The Best TV Show Ever

[filkertom]

Salon is debating which is the best TV show ever, The Sopranos or The Wire.

Granted that I've never seen either of them, I can think of lots of other candidates. Mystery Science Theater 3000, for starters. Babylon 5, of course. Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League (but not Superman, which still ain't close to bad). Animaniacs. Buffy maybe, Firefly definitely. The new Battlestar Galactica. The new Doctor Who (if you could take the Ninth and Tenth Doctors as a brand-new series, which I think you can at least make a case for). Gilmore Girls was damn close. I know lots of people love Heroes. And we can get into the wacky esoterica with Good Eats, Mythbusters, Beakman's World, and Iron Chef.

Not to mention The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All In The Family, M*A*S*H, The Twilight Zone, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, The Smothers Brothers' Comedy Hour, and several gazillion other worthy shows.

Heck, even the numerous letters responding to the article show how thoroughly "Best Ever" boils down to "The One I Like Most".

So, what would be your choices for Best TV Show Ever?

Comments

[shaharazad.livejournal.com]

The Avengers!

[aulayan.livejournal.com]

Well, my response will be boring in comparison.

The Wire.

[pandoradeloeste.livejournal.com]

B5 or the new Battlestar Galactica. Something with political commentary.

Personally I'd rather see a list of "most influential show of [time period]". Then we could list "I Love Lucy" for being the first to show pregnancy, "Red Dwarf" and "Babylon 5" for pioneering CG in sci-fi shows, Trek for getting sci-fi back in the public eye, "Mary Tyler Moore" for feminism, X-Files for starting a horror/sci-fi demographic on FOX (without which Firefly wouldn't even have gotten the eleven episodes it had). . .I know there's more.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

ST: DS9!

SF action and intrigue, caper episodes, romance, tragedy, you name it!

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

The problem is that these days people confuse "DARING" with "GOOD"

"Sopranos" and "The Wire" are precieved by many people as being good cause of the subject matter, cause of the fact that they have the freedom on pay cable to swear and do violence and have sex.

Now, granted, they are both excellent excellent shows and would rank high on anyone's list of excellent TV, but are they really that much better than, say, "The Practice" or "MASH" or "Law and Order"? Probably not.

And of course people will automatically dismiss comedies cause they are "Real" or "Gritty". MTM, MASH, Frasier and such have actors just as brilliant as any show, writing far superior than most.

So, I refuse to pick a "Best" show.

[blueeyedtigress.livejournal.com]

The Brother Cadfael Mysteries (Sir Derek Jacobi).
Sherlock Holmes (the Jeremy Brett version).
The Young Indy Jones Chronicles made me pay attention to history.
So sue me, I love the old original Transformers cartoons. ;]
The Magnificent Seven.
Lupin the Third.
Mobile Suit Gundam!

[vid848.livejournal.com]

Homicide: Life on the Streets
Quincy, M.E.
The Cosby Show

[mdlbear]

The Prisoner
The Twilight Zone
That Was the Week that Was

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

My answer would change depending on which day you asked me, but several of your nominations would make the short list. I certainly couldn't nominate The Sopranos or The Wire as I've never seen either one.

I never did understand Gilmore Girls. I didn't see much, maybe 1.5 episodes, but it came across as something that should be on Lifetime (aka the She Woman Man Hating Network(tm)).

These days I enjoy Monk quite a bit. Firefly keeps getting pulled out and watched. Right now I'm re-watching Heroes and Northern Exposure on DVD with my wife since she didn't see either on first run.

[gorgeousgary]

I haven't watched either show, but I would say that neither one has a right to claim the title of "Best Ever" at this particular current moment. One is still running, and the other just ended. To claim the title, I would think a series needs to show it has some staying power in the public's mind several years after it's run has concluded.

I'd probably vote for M*A*S*H, myself. It's hard to argue with 11 seasons and the highest-rated final episode in TV history. And the writing, the acting, the memorable characters, the memorable moments.

I'd be tempted to put Star Trek at least a close second, and certainly would put it first for "most influential". What other show spawned four TV sequels, a movie series, not to mention an entire subculture, salted our language with a bunch of quotes, and named a space shuttle?

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Hrm...well, at this moment in time:

Doctor Who (the new version)
Firefly
Futurama
The Simpsons
All In The Family
Sopranos (it often missed - but when it hit, it REALLY hit)
Star Trek
Sesame Street

-=ShoEboX=-

[ifics.livejournal.com]

Shows I liked when I was younger, are not always quite so good nowadays. Among others listed above, I might add Mork and Mindy. I have not seen this on since its original run so I don't know if it still holds up as a good show now.

One of the best shows I have ever seen is West Wing. I have yet to see a show that would top this one. (I admit I have not seen very many shows of recent vintage.)

