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

The Day After

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Set in an around Lawrence, Kansas, this 1983 ABC movie showed the aftermath of a full-scale nuclear war between the US and the USSR. The movie had its share of melodrama, but its depiction of the war's result was stark: millions die instantly, millions more die slowly, society collapses and the happiest ending is a painless death. Did The Day After change anything? On the one hand, the policy of mutually assured destruction continued; on the other, President Reagan reportedly sent one of the producers a note after the Reykjavik disarmament summit crediting the movie's influence. Either way, for one night a medium of escapism got 100 million Americans to look at something it spent generations trying not to think about, and that was special enough.

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