Your Top Ten TV Shows of All Time

[thegreekdog]

Well... what are your favorite television shows of all time?

Mine:

(1) Battlestar Galactica
(2) The Wire
(3) Firefly
(4) The Cosby Show
(5) Boy Meets World
(6) The Simpsons
(7) The Sopranos
(8) The Practice
(9) Star Trek: The Next Generation
(10) Scrubs

I reserve the right to change these.

See the immediately preceding sentence. Others that were previously mentioned (some of which probably belong in my top 10):

- Southland
- Band of Brothers (really in the top 5, but I missed it in my original list)
- Boston Legal
- Arrested Development
- Monthy Python's Flying Circus
- Futurama
- Twilight Zone (old)

[Sniper08]

Only ongoing shows (no miniseries).

you broke your own rule quite a few times


here's mine(all time not ongoing)

(1) Lost
(2) Chuck
(3) The Vampire Diaries
(4) Stargate Atlantis
(5) Community
(6) House
(7) Star Trek DS9
(8) Battlestar Galactica
(9) Eureka
(10) Nikita

if Game of Thrones has another outstanding season it will be going high up on the list.

[thegreekdog]

Fair... I've edited (and also added Star Trek: TNG).

[Phatscotty]

South Park
Celebrity Apprentice
Gold Rush

Does Bill Maher count?

[Haggis_McMutton]

1. The Wire.
BEST FUCKIN DRAMA EVER.

2. Rome.
Seen it like 3 times and I still like it, great sets, great characters, pretty good spin on historical facts.

3. The practice.
Presents all kinds of dilemmas very well, again I like the characters a lot. Has it's cheesy moments, but oh well.

4. Deadwood.
See Rome.

5. Boston Legal.
Pretty much just for Shatner and the depiction of his friendship and decline.

6. BlackAdder (all except first season).
british comedy gold. brilliant ending.

7. Band of Brothers
Only short series that makes my top 10. Yeah, it was that good.

8. Star Trek TNG
I mean, c'mon, it's fuckin' startrek

9. Scrubs
Pretty good mix of goofy and serious, pretty good characters as well.

10. Seinfeld
Classic, still holds up

Runner ups:
11. The Office (both versions)
12. Curb your enthusiasm
13. Andromeda (first 2-3 seasons only)
14. LOST (first 3 seasons or so)
15. Battlestar Galactica (everything up until the Starbuck BS towards the end. You know what I'm talking about. I liked this series a lot, but the ending absolutely RUINED it for me).
16. Firefly (it's solid, but too short for me to get really attached)
17. Carnivale (WHY DID YOU CANCEL IT HBO ? WHY ? )

More to come as I remember this shit.

[Phatscotty]

yeah cool so HBO counts gotta throw in Boardwalk Empire and Weedz!

[pimpdave]

Weeds isn't HBO.

[pimpdave]

1. Arrested Development
2. The Wire
3. Extras

Those are the only three shows I've bought on DVD.

[Dukasaur]

1. Hawaii 5-0 (the original only; neither of the attempted revivals deserve the name)
2. The Sweeney (BBC-TV show, probably unknown to most of the Yanks here)
3. Colombo
4. Banacek
5. Toma
6. Babylon 5
7. I Love Lucy (fifty years later, and still nobody has made anything funnier)
8. Rocky and Bullwinkle
9. Saturday Night Live (the original cast, although some of the later casts had a brilliant moment or two.)
10. DaVinci's Inquest

[Haggis_McMutton]

Does stuff like TopGear and QI count?
They should probably be up there

[Quirk]

1- Monty Python's Flying Circus
2- The Simpsons
3- The Young Ones
4- Doctor Who (the Tom Baker years)
5- Cosmos
6- Mr. Show
7- Futurama
8- Night Flight
9- Colbert Report
10- 30 Rock

[shieldgenerator7]

1. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (previous versions are too girlish)(my most recent obsession)
2. Star Trek: TNG (TOS is another of my favs, don't care much for DS9 or Voyager)
3. Stargate SG1 (SG!)
4. Twilight Zone (old series)
5. Mission Impossible (original series)
6. Jimmy Neutron (hilarious cartoon)
7. Johnny Test (I like the sibling mechanic)
8. Cyber Chase (excellent math cartoon)
9. AFV (hilarious, watched it all I was growing up, until ABC changed its signal )
10. Lilo & Stitch (interesting)
11. Veggietales (educational)

*in no particular order

-SG7 ( )

[shieldgenerator7]

Oh crash I forgot:

The Red Green Show
Little House on the Prairie

[BigBallinStalin]

1. Fawlty Towers
2. MP's Flying Circus

Ehh... hmm. Oh,

3. Colbert Report

Erm....

