Fifty Greatest Television Shows of All Time<\/a> — at least as produced and broadcast in the US.<\/p>\nThe list (and my inevitable thoughts):<\/p>\n
1. Seinfeld <\/b>(Never have figured out the attraction.)<\/p>\n
2. I Love Lucy<\/b> (This, on the other hand, was a true classic.)<\/p>\n
3. The Honeymooners<\/b> (See #1. Gleason just never did it for me.)<\/p>\n
4. All in the Family<\/b> (Groundbreaking, I guess.)<\/p>\n
5. The Sopranos<\/b> (Any show less than five years old — or even any show still in production — should be excluded from such a list, sez I. That having been said, badda-bing, I’ve enjoyed all two episodes I’ve watched on business trips.)<\/p>\n
6. 60 Minutes<\/b> (Groundbreaking news show. Hell, I remember watching this when I was still living with my parents!)<\/p>\n
7. The Late Show with David Letterman<\/b> (I’d rather give the nod to Johnny (#12). Or even Steve.)<\/p>\n
8. The Simpsons<\/b> (Yup.)<\/p>\n
9. The Andy Griffith Show<\/b> (Never have cared for it.)<\/p>\n
10. Saturday Night Live<\/b> (Certainly wins the “This Show Will Be Cancelled After This Season” Anti-Prediction Award.)<\/p>\n
11. The Mary Tyler Moore Show<\/b> (Triffic stuff.)<\/p>\n
12. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson<\/b> (Never watched it much, but it was a seminal show in its influence both on talk shows, on comedy, and on late-night TV.)<\/p>\n
13. The Dick Van Dyke Show<\/b> (Probably one of the most brilliant comedies ever.)<\/p>\n
14. Hill Street Blues<\/b> (As a trend-setter for grim-n-gritty, sure.)<\/p>\n
15. The Ed Sullivan Show<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
16. The Carol Burnett Show<\/b> (Was to the Variety Show what Dick Van Dyke was to the sitcom.)<\/p>\n
17. Today Show<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
18. Cheers<\/b> (Never much cared for it. The characters spent way too much time being mean to each other.)<\/p>\n
19. thirtysomething<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
20. St. Elsewhere<\/b> (Was to doctor shows what HSB was to cop shows. Great, great stuff.)<\/p>\n
21. Friends<\/b> (Another show I have never “gotten.”)<\/p>\n
22. ER<\/b> (At least they had the decency to rank it below St. E.)<\/p>\n
23. Nightline<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
24. Law & Order<\/b> (Entertaining, yes. Long-lived, absolutely. One of the greatest? Feh.)<\/p>\n
25. M*A*S*H<\/b> (The Tragicomedy. Good, solid stuff, even if it got preachy as time went on.)<\/p>\n
26. The Twilight Zone<\/b> (Give me the Outer Limits any day. But I’ll take the nod to sf\/fantasy.)<\/p>\n
27. Sesame Street<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
28. The Cosby Show<\/b> (Entertaining, but I liked Bill on a number of other shows he did a lot better. I, Spy, anyone?)<\/p>\n
29. Donahue<\/b> (No comment, except to note that his successors in the talk show arena make Donahue look like Einstein.)<\/p>\n
30. Your Show of Shows<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
31. The Defenders<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
32. American Family<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
33. Playhouse 90<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
34. Frasier<\/b> (See #18.)<\/p>\n
35. Roseanne<\/b> (See #18.)<\/p>\n
36. The Fugitive<\/b> (Probably the best of the QM herd. Great, audience-gripping action, formulaic as all hell, and a marvelous herd of guest stars. This one deserves to rank higher.)<\/p>\n
37. The X-Files<\/b> (Another show I never got into. Given that folks have said it’s sucked for the past few seasons, I’m not sure how it ranks here, except as a cult classic.)<\/p>\n
38. The Larry Sanders Show<\/b> (Funny.)<\/p>\n
39. The Rockford Files<\/b> (I’d prefer Maverick, but they’re basically both the James Garner Show, so I’ll take it. But the greatest?)<\/p>\n
40. Gunsmoke<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
41. Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/b> (Damned sight better than a lot of the ones ranked above it.)<\/p>\n
42. Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In<\/b> (Okay.)<\/p>\n
43. Bonanza<\/b> (One of the better westerns, which is not saying much.)<\/p>\n
44. The Bob Newhart Show<\/b> (I can’t believe this one ranks below Cheers, Frazier, Roseanne … It’s another MTM classic.)<\/p>\n
45. Twin Peaks<\/b> (Cult classic. Yawn.)<\/p>\n
46. Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/b> (I’d rate the first three seasons of DS9 as better than any season of TNG … but I’d probably have to rate TOS as the best of the franchise, all told. And Farscape beats any of them, hands down.)<\/p>\n
47. Rocky and His Friends<\/b> (This should be in the Top 20.)<\/p>\n
48. Taxi<\/b> (Another show I never understood. If you want dark, urban comedy, how about Night Court?)<\/p>\n
49. The Oprah Winfrey Show<\/b> (No comment.)<\/p>\n
50. Bewitched<\/b> (What?!)<\/p>\n
