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

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The finest, funniest and quirkiest of the '90s explosion of young-adult dramas, this WB bildungsroman was a rare soap about a young woman in which her personal growth was as important as her love life. True, the title character (Keri Russell) moved across country to follow high-school crush Ben (Scott Speedman) to the University of New York (strongly based on NYU), and the hook of the series was her choice between him and her friend Noel (Scott Foley). But the real storyline—the way it is in college—was as much about discovering what she wanted to do, what her interests were and who she was. Unlike many teen soaps, Felicity recognized that its characters weren't fully formed: they experimented, they made mistakes, they contradicted themselves and surprised you. Like My So-Called Life and Freaks and Geeks did for high school, Felicity took on college and aced the test.

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