100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time

September 22, 2016 3:16 PM

As ranked by Rolling Stone.

100-81
80-61
60-41
40-21
20-1

posted by chavenet (158 comments total)

" I'd like to have an argument, please."
posted by Artw at 3:20 PM on September 22, 2016 [43 favorites]

All of these are wrong, right?

Seriously though, SNL doesn't belong anywhere near the top 20. Too uneven. The West Wing should be #1.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:23 PM on September 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

Curb Your Enthusiasm over Cheers? Give it a decade and Curb will not be in the top hundred.
posted by sammyo at 3:24 PM on September 22, 2016 [13 favorites]

CTRL-F "Mystery": 93. Mystery Science Theater 3000

Way too low.

CTRL-F "Steven": Not found

Bunk.
posted by JHarris at 3:25 PM on September 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

(I'm somewhat kidding with that "bunk" pronouncement, but seriously, in upcoming years Steven Universe is going to be recognized as a landmark. Just watch!)
posted by JHarris at 3:27 PM on September 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Every "top n" list over any time period has a huge recently produced/viewed/released bias. In even a few years most of this years shows and every reality show will be mostly forgotten.
posted by sammyo at 3:29 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

No Hannibal? This list is bullshit.
posted by Mavri at 3:30 PM on September 22, 2016 [12 favorites]

No "Utopia"? No "Black Mirror"? No British "House of Cards"?

It's hard to understand a list that includes shows in a range from "Sesame St" to "Girls", and so on.
posted by kneecapped at 3:30 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

This list (as with all lists) is obviously wrongity-wrong-wrong-wrong.

If anyone wants a recommendation, I've been rewatching the first season of ER (placed 50) and it honestly does not put a foot wrong. It's astoundingly good.

Breaking Bad, on the other hand, is bunk. Proper bunk.

I'm almost afraid to ever watch The Sopranos because I'm convinced I won't like it at all.
posted by threetwentytwo at 3:32 PM on September 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

Is there a list--instead of slides--anywhere?
posted by spacely_sprocket at 3:32 PM on September 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

A list like this will always be highly contentious. Initial thoughts include: "Very USA-based", "Where is Firefly?" and "WHERE IS FIREFLY!".
posted by greenhornet at 3:33 PM on September 22, 2016 [12 favorites]

I am trying to picture the meeting where they decided to come up with the safest, most obvious top-10 imaginable. That isn't how you do the list thing, guys. The idea is to put out something provocative for people to talk about.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:34 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

These fucks appear to have broken the Desli.de parser.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:36 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Percentage of tv shows by country: America (95%), Britain (5%), Rest of the world (0%)
posted by dng at 3:40 PM on September 22, 2016 [15 favorites]

Battlestar Galactica is there, so I am happy.
posted by aclevername at 3:42 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Surprisingly, the list is correct.
posted by mazola at 3:50 PM on September 22, 2016 [12 favorites]

(except for the bit about Orange is the New Black. Why is it on the list?)
posted by mazola at 3:51 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Cmd-F "Cop Rock."

WAT
posted by 4ster at 3:52 PM on September 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

It's hard to understand a list that includes shows in a range from "Sesame St" to "Girls", and so on.

Well, they are both on HBO...
posted by Etrigan at 3:55 PM on September 22, 2016

don't take the rankbait, people

everybody is more likeable when you don't know what their favorite TV shows are
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:58 PM on September 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

No Trailer Park Boys? It's a bit fucked if you ask me.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 3:59 PM on September 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

Huh. All In The Family is a remake of Till Death Us Do Part, which was challenging TV of the time. And watching a few episodes, still oddly resonant today (if you go looking at old clips, caution for a lot of racism). I always remember how many people watched it and agreed with Alf Garnett, not realising he was a satire/spoof.
posted by Wordshore at 4:01 PM on September 22, 2016

Hey, four cartoons are good enough for these guys!
posted by Small Dollar at 4:06 PM on September 22, 2016

Ctrl-F Lidsville. No? You suck!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:07 PM on September 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

Cmd-F Seven Samurai

What the gosh!
posted by beerperson at 4:08 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Justified
Kung Fu
Night Flight
Top Chef
Project Runway
posted by Kafkaesque at 4:10 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

[hamburger] - Find in page - Neon Genesis Evangelion - 0/0 BOO
posted by Small Dollar at 4:11 PM on September 22, 2016

everybody is more likeable when you don't know what their favorite TV shows are

Yeah, this very thread might be a case of don't read the comments.

Odd, odd list, though. The recency bias seems particularly bad. In a way I think there might be something to it if you simply cut anything that's been on the air in the past 10 years. Like, if something like Gunsmoke or the Mary Tyler Moore Show makes it, it stands as something of a testament, simply because it suggests they're so obviously good and influential later generations feel like they have to check them out. I like Broad City, but...yeah.

Also, it's weirdly 00s-y, in that the lack of non-American shows reflects a pre-Netflix, pre-BBC America, pre-youtube world where something had to be such an incredible cultural phenomenon elsewhere to make itself known here. 10 years from now I'd expect such a list would have a ton more non-American shows.
posted by Diablevert at 4:11 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Parks & Recreation is the one I'm most surprised to see missing.
posted by DingoMutt at 4:12 PM on September 22, 2016 [18 favorites]

Well, once I saw the US The Office on there I knew I was going to punch through my phone screen if the UK version didn't make the cut. So at least that was averted.
posted by arha at 4:16 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hey, at least you can use ctrl+f. This is a pain in the ass to browse and I won't make any comments until there's an actual list I can search, but this list seems very arbitrary. It's mixing game shows, talk shows, sitcoms, drama, animation and probably something else I'm missing (does it have 60 minutes or other news show? I'm guessing at least one of CCs fake news shows is there).

Then, if they're adding Monty Python, Fawlty Towers or The Office, other UK shows like Blackadder, Black Books, Green Wing, Look Around You, Monkey Dust, Life on Mars/Ashes etc are better than some of those entries. And this excluding other European TV productions, such as La Piovra, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Deutschland 83, Borgen (I haven't seen it, but every month or so a friend of mine asks if I already started and he barely watches TV, so...) or non-western animation (a lot of those long-running anime are just cheap padding, but there's a few serialized shows that could well be here, like as Cowboy Bebop. But considering they've treated animation in general so poorly, I wouldn't expect it anyway.