[pandoradeloeste.livejournal.com]

Lifetime (aka the She Woman Man Hating Network(tm))

No no - Lifetime doesn't hate men, it hates women. Spike TV - the manly-man network - has the cool geek shows (Star Trek TOS/TNG/Voyager and Afro Samurai), COPS, wrestling, and a generous helping of T&A. Lifetime has women being raped, women getting cancer, women being beaten by their boyfriends/husbands, women fighting the Man and getting their asses handed to them, etc. Spike celebrates its masculinity (or a stereotyped version of it anyway) and Lifetime mourns its femininity.

Five Best Television Shows Of all Time - No Argument!

[gavroche42.livejournal.com]

Joanie Loves Chachi
The Brady Brides
Eerie, Indiana
Get a Life
Ranma 1/2

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

This is a hard choice. For science fiction, I would go with Babylon 5. For network TV, that gets harder. All in the Family was great. So was the original Twilight Zone (which I still watch whenever I catch it on TV). I have not watched much TV in the last 7 years, so if there has been a really good show since the turn of the decade, I probably missed it.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Everybody seems to be looking at TV series where there was an ongoing story arc. If we're limiting ourselves to those, I'd say All In The Family, because I think it took a more thorough look at life in these United States than anything else before or since.

But I honestly think The Ed Sullivan Show has to count as the most influential TV show of all time.

Nanoo Nanoo

[gavroche42.livejournal.com]

Five spinoffs - TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT

Love American Style also had five spinoffs:
Happy Days
Happy Days Again
Joanie Loves Chachi
Laverne and Shirley
Mork and Mindy

No movie series, and no space shuttle though.

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

I'm probably not the best to comment - my parents sold our TV when we moved to the midwest in 1968, didn't bother to replace it until sometime in the late 1980's, long after I'd moved out of the house. But with that caveat....

I loved Get Smart. It was the first show I was aware of in which the female lead existed to do something other than scream, shiver, gaze admiringly at the male lead and be rescued. Now? Brother Cadfael and West wing

well, the winners for today are...

[valsadie.livejournal.com]

Electric Company
Zoom
My So-Called Life
Grey's Anatomy (OK, the very definition of hit and miss there--!)
ER
Hill Street Blues
All is Forgiven (which no one remembers but me)
Becker (vastly underrated)
House
Soap

[djonn]

As much as I like Batman:TAS, my vote for best animated series of all time goes to Gargoyles -- it had visuals, it had sustained brilliant (and ambitious) writing, it had stellar voice performances.

And I think that script for script, performance for performance, Gargoyles as a whole holds up pretty well against a lot of the live-action shows mentioned here, considering that one of the many genres it fits is that of "family drama".

Best TV show ever? I don't know; if you start getting into some of the truly classic comedies (Mayberry RFD, M.A.S.H.), the comparison gets tricky, and I would be tempted to throw The Muppet Show into the mix on that side of the genre fence.

Re: Five Best Television Shows Of all Time - No Argument!

[valsadie.livejournal.com]

> Joanie Loves Chachi
> The Brady Brides

Ohnoyoudon't! I saw those and the only list they belong on is GTG - Glad They're Gone!

I still remember the Brady Brides episode where they went on The Newlywed Game, and Jan's ultrasquare husband answering a question about chicken, saying and pointing on himself that he liked the "thigh and breast." See?? According to the IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0531057/), that episode was on 26 years ago and I still remember it. That is the definition of emotionally scarring, my friend ;>!

[skemono.livejournal.com]

I'm kinda surprised that nobody's mentioned Veronica Mars thus far. I don't know that I'd call it "best ever", but the first season was phenomenal, and I'm gonna put it out there.

[devospice.livejournal.com]

Jen and I are watching The Sopranos now on DVD and while I'm enjoying the show I hardly think it's even close to the best show ever.

My personal favorite show of all time, and the one that I have actually told people I believe was the best show in the history of television, was Buffy The Vampire Slayer. And I'll stand by that. :)

->Later.....Spice

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

It's really all in how you define "best," and saying "best ever" of any show newer than ten years old is really pushing it. What about the original Star Trek, which left marks on society that will outlast the franchise (forty years of it)? What about shows which quite literally changed the world--the news? What about...et cetera.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I'm not much of a TV person, but here goes:

Saturday Night Live, the first five or so seasons with the original Not Ready for Prime-Time Players. Uneven, but when they were on-form, FUN-NEE.

I, Claudius

Babylon 5 (I didn't get to see much of it, but what I saw, I really liked.)

Sledge Hammer! (Any parallels between Sledge Hammer and any current administrations are, of course, purely coincidental.)

Darkwing Duck

Star Trek, both TOS and TAS. I'm not wild about a lot of the other spinoffs---'way too preachy.