if Enlightened was brought up in this thread yet. It's one of the best character studies I've ever seen. Amy Jellicoe is one conflicted chick!

Just a response to the criticism that this list leans too heavily post 2000. It make sense. Cable and later streaming change TV in profound ways; it allowed content makers to go places and explores themes that network television could never. Network TV is limited by general audience standards, the FCC, and the need to have immediate high ratings.

Also many good network dramas could have been great but they must produce 20-30 episodes per season. A lot of filler is thrown in there. See Lost as a perfect example. They had to make up mysteries with no end goal in sight.

Quite a few shows that spent most of their run on fumes---Simpsons? I forget they're still on.

The West Wing is 46 which is ridiculous.

I wonder if there was an actual scoring system?

The UK Office ranked lower than the US?

Where the fuck is EIGHT IS ENOUGH?

Rolling Stone? Rolling Stone?! Who the fuck cares what Jann Wenner's son thinks? We never cared what he thought...

WTF. This list was generated by a millennial holding onto their participation trophies while reading Wikipedia articles. It's SHIT.

Off the top of my head missing: I Claudius, Star Trek (Originals) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (30 min originals). Also, Fawlty Towers, Letterman and early seasons of Columbo should have been put much closer to the front.

R207, it was written by a nearly fifty year old writer. Alan Sepinwall is as Gen X as Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke, for fuck’s sake!

And after the past week when DL reminisced about the premieres of countless terrible television shows, I’ll take him vastly overrating Fleabag and Atlanta over The Love Boat nostalgia any day.

I liked the list, but coulda done without some of those late night talk shows and variety shows being included. Apples and oranges..

I was glad to see Rockford Files on the list. That was Friday night viewing in our house growing up and I first felt those funny feelings for a man watching Jim Rockford.

1950s-70s James Garner was a hot piece of ass!

[quote]1950s-70s James Garner was a hot piece of ass!

This prime of which you speak was 43-72 years ago, for a man dead now for 8 years who, were he alive, would be just 6 years shy of 100.

R213 - And your point is? He was hot during the time period defined in my post.

I found video of the guy who made the list...

My top 10: 1. The Simpsons

2. Seinfeld

3. Game of Thrones

4. Marrried…With Children

5. The Office

6. Friends

7. Modern Family

8. Wil & Grace

9. Six Feet Under

10. Sex and the City

The most egregious exclusion of them all:

R188 It's only dull as dishwater to people with no taste.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Downton Abbey

From PBS, and they were outstanding!