So, yeah. I think the only way to do this right is by splitting it into a number of 25 items minimum lists with individual genres, release date and regions of origin, and then trying to find a way to place the best of each on a top 100. Sure, taking notable exceptions, most of the top would be filled with prestige dramas, sitcoms would be around the top-middle along the critical darlings of the moment (until their inevitable re-evaluation and slide downwards), animated shows on the middle-bottom with prestige foreign shows tokened in the bottom, but at least you could get a better clue on how the list was composed, and if absences were made out of ignorance, bias, or personal taste.
posted by lmfsilva at 4:18 PM on September 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

They let Doctor Who on the list (in the Bottom 10) for its "long history". Then they put Law & Order in the Top 40 for its "long history" of less than half the years. Just one of many examples of how it got things wrong, but then, don't lists like these ALWAYS get things wrong?
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:24 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Seriously, though. How do you include the inferior sequel Lost and then totally forget to include the original, Land of the Lost?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:24 PM on September 22, 2016 [15 favorites]

No Firefly? List is invalid.
posted by sotonohito at 4:25 PM on September 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

I've been saying for years that the reveal at the end of season one shouldn't have been the hatch, it should have been the words BEWARE OF SLEESTAK painted on a rock wall.
posted by The Tensor at 4:26 PM on September 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Frank's Place

All In The Family is a remake of Till Death Us Do Part, which was challenging TV of the time

Sanford & Son is a ripoff of Steptoe and Son. (Full episodes available on Youtube. You may remember Wilfred Bramble as Paulie's Grandad.)
posted by IndigoJones at 4:26 PM on September 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

13. 'Late Night With David Letterman' 1982-2015

Letterman is a goddamn coward for not doing something more worthy of his talent for at least the last twenty or so years of this period.
posted by mullacc at 4:30 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I knew this list would include Seinfeld at a mouth-foamingly high number so I went and got a drink to prepare myself. Did not help.
posted by floweringjudas at 4:31 PM on September 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

No Pee-Wee?????
posted by sheldman at 4:31 PM on September 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

You may remember Wilfred Bramble as Paulie's Grandad.

E's very clean though, innit'e?
posted by Pinback at 4:34 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh, aye, very clean.

Sanford & Son is a ripoff of Steptoe and Son

I thought it was explicitly a remake, from that era where Americans were unable to understand English accents (see also All in the Family, Three's Company, etc.). Actually, given the inexplicable success of the tedious remake of the excellent House of Cards, I suppose that era is still in progress.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:36 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I knew this list would include Seinfeld at a mouth-foamingly high number so I went and got a drink to prepare myself. Did not help.

these lists are making me thirsty.
posted by mullacc at 4:37 PM on September 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

I try not to nitpick lists like this, but the one jaw-dropper for me was "Happy Days". That must have been included for "Beloved producer just died"-bias. Might as well throw "The Brady Bunch" on the list if they are including shows that were never all that great at any point in their run but lots of middle age folks like myself have warm, nostalgic memories of watching in our youth. Someone who put together the list mistook misty-eyed memories for quality.
posted by The Gooch at 4:43 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Also, it's weirdly 00s-y, in that the lack of non-American shows reflects a pre-Netflix, pre-BBC America, pre-youtube world

Next up: Top 100 ways to date both yourself and your readers
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 4:43 PM on September 22, 2016

At least from the top 20, a pretty dull list and one entirely too enchanted with recent stuff.
posted by tavella at 4:46 PM on September 22, 2016

The Tensor: I've been saying for years that the reveal at the end of season one shouldn't have been the hatch, it should have been the words BEWARE OF SLEESTAK painted on a rock wall.

Will is Jack, and Holly is his sister, Claire.

Cha-Ka is Benjamin Linus, the leader of The Others (the Pakuni).

Grumpy is the Polar Bear. "Dopey" is Charlie.

Rick Marshall is the Smoke Monster, which is why he mysteriously disappears and turns into "Uncle Jack."

It's all so clear.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:47 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Might as well throw "The Brady Bunch" on the list if they are including shows that were never all that great at any point in their run but lots of middle age folks like myself have warm, nostalgic memories of watching in our youth.

As if!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:49 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

i just skipped to the top 20 and i haven't seen any of the top four shows so this list is clearly bullshit
posted by burgerrr at 4:50 PM on September 22, 2016

This list needs a sensibility. And that sensibility needs to appreciate Ernie Kovacs.
posted by acrasis at 4:51 PM on September 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

So what's up with Firefly? Is it dope or is it wack?
posted by lkc at 4:52 PM on September 22, 2016

It's interesting to see this come up now, just after the publication of TV (The Book) by Alan Sepinwall (previously) and Matt Zoller Seitz (also previously), who I recently caught on KQED's Forum promoting and defending their choices. The book accomplishes much the same thing as this list, but from a more critical perspective, given the authors' backgrounds. Though I haven't gone out of my way to get it yet, based on what I heard it sounded quite fascinating and may be of interest to some of you fellow MeFites.

I won't make any comments until there's an actual list I can search, but this list seems very arbitrary. It's mixing game shows, talk shows, sitcoms, drama, animation and probably something else I'm missing (does it have 60 minutes or other news show? I'm guessing at least one of CCs fake news shows is there).

Your complaint is a very valid one, and it's one that seems to have been taken seriously by Sepinwall and Zoller Seitz. In their appearance, they took pains to explain not only the rationale for their ratings/rankings, but also their choice to limit their coverage to non-variety-show comedies and dramas. They claim to have done so for much the same reason you mentioned: How do you compare a news show like 60 Minutes to something like Cheers?

They also made the very sensible choice to restrict their selections to American shows, understanding that any ranking of other countries' shows would necessarily be biased towards those shows that actually made it to the States, therefore being unfair to those quality shows that never made it over here.

This of course is easily debated given the impact of shows like Monty Python on shaping modern comedy, but their conservative criteria seem to be much more open to broader criticism (in the erudite sense) and probably makes for better discussion as a result.
posted by The Situationist Room with Guy Debord at 4:55 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I stopped reading when I saw how low they had Golden Girls ranked.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:05 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, where the hell was Mythbusters on this list?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:10 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've never seen The Wire but I can live with the rest of the top five.

Saturday Night Live probably shouldn't be anywhere on this list, and I wonder which show took The Cosby Show's place.
posted by fuse theorem at 5:24 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

And where is A Separate Peace?!
posted by beerperson at 5:32 PM on September 22, 2016

Ctrl+F "trek"

fail
posted by escape from the potato planet at 5:33 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, pretty much guessed the top 10 shows BECAUSE THEY ARE ALWAYS THE SAME TOP SHOWS ON EVERY LIST. Not saying I don't like them (hell I love Seinfeld and Breaking Bad and Mad Men and The Simpsons (up to s9)), but there is nothing new here.