[CreepersWiener]

1. FoxNews
2. CNN
3. MSNBC
4. CSPAN
5. ESPN
6. ScyFy
7. HistoryChannel
8. Discovery
9. NatGeo
10. Travel

[Crazyirishman]

1. That 70's show
2. Dead Like Me (very underrated show)
3. South Park
4. Archer
5. CSI: Las Vegas
6. Weeds
7. Criminal Minds
8. Around the Horn
9. Pardon the interruption
10. My Strange Addiction/Strange sex (damn you TLC)

[john9blue]

i don't even have a TV

[Haggis_McMutton]

i don't even have a TV

wait, people still watch these things on a TV?

[notyou2]

Soap

[ViperOverLord]

Top Ten

1. Arrested Development
2. Seinfeld
3. Cheers
4. House MD
5. That 70's Show
6. The Wonder Years
7. The Boondocks
8. Spin City
9. Married With Children
10. The Office (American Version)

Honorable Mention

Family Ties, Futurama, King Of Queens, M*A*S*H, Monk, News Radio, Sanford And Son, South Park, The Big Bang Theory,
The Muppet Show

Considerable Mention

Boy Meets World, Family Guy, I-Carly, Simpsons

[InkL0sed]

I'm listing my favorite shows here, but there are a lot (especially from HBO) that I haven't gotten to yet. I've only recently discovered the wonders that can be the TV format, honestly. Though I'm studying it closely now that I have.

Also, I've been watching only Joss Whedon and the BBC shows for the past few months, and pretty much just sci-fi / fantasy, so this is a really skewed list. So I'm in no way suggesting this is a list of the best shows of all time. I don't think I could do that. Actually, even if I'd seen enough TV to start making such a list, I'm not sure it'd be fair. You'd probably have to go by genre / mode.

1. Doctor Who – as an entirety, it's probably the greatest show ever, though I readily admit it's been terrible many times in its history, and in fact is currently insufferably mediocre. Still, its infinitely flexible premise and its history give it so much potential. And, like the Doctor himself, it's immortal. It can always rebound from a terrible period and be awesome.

2. Angel – And now for the deluge of everything Whedon. I'll talk about Angel in comparison to Buffy below.

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer – If any of you haven't seen this show, do yourself a favor and watch it next. Especially if you love Firefly. Buffy and Angel were the only chance Whedon ever got to show what he could do in the full run with a TV show – and holy shit is the guy brilliant. He invented so much, and other things he's done better than anything else – the "Big Bad" episodic season-arc structure, for instance. For instance, he has an amazing ability to make episodes which introduce a stand-alone kind of conflict which pushes the show's characters exactly in the right direction the season arc needs them to go. Not only that, but his shows never got stale – they always evolved, developing their thematic concerns while simultaneously staying true to them.

As to why I ranked Angel above Buffy: it's a difficult choice. There are certain episodes of Buffy which are unlike anything else I've seen in any art form, much less just TV.

show

And while that isn't as true with Angel, I still think it's more consistently good than Buffy, and in it dealt with season-arcs (and mini-arcs) better. And it's just much more thematically rich. But I'm biased, because I was a fan of Angel as a child, and it's kind of become a major part of my psyche.

4. Torchwood – Honestly, there are moments when Torchwood has been better than Doctor Who. It's a show whose brilliance grows on you. You don't realize just how great the characters are until you lose them and/or until you see it a second time. It's very Whedon-esque that way.

Of course, I'm not counting the atrocity that was Miracle Day, because that was just stupid.

5. Firefly – this might have been counted higher if it had had a longer run. It's tragic, really. It's the only time I've seen Whedon do sci-fi as well as he could.

I think I'll stop now.

[AndyDufresne]

0. The Daily Show
1. LOST
2. The Office (U.S. Version)
3. Futurama
4. Battlestar Galactica
5. Breaking Bad
6. Seinfeld
7. Star Trek: TNG
8. Mythbusters
9. Pardon The Interruption
10. Around the Horn

Forgot about the ESPN shows I like almost.

I don't know if I have any more. There are some other shows I like, such as Walking Dead, Curb your Enthusiasm, and a few others, but they haven't made it into my top yet probably, mostly because I haven't given them full investment yet.


--Andy

[Borderdawg]

In no particular order:

Babylon 5
Sons of Anarchy
Firefly
SNL (original cast)
Legend of the Seeker
Gunsmoke
Married with Children
MASH
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

[anonymus]

Fixed that list

1. (2) The Wire
2. (.) The West Wing
3. (7) The Sopranos
4. (1) Battlestar Galactica
5. (.) Twin Peaks
6. (.) Futurama
7. (.)Familyguy
8. (.)Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
9. (.) LOST
10. (.) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

/

[Sackett58]

1. Have Gun Will Travel
2. Simpsons
3. Muppet Show
4. CSI: Las Vegas (until Peterson left)
5. Big Bang Theory
6. The X Files
7. Psych
8. Jeopardy
9. Sanford and Son
10. IT Crowd