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

Late Night with David Letterman (NBC)

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Why not CBS's Late Show with David Letterman? Lower stakes = greater comedy, something Letterman proved in his early days as a local weatherman, predicting hailstones "the size of canned hams." Like Ernie Kovacs (q.v.), Letterman at his best gives you the feeling of being lucky enough to watch him play with this awesome toy he's been given. It was here that he honed many of the features he brought to CBS—Top Ten Lists, Stupid Pet Tricks—dropped watermelons off the tops of buildings, donned an Alka-Seltzer suit (in homage to Steve Allen) and had unsettling run-ins with Harvey Pekar. He also sharpened the ironic sense of humor that, far from being easy nihilism, is rooted in a good old-fashioned Midwestern distaste for phonies. David Letterman can be a ham, but he's never canned.

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