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 Ed Sullivan Show

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For someone under 40, seeing Ed Sullivan on a television screen is astonishing. Stooped, brusque and imposing, he seems not only pre-televisual, but prehistoric. (His contemporaries nicknamed him "Old Stone Face.") This guy brought us The Beatles? And yet for over two decades Sullivan defined pop culture every Sunday night. By making comfortable older viewers who had grown up before TV, the square Sullivan bridged the generation gap like a Soviet-bloc leader transitioning from socialism to runaway capitalism. Then the revolution overtook him; The Rolling Stones mocked him, The Doors defied him and the young audience finally clicked away from him. But not before he established TV as America's new arbiter of taste and tastelessness.

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  1. The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
  2. For Churches, Beefed-Up Security Is a Mixed Blessing
  3. Tuition Hikes: Protests in California and Elsewhere
  4. Fat Fees and Smoker Surcharges: Tough-Love Health Incentives
  5. Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin
  6. Female Sexual Dysfunction: Myth or Malady?
  7. In Central America, Coups Still Trump Change
  8. Low Prices and Booze Put Brunch on the Rise
  9. The Fall of Greg Craig, Obama's Top Lawyer
  10. The Story of Barack Obama's Mother
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