For once, someone has put together a list like this that I have no problem swallowing. Well, I might let fly a "BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, WTF?" or wonder why MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, which was a pioneer in the areas of scoring and editing for television, didn't make the list, but this is a list I can easily live with--one that shows me that TIME has a better sense of pop culture than, say, the American Film Institute does.

TIME's Complete List

Hmmm... well, off the top of my head, it's missing:

FAWLTY TOWERS
DOCTOR WHO
THE MUPPET SHOW
MUPPET BABIES
THE OUTER LIMITS (Original)
IT'S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN
THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW
FUTURAMA
GET SMART
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
BATMAN
THE FUGITIVE
THE GARY SHANDLING SHOW

Lots of famous but mediocre shows (FRIENDS, THE WEST WING), too much emphasis on the currently popular (LOST, SURVIVOR). And really, just what in the name of all that is holy is FELICITY doing on there?

Time (correctly) picked the current BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, not the old one.

I think the list should have been restricted to series, not miniseries like I, CLAUDIUS, THE SINGING DETECTIVE, and PRIME SUSPECT, as much as I like them (and why no, or few, American miniseries on the list? Or TV movies from the Golden Era of that genre?).

It is "shows", not "series", but when the list is so broad, it pushes out entire series runs to squeeze in one-off specials like CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS. The result is uncharitable to series, and might overstate the case for a holiday special.

The "rules" clarify why certain spinoffs and relatively similar shows aren't included... but I don't see why FAWLTY TOWERS is too much like PYTHON, while two versions of THE OFFICE are not? It's obviously dominated by American shows, but the handful of British shows confuses the issue; you could fill such a list just with great TV from other countries. FELICITY is well and truly horrible. So is GILMORE GIRLS. So is SEX IN THE CITY. But that's personal taste for you..

It is completely insane that GREEN ACRES and THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and BATMAN aren't on the list. That makes the list look like a crazy person wrote it.

And it's ignorant that SPONGEBOB is listed, when it's a mediocre rip-off of THE REN & STIMPY SHOW, which didn't make it.

My personal list would have included:

ANGEL
ANTIQUE ROADSHOW
BLAKE'S SEVEN
BONANZA
BOOGIEPOP PHANTOM
THE DECALOGUE
DISNEYLAND
FIREFLY
THE FLINTSTONES
THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SHOW
LAND OF THE LOST
MR. SHOW
THE MUNSTERS
THE ROCKFORD FILES
SAILOR MOON
SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU?
Shock! Theater incarnations across the nation
ULTRAMAN
URUSEI YATSURA

I know, but, come on...

No F TROOP? Bogus list! :D

Personal bias aside, any top 100 TV shows of all time list missing the (not yet mentioned) following is bogus and has too much of a bias towards the current:

YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH aka SGT. BILKO
MAVERICK (these 2 1950's classics are easily top 50 alltime shows)
COLUMBO
BLACKADDER
and pick a classic made for TV movie: MY SWEET CHARLIE, or THE EXECUTION OF PRIVATE SLOVIK, or BRIAN'S SONG, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN, MURDER BY NATURAL CAUSES, etc.....any number of well made landmarks to choose from during the late 1960's/1970's time period. Was there anything from Levinson and Link on that list?

HCH

The danger of choosing still-running series is that they take a nosedive. 24 sure did last season, and has some serious work to do to recover. (Hiring Cherry Jones to play the new president is a step in the right direction.) With its final season on the drawing board I think BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, a household favorite if not my own personal best, will hold steady.

I read the critic's list of criteria, which partially explains why some shows are missing. I suspect this is why only one TV-movie is represented (THE DAY AFTER), though if I were only to pick one, I'd probably go with THE EXECUTION OF PRIVATE SLOVIK or MY SWEET CHARLIE, but it's hard to argue against THE DAY AFTER. Likewise, ROOTS is the only U.S. miniseries. I might go with RICH MAN, POOR MAN or HOLOCAUST, but if you're only going to pick one, I can't really argue that ROOTS is the wrong choice.

It also explains why GENERAL HOSPITAL and THE FRENCH CHEF are here--as a way of representing TV's broad spectrum. I agree that many worthwhile shows are missing--THE ROCKFORD FILES, THE DEFENDERS, NAKED CITY, COLUMBO and THE FUGITIVE being the most obvious--but I really am impressed by how many James Poniewozik got right. I doubt any other list would have correctly included THE MONKEES, WHAT'S MY LINE?, BURNS & ALLEN, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW (whose reputation seems to have unfairly dropped in recent years) or THE CBS EVENING NEWS. That shows outside-the-box thinking. Yes, GILMORE GIRLS and FELICITY are silly choices (THAT GIRL or FAY would have been a better choice in this regard), but looking at the list as a whole, I think it holds up quite well (I wouldn't have KING OF THE HILL or LOST here either). I agree it's too heavily weighted towards recent shows, and I have no doubt that we Mobians could put together a better list (anyone volunteering to collect votes? Erik, where are you? :P ), but I think the TIME list is better than any of the AFI's Top 100 lists.

I'm confused.

Do you disagree with BSG being included on the list?

As the first guy to bash FELICITY in this thread, I feel the need to stick up for GILMORE GIRLS. I'm not sure I'd put it on a 100 best shows list, but the first five seasons were full of sharp, funny dialog. Critics were overstating things when they suggested writer Amy Palladino was the next coming of Philip Barry, but there were moments when the accolades were at least understandable. And I'm sure my infatuation with Lauren Graham helped make the show more interesting to me than it would be to many people. And I'm also sure it helps having a wife who forced me to get over the whole "shows-showing-girls-sitting-around-a-table-talking-about-their-love-lives-are-icky" syndrome that many guys seem to suffer from.