(it is also an abomination that Parks and Rec isn't on this list)
posted by littlesq at 5:43 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Dallas? Seriously? Gilligan's Island is better than Dallas.
posted by Bee'sWing at 5:48 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Just be glad Friends isn't in the top 20
posted by vuron at 5:48 PM on September 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

I didn't think they'd be brave enough to do it but I checked and yep, there it is at number one:

U2 - Songs of Innocence.
posted by The Notorious SRD at 5:49 PM on September 22, 2016 [12 favorites]

No "I Spy", tho.

It really is a very silly list. "The Muppet Show" and "Seinfeld" are incommensurable. And yet The Muppet Show is much better.
posted by allthinky at 5:50 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

The list has a heavy agenda, trying to show the superiority of the Sopranos-era scripted drama, and ultimately I think it fails on its own terms. The Sopranos today is mostly remembered for coming to a controversial and dramatically unsatisfying ending. This list muddles along until it finally tips its hand and puts its favorite scripted dramas over the best comedies.

I really don't think there has been better television than the first nine seasons of the Simpsons. You can maybe take points off for the show running it into the ground, but the 138th Episode Spectacular basically did admit that was the plan all along.
posted by graymouser at 5:51 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

but seriously, in upcoming years Steven Universe is going to be recognized as a landmark. Just watch!

Estimated positions of some of the top 23 animated shows I'd consider adding to such a list:

23. Steven Universe
22. Adventure Time
...
15. Samurai Pizza Cats
...
9. Bojack Horseman
...
2. Rick and Morty
1. Invader Zim
posted by sfenders at 5:58 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

M*A*S*H should be above both The West Wing and Game of Thrones.


WKRP should be higher. I don't care where it's ranked- it should be higher.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:05 PM on September 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

I would very much like to bingewatch ER, The Larry Sanders Show, Murphy Brown. That's hat the list is for, isn't it? Picking stuff to bingewatch? I'd probably watch 30something again, too.
posted by theora55 at 6:06 PM on September 22, 2016

I must've clicked on a different link. Both Monty Python & Star Trek are on the one I read.

(Ahh, I see… the shit-stupid AJAXy scrollingness is fooling people & search alike. Trek is #18, Python is #29.)
posted by Pinback at 6:06 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

tl; dr

did Kojak, Sanford & Son and The Rockford Files make the list?

If not then the hell with it.
posted by jonmc at 6:07 PM on September 22, 2016

This list is bad and they should feel bad.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:09 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sex and the City is objectively awful. Just no.
posted by Token Meme at 6:12 PM on September 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

Good call putting My Mother The Car at number three.
posted by dr_dank at 6:15 PM on September 22, 2016 [12 favorites]

Terrible as the list is, watching people Ctrl-F and get all shouts abput stuff that's actually on it gives some amusement.
posted by Artw at 6:19 PM on September 22, 2016 [11 favorites]

Seriously though, SNL doesn't belong anywhere near the top 20. Too uneven. The West Wing should be #1.

half right anyway.
posted by philip-random at 6:20 PM on September 22, 2016

Is Malcolm in the Middle on there at least*? I binge-watched the whole series last year, and I found it to be consistently funny and clever for its entire run.

*I'm on mobile so it's a pain to check
posted by littlesq at 6:28 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Friends in the Top 40!?!?

Switch it out with Jonny Quest and you might begin to have a list worth discussing in any way but on all fours. Except Jonny Quest ought to be Top 20.

But seriously (tho I already am serious about Friends being really not a very good show at all), Fawlty Towers needs to be top ten, or else I'm calling for the recolonization of America by the Brits, because all these years of independence are looking very wasted.

And where's Robot Chicken?
posted by philip-random at 6:37 PM on September 22, 2016

M*A*S*H should be above both The West Wing and Game of Thrones.

Maybe if they'd stopped things when Trapper left and Henry was killed.
posted by philip-random at 6:39 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

No shoes, you lose.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:41 PM on September 22, 2016

Samurai Pizza Cats.... wait, what? It's a real show!!!... I am so so out of touch.
posted by sammyo at 6:45 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I always assumed Sex in the City was some gender based thing and that if I had ovaries I'd magically think it was the greatest thing ever and I should probably reserve judgement and keep my mouth shut. But I've never met the ovaries that like this show. WHERE ARE THE OVARIES THAT LIKE THIS SHOW???!
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:10 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

They need to do this again, but it's episode based. Each show gets a max of 3 nommmm...

...what am I saying this is an arbitrary race based on nothing but being happy to be alive in a golden age of TV and a need for clicks.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:19 PM on September 22, 2016

No Mary Tyler Moore Show and no Andy Griffith Show, and South Park and I Love Lucy at godforsaken 33 and 32. The entire list padded with recent shows that have not yet stood the test of the best of the decade, let alone of all time.

Fuck this list with a limp bedraggled pink feathered whoopee cushion from Three's Company.
posted by blucevalo at 7:32 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Did Three's Company make the list? I also am too lazy to click through, but I'd put John Ritter up against Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason any day. That there was some silly ass madcap stupid comedy for the ages.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:37 PM on September 22, 2016

I don't think a good version of this list is even possible. The net they're casting is just too small. I wouldn't feel comfortable saying that, for instance, Game of Thrones is like 85 places over Eastbound & Down, because...like, how? These are shows that aren't doing remotely the same things. Certainly E&D has no Blackwater-type set pieces, but OTOH it's a much more tonally coherent show, and consistently funny in a way that GoT is not always consistently compelling; I guess what I mean is that Eastbound & Down tends to hit what it aims for a lot more often. And these are shows produced the same network, broadcast more or less in the same era. If it's not really sensical to compare them, how are we supposed to meaningfully say that Gunsmoke isn't as good as Saturday Night Live?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:56 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

arha: "Well, once I saw the US The Office on there I knew I was going to punch through my phone screen if the UK version didn't make the cut. So at least that was averted."

I couldn't even make it through a single episode of the UK Office. Some things just don't translate.
posted by octothorpe at 8:11 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Was Spaceghost mentioned?
posted by sara is disenchanted at 8:25 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Lack of Mr. Belvedere renders this list WHOLLY INVALID.
posted by Spatch at 8:25 PM on September 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have two comments:

1. Thank goodness "Stranger Things" was omitted.
2. Fawlty Towers.
posted by davebush at 8:33 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Community
posted by Sebmojo at 8:38 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've found a text list here at CoS.

