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

I Love Lucy

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The sitcom that by now is almost a synonym for "classic" got that way by doing all the things that everyone at the time knew you weren't supposed to do. You couldn't have a female star who was both attractive and funny. You couldn't have her male lead be an urban Latino—playing those devil conga drums at that!—whose Cuban accent was thicker than a platter of ropa vieja. You couldn't for God's sake build a storyline around a (gasp!) pregnancy. Lucille Ball's contributions to TV's past are so obvious—Vitameatavegamin, the Tropicana Club, the slapstick routines—that it's better to note what this show says about today's future: sometimes the greatest sign of a future-classic TV show is that it doesn't look like classic TV.

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