100 is a pretty tight number to hold to given the medium's vast history. Still, I wouldn't have minded seeing:

DARK SHADOWS
THE AVENGERS
MAX HEADROOM

(Hmmm...no Jack Benny...no Bilko...no Naked City...no Car 54 Where Are You?
Okay, let's try shows in color...no Man from U.N.C.L.E., no Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea????? No Baretta, no Starsky and Hutch, no Kojack, no Police Story?????)

Wait a second! It's even worse!!! :o
No Power Rangers!
No Pokemon!

That's it! No credibility. I'd cancel my subscription to Time if I had one. :P

Any Combat! partisans here? Apparently, the show was not well-served by the DVD sets released by Image a few years back.

No T.J. HOOKER!

It's sad that a lot of great shows - THE ROCKFORD FILES, COLUMBO, NAKED CITY, FAWLTY TOWERS among them and all noted by other board members - didn't make the list whereas FELICITY, THE REAL WORLD, BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD, THE SUPER BOWL (televised sporting events? Take that you high-falutin' scenarists!),AMERICAN IDOL, and MTV 1981-1992 did. MTV may have influenced visual styles and editing but don't a lot of people actually dislike that MTV-style cutting in movies that seem made only for the attention challenged?

As for THE DAY AFTER it was good, but THREADS was better.

No NYPD BLUE???

:o

Vincent

I suspect HILL STREET BLUES "took" NYPD BLUE's spot.

The glaring ommission is westerns, which dominated television in the late fifties and early sixties. The only one listed is GUNSMOKE, which is an institution of sorts, but like BONANZA, it was frequently boring. The shows I've seen on DVD (supposedly some of the best) pale in quality to HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL, MAVERICK, THE RIFLEMAN, CHEYENNE, and RAWHIDE.

The glaring omission for me is THE ROCKFORD FILES. A brilliant show, it just gets better over the years. The show's final season had a couple of dogs (due to Garner's exhaustion - they were unsuccessfully trying to bring in subs like Bo Hopkins); but it also had several great episodes (e.g., the ones with Kathryn Harrold's blind attorney.) No private eye series made the list and not very many crime shows at all. I'm enjoying the hell out of the new HAWAII FIVE-O releases on DVD - it was television's equivalent of Gold Medal paperbacks.

It's cool to see WISEGUY make the list, but the show had consistency problems after it's great first season. (The blurb also had this howler: "the real stars of this show were the captivating villains, played by the likes of Tim Curry, Jerry Lewis and Kevin Spacey" It's been a while since I've seen it, but I don't remember Jerry Lewis being the villain in the garment center arc. He wasn't morally pure, but not the villain either. I'd also argue that the real star of the show was Jonathan Banks, who was the best supporting character in a crime series after Angel Martin. But then, I remember how the show floundered when Ken Wahl wasn't on it, which is a strong argument that he was the real star.

The list also seems to endorse the wonky sixties version of DRAGNET over the classic B-movie noir 50's version. (It has a clip from the 60's version) ?????

Overall, I agree that the list highlights too many recent shows that won't be remembered ten years from now, at the expense of real classics like YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH / SGT. BILKO amd THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW.

I decided not to pick up the first set when it was released after reading this damning review. Later on, the big complete series box set was released at a cost considerably less than that of the individual sets; anyone know if the quality issues were addressed for the later season sets, or are they all as dire as the first one is said to be?

I recently watched one of the COMBAT! Season 2 discs in preparation for Richard Harland Smith's Lee Marvin Blog-A-Thon. Though it may have been time-compressed, it wasn't obviously so, and I noticed no audio or visual disruptions or artifacting. Reading about some of the subsequent sets at Digital Bits, I suspect the Season 2 sets are, in fact, time-compressed.

I'm kind of baffled that they included Brit TV shows... not because they don't deserve consideration, but that only a handful were included. Seems like it would be better to just to make it strictly American shows rather than to say that the vast majority of British television never rose to the heights of, well... whatever show you think shouldn't be on this list (I won't pick on Felicity because I never saw an episode).

Personally, I think that (even though dated) something like Terry Nation's The Survivors is vastly more interesting and well done than Lost. At the very least it picked a story arc and quit when it was done.

I agree with Craig - it seems from looking at it that it would have been better making it a US-only list rather than binning a lot of quality TV from other countries (I choose British because I'm familiar with it, but I'm sure the same thing applies to most other countries). I'm especially pleased that Craig specifically mentions Survivors, since my humble opinion is that it's still the best show the BBC have produced. It may have slid a little in the third and final season, but it still had more than enough crackers to outweigh the faults.

Similarly, as with Robert's earlier post, I think Threads was a better TV movie on the same subject as The Day After, though I admit I do like the latter as well. As far as TV movies go, I'd throw in a shout for Escape From Sobibor too, but maybe that's just me.

And while it's very similar to Survivors, I'd say the BBC miniseries of Day of the Triffids would be worth a mention.

Of course the really criminal omission from the list is Dick Spanner...

It's interesting that Time's film list is from all countries, and the television list is primarily from the US, with a couple of programs from the UK. THE SINGING DETECTIVE made both lists, while BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ made the film list, but not the television list.

Well, I guess I oughta either put up or shut up, and I ain't one to stay quiet. Therefore, I begin my own list of the Top 100 shows over on my blog.

NORTHERN EXPOSURE isn't on there.

Still, at least they didn't ignore THE WIRE.

Cheers,
Alex.

No WONDER YEARS either!

Whew! My list of TV's Top 100 Shows continues here.