If we're going to argue about animation snubs, it's Venture Bros. Easily one of the deepest TV shows on right on.
posted by lmfsilva at 8:51 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

A better version of this list would need thousands of entries, because there are thousands of TV shows - IMDb says around 130,000. Lists like this, which only have 0.01% of the entire population, are bound to be unsatisfying clickbait, as opposed to an edifying list of "good shows you haven't heard of".
posted by Small Dollar at 8:53 PM on September 22, 2016

The top twenty is too weighted in favor of recent shows that are mostly good but haven't passed the test of time. Cheers just wasn't that great of a show--it was mostly a sort of fantasy for people who wished that they had a third place of their own like that--and even though I'm obviously biased toward Star Trek, it should have been bumped even higher simply because of the durability and flexibility of the franchise. (I mean, I loved Breaking Bad, but nobody will be doing series or movies based on it (and arguing vociferously about them) in 2058.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:15 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

MORBO DEMANDS... MORBO KNOWS YOU KNOW WHAT MORBO DEMANDS IN THIS CONTEXT!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:19 PM on September 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

even though I'm obviously biased toward Star Trek, it should have been bumped even higher simply because of the durability and flexibility of the franchise. (I mean, I loved Breaking Bad, but nobody will be doing series or movies based on it (and arguing vociferously about them) in 2058.)

This is a terrible framework for discussing quality. I mean, Wikipedia says there have been 35 Japanese and American Godzilla movies released to date (with more to come!), but that doesn't mean the original Gojira is better than, say, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'd argue the greatest pieces of narrative art are the ones that close the door on the universe they created because further exploration would yield only diminishing rewards. All in the Family would not be a greater program if it had inspired reboots and spin-offs. (I think The Sopranos and All in the Family have a lot in common, actually, but not because the earlier series was a durable and flexible franchise.)

The Sopranos today is mostly remembered for coming to a controversial and dramatically unsatisfying ending.

See, to me that speaks to its greatness. Oh, the movie never ends. It goes on and on, and on, and on.
posted by Mothlight at 9:53 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

That gum you like is coming back into style.
posted by Oyéah at 10:04 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd like to see a list where some chin-stroker ranks, say, everything in the world starting with M. If we're going to have arbitrary and incommensurate ranking squabbles, let's at least get a bit more ambitious.
posted by chortly at 10:41 PM on September 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

CTRL-F first three shows off the top of my head:
The Rockford Files, OK
Freaks and Geeks, OK
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., FAIL

Booooooo.
posted by linux at 10:55 PM on September 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Dallas? Seriously? Gilligan's Island is better than Dallas.

Uh, no. Dallas change TV forever with the season ending cliffhanger. That alone puts it in the top 100, hell, top 10. You see Dallas, literally, in every drama and comedy on television. The Walking Dead season final being one example.

Is Thirtysomething on the list? It's so underrated, it's almost criminal.
posted by Beholder at 11:03 PM on September 22, 2016

Once again, The Gang Doesn't Win an Award.
posted by lkc at 11:43 PM on September 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

They got No.1 right.
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:44 PM on September 22, 2016

Invalid list. No neighbours
posted by dangerousdan at 2:00 AM on September 23, 2016

The list has Friends on it and has neither Person of Interest nor Farscape. I need know nothing else about it.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 2:40 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have an aversion to listicles and usually don't care when somethibg I like is slighted, but SURELY they included Peep Show?
posted by NervousVarun at 2:42 AM on September 23, 2016

"Top 100 ways to date both yourself and your readers"

Next up: the boy who married his own grandmother!
posted by trif at 3:17 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just assumed they meant "US" TV shows, but I see they listed a few of Brit-coms, but "One Foot in the Grave" didn't get a mention. That was a super funny show.
posted by james33 at 3:56 AM on September 23, 2016

I know these lists are basically impossible to do well, and I shouldn't get sucked in, but...

No Hannibal???

What kind of self respecting best tv list doesn't have Hannibal at least in the top 10?

Also, Person of Interest absolutely should have been included. I get that they wanted to do a mix of different genres and time periods, but still. I've never seen Homeland, The Walking Dead, or 24, but still, if those shows are on there, Person of Interest should totally be somewhere on there.

Personally, my top ten would go something like:

1. Hannibal
2. Mad Men
3. West Wing
4. Person of Interest
5. Arrested Development
6. Wonder Years

...Actually, it's really hard to rank shows, especially after the top 5. Also, I really think for these lists to have any validity, you've got to split things up a bit more. Mixing together Jeopardy, SNL, talk shows, and comedies/dramas, really doesn't make sense. I also find it hard to rank more contemporary shows with shows from before say 1990? Like, how do I compare Wonder Years to the West Wing? Or Three's Company to Scrubs? Also, they should really just explicitly make this just a US list (and cut out Dr. Who and Downton Abbey), so that it's not nearly as insulting to the rest of the world. Or at least make it "shows that have aired in the US."

Seriously, though, no top 100 shows list is complete without Hannibal.
posted by litera scripta manet at 4:38 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh, also, if you're going to include some classic Nickelodeon shows, I would have definitely gone for something like Hey Arnold! over Ren and Stimpy, a show that I absolutely hated, although maybe there's some redeeming value in it that I've missed all these years?

Oh, and Scrubs definitely should have been on the list. And I would have put Three's Company on this list as well. Also, I think Gilmore Girls probably deserves a spot.

But really, it's so hard to do this kind of thing. Along with the other issues, even comparing dramas vs comedies is tough to do with any accuracy, whatever that even means for something this subjective.

Incidentally, because Wonder Years was set earlier and because it aired with a lot of legitimately older shows, for the longest time, I thought it was from at least the early 80s.
posted by litera scripta manet at 5:05 AM on September 23, 2016

No Pete and Pete? Movie list writers will refrain from KILLING MY SOUL!
posted by triage_lazarus at 5:29 AM on September 23, 2016

Having read the list I'm guessing you had to be a straight, white, college-educated American man between the ages of 20 and 55 to vote, right?
posted by saladin at 6:15 AM on September 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't agree but I gotta respect putting Behind the Green Door in the top twenty, very controversial
posted by beerperson at 6:17 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

At #25, Veep highest ranked show on the list with a female lead. I guess TV shows about the ladies just aren't very good!

The Sopranos at #1 (??) but no Roseanne in the top 40? I stopped reading after that.
posted by Squeak Attack at 6:33 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Aw, crap, the CoS list isn't complete, either. This one is. I hope.

