Top 10 TV Shows of all time
While I can’t say it’s the best show I’ve seen, no television program has affected me as directly as “Moral Orel”. I encourage anyone to seek it out. It’s uneven, but gets into some really fascinating territory, especially in the last two seasons.
Comedies. Hard to assemble a mere top 10. There’s so many great ones left out…Brass Eye, Newsradio, Father Ted, Dr. Katz, Upright Citizen’s Brigade, The Office (UK), Space Ghost Coast to Coast, The Young Ones, Alan Partridge…so many more…but this would probably be my all time top 10.
1. Kids in the Hall
2. Mr. Show
3. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
4. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
5. Stella
6. SCTV
7. Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
8. Curb Your Enthusiasm
9. Tom Goes to the Mayor
10. MST3K
Black Books!
1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Twin Peaks
3. The Sopranos
4. The Simpsons
5. Lost
6. Star Trek: TNG
7. The Twilight Zone
8. Saturday Night Live (It’s churned out more crap, but also more gems, than any other comedy show)
9. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
10. South Park
Honorable mention: The Daily Show, The Prisoner, Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister
1. Family Guy
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. Lost
4. Friends
5. Flight Of The Conchords
6. Extras
7. Rescue Me
8. Rome
9. Arrested Development
10. The Office
Honorable Mentions: Spartacus, The Office UK
1. Pushing Daisies
2. Faerie Tale Theatre
3. Wonderfalls
4. Arrested Development
5. Friends
6. Flight of the Conchords
7. Batman: The Animated Series
8. Extras
9. Lost
10. Sex and the City
Runners-up: Black Books, Dead Like Me
In no particular order except #1:
1. Sopranos
2. Saturday Night Live (original cast)
3. The Practice
4. House
5. I Love Lucy
6. Star Trek TNG
7. The Untouchables
8. The Twilight Zone
9. Alfred Hitchcock Presents
10. Hill Street Blues
I just can’t bear to put them in order. The competition is too close.
1. Dallas
2. Falcon Crest
3. Will & Grace
4. Peyton Place
5. In Living Color
6. Hill Street Blues
7. All In the Family
8. Sopranos
9. Perry Mason
10. LA Law
In no particular order.
- Arrested Development
- Curb Your Enthusiasm
- Seinfeld
- Oz
- The Wire
- The Sopranos
- Riget (KINGDOM)
- Twin Peaks
- Peep Show
- Berlin Alexanderplatz
- Homicide Life On The Street
- Law & Order SVU
1) Seinfeld
2) Soap
3) Curb Your Enthusiasm
4) The Honeymooners
5) The Office (U.K. version)
6) Fawlty Towers
7) Penn and Teller: Bullshit
8) The Tick (live-action version)
9) Taxi
10) Futurama
I don’t watch a lot of TV (more of a movie guy), and even though a lot of the shows I mentioned only had a few episodes, I am judging them based on their quality.
1) The Wire
The rest, in alphabetical order:
Arrested Development
Freaks and Geeks
Lost
My So-Called Life
Office, The (UK)
Shield, The
Simpsons, The (sure, it’s gone downhill somewhat, but it completely owned the 1990s)
Six Feet Under
Sopranos, The
*Homicide, Seinfeld, and several others could probably be in there, but I haven’t seen enough of their episodes to be certain.
**Honorable Mention: Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, Dexter, House, Mad Men, 24, Veronica Mars, etc.
these are the first 10 that come to mind:
- M*A*S*H*
- ALL IN THE FAMILY
- THE SHIELD
- TAXI
- BLACK ADDER
- WEST WING
- THE TWILIGHT ZONE
- HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL
- DREAM ON
- ST. ELSEWHERE
My top ten tv shows:
The Avengers
The Outsider
Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Again, why this listmania, I don’t know so I’ll make one for now..
- The Wire
- The X-Files
- Southpark
- Futurama
- Sienfeld
- Riget
- Cosmos
Cannot rank these but must mention, Pieces of Six Feet Under, Lost – Seasons 1&2, Saturday Morning Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Mission Hill, Home Movies …
Also, I need to watch Peter Falk’s Columbo and Twin Peaks ASAP.
here’s my top ten -
1. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
2. Blackadder
3. I Love Lucy
4. South Park
5. The Simpsons
6. Futurama
7. All In The Family
8. M*A*S*H
9. Fawlty Towers
10. New Tricks
and honorable mention to Are You Being Served? and The Young Ones
Has anyone seen Louie CK’s new show on FX? Could be the greatest thing on TV right now.
Arrested Development
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Louie
The Wire
The Office UK
Twin Peaks
Flying Circus
Kids in the Hall
Seinfeld
South Park
IN no particular order:
The X-Files
Millennium
Twilight Zone
Carnivàle
The Simpsons
The Wire
Nowhere Man
Lost (except for season 6)
Brideshead Revisited
Wallander (BBC Version)
I really miss Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party!
The Electric Company
Three’s Company
Peep Show
I’m Alan Partridge/Knowing Me Knowing You…with Alan Partridge/Saxondale (the Steve Coogan trifecta)
Breaking Bad
Twin Peaks
Night Gallery
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Mister Ed
Leave It to Beaver
Honorable Mention:
The Dick Cavett Show
CHiPS
Arrested Development
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
The Twilight Zone
South Park
Breaking Bad
The Wire
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Family Guy
Six Feet Under
Tell Me You Love Me
I’ve commented here before, but I’m doing so again to draw attention to two points (not necessarily to get attention): 1) the wire is the best show ever; and 2) I haven’t really considered miniseries (e.g., Roots) to be tv shows. Otherwise you may need to count movies as shows; especially if they’re split over two nights. But what about British shows? Arguably I, Cladius is a show. if so, I would put I, Claudius in any top ten list.
