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

Everett Collection
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Where would we be without the Romans' contributions to civilization? The Latin alphabet! The aqueduct! And, of course, the respectable public-TV orgy! This seamily intellectual 1976 miniseries about Rome's stuttering-but-savvy fourth emperor established what would become HBO's modus operandi, and not just because it tread similar ground to Rome or because it happened to involve a certain conniving mother named Livia. It proved that the lofty and the sordid were not mutually exclusive, by offering a politically acute version of history that also showed us what happened when the togas came off.

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