You can also go vote for the Best Single Series of All Time at the site. Dick Van Dyke <\/i>got my vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TV Guide learned a long time ago that “List” issues are big sellers. The Top Ten Comedies. The Top Twenty Dramas. The Twenty-Five Best TV Actors. The list goes on,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,360,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-media-tv-star-trek","category-media-tv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":128343,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/17\/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows-kinda-sorta-more-or-less.html","url_meta":{"origin":1767,"position":0},"title":"The 50 Greatest Sci-Fi TV Shows (kinda-sorta more-or-less)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 17-Oct-15 7:13pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A few caveats on the Popular Mechanics list:1. I suspect this list would look a lot different in, say, five years. We are currently going through a rich time in SF genre TV, and what will turn out to be great and what will turn out to be a flash\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51766,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/16\/the-greatest-non-holmes-detectives.html","url_meta":{"origin":1767,"position":1},"title":"The Greatest (non-Holmes) Detectives","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Jul-15 11:19pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Pretty decent list, depending on how you're defining the genre and what values of \"great\" you allow for. Still, it has some of my favorites, so it must be a good list, right?(h\/t +J. Steven York) The 12 Greatest Fictional Detectives (Who Aren't Sherlock Holmes) We all love Sherlock Holmes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128344,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/18\/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows-kinda-sorta-more-or-less-redux.html","url_meta":{"origin":1767,"position":2},"title":"The 50 Greatest Sci-Fi TV Shows (kinda-sorta more-or-less) (Redux)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 18-Oct-15 11:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"So this is based on an article from a Popular Mechanics (!) article on \"The 50 Greatest Sci-Fi Shows Ever\" [http:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/culture\/movies\/g156\/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows]. See here [https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/10\/17\/the-50-greatest-sci-fi-tv-shows-kinda-sorta-more-or-less.html] for caveats and comments on that list. I've decided to do my own force ranking (thanks +Stan Pedzick), working within the same list (to do otherwise\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/TV%2BGuide%2BSF.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":27603,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/26\/eberts-greatest-films.html","url_meta":{"origin":1767,"position":3},"title":"Ebert's greatest films","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Apr-12 1:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I am by no means pretentious enough to come up with my own list of the \"greatest films of all time.\" It's hard enough for me to come up with a list of \"my favorite films of all time,\" even if we can decide whether favorite means judged aesthetic merit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10564,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/12\/22\/cartoony_goodness.html","url_meta":{"origin":1767,"position":4},"title":"Cartoony goodness","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 22-Dec-06 10:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Fifty Greatest Cartoons of All Time -- the list was from the animation industry in 1994, but the YouTube links are from 2006, baby! Excellent....","rel":"","context":"In "Animation \/ Cartoons"","block_context":{"text":"Animation \/ Cartoons","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-cartoons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/bugs_bunny-whats_opera-doc.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24189,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/03\/game-of-thrones-disc-version.html","url_meta":{"origin":1767,"position":5},"title":"Game of Thrones, disc version","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 3-Dec-11 5:13am","format":false,"excerpt":"Maybe just as well it won't be until March. This is on my list to get, largely because we don't get HBO and everyone said this was the Greatest Series Since Sliced Bread (at least the first three seasons of Sliced Bread) and even though I didn't like the book\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1767"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37215,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions\/37215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}