I’ve commented here before, but I’m doing so again to draw attention to two points (not necessarily to get attention): 1) the wire is the best show ever; and 2) I haven’t really considered miniseries (e.g., Roots) to be tv shows. Otherwise you may need to count movies as shows; especially if they’re split over two nights. But what about British shows? Arguably I, Cladius is a show. if so, I would put I, Claudius in any top ten list.
Wow…I don’t think I can come up with ten…I like that new Louis CK show….very funny.
I liked the 60s Batman … insanity. In fact the entire 60s American TV was wacky…from The Munsters to The Man from UNCLE to Batman to The Banana Splits
Just started watching Soprano’s for the first time, lol…may have to change my list, awesome show
Spaced
The Office (the real one)
The League of Gentlemen
The Wire
Futurama
South Park
King of the Hill
Fawlty Towers
The Thick of It
Blackadder
It’s funny, you can pretty much tell people’s age by looking at this list. I’d say the No. 1 of all time would be The Twilight Zone. Look through the episodes. It’s crazy how much that series has influenced film and tv, and how many episodes have been adapted to feature-length films. I don’t think any other series could claim that many external references.
Twin Peaks
Seinfeld
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Six Feet Under
Dexter (although I’ve only seen the first two seasons)
Just my personal favorites.. I stopped watching TV shows a long time ago.. I’d rather feed my film addiction. Although I still keep up with Curb Your Enthusiasm.. :)
Anonymouse, you’re probably right about the age thing.. I’m in my late twenties, and I haven’t really explored a ton of TV shows before my time.
Hey, “The Electric Company” gets a mention—way to go!
It has the distinction of featuring not one but TWO Oscar winners in its regular cast, namely Rita Moreno (past Oscar winner) and Morgan Freeman (above, who would be a future Oscar winner). That probably won’t happen again in a children’s show EVER.
Speaking of Oscar, hasn’t anyone mentioned “Sesame Street”?
I find it shameful, SHAMEFUL “The Wonder Years” isn’t more recognised as one of the great television programmes. You simply will NOT ever again see (a) three-dimensional characters, (b) world class acting, © mature subject matter/storylines and (d) authentic nostalgia all together in an American family television serial.
Besides, when Winnie Cooper grew up, she lookd something like this:
I watched one episode of “That ’70s Show” and never bothered again. Not nearly enough laughs, the clothes, hairstyles, lingo and mannerisms seem straight out of 1994—just not worth watching regularly. Essentially it’s a one-joke show (“let’s all laugh at how tacky the ’70s were”), but remove this gimmick from the show, and it’s basically your generic sitcom with cute young actors and actresses. Not even the idea of Clarence from “RoboCop” being in the programme can get me to watch it.
Being Australian, I was exposed to numerous shows from Great Britain, courtesy of the ABC, during my childhood, one of which was “The Goodies”. You know how Americans claim they’ve got access to all the best movies, television shows, music, blah, blah, blah? Ask them if they know of “The Goodies”. The USA is a deprived nation, I tell you.
However, my favourite television programme of all-time (and I must confess, these days I watch few if any television serials/episodes; I certainly don’t keep up with the new stuff) is the utterly awesome science fiction show “Quantum Leap”. It was a time travel adventure that typically took place anywhere from 1953 to 1999. A time traveller named Samuel Beckett would occupy other people’s bodies and had a sidekick named Al (a real person in the form of a hologramme) to guide Sam on his journey. It’s very much like “Heaven Can Wait” in this respect, with Sam helping people out of difficult situations before leaping out of one person and into the next.
I feel genuine sorrow for people who wasted the 1990s thinking “The X-Files” was the only great sci-fi show on the tube. Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell are far better actors than David Anchovy, plus “QL” didn’t have to bother with Gillian Anderson—they generally had more attractive (not to mention more interesting) guest actresses every week!
One of my favourites was La Reine Chabut, who appeared in several different episodes as Samantha Stormer. I always wondered what became of her; she now does exercise tutorials and seems to be doing rather well at it, too!
Considering that The Sopranos is the most filmlike of all TV shows, I am surprised that it is not mentioned more. Anyways:
1. #1 is by far The Sopranos. Can’t imagine anything ever toppling it, though efforts to do so are more than welcome.
2. The Simpsons
3. Seinfeld
4. Rocky and Bullwinkle
5. Arrested Development
6. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
7. Home Movies
8. Ali G
9. 30 Rock
10. The Wire
Don’t really know a lot of pre-90’s TV, so I am very biased in that regard. Also, never really watched Twin Peaks, so not included.
Honorable mentions (shows I haven’t really seen in a long, long time, but used to love)
Robin of Sherwood
Shelley’s Duvall’s Faery Tale Theatre
Hitchcock Presents
Ray Bradbury Theater
Vic Pardo
The Abbott and Costello Show
The Jack Benny Show
The Untouchables
The Twilight Zone
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Star Trek (original)
The Odd Couple
Mork and Mindy
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Pokemon