Interference's 50 Greatest TV Shows

[BigMacPhisto]

Since the Breaking Bad thread has had some interesting discussion about where that series ranks among the other all-time greats. I figured we'd open up a thread to have some back-and-forth about what constitutes great television and just what shows are the cream of the crop of the last sixty-plus years.

As far as lists go, you can post up to 50 ranked titles of any genre. Mini-series/movies are not allowed though. 50 points to 1st, 49 to 2nd and so forth. A minimum of 20 shows are necessary for your list to be counted.

Eventually, they'll get tallied up and people will whine that one poster's refusal to watch The Sopranos ended up making it finish at #4. Of course, that won't become a discussion point until after somebody get flamed for three pages after ranking The Simpsons below Family Guy.

Also, Survivor is undeniably awesome and lumping it in with the dregs of reality television will not be tolerated.

List away!

 

[Canadiens1131]

M*A*S*H

That is all.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

K, now give me the next 19.

I'll assume you have AfterMASH ranked at #2.

18 more, pls.

 

[cobl04]

I love The Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother, Community, Seinfeld, Friends, The Office, Parks and Recreation, House, Breaking Bad and some others but I'm way out of my depth in this conversation!

But please, give 50 points to HIMYM from me

 

[PhilsFan]

I am not sure if I have seen twenty shows.

 

[mikal]

Twin Peaks

 

[u2popmofo]

Keeping Up With the Kardashians

 

[Lila64]

Cheers

 

[bonocomet]

Not exactly in ranked order for now as I'm just going to start listing to get 20 I think are worthy of a list... (The first 5 are ranked though, with the rest roughly ranked. )

1. LOST
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
3. Dexter
4. Breaking Bad
5. The X-Files
6. Star Trek (TOS)
7. 24
8. Six Feet Under
9. The Twilight Zone
10. I Dream of Jeannie
11. Seinfeld
12. Arrested Development
13. Futurama
14. Angel
15. Sons of Anarchy
16. Star Trek (TNG)
17. Farscape
18. Kings
19. Batman (Adam West)
20. Forever Knight
21. Life On Mars (Original UK version)

Ok that was way harder than I thought it would be, mostly because there are shows I would have liked to include because they had brilliant starts but turned so crap later I couldn't justify them being included. (Like Heroes) A few on the list probably should have been off the list for going downhill (sadly like 24) but I think still must be there. Anyway, I was still grasping for the last 5 or so.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

1. Gilmore Girls
2. Seinfeld
3. LOST
4. Mad Men

 

[deep]

I know we did this at least once before

and I kind of agree with Woody Allen, he said something like, Awards Shows are stupid, how do you quantify art?

of the shows offered, I see some extremely outstanding shows listed
and some very insignificant ones included

at most, this can serve as some sort of a sim engine, if someone lists 8 shows and 6 are on your list you may want to check out the other two.


I think the best and worst albums thread will have more agreement, very few of the best albums were crap, most were the best or next to best.

this thread has already had some stuff included that I will call marginal (instead of crap)

 

[corianderstem]

All I can do is list my favorite TV shows; I'm not interested in saying what I think are "the greatest." I don't know that I can even come up with 20. But hey, I feel like a good listing, so here's my list:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. The X-Files
3. Arrested Development
4. Mad Men
5. Breaking Bad
6. The Wire
7. Twin Peaks
8. Freaks and Geeks
9. The Simpsons
10. Sex and the City
11. Extras
12. My So-Called Life

 

[bonocomet]

Yeah that's what I did of course too: my favorites. What else can you do? I can't include shows I haven't got around to watching yet. And it was pretty tough to stretch to 20 and call those the best ever!!! Because seriously a few of those are shows I just really enjoyed as a kid. But I like my list.

 

[deep]

God bless you Buffy plans, I missed that the first time around, I had a few girls I knew back then ask me if I ever watched it. I was not dating of them so I did not bother.

However, last weekend a cable channel aired Joss Whedon's top ten episodes in countdown order. They were not chronological. I gave up my whole Saturday to watch them. Well, they were ok. Sorry not blown away. My favorite episode was The Body, the one where her mother dies. A lot of skill displayed, very well done.
I can understand the popularity of the show and I am sure I would have enjoyed much more if I had watched it as it aired. And if my friend, Heather, had been my gf back then.

 

[bonocomet]

Yeah The Body is probably one of the greatest single episodes in TV ever. (In mine and many opinions) The lack of any soundtrack whatsoever for the entire episode is unsettling, and spot on great.

 

[deep]

Yeah that's what I did of course too: my favorites. What else can you do?

fair enough

If I listed some of my favorites, I may have to accuse myself of including crap on a 'best' lists. Some of my 'favorites' are odd. (I know, what a surprise)

 

[LuckyNumber7]

1. Monk
2. Futurama

That concludes my list.

 

[corianderstem]

(edited, because why do I give a shit whether or not deep was "blown away" by the random Buffy episodes he saw?)

When I first heard about the show, I thought it sounded stupid. It wasn't until FX was going to air it in syndication that I decided to watch it, after hanging around online with people who raved and raved about it.

So I started watching the marathon on FX, and was about ready to quit after the (thankfully short) first season, I'm glad I stuck with it, as it clicked with me only a few episodes into the second season.

 

[u2popmofo]

Deadwood has not been mentioned yet.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

1. community
2. arrested development

anything i could list beyond that i would probably be laughed at and don't like nearly as much as these two anyway, so there you go.

 

[bonocomet]

Deadwood has not been mentioned yet.

My daughters are Deadwood fans. I haven't found the time to watch it yet.