From stuff I've seen recently (ie: since cable channels started to broadcast shows and I discovered torrents) and that could well be featured:

Archer*: Best "adult" animation show on tv right now. Gorgeous animation, supreme voice casting. No reason to be left out.
Community: It suffered with the gas leak and Donald Glover leaving the show, but it was a show that had fun with itself and deconstructed the genre.
Family Guy: Yeah, it started turning to shit over 10 years ago, and each complete season these days could squeeze barely one episode worth of good jokes. Would likely be in the list if it wasn't the slide to shitness, so I'm more than ok with it being left out.
Fringe: One of the best sci-fi series of the past years. Plenty of memorable moments and well written episodes. Series were a bit hurried in the end, but that was to make sure it at least got a proper ending, which is something of a novelty to FOX sci-fi lineup.
Happy Endings*: rapid-firing "friends in a city" style sitcom. It overcome what looked to be just another shitty premise and managed to become a cult favourite. One of the best ensemble cast chemistry I've seen, you could put any pairing on the screen, and magic would happen.
House: It's a sherlock holmes MD / police procedural disguised as a medical soap etc. Went off the rails late, as it happened with many shows, but even at it's prime had a tendency to bring shitty tension with big baddies who wouldn't bulge to him and oh noes he's going to jail etc. So I can see why it was left out.
IASIP*: Indeed, Once again, The Gang Doesn't Win an Award.
Late Late Show With CraigyFerg*: It was a grand experiment on cheapness of late shows. Most late shows are disposable, and now rely solely on viral crap, while Craig build his reputation on just being himself. On occasion, I still try to pick a random episode to watch from youtube while eating. Helps that the guest isn't shilling their newest work, but do small talk with Craig and have awkward pauses. Also, won a Peabody.
Robot Chicken: We live in an age of cultural mashups. This has been their game for a long time.
Venture Bros*: As mentioned before, one of the best animated shows out there. It looks fantastic, has an incredible depth of well developed characters and backstory at their disposal and they make sure to use it.

I'm excluding ongoing shows with few seasons, and non-US shows. * denotes high level of displeasure.
posted by lmfsilva at 6:34 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Letterman ranked higher than Carson? I'm pretty sure even Letterman would disagree with that.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:41 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

And in other news: The Singing Detective continues to be ignored by those unfortunate enough to have never seen The Singing Detective.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:46 AM on September 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm not even going to squabble over ranking, because if we're all being honest our ranking disputes basically boil down to "the guy who made this list is not me", but I feel it bears mentioning that this list has both "The Real World" and "Real Time with Bill Maher" as two of the 100 greatest television shows English-speaking humanity has ever produced.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:20 AM on September 23, 2016

WHERE ARE THE OVARIES THAT LIKE THIS SHOW???!

::raises hand::

I'm not unfamiliar with how unpopular the show is on Metafilter, as y'all make that opinion known basically any time the show is even mentioned. But that's okay, because I'm still here to defend it.

I don't know if I'd put it in the top 40s, but for its time it was really meaningful to have something show relationships between adult women who cared about each other, talked about real things, had fights and supported each other, etc. That is still astoundingly rare, unfortunately, and I think it's easy to forget how few pieces of media pass the bechtel test even still. There are lots of reasons to make fun of it or feel warranted class-rage at it, but also I think a lot of the hate is sexist, and forgets that for women there are not a lot of representations on TV that comes close to our experiences. I got into the show with my lady friends in college and we bonded over it, because at the end of the day, it is about female friendships more than anything else.
posted by likeatoaster at 7:23 AM on September 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

Having read the list I'm guessing you had to be a straight, white, college-educated American man between the ages of 20 and 55 to vote, right?

This is the publication that fawns over dad rockers long past their sell-by date, so yeah. And I say that with love, as someone in that demographic who enjoys dad rock, but RS hasn't had their finger on the pulse of America's youth for a while now.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:25 AM on September 23, 2016

Good shows but over-ranked: Twilight Zone and Freaks and Geeks
Should be on the list: Barney Miller, Parks and Rec, and IT Crowd.
posted by rocket88 at 7:41 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Where is Barney Miller?
posted by kozad at 7:45 AM on September 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm glad Sesame Street made the cut. What's missing from the list is:
- Phineas and Ferb.
- Kids in the hall. (But I'll take You can't do that on television)
- Bob Ross.
- maybe Frontline?
posted by jonnay at 8:00 AM on September 23, 2016

So I've never found the proper forum for this perspective, but seeing as it's ranked #3 of all the time, I'll give it a go.

Breaking Bad is a white male STEM fantasy that feeds directly into the prevalent American narrative of white supremacy. White Man who knows science (and has nothing to lose) jumps into the world of poor Brown people and beats them at their own game time and again. He makes drugs better because science. White characters"break bad" but the Brown characters never need to, they're bad from the beginning of their arcs.

Were this article, or the show itself, more (self) aware of this framing I'd buy in a bit more. If it attempted to make a social commentary on why white america gobbles up this type of narrative and asks for seconds, if it placed the show in more of a it's own historical context (our current context), I'd be more tempted to give it a pass. But no.

I never got past season 1, because I didn't need another white male fever dream fantasy feeding into my white male brain that's been inculcated with these tropes to feed a perspective of superiority, my rightness in the existing unjust post-colonial hierarchy where we play in the world of the historically subjugated, and then feel confident in the belief that "yea, a white man could pull that off." And nothing I've read about the show contradicts this perspective I have. My understanding is there were white supremacist villains in the end, I doubt it was done in self awareness, but rather as a "gotta keep writing something, right?"

From my readings, it doesn't seem the writers are any more racist than America at large, and that's where I think there's a good discussion to be had, but not in a congratulatory sense, but in a what if a Mark Twain piece was released now, why are these things ok NOW sort of way. My understanding is white characters are humanized, their families revealed, their deaths meaningful, and brown characters not humanized, always bad, their deaths deserved. From Dr. Goddess:

We never see anyone else’s family members except the main (and some minor) White guys in the show. Walter, Hank, Jesse and Mike’s loved ones are the only family we get to see, even though some of their other relatives were discussed and not seen (Walt’s Mother, for example). Even the scary looking dude who was in the plaza when Jesse was headed to meet Walt ended up being a ploy for audience members, as his daughter was swept up into his loving arms. Not ever seeing Gus’s family is a major flaw in the show and it’s one of the major tenets of white supremacy not to fully humanize a person of color and certainly a person who was such a prominent character in the show.

