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

Gunsmoke

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Like it's six-foot-seven star James Arness, this classic Western seemed to go on forever, setting the drama-series longevity record at 20 seasons. Arness' Marshal Matt Dillon was the focus of life in Dodge City, Kan., whose large ensemble also included young Burt Reynolds as a half-Indian blacksmith and Amanda Blake as saloon keeper—or was that "saloon keeper"—Miss Kitty? (In an earlier radio version of the show, Kitty was implicitly a prostitute.) Crisply directed, moral but not naive, Gunsmoke showed good winning out over greed and brutality, but—like Dillon in the opening shootout—good was always only a split-second ahead on the draw.