 

[monkeyskin]

Deadwood never, ever clicked with me, as hard as I tried. Shame.

Re. Buffy, as much I remember it fondly it only had two really good seasons (2 & 3). Once they graduated high school it was never as good. But luckily that's when Angel began, which I think became the overall better show from season 2 onwards.

Also, when I was catching up on Buffy S2 the station would show them in pairs each week. The night they had Angelus confronting Miss Calendar followed by Xander getting Amy to cast a love potion on Cordelia was AWESOME.

 

[corianderstem]

I got into Angel behind everyone else, too. I never saw its shift-towards-greatness coming, after a handful of ridiculously slight seasons.

But then shit got fairly amazing. (Perhaps minus some of the shit with Pete Campbell Connor and Cordelia.)

Would definitely agree that seasons 2 & 3 of Buffy are the best. But I still loved it through the ups and downs of the seasons afterward.

 

[Slapnutz]

I'd say Buffy season 5 is the strongest and most cohesive in terms of overall story arc, while season 4 has the weakest main story arc but the best standalone episodes of the entire run (with 'Restless' being tops).

1. Buffy
2. Seinfeld
3. X Files
4. Twin Peaks
5. Blackadder

I'm Alan Partridge, Curb, Only Fools and Horses, etc.

 

[corianderstem]

I like season 4 more than a lot of other fans, but holy crap, yes, Restless. Top of my list of best episodes of the entire run, for sure.

 

[cobl04]

How could I forget Fawlty Towers? The Germans is the funniest half-hour of television I've ever seen.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Lists can be as short as ten titles given the trouble a lot of people seem to be having. Plus, having a shorter list can allow you to hide the fact that Boy Meets World is in your #18 slot.

deep, concerning "crap" shows being on the lists, I think a lot of the more idiosyncratic choices won't be able to cobble together enough ballot showings to do very well, letting the better choices rise to the top. Obviously, a group list like this would be pretty suspect in a wider arena as a lot of godawful mainstream choices would float to the surface because people enjoyed watching reruns of the aforementioned Boy Meets World when they were eleven years old.

1. LOST
3. Dexter

Ok that was way harder than I thought it would be, mostly because there are shows I would have liked to include because they had brilliant starts but turned so crap later I couldn't justify them being included.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

1. Arrested Development
2. The Wire
3. The Simpsons
4. The Sopranos
5. Seinfeld
6. Mad Men
7. Breaking Bad
8. Northern Exposure
9. 30 Rock
10. Survivor
11. The Office (UK)
12. King Of The Hill
13. Star Trek (TOS)
14. Six Feet Under
15. Doctor Who
16. Twin Peaks
17. Adventures of Pete & Pete
18. Wonder Years
19. The Office (US)
20. The X-Files
21. Freaks & Geeks
22. Gilmore Girls
23. Parks & Recreation
24. Rocky & Bullwinkle
25. The Amazing Race
26. Futurama
27. Wonderfalls
28. Slings & Arrows
29. Scrubs
30. Larry Sanders Show
31. City Of Men
32. Curb Your Enthusiasm
33. Dexter
34. Pushing Daisies
35. South Park
36. Undeclared
37. Dead Like Me
38. Firefly
39. Malcolm In The Middle
40. Dr. Katz
41. Extras
42. Daria
43. Home Movies
44. Community
45. Da Ali G Show
46. Andy Richter Controls The Universe
47. Bored To Death
48. Doug
49. Rocko's Modern Life
50. Insomniac with Dave Attell


I stuck to a rule of a show needing to either be finished or currently airing its third season (sorry, Boardwalk Empire/Downton Abbey/Enlightened/Game of Thrones/Homeland/Louie/Treme).

I ended up exhausting pretty much every show I've quite liked (or basically loved at one point in its run) with the exception of a few such as Homicide: Life On The Street that I haven't delved into enough to accurately place on this list. And no, I've never actually watched Deadwood and am not sure if I could actually sit through it based on some of the clips I've seen. LOST was one of the only things I left out, but I loathed half of its run, so...

As far as the history of television goes, I think there's actually been more great comedies than dramas although the balance will easily shift the further along we get. It was easier to make a great comedy like Larry Sanders Show in the mid-90s than it was to make a drama that would still have an impact and not be dated ten years after the fact. I also am of the opinion that the box produced mostly forgettable fare up until the point around the late 80's/early 90's that gave us Wonder Years, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure all in the span of a few years. Those shows all ignored conventions and significantly raised the bar in general.

 

[cobl04]

Please explain how Malcolm in the Middle is better than Community. It was 20 minutes of six people yelling over the top of each other each week.

Edit, silly comment, because that's essentially what Community is too... but I'd still like an explanation!

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Malcolm In The Middle was pretty wacky and had its own unique voice. They tried a lot of different methods of storytelling, had a lot of subtle one-liners to go with the broader laughs and had amazing performances from the entire casts. I've been re-watching the entire series on Netflix and it holds up pretty well. It was a consistently great comedy throughout its run although the middle seasons (about Season 4/5, methinks) were definitely much weaker on the whole. But they finished pretty strong in my opinion despite reaching a seventh season and it's probably one of the most persistently well-written series that ever ran for a long period of time.

Of course, that first statement (wacky/unique voice) applies to Community, but I just don't feel like Community is consistent week-to-week in the slightest. In fact, it might the the most inconsistent show in that regard that I've ever seen. One week, I'm laughing my ass off and the next week I'm sitting there in silence, a little bored at watching some high-end concept with very little laughs. On a week-to-week basis, Community has rarely ever been as strong as the episodes of 30 Rock or Parks & Rec airing in the same week. I think it's a great show, but I do think it's very overrated.