Anyway, the show was terribly well executed, but wouldn't be in a top 100 of a society where white male supremacy wasn't the water in which the critics swim.
posted by avalonian at 8:08 AM on September 23, 2016 [11 favorites]

The Sopranos at #1 (??) but no Roseanne in the top 40? I stopped reading after that.

Roseanne committed the cardinal sin of presenting working class people without pity or contempt.
posted by Beholder at 8:18 AM on September 23, 2016 [9 favorites]

ITT: Why are these shows so male-centered? Also, I assume you have to have ovaries to like Sex and the City
posted by beerperson at 8:19 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think it says something that the top ten is packed with dark anti-heroes and deeply cynical premises and plots.

That, and Star Trek needs to be higher, maybe just after Twilight Zone, they make a great 1-2 punch.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:21 AM on September 23, 2016

well, I assume you have to have a penis to like Birdman
posted by likeatoaster at 8:25 AM on September 23, 2016

oh woops i misinterpreted that last comment bc i didn't know what ITT meant, apologies, carry on
posted by likeatoaster at 8:29 AM on September 23, 2016

ITT: Technical Institute
posted by beerperson at 8:31 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Avalonian, I would say that your take on Breaking Bad is wrong in probably every way, but since you haven't watched most of the show, I guess this is understandable.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:37 AM on September 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

All in the Family would not be a greater program if it had inspired reboots and spin-offs.

Oh, dude. Walked right into it. And while not all of those were great, Maude and The Jeffersons certainly were. And if AITF and Trek have anything in common, it's that the concepts and characters have greater reach and durability than the particular situation of the parent show.

Breaking Bad is a white male STEM fantasy that feeds directly into the prevalent American narrative of white supremacy...nothing I've read about the show contradicts this perspective I have.

Then, pardon my bluntness, you haven't read jack shit about the show. Walter White in no way ends up supreme, and while that denouement is mostly in the last couple of seasons, the seeds of his destruction can be seen in the very first episode.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:44 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ok, was I the only person who was bitterly disappointed by not seeing Person of Interest? Or am I alone in thinking that was one of the best shows of the past few years?
posted by Hactar at 8:52 AM on September 23, 2016

Kittens, I'm genuinely interested in pushback on my perspective that holds substance. I assert that the first season is textbook white supremacy for reasons given, and nothing I've read shows comparable humanizing of persons of color relative to their white counterparts.

I watched 2 hours of Dangerous Minds and found the white savior trope to be racist. I spent 10 minutes reading "The White Man's Burden" and found it to be racist as well. I don't see how 7 hours isn't sufficient time to identify the racist threads outlined above.
posted by avalonian at 8:53 AM on September 23, 2016

Then, pardon my bluntness, you haven't read jack shit about the show.

We'll have to agree to disagree, as I have a first hand account of how much I've read about this show. Try and be a white man in Texas and not read more than you'd like about BB and know what's happening on a weekly basis.

Walter White in no way ends up supreme, and while that denouement is mostly in the last couple of seasons, the seeds of his destruction can be seen in the very first episode.

I'm aware of his arc. Walter White can still be Macbeth in a show that frames white people as smarter and more human.
posted by avalonian at 8:58 AM on September 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

We never see anyone else’s family members except the main (and some minor) White guys in the show.

That's not just false, it's egregiously false. The consequences when Walter and Gus (separately and repeatedly) mess with the family ties of the extended Salamanca family is a major arc of the series. Not saying that's going to change anything for you, just that some of the sources you seem to be basing your opinion on may not be representing a complete picture of how the show depicted its characters.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:09 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

assert that the first season is textbook white supremacy for reasons given, and nothing I've read shows comparable humanizing of persons of color relative to their white counterparts

Well, first of all, why are you reading about the show? It's obvious you have invested a lot of time in thinking about it, so rather than speculate on what you think the four seasons you didn't watch might be like, why don't you just watch the actual show and draw an opinion based on it? The show notably upends and defies expectations in a way that few dramas even attempt, so you may find that a lot of what seems obvious to you about the early episodes is wrong. I mean, I actually know it is, because I've watched the show. If you also watch the show and want to share a 20k-word dossier on why you think it's secretly about white supremacy, then okay. But until then your commentary is just a pointless waste of time, because you're literally critiquing a show you have not seen.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:11 AM on September 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Both The Sopranos and Breaking Bad are in the genre I call like to call Sad Lives of Violent White Men, and as such I either stopped watching or have not watched either of them.

I figured out that was going to be a thing, and opted out a few years after the The Sopranos started airing.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:14 AM on September 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think it's unfortunate that "good" in modern American TV means (in most cases) a violent drama where everyone is unhappy and horrible. I just don't understand the draw of those shows.

[On preview, what Squeak Attack said.]
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 10:15 AM on September 23, 2016

Well, first of all, why are you reading about the show?

I'm not avalonian but I read about (and listen to podcasts about) tons of TV I don't watch, because I'm very interested in television overall and I enjoy television criticism. I don't think it's at all unusual to read about plays you might never see, or books you might not read, or TV shows you might not watch.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:19 AM on September 23, 2016

Also, there needed to be more cartoons in general. The Flintstones at the very least, SGC2C, Liquid Television and Cowboy Bebop are notable by their absence. If you want to include children's entertainment, there is a compelling and rich selection - Avatar the Last Airbender, Teen Titans, Duck Tales, Batman:TAS, Adventure Time, MLP:FIS and the Adventures of Pete and Pete.

They included Sesame Street, but not Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood. Also, no instructional or educational shows, like Mythbusters, Julia Childs, Bob Ross, Good Eats, This Old House or Dirty Jobs.

I'm not certain what their criteria was. It seems more inclusive than scripted dramas and sitcoms and sketch comedy, but only in grudging nods here and there.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:19 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

America: a violent drama where everyone is unhappy and horrible.
posted by beerperson at 10:20 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think it's unfortunate that "good" in modern American TV means (in most cases) a violent drama where everyone is unhappy and horrible. I just don't understand the draw of those shows.


I blame Shakespeare. Also Aeschylus.
posted by Diablevert at 10:21 AM on September 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, modern America increasingly seems to mean (in most cases) a violent drama where everyone is unhappy and horrible. So there's that. I don't blame people who don't want to watch that for entertainment, though.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:22 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Dammit, beerperson!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:24 AM on September 23, 2016

"Ctrl-F, and why isn't my favorite niche as fuck show on this list? Joss Whedon is a god! We marathoned Firefly, and why isn't it on the list?"

