The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME

"First, I apologize. I know I left some of your favorite shows off this list. How do I know that? Because I left some of my favorite shows off this list. The happy and unfortunate fact is that there are far more than 100 great shows, and more created every year. Lists are incredibly important: they are how we define what matters to us, what we want entertainment and art to do, what we expect of our culture."
—TIME TV critic James Poniewozik

A Charlie Brown Christmas

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TV doesn't generally do melancholy, especially at ho-ho-holiday time. Which only makes this special about a loser adopting an anemic Christmas tree, more, well, special. Vince Guaraldi's cool jazz score is a perfect fit for Charles Schulz's dry humor, as is the subdued, painterly animation. (And the anti-commercialization message is only slightly undercut by knowing that the original contained product placements for Coca-Cola.) Some viewers are turned off by the dated, un-P.C. explicit religiosity—Linus recites a lengthy New Testament passage about the birth of Christ—but to this Jewish-cum-atheist viewer, its honest faith makes the show more authentic.

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