Whedon is garbage, he's the dollar menu cheeseburger of writing. Every single character he writes can be summed up in a single sentence, and that's just bad writing.

"Why aren't there more shows about women?" Well, it was the 1970's and America and the TV writing industry was very man-centric. Archie Bunker was hailed as a hero, instead of the horrible bigot that he clearly was. /why do I feel like I'm mansplaing?

Am I the only hetero guy who loved Maude? Light up a cig and destroy people.
posted by Sphinx at 10:42 AM on September 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

why do I feel like I'm mansplaing?

Because you are?

I don't know what "it was the 1970's" is even supposed to mean? Only 3 of the top 10 shows here are from the 70s.

The 70s did actually have television shows with women leads, in any case, as you note.
posted by Squeak Attack at 11:14 AM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, it was the 1970's and America and the TV writing industry was very man-centric. Archie Bunker was hailed as a hero, instead of the horrible bigot that he clearly was.

Archie Bunker got his comeuppance for his bigotry in every single episode of that show. He was never hailed as a hero...he was a punching bag for pretty much every other character to beat up on and prove wrong. It was brilliantly subversive writing for its time.
posted by rocket88 at 11:27 AM on September 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

The more I think on it, the more wrong the accusation that there are no families other than white families depicted in Breaking Bad turns out to be. Another major arc turns on the relationship between Jesse Pinkman and Andrea Cantillo, with both her brother Tomas and son Brock being key elements in multi-season plotting.

Again, not to suggest that this wasn't a primarily white-focused show or that these facts would make anybody feel differently about the show in general. Just that this specific accusation doesn't hold up to fact checking.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:12 PM on September 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's also hugely, terribly wrong to believe that the show is somehow ignorant of Walter's white privilege, or that he's successful because or mostly because he's "smarter." In a show where there are precious few irrelevant details, his last name is hugely significant, and his career of crime lasts all of two years--a big chunk of the second year spent on the run--as opposed to the much longer crime careers of the Latino narcos that he works with and against.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:49 PM on September 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't understand why the significance of The Sopranos beats out the quality of The Wire. How does a tightly-scripted, humanizing drama that connects with larger societal themes rank second? I love The Sopranos, but I think it meanders more and says less overall.

In other news, I am enjoying the sublime schadenfreude knowing that Firefly didn't make the list. I think that show is garbage, and it's my pet cause to read about people on the internet loving it so I can gloat internally about it being cancelled.
posted by Don Don at 2:40 PM on September 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm also glad Firefly is not on the list, not because it's garbage but because it's all potential and nothing else. I haven't read the whole list, but so much of it is about how influential a show was. Firefly might be some nerds' favourite half-a-season show ever, but really it's an afterthought compared to Buffy, which was hugely influential.

I have a bunch of shows - mostly SF shows that aired on FOX - that I still mourn their cancellation. But I also have learned to move on. Plus, Firefly got a movie wrap up and I'll always be left with the cliffhangers of Earth 2 and Space Above & Beyond and Journeyman. So fuck Firefly. It's not all that.

Also, fuck The Sopranos.
posted by crossoverman at 8:49 PM on September 23, 2016

I don't think that Firefly really could have been influential, in part because it depended so much on Whedon's unique talents, in part because of his sloppy and really cursory attempts at worldbuilding, and in part because the TV space opera genre boom that had started with TNG was starting to fade at that point. Star Trek: Enterprise, Andromeda, and Farscape all had a few years left to go, but they were starting to run out of steam (or antimatter) at that point. The worst thing about Firefly, though, was how badly it was overpromoted by its fans; I had a particularly insistent browncoat tell me and others on a forum that, if we didn't not only go to see Serenity multiple times but also encourage others to do the same, we weren't trufans. In complete, 100% pure sincerity. It was really just another fucking show, and Whedon could and did go onto other projects to share his gift for cute, endlessly-quotable dialogue, just as Firefly itself was really just a reworking of the crew of the mercenary ship from Alien: Resurrection. For most people, Nathan Fillion is that guy from Castle, they know Morena Baccarin from Deadpool, and Adam Baldwin is a Gamergater asshole that they know mostly from Chuck.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:58 PM on September 23, 2016

So we undertook a major poll – actors, writers, producers, critics, showrunners. Legends like Carl Reiner and Garry Marshall, who sent us his ballot shortly before his death this summer.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the result of this is a list that skews heavily towards shows favored by white dudes who live in the USA.
posted by Anonymous at 1:39 AM on September 24, 2016

Gee, everyone in the World but Americans must be pretty bad at making TV shows, judging by this list.
posted by Tasmanian_Kris at 4:54 AM on September 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gee, everyone in the World but Americans must be pretty bad at making TV shows, judging by this list.

Well, a bunch of Americans working in the TV industry made it, so there's a lot of American shows. In terms of figuring out a way to select the best TV shows, asking a bunch of people who love the genre enough that they went on to dedicate their lives to working in and have themselves produced very good shows seems like not a bad idea, really.

On the other hand, it has resulted in this mixed up list. But frankly I don't know that there is a way to construct such a list that would effectively represent all the TV in the world. Because until maybe the past three to five years, there simply wasn't a way to see any TV but the TV in your country. And for the first 40 or so years of TV's 70-odd year existence, many countries had one national broadcaster and three channels. If you somehow ran this experiment again but making sure to distribute the ballots evenly across the world's TV makers, you'd get a different set of shows, and you'd get a handful of more foreign shows. But I still think you'd get American shows broadly over-represented, because American shows are widely syndicated. Everybody's seen The Simpsons. There may be some drama on Swedish TV that's been on for 30 years and is a heartbreaking work of genius, but only 10 million Swedes will have seen it.

And that affects whether, say, Till Death Do Us Part ought to be in All in the Family's place in the rankings. One can say, really it was the former that was the best, because the later was simply a reproduction of it. But every local version of a famous format develops its own flavor, having different actors and writers and directors. And it may well be the case that All in the Family had more profound influence on the development of the form, because it was on much longer, was more popular and was viewed by more people.
posted by Diablevert at 5:35 AM on September 24, 2016

The Sopranos over The Wire? Really?

I mean, The Sopranos is great and all, but it's really just a mob movie told over the span of years. It falls prey to basically every mob movie and Italian-American stereotype. It's an enjoyable work of serialized storytelling and played an important role in ushering in the "new golden age" of television, but I wouldn't say it broke any new ground in terms of character, themes, or story. The Wire, on the other hand...

However, it's Breaking Bad that really takes the cake for most overrated "new golden age" show. Stylistically beautiful, thematically empty. A tedious morality tale disguised as a masterpiece. Why does everything have to be a cautionary tale?

Also, no love for Treme?
posted by panama joe at 10:56 AM on September 24, 2016

Also, The Americans deserves to be way higher than #43. One season of The Americans is worth, like, 3 seasons of Breaking Bad.
posted by panama joe at 11:20 AM on September 24, 2016

Anyway, to my mind, Breaking Bad isn't overrated because of white supremacy -- although that's an interesting perspective, one that I'm still chewing on in my mind -- it's overrated because deep down, it's just the same old shit. Nothing new.

It's compelling is because it's artfully done. It's beautiful to watch. From the breathtaking New Mexican vistas to its virtuosic musical sequences, the show is truly groundbreaking and captivating in its methods. A fast-paced triumph of post-MTV-generation directing, it almost never has a dull moment (especially if you ignore "Fly", the show's failed attempt at a bottle episode).

The reason it's overrated is because it's just yet another retelling of "ambitious white dude gets in over his head and the villains and stock characters who try and stop him." The heart of this show is a tedious nothing. "Drugs are bad, mmmmkay? Murder is wrong, mmmkay?" And don't even get me started on the depressingly typical portrayal of hard drug users as mind-melted zombies. Way to tacitly reinforce our harmful approach to substance abuse, dude.

I dunno, Breaking Bad occasionally flirts with complexity in the character of Jesse Pinkman, perhaps the most conflicted (and interesting) character in the whole show. But it kind of throws this away. He becomes sort of a prop, kind of a good-hearted dufus who gets swept up in the whirlwind of Walter White. The show would have been more interesting had it been centered around Jesse instead of Walt, but to be quite honest I'm not sure even Jesse had enough depth to sustain 5 seasons.

I don't really think Breaking Bad will hold up over the years. Better Call Saul has only been on for two seasons, and it's already a better show.
posted by panama joe at 12:13 PM on September 24, 2016

The heart of this show is a tedious nothing. "Drugs are bad, mmmmkay? Murder is wrong, mmmkay?"

I'd say the heart of the show is an exploration of masculinity and ambition and the toll your choices extract on the people around you. Perhaps over time it may not wear well, that once the shock of the Walter-Mitty-joins-the-Cali-cartel premise is dissipated it will seem tedious. But I don't see why it's any less tenable a theme than it was for Shakespeare in MacBeth.

That was the key inversion, though. The milquetoast reveals himself as a badass thing was what made it compelling to people. Why people cheered for Walt was the same reason they cheered for John McClane: the ordinary man, the underdog, outsmarting and defeating the big bad dangerous foe. The tension of it was you began to realize that in rooting for Walt to win you were rooting for him to become a monster, that he could not save his soul and triumph, too. Lady or the Tiger. Of course, a lot of people never quite got to the realization bit, and even fewer got to see that the fact that triumph was monstrosity is in fact a critique of the whole value system of machismo....of course, I'd say the show lost its courage too, at the end, because it made him both monster and legend. Narcocorridos and cowboy ballads. Of course, so were a lot of history's monsters' made...even some Romans thought Ceasar a genocidaire....
posted by Diablevert at 1:18 PM on September 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Mmmmmm yeah, but, the thing is, that was all covered in like the first episode. Walt completes the transition from milquetoast to mobster somewhere in the middle of the first season. After that, he's not really so much the underdog anymore. The show becomes a game of chicken with the audience : "How despicable can we make this character and still have y'all rooting for him?" Turns out? Pretty goddamn far. Why? Because he's the protagonist, and that's how these things work. It's pretty familiar ground. See also : any mob movie ever.

In a way, Breaking Bad is the anti-Wire. It's a show that traffics in tsk-tsk moral monochrome. There's very little grey in Breaking Bad. After all, it's not called Breaking Morally Ambiguous. It's a gangster show that wants us to feel bad about enjoying a gangster show. A beautiful, but empty experience.
posted by panama joe at 7:01 PM on September 24, 2016

And if anyone wants the anti-Breaking Bad, it's that Malcolm in the Middle episode where Hal becomes the leader for a group of bodybuilders.

And speaking of Malcolm in the Middle, it's another show that could be on the list. But they also left out Scrubs. I feel a lot of shows (particularly sitcoms) from the last decade were not new enough to be remembered (I mean, I love Broad City, Girls, and Key & Peele while Portlandia is good but dropped a lot when it stopped being a sketch show, but are they really one of the best 100 shows ever?) and not old enough to have oral histories and the whole retrospectives to thrust them into public pop culture again.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:16 AM on September 25, 2016

In a way, Breaking Bad is the anti-Wire. It's a show that traffics in tsk-tsk moral monochrome. There's very little grey in Breaking Bad.

I agree with that in one sense --- we're never really shown some positive good Walt is or is doing, to contrast with the evil that he does. But I think for most people there is a counterweight on the other side of the scale: The Masculine Ideal. If that's something that holds no power over you, if you find the whole ideology of it vacuous, then Breaking Bad will seem hollow. (Hemmingway too, and lots of much worse writers.) But there are a lot of people that ideal does still carry weight for. The belief that the ideal man should be strong and powerful, feared and respected, be able to deal out violence when necessary, endure pain without complaint, face death without flinching. In becoming a drug lord, in many ways Walt gets closer and closer to that ideal. As far as self-actualization and unlocking hidden potential, it's a pretty great move for him. For him to walk away from that world, prove unable or unwilling to do what's necessary to survive and thrive in it, would be for him to fail at living up to that ideal, or reject it. Many people would find that a profoundly dissatisfying resolution.

If you're sitting there going, that's the stupidist thing I've ever heard, it's obviously far better to be a wuss than a murderer, that's fair enough, I can't really argue against that. I still think there'd be a fair chunk of people going, "okay, but when you say murder, is it like, bad guys I'd be murdering, or....?" because a lot of people still cling deeply, unconsciously, to that ideal.

It also makes it not quite like a typical gangster movie, I think. The redeeming feature of the gangster protagonist is his loyalty to his family/crew; often the moral crisis in such picture is when they're confronted with the choice to betray the family to save themselves or harm the family to save themselves. There are at least a couple examples of that in Breaking Bad vis-a-vis Jesse, but mostly "I'm doing this for my family" is a lie Walt tells himself and in reality they're presented as an obstacle to his self-actualization.
posted by Diablevert at 2:41 PM on September 25, 2016